I think it should be obvious by now that the Republican party and the NRA do not give a damn about the people who are being slaughtered in the US on a regular basis by people armed with military style weapons. When the only response is to offer ‘thoughts and prayers’ to the families and to suggest absurd ‘solutions’ that urge the arming of teachers and more armed guards and buildings with single doors, it is clear that the ‘tears’ that these people are shedding are entirely crocodile ones, and that their main goal is to make sure that nothing changes or that even more easy access to guns is provided.
I usually hesitate to impute motives to people’s actions but in this case the evidence is overwhelming. They. Do. Not. Care. Of course there may be the occasional member of those organizations who is disturbed but clearly nowhere close to the numbers needed to change the policy of their organizations and if they are not actively trying to change those policies, they cannot complain if they are considered to not care as well. Most normal human beings, when they hear of such things, immediately think of people they know who might have well been victims and this generates feelings of empathy and the desire to prevent future slaughters. But not the members of these organizations. Their risible attempts at distracting from the carnage shows that they do not care.
The glib ‘thoughts and prayers’ response that used to be uttered automatically now seems to have been sufficiently ridiculed so as to make these people wary of trotting it out as routinely. I hear it much less now and instead hear circumlocutions such as ‘feeling the grief’ of the victims’ loved ones. But let’s be clear. Nobody, absolutely nobody, who has not experienced such a loss directly and personally can get even close to feeling what those bereaved people feel and to pretend that you can by trotting out these cliches is an insult that should be ridiculed out of existence, like ‘thoughts and prayers’.
It is, however, the case that people who have directly similar experiences can sometimes change their minds. We have seen this with LGBTQ issues. Politicians (Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman comes to mind) who used to be opposed to enacting equal rights for that community sometimes changed their views, or at least moderated them, when their own children come out as gay.
I was wondering how close a mass shooting should come to some ardent gun nut or stooge of the NRA before they change their minds. It is clear that the large number of deaths of poor people and people of color due to gun violence will not sway them, because such people don’t count. The deaths of even white middle class adults does not seem to be sufficient, as we saw with the deaths of the concert goers in the Las Vegas strip. You would think that the deaths of a large number of white elementary school children in an upscale community, as occurred with Sandy Hook, might make them rethink since that is getting close to home. But even that did not sway them. Neither did the Parkland school shooting, again of students in an upscale white community. Clearly, those horrifying events were not enough to trigger feelings of empathy and fears that if the situation was left unchecked, their own children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews might be next.
So what will it take to change their minds? What if their own child was killed? Would it change their minds? Or are they so rigidly committed to the policy of almost unlimited access to powerful weapons that they would write if off as the price of having this right?
It struck me that among the many victims of these slaughters must be at least some who are children of ardent supporters of unlimited access to guns. What happened to the parents after such a shooting? Did they change their views? I have not been able to find any news reports of interviews with such people. This report describes one long-time NRA member, Richard Small from Texas, who handed in his AR-15 after one such shooting. While it did not involve a loved one, the shooting just made him think of his grandson and feel guilty for owning a weapon that he did not need but was being used for cold-blooded murder.
Small said he would be happy to see new laws put into place regulating certain guns, like the AR-15, which he points out is the civilian version of the M16 he used when he was in the U.S. military.
“And matter of fact, that’s why I did this. I says, ‘I sure hope they they ban these things,'” he said. He was also critical of how easy it was for the gunman in Uvalde to get a gun — the shooter was able to buy two AR-15s just days after his 18th birthday.
There is of course one thing that politicians fear more than the NRA and that is losing an election. That is one reason why they swear loyalty to the NRA and its extremist agenda, for fear of being targeted in the next election. What is needed is to create an even greater fear that there is a large number of voters whose feelings on gun control is strong enough that if politicians do not take action to curb access to guns, they will vote them out.
A majority of people do not support the extremist views of the NRA and their Republican allies. But the NRA and other members of the gun lobby have used their money and their single-minded supporters to create an image of being a fearsome foe. They need to be exposed as a paper tiger.
What will it take? Isn’t it obvious? Just blow away some meaningless, talentless “celebrities”…
I’d offer a list, if I knew any of their names.
You can change the mind of the average person, meaning people who were swept up into the gun culture via group identity (as the example given shows). I don’t think this has any impact on the overall situation, though. Already, a clear majority of the country wants something done but, at best, we will see some very minor trimming at the edges. I suspect that absolutely nothing will pass that will have a negative impact on gun sales. Sure, they *might* raise the purchase age to 21, but they’ll still allow an 18 year old to *own* them (can you say “Christmas and birthday presents”?). In the USA, it’s always about the money and power: who has it, and who stands to lose it. That’s why LGBTQ issues advanced to where we are. Sure, there were/are the religiously motivated who remain opposed, but there wasn’t a group that stood to lose a lot of money if LGBTQ rights were expanded (and who contributed to and pressured politicians the way the NRA/gun lobby does). If it threatens someone’s profit stream, progress is near impossible (gun control, climate change mitigation, etc.).
This also explains why the GOP answer is always “more guns”: arm the teachers, add armed security guards, etc. It sells more guns and increases profits. And as their true god (Milton Friedman) said, profit is the *only* thing a corporation should worry about.
The only thing that can outweigh money here is fear (and a lot of it, warranted or not). Back in the late 1960s, major gun legislation passed at the federal level. It was said to be inspired by the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, but I have little doubt that a co-motivating factor was that the Black Panthers were beginning to openly arm themselves.
Civil action against gun manufacturers. The court rulings on the Sandy Hook lawsuit show how it can be done successfully. Enough successful lawsuits, and the insurance industry will pressure the manufacturers from above, at least to the extent of promoting things like meaningful background checks, waiting periods, not selling to people charged with domestic violence, etc.
Get the insurers on board with effective gun control and you will get effective gun buyer control, though maybe not weapon bans.
So, what do you think the policy should be? The vast majority of gun deaths do not involve “military style weapons”. With that in mind, what should be done?
Major reforms and regulations related to news , media (social or otherwise) and factual reporting- with strict demarcations of news v/s opinions implemented and enforced by an independent group. Organizations should be held criminally liable if they let their platforms be used to encourage and/or spread violence.
Increased standards of education and healthcare.
Reforms to Judiciary -- Appointments should be on merit and by an independent body ,not political or elected.
All that and a couple of generations with more sense and intelligence than us.
Steve Scalise ?
I actually have experienced such a loss (google Klaas Nieuweboer, Moengo -- my father). And I partly disagree. You underestimate the capability of people to deceive themselves. They do care, but have convinced themselves that their policy is the right way to deal with these atrocious events. They are convinced that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Something similar happened with the German population during the nazi-period.
The result of course is the same: their right to do pief paf poof is the highest priority and nothing should affect that. My point is just that expressing lack of empathy is the effect, not the cause.
NRA compliant politicians keep winning elections.
The only possible conclusion is that the majority who oppose them don’t oppose them hard enough to actually vote them out. If you’re not going to shoot them -- something I intemperately suggested last week- you’re left with voting them out.
So do it.
I doubt anything will do it for the more devout gun cultists out there.
Jonathan Swift: “Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired: for in the course of things, men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would once convince the town or country profligate, by topics drawn from the view of their own quiet, reputation, health, and advantage, their infidelity would soon drop off: This I confess is no easy task, because it is almost in a literal sense, to fight with beasts.”
txpiper:
We’ve already gone over this a lot. Also not the topic of this thread.
The responses from gun-fondlers who troll conversations like this are always that such proposals aren’t “realistic,” because they themselves oppose those policies. They seem to love these elaborate ways of saying “no,” without explaining why not and while pretending like they’re not responsible for their own decisions.
Then the obvious choice for you is to suggest a (semi-auto) handgun ban too. Why don’t you just suggest that yourself, rather than asking for somebody else to do it?
Of course, they’re not needed for anything other than murdering people. Last I checked, that’s still technically illegal (at least until the next round of conservative legislating, I suppose). So just ban them, I say.
The power-that-be will never act with dispatch to resolve a problem that they themselves don’t have We saw this when Congress couldn’t go on holiday recess due to (I think) a need to reauthorize the FAA. A photo went viral showing a long line of limos waiting to whisk congresspeople to their planes for their newly-authorized flights. They won’t care about solving gun violence until it affects them. Since they’ve already seceded from American society with exclusive residences, gated communities, private schools, private air and sea transportation, and a closed education loop, there is no need to perform any action that helps all Americans, when they themselves are doing just fine.
@9, which is why I think nothing will change until someone starts shooting the fuckers
cr,
“We’ve already gone over this a lot.”
Only in very general terms. At some point, somebody is going to have to put specific proposals in writing for laws to be passed. Legislative success or failure will hinge on the clarity and plausibility of the ideas. A lot of issues will be involved. Who will be targeted? How much will it cost, and where is the money supposed to come from? You’ll have to do better than “just ban them”.
I hate to say it, I don’t want it to happen to anybody, but it’s going to take their kids being gunned down before they open their goddamn eyes.
txpiper:
Heh, you think that’s the big hurdle? That they can’t put specific words down on paper? No, they just don’t want to do anything.
Also, fun fact: writing legislation on Mano’s blog is not actually how those sausages get made.
People who have a gun. What else could you have expected for an answer?
Or from a different point of view, you could say the people who won’t be shot would not be targeted, by the people who have guns.
Our currency is created/destroyed by fiat and doesn’t “come from” anywhere.
At least getting injured in a shooting isn’t enough. Louisiana Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalise got shot at in 2017 and injured on the on the lower body, resulting in fractured bones, injured internal organs and internal bleeding in the Congressional baseball shooting and he’s still pro-gun.
CR@8
I prefer to call it herding cats. It’s not impossible, but it’s never a simple process and it’s really frustrating for the herder.
“You’ll have to do better than “just ban them”.”
The UK and Australia “just banned them”, and the shootings stopped almost completely,immediately. You don’t have to do anything”better”. You just have to be somewhere better than the USA in 2022. Not a high bar.
txpiper, why not start by reviving the ban that was already implemented from 1994-2004. The legislation is already written, the effectiveness has already been established (remember those four studies from an earlier thread?), legislators simply need to pass it with anew, this time with no expiry.
Tethys:
Yes, frustrating. It reminds me of how accepting you are of the good-guys-with-guns approach to foreign policy. (Of course, it’s a popular view. You’re very far from being alone on that.)
Even this guy sort of gets it regarding the Uvalde shooting, and he’s usually a clueless glibertarian asshole. So just try to imagine the kind of person who won’t even admit the cops made any mistakes, perhaps because they’re especially angry with that particular shooter.
I don’t think you can sincerely believe someone is defending the shooter or some such thing when they’re bringing up tons of shit that went horribly wrong before/during/after, which could’ve made a difference. Still, I bet you could find some out there who do publicly act as if they believed such crap, and surprisingly others might even fall for it.
I guess in that sort of situation, the problem isn’t to convince them to change their beliefs (at least not those specific beliefs which are ostensibly at issue), since they’re simply not being honest about what their actual beliefs are. It doesn’t seem like much can be done about it, other than to try to get others to recognize that for what it is. But it can be very complicated and frustrating, especially when people are trained to think they should be loyal to their “side,” right or wrong, and defend it to the hilt.
Holms,
“why not start by reviving the ban that was already implemented from 1994-2004[?]”
What I think about the previous ban is irrelevant. It is house reps and senators that will have to be convinced.
According the Wikipedia entry, there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to renew or replace. I’m supposing that failure had to do with the perceived or actual efficacy of the ban.
It won’t surprise me if the current outrage and enthusiasm fades as economic problems become more severe.
txpiper:
Maybe, but the causes of outrage are not diminishing, if anything, they’re increasing.
It faded after Sandy Hook, it faded after Columbine, it faded many other times.
So, it may fade, but it no doubt will be renewed — over and over. And over.
—
To paraphrase: “What will it take to change your fatalism?”
CR
I never said I’m cool with the US approach to foreign policy. I am most ashamed of anything in Ukraine that occurred during the tfg’s criminal administration, which I will assume you are aware of. However, I don’t really have any means to change the past, or effect foreign policy as regards NATO, etc.
Russia could declare peace, and until then, I will be in support of giving Ukraine the means to defend itself from Putins war.
The US does owe Ukraine that much, since the orange clown did sit by and let his buddy and hero invade Crimea.
sonofrojblake:
In Australia, that was also accompanied by a gun buyback scheme to reduce the number of guns in the community. About 640000 guns were returned in one year at a cost of about AUD500 million (~USD350 million). It was funded by a temporary tax surcharge.
That buy-back and restrictions on ownership of semiautomatic rifles & shotguns were a response to the 1996 mass shootings in Port Arthur, Tasmania, where 35 people were killed and 23 wounded.
Also, semi-automatic weapons weren’t entirely banned in Australia. There are still grounds for a licence to be given.
There have been a number of Australian state amnesties for the return of illegal (or illegally held) weapons since, and there is a permanent federal firearms return amnesty in place. There are about 3 million firearms in Australia and about 400000 of those are unregistered. There are about 14.5 firearms/person in Australia, about one-eighth per capita of the number in the USA.
Similar measures regarding semi-automatic rifles, including a return amnesty and buy-back, were taken in New Zealand after the 2019 Christchurch mass shootings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_of_Australia
From OP,
The short answer to your questions, in my opinion, is:
1. Nothing short of abandoning their current beliefs.
2. It wouldn’t matter.
3. Nope.
4. Yes.
To elaborate; from my perspective we are looking at a culture. It is not rational, but is learned. Culture is one of he hardest things to change, and we can see the importance of culture by looking at other irrational, but learned, behavior through history.
A good example is racism, we are most familiar with American racism, but it exists in different forms in every country I’ve visited. Would a racist disown a family member because that person married a person of a different color? Yes. It happened. If the daughter of a racist white man married black man, would you be surprised that the racist chooses their belief over their progeny?
Another example is a family’s acceptance of homosexuality. Some parents who have been taught that homosexuality is evil have changed their opinions when a son or daughter indicates their preference. Other parents have thrown their own children out of the house, barring them from family until they prove they are not gay.
Would person who has drunk deeply of the gun culture, who looks on gun ownership as a core tenet of their beliefs, sacrifice their children before considering that maybe their beliefs are irrational? Some might, but others, many others, would think of the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, and be willing to abandon their offspring on the altar of their beliefs.
While I know the biblical story ended up with Abraham not following through, it took divine intervention to stop him. The lesson I get from that story is that Abraham, or anyone who has a belief which they cannot question, is willing to kill others, even their own children, before questioning that belief.
John Morales,
“To paraphrase: “What will it take to change your fatalism?” ”
I think in terms of destiny, not fate. But that aside, it will take more than pouting and abysmally naive ideas.
==
“The US does owe Ukraine that much, since the orange clown did sit by and let his buddy and hero invade Crimea.”
The invasion and annexation of Crimea occurred early in 2014.
txpiper, I quote Wikipedia (my emphasis):
“Fatalism is a family of related philosophical doctrines that stress the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or destiny, and is commonly associated with the consequent attitude of resignation in the face of future events which are thought to be inevitable.”
But sure, you also qualify as having a defeatist attitude.
(You gonna retort that you don’t think in terms of defeat, since you won’t even try?)
But you see, the really important thing is that we get to blame Trump.
It also doesn’t make sense that we would owe them anything, Tethys. But I’m a fairly generous person: the best gift we could’ve given them was in the first place to not treat them (and Georgia) like one of our pawns in a manufactured conflict with Russia … “an ounce of prevention,” etc.
so txpiper, what would encourage you to relinquish your “few” guns? You say are not a gun collector, but I would argue that more than one eg a few, is indeed a collection. You obviously will not give them up willingly. Therein lies the big problem in the US and A.
If your money and your mouth are not in the same place you are a hypocrite. You obviously only feint concern.
Here is an example of some fine upstanding martyrs to the 2nd -- https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/boebert-draws-backlash-family-christmas-photo-kids-posing/story?id=81623347
Which are you, txpiper? A try-hard terrorist like these, or someone with integrity?
Here in Australia most guns were banned soon after the Port Arthur massacre. It was relatively easy here because we allowed it to be so. It is not impossible to achieve. In fact, it is the civilised thing to do.
One of the problems with gun nuts over there is that the USA is the world. Soon after the Christchurch massacre a local NZ farmer publicly announced that he was handing in his AR15 because he really did not see how it was necessary for culling rabbits, goats, and deer. It could just as easily be done with the old bolt-action .303. Of course some gun-fucking nut from the USA chimed in with the old “you don’t understand how the 2nd amendment works” as though NZ was a state of the USA, which of course, to anyone with a few years of (medium-quality) education should know, it is not.
There is a massive cultural shift required over there to achieve meaningful gun reform. I don’t know how you can achieve it. It seems like a problem that you will always have given that there are 1.2 guns for every US citizen, along with mind rotting chrisi-insanity and what you think are rights granted by your superhero sky fairy.
Education might help. But oh yeah, education is the USA is being dumbed-up by the bible-fuckers. I can tell that it is going to lead to such greatness!
Perhaps spending some public money on mental-health support. Or lifting people out of poverty. Oh yeah, that is fucking socialist. So, fuck no. Not in the USA. it is their fault they have problems.
How about abortion access for poor women and girls who find themselves pregnant with no way of supporting the children they will have? This one is easy -- those children will be cared for in prison, if they survive long enough to be locked up. No way those women and girls can be allowed to prevent two miserable lives. We cannot have that. We are the pro-life brigade!
Oh, hang on. Most of these positions are minority ones. Ho hum, well isn’t it just dandy that you have democracy. Hahaha.
Useless thoughts and prayers it is then. Good luck. You will need it.
#19 txpiper
You asked for specific legislation proposals. I gave you one, with a proven history. You dismissed it. As I said in the last thread to you, your claimed interest in discussion is a sham.
“I think in terms of destiny, not fate.” Those are synonyms.
#22 prl
“There are about 14.5 firearms/person in Australia” -- I think you per 100 people. Also, my quick number crunch comes out to 11.6 per 100.
@txpiper
It won’t surprise me if the current outrage and enthusiasm fades as economic problems become more severe.
It won’t surprise me if these sorts of publicly sanctioned slaughters become event more prevalent “as economic problems become more severe”.
So, solutions….
First off, just because some people have irrevocably integrated gun culture into their psyche doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. From what I see in the polls, only about 30% of Americans are committed to this culture. Further, I’d hazard that at least half of those are not strongly committed, but would change their minds if they were not surrounded by gun culture.
So, if the rest of the citizens recognize how corrosive this culture is, it should become a litmus test for electability. I.e. a candidate for office, any office, who thinks guns need to be unregulated and available to anyone who wants one should be unelectable. Is this possible? Yes, but it won’t be easy with the large amount of money funneled into pro-gun propaganda.
What policies could be enacted/changed to help reduce gun violence?
Buy-Back programs: This would reduce the number of guns in the country as a whole. However, unless certain classes of guns are made illegal, it would mainly capture guns which are unwanted or just lying around. It would certainly collect a lot of guns, and there would undoubtedly be a drop in firearms being used in suicides, accidents, or domestic violence. An abused wife who turns in her husband’s guns may increase the chance that she will get beaten, but it would reduce the odds that she would get shot (and it pains me to even have to write that sentence). It would probably have little impact on mass shootings as the shooters are acquiring guns and are not interested in buy-back programs.
Revocation of right to possess firearms for people with records of domestic violence or animal cruelty: There appears to be a lot of overlap between mass shooters and people with records of abusing others. It’s not 100%, but it would be a great help. There is already a precedent for this in the laws which prevent people with felony convictions from owning guns. If there is a downside, in my opinion, it’s that such a law implies that people cannot change, that once a person has exhibited abhorrent behavior they are forever branded with that stigma. I don’t like that aspect, but I would compromise my feelings about that aspect in order to help reduce the possibilities of deaths of others.
Mandatory registration of all firearms, with serious penalties for non-compliance: This has been tried, on and off, but it really wouldn’t stop mass shootings. IIRC, most mass shooters have registered their guns. This would likely increase compliance with a buy-back program, which would provide other benefits. Further, if we can require title transfer notification on the sale of every vehicle in the US, we can require title transfer notification of every gun.
Increased age limits for possessing firearms: Probably a good idea. This would not stop guns being used in suicides or domestic violence, but it would probably have a large impact on school shootings. It’s a rather rare person who nurses a grudge at high school for 3+ years after graduation. It wouldn’t stop a lot of other mass shootings, but a lot of the school shootings would end.
Prohibiting the sale of certain types of weapons: This one is a little trickier. Banning semi-automatic rifles would encourage the use of semi-automatic pistols. As long as some guns are readily available mass shootings will occur, they just won’t use the banned guns. A shooter with a bolt-action rifle in the right spot could actually be more deadly than someone just spraying rounds around. These types of partial bans appear to be aimed more at attacking gun culture than seriously tackling the problem of easy access to guns. Would these bans help? Probably somewhat and for a period of time. We have some data suggesting that a semi-automatic weapons ban would reduce mass shootings, mainly because it seems mass shooters don’t spend more than a few months planning and they appear to use popular guns. But prohibiting them completely is likely in the long term to lead to a different weapon being the popular gun for the gun culture crowd, and then mass shooters would start using that one. But we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, even a short-term reduction in mass shootings would save lives, so I am on board with this proposal.
Requiring back-ground checks for all sales, including gun shows and private sales: This shouldn’t be even a question. If you want, an agency could be set up which will pre-check someone and provide documentation of the pre-approval. This of the TSA Global Pre-Check process for airline flights.
In a broader sense, however, we can and should look at guns as a tool. A tool with specific purpose(s). There are plenty of good reasons to own guns. Killing varmints on a farm, target shooting, and hunting are three which I can think of right off the top of my head. There are some reasons people give which are really questionable; to be prepared for the collapse of civilization, to be prepared to overthrow a tyrannical government, because they are cool pieces of precision machinery (okay, I can sort of sympathize with that last one). The proposal I would like to see is pre-registration. Before getting permission to purchase a gun you need to show training, the location the gun will be stored safely, and a valid need. These need not be onerous requirements. A locked gun rack across the back window of a pickup for a gun to hunt varmints would be sufficient for safe storage, a desire to take up target shooting would be a sufficient need. Before you can purchase many deadly tools, like dynamite and some poisons, you need to show you know how to handle it safely and what you are planning on using it for. And if I want to admire the precision machinery of a firearm, I can go to a museum. I don’t need to own one myself.
Are any of these proposals possible to be enacted in today’s political climate?
Sure. Most of them could be started under an executive order even if the legislature won’t take them up. It is certain that the executive order would be challenged by the courts almost immediately, but a court challenge will take months and can take years to resolve. Further, what the democratic leaders don’t appear to understand is that a defeat in a court can be a victory in the long term. Even a court-ordered stay can be useful politically, to drive voters to challenge their legislators to do the right thing. We should be doing the right thing to help save lives. If the people who we have charged with promoting the public welfare are not doing their job, if they are waiting to act because they fear that their actions will be found contrary to laws and yet are not willing to exercise their power to change the laws, they should be replaced.
If the people who we have charged with promoting public welfare have internalized the belief that access to firearms is a inviolable, irrevocable, inalienable right, they need to be replaced.
tuatara,
“I don’t know how you can achieve it. It seems like a problem that you will always have given that there are 1.2 guns for every US citizen”
I don’t know either. But inasmuch as there are hundreds of millions of both guns and citizens, there won’t be easy solutions. I read that there were almost 23 million gun sales in 2020, and 25 million in 2021. I’m sure the trend will continue this year.
.
“along with mind rotting chrisi-insanity and what you think are rights granted by your superhero sky fairy.”
Yes. But it is withering, and moral, ethical and intellectual considerations along with it. The demarcation between normal/abnormal, possible/impossible continues to fade. People will believe absolutely anything as long as it is something that they like.
==
steve oberski,
“It won’t surprise me if these sorts of publicly sanctioned slaughters become event more prevalent “as economic problems become more severe”.”
I don’t know about criminal insanity, but crime in general will definitely be on the rise. I think that expectation is what is driving gun purchases. People notice when violence, crime and immorality have become cultural norms.
flex,
“it won’t be easy with the large amount of money funneled into pro-gun propaganda.”
I think this is exaggerated, especially as it pertains to the NRA. While the contributions go heavily to republicans, the actual dollar figures are not impressive compared to money spent by people like Zuckerberg or Soros. https://www.newsweek.com/last-year-nra-spent-record-sum-lobbying-907203
Also, buy-back programs could prove to be astonishingly expensive. At some point, we are going to have to realize that we cannot afford some things.
Your post was interesting, well-crafted and reasonable.
In regards to buy-back programs, and their expense…. There are a lot of creative options which would work.
There are probably a lot of guns floating around the US which people would give up for free. If they knew of a way to do so without anyone asking any questions about where those guns came from. Announce an amnesty, collect guns, destroy them.
Have law enforcement accept guns from anyone, no questions asked. No names collected. No investigation to see if the gun has been used in a crime. Just to get them out of circulation. There would need to be custody procedures to ensure once law enforce them gets them they are destroyed, but those processes could be put in place and they would largely be followed.
Encourage community groups and local government to fund local buy-back programs where the guns are destroyed by the community. Anyone with a metal-cutting band-saw can destroy a gun. Have collections at auto-shops, local machinist’s, the guy down the street with a good workshop. Let the people who bring in the guns see that they are destroyed, pay them anything from $50-$100 until the cash runs out, many people would forgo the payment just to have the knowledge that the gun is destroyed.. At the end of the day law enforcement gets a pile of scrap to go through to try to get registration numbers, if that’s even desired. You will collect a lot of guns this way.
Have internet crowd-sourcing campaigns to do the above. Get company sponsorship to do the above.
You see, I think there are probably a lot of people who have a firearm in the house who think of it more as hazardous waste than as a tool they need. From their perspective, the gun is under their control, it is safe, no one is going to be harmed by it. The gun sits in the house, maybe in a bedroom dresser or in a box someplace, basically perfectly useless. It’s like an old television set in the basement that no one uses. The owner may be willing to get rid of it because it was a purchase they realize they made by mistake, or were talked into, or really thought it was a good idea at the time. Maybe they believed the hype that it would enhance their masculinity, but haven’t bothered to learn how to use it properly and it’s been sitting around for ten years. Or they purchased it for defense, but realize that it was awkward to carry it around in their purse everywhere they went. But the owner doesn’t want the hassle or bother of trying to find a way to get rid of it. Some of them may even be embarrassed that they own it. So it sits around, gathering dust, until it is found by someone else, maybe a child; or it is stolen from the owner; or the owner gets suicidal or angry and remembers they have a gun.
So turn that around. Make it a community event where people can be thanked for bringing in a gun for destruction. Make the destruction public, so that the owner knows that it was disposed of. You’ll find many people don’t care about the money, they want to dispose of the gun in a safe manner. People bring perfectly good television sets and computers to electronics recycling events, just so they can dispose of them properly. I’ve worked those events, I’ve seen it happen. These events shouldn’t try to keep records of who brought in what, because that doesn’t matter. What matters is the destruction of the gun.
Would doing this stop mass shootings? Would making it a community event to celebrate the reduction of the shear number of guns in a neighborhood have any impact on mass shootings? Probably not much. But it might just start changing the culture.
I think that expectation is what is driving gun purchases. People notice when violence, crime and immorality have become cultural norms.
Yes, and that expectation has been carefully cultivated by the gun lobby, and by bullies and bigots who don’t want other people to be able to live civilized lives. Those two groups of people, conspiring together with malice aforethought, have MADE violence, crime and immorality “cultural norms.”
Holms:
Yes, quite right. Otherwise we’d be rather alarmingly over-armed.
txpiper @ 32
So you can afford all the massacres? Or you cannot afford to stop them? Which one?
You still haven’t answered my question: “what would encourage you to relinquish your “few” guns?”
tuatara,
“what would encourage you to relinquish your “few” guns?”
$20,000 apiece, but only after efforts to disarm actual criminals are completely exhausted, and significant numbers of executions have taken place. Starting with punitive measures directed towards innocent, normal citizens is a bad idea.
txpiper:
First, I hear executions aren’t done by firing squad, over there. Chemicals and gas and suchlike methods. Guns are, apparently, too cruel.
(Obs, for you, execution itself is a desirable outcome, presumably under whatever criteria makes it lawful)
Second, thing is, sometimes people break bad.
Then their guns will be turned to evil deeds, instead of the (allegedly) wholesome ones such as shooting at the range or killing various non-human animals on a whim which excuse the existence of guns.
Reminds me of such ridiculous appeals as, for example, “If guns are criminalised, only criminals will have guns”. As if that were not a good thing.
I mean, yeah… and so it will be damn easy to convict anyone who is known to have a gun. Easy to detect anyone carrying in the open. Worse on those who hide their killing tools on their person. And so forth.
txpiper>
I’m curious about your opinions on airport security.
And also what is going on in your life that you feel like you need to own multiple firearms in response to armed “criminals” and death row inmates?
txpiper: What a charmer you are! The USA is in good hands -- the cold dead ones at the distal end of your arms.
Wow txpiper, turns out you are a gun nut after all.
And that’s why buy-backs won’t stop mass shootings.
Idiots like txpiper who value their guns more than human life.
Buy-backs could help a lot with domestic violence which involves firearms, suicides, and theft. I’m all for them.
But as long as people like txpiper think they need to be the heroes protecting themselves and their families against the non-existent raging hoards of criminals threatening their home, access to firearms will be kept as easy as possible. And mass shootings will continue. A prime example of the long-term affects of gun culture.
lochaber,
“I’m curious about your opinions on airport security.”
The Israelis seem to be experts, but their methods would probably be offensive here.
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“what is going on in your life”
It isn’t what’s going on in my life. It’s what has happened, and is happening, in the culture. Erecting bronze statues of criminals does not indicate healthy community sociology. And it should be apparent that disarming normal citizens while you are dismantling/defunding police departments is foolish. At some point, the outrage needs to be directed towards the animals who misuse their guns.
==
flex,
“they need to be the heroes protecting themselves and their families against the non-existent raging hoards of criminals”
If you want to be taken seriously, you shouldn’t say stuff like this out loud. Trivializing serious problems is counter-productive.
That’s a very obvious lie. You know as well as anyone that opposition to any such restrictions has become a Republican shibboleth -- and that some Democrats are also in the pockets of the gun industry.
As I’ve pointed out to you on an earlier thread, violent crime has fallen considerably in the USA since 1990. So if people think it has increased, it’s because they are being misinformed. But firearm deaths, both suicide and homicide, after an initial fall along with violent crime, have increased since 2000. So your “explanation” is utter garbage, as I strongly suspect you know, your bad faith being entirely evident over the course of several threads.
I agree. But unless you have found a way to turn back time, that’s not now possible, and the question of immediate relevance is whether the Ukranians resisting Putin’s invasion should be provided with the weapons to do so. If you say “No”, then whatever rhetorical fluff you surround that with, and whatever your personal feelings, you are, objectively, siding with Putin and his Russian-style fascism.
KG,
“violent crime has fallen considerably in the USA since 1990. So if people think it has increased, it’s because they are being misinformed”
I think you’ll find that the trend has reversed since 2019. But you might consider the fact that annual gun sales since 1990 have increased. Crime rates going down while gun ownership is going up doesn’t exactly support the notion that firearms are the problem.
KG:
It’s still important to not let the war machine write the history books for us.
Bullshit. I generally don’t believe in arming people around the globe to serve our imperial goals, and this is but one example of that.
I think that we could’ve prevented lots of Ukrainian deaths by actually committing seriously to the peace process rather than stalling it indefinitely with more fighting (and the weapons to make it happen). You may think that evaluation is mistaken, and I’d like to see a good argument showing why that’s likely to be the case, because the way we’re actually headed looks like more death and destruction for them rather than less.
But it’s not in any sense about “siding with Putin.”
And if you want to talk about siding with fascism, the US stance has consistently been to excuse and whitewash the fascist elements in Ukraine. Arming them is not a good plan from my point of view…. Like we did the Afghan mujahideen to get the Soviets bogged down there in a prolonged conflict, which was objectively a horrible idea that did not help Afghans and did not end well, and they even ended up “winning” that particular fight. Do you at least see where I’m coming from on that?
@43 txpiper opined,
Hah! What a clown! You say this immediately after saying a human life is worth less that $20,000, and accuse me of trivializing a problem?
Hey, Bozo! Maybe you are having cogitative decline, but if crime rates have been going down, but gun purchases have been going up, doesn’t that immediately tell you that gun purchases are not driven by actual, real, crime numbers?
So maybe there is another reason?
Maybe, just maybe, there has been an aggressive campaign (for about sixty years now, three generations), to tell people that the only way to feel safe from the bogey-man of the moment is to purchase a tool which spits out chunks of metal with enough kinetic energy to kill. They didn’t mention that this tool doesn’t just kill bogey-men, but it also will kill your partner, your child, the next door neighbor, and even you. They didn’t mention that to use this tool properly you need regular training, and the tool needs regular maintenance. They didn’t mention that in most cases, even if you have that tool, it won’t help. Cops, people who are supposed to have significant training with this tool (usually more than the shooters) get killed by shooters.
Maybe, just maybe, the rise in gun purchase has nothing to do with crime and everything to do with fear. Deliberately planted fear, carefully nurtured fear. This fear; the politician’s fear of not being elected, the citizen’s fear of their neighbor, the patriot’s fear of a loss of freedom; no longer needs much watering with money. Like a wild rose, wherever a stalk touches the ground it sends a runner to spread, and this fear is now flowering in it’s full gory glory. Every event caused by fear; fear of others, fear of imagined injury, fear of not fitting in, fear of being unimportant; all these fears are contributing to events which cause more fear. This is now self-perpetuating; we can’t restrict gun ownership because everyone needs a gun to protect themselves from those people who can’t be trusted with a gun.
I agree with the sentiment that “guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people.” As I wrote above, the things we can do to curtail mass shootings are limited unless we change the way we approach the problem. We have a few options:
1. Congress could exercise their power, defined in section 8 of the Federal Constitution, to “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” Under that power Congress could ban anyone who isn’t a member of a Congress-controlled Militia from owning a gun.
Sure, there would be lawsuits about it, but it’s just as “originalist” as saying that the second amendment means you have the right to own any weapon you please. Frankly, the way I read the second amendment it’s more about the founding fathers being afraid of a professional army and the federal government being too poor to pay for guns for the militias. There was some serious talk at the time about disarming the population after Shay’s Rebellion, but there was still a fear of British imperialism. I see the second amendment as a compromise, not a stricture.
2. The states could amend the federal constitution, striking out the second amendment and define guns as a tool which can be regulated as necessary by Congress or the States. (With federal laws taking precedent over state law via the 14th amendment.)
3. Change the gun culture which has been nurtured to the point of black comedy over the past 60 years. The only way the politician’s cry of, “They’ra comin’ for your guns!” works is if the population cares about holding on to that generally useless tool. It really is hard for me to take gun nuts seriously. Even if everything I mentioned above was enacted, you gun nuts would still be able to buy guns, plink away at the range, feel manly about protecting your family.
So you need to be over the age of 21, or 25? No worries most gun nuts are older than that, those who are not can wait a few years.
So you need to register your guns? Not a problem, that doesn’t stop you from buying and hoarding them.
Buy-back programs? Easy enough, don’t sell.
Red-Flag laws? The behaviors covered by red-flag laws are actually pretty rare, and published, you know what they are so don’t do them. If your neighbor can’t stop themselves from beating their dog, well, maybe you really don’t want them to have a gun.
Gun nuts are ridiculous. And dangerous. Not because they are all potential mass shooters, but because in their fear of losing their toys they impede any effort to stop other people, people who are likely to hurt themselves or others, from playing with those toys. Responsible gun ownership also includes the responsibility to recognize that some people really do have a greater likelihood of causing harm to others, or themselves. A responsible woodworker trains others about the dangers of a bandsaw, and if Grandpa has palsy we keep him away from it. We should expect a responsible gun owner to be even more careful with a tool which is designed to cause bodily harm. It boggles me that they can’t see it this way. It really is a black comedy.
txpiper
So you equate christi-insanity with morality, ethics and intellectualism?
Would they be the same morals and ethics from which arose the framework upon which the dispossession and genocide inflicted upon the indigenous peoples of the world was ‘legalised’?
And what is intellectual about basing your morality and ethicism upon belief in an imaginary sky-superhero who will save you when you become dust regardless of the shit you are during your brief life?
It is obvious that what you like to believe is nonsense.
flex,
“there has been an aggressive campaign…Deliberately planted fear, carefully nurtured fear.”
I guess this is becoming a popular idea, but I think people just watch local news casts.
===
tuatara,
“So you equate christi-insanity with morality, ethics and intellectualism?”
Oh, I think that to some degree, you have to recognize Christianity, or Christians, as a source for such things. It isn’t as if the moral and ethical stuff is not written down. The influence on intellectual and scientific pursuits is unquestionable.
To what do you attribute your values and principles? Are they borrowed?
flex, that peroration was a thing of beauty.
Well said!
Of course txpiper, they are borrowed from my non-christian indegenous ancestors (those few that were not wiped from the face of the earth by your christian ones).
Yes one can recognise that christianity can be a source of such things, but the experience of my people is that the morals wielded by christians were largely of the “a” type.
txpiper@43>
“the outrage needs to be directed towards the animals who misuse their guns”
So, a lot of my issues with the firearm community is aimed at those who not only can’t, but just refuse to even try to handle firearms responsibly. Far too often, some jackass in a line in Walmart fumbles their concealed carry and has a negligent discharge that injures themselves, another shopper, or an employee, and yet, I’ve never heard of a single incident of this resulting in any sort of criminal charges, or at least a restriction on a concealed carry license or similar.
And, now I’m even more curious about your actual views/feelings on airport security, now that you dodged my question and just claimed that the apartheid state did it better. :/
Should I even ask about the bronze statues of criminals? I’m going to go out on a limb here, and give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you don’t mean statues of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., or George Washington? or do you?
You seem to be going to great lengths to raise vague objections and avoiding specifics, while demanding specifics and details of others. It kinda sounds like you might not be arguing in good faith.
And I still want to know how someone serving a life sentence on death row is some sort of imminent threat to you and yours?
tuatara,
“my non-christian indegenous ancestors (those few that were not wiped from the face of the earth by your christian ones).”
The Wikipedia entry for “History of Indigenous Australians” suggests that there were other culpable faiths involved:
“As scientific racism developed from Darwinism (with Charles Darwin himself having claimed after visiting New South Wales that the death of “the Aboriginal” was a consequence of natural selection), the popular view of Indigenous Australians started to see them as inferior. Indigenous Australians were considered in the global scientific community as the world’s most primitive humans, leading to trade of human remains and relics. This was especially true of Indigenous Tasmanians, with 120 books and articles written by scholars around the world by the late 19th century. Some Indigenous people were also toured and exhibited around the world as spectacles.[missing links]”
===
lochaber,
“Far too often, some jackass in a line in Walmart fumbles their concealed carry and has a negligent discharge…”
I live in an area that is both gun and Walmart rich, but I’ve never heard of these incidents. Can you link to some news stories?
.
“your actual views/feelings on airport security”
I guess we have to do what we have to do when Presbyterians are threatening to kill infidels.
.
“I’m going to…assume you don’t mean statues of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., or George Washington?”
Correct. I don’t mean those, though I don’t really care for statues of Jesus.
.
“how someone serving a life sentence on death row is some sort of imminent threat”
I prefer equitable justice and permanent solutions, but:
“Lopez had been convicted of capital murder, attempted capital murder and aggravated kidnapping, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. He was serving two life sentences for those convictions.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/03/us/gonzalo-lopez-texas-manhunt/index.html
txpiper ^
So you think that darwinism is a faith? A faith that created racism? You don’t think that the racism to which you refer already existed and was merely bolstered by early darwinism?
You don’t think that Darwin “borrowed” (to borrow a term from you) his morals and ethics from the christian society into which he was born?
I was speaking about the framework upon which the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples was legalised. This is distinctly christian. It was not developed from darwinism. In fact it pre-existed the birth of Charles Darwin.
And FYI. I am not an Australian. I am not an Australian indigenous person. I have neither Australian citizenship or permanent residency. I am here on the pleasure of the Immigration Minister and I have been granted only the following rights:
to work and pay taxes from my earnings
to receive medicare
I have been here quite a while. I am happy here. I have raised two children here.
But, I am an indigenous person, dispossessed in the same way as the indigenous Australians, with my connection to my language beaten out of my father by his christian school-masters.
But go ahead with your whataboutism. It suits your colours well.
Mr Singham is focusing obsessively on “gun violence”, not so much on “violence” per se.
.
Mr Singham may be fine with “knife violence”, “club violence”, “hammer violence”, “baseball bat violence”, etc..
.
Mr Singham is making appeal to emotion, not reason. “What would it take for them to change their minds?” To change their minds to that of a Progressive/Socialist SJW snowflake? Brother, please.
.
How to stop gun violence? A child replies: “Get rid of guns!”
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How to stop knife violence? A child replies: “Get rid of knives!” Do not laugh. British politicians have proposed restricting sales of certain knives and in China, knives need to be registered in XinJiang province.
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How to stop drug addiction? A child replies: “Get rid of drugs!”
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How to stop violence? A child has no reply.
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How to stop addiction? A child has no reply.
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A child is incapable -- for lack of life experience and wisdom -- to search for the motivation for violence, to search for the motivation for addiction.
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I read a 1960’s issue of Look magazine describing the drug scene in Switzerland where all men have to do military service and given a rifle to non-officers and a pistol to officers. A drug addict in Zurich was asked if he ever used a gun to acquire drugs or money for drugs; reply “No, that will be un-civilized”. There are many un-civilized people in the USA and the high level of “uncivilization” is due to degradation of culture and societal values, not due to presence of guns. By the way, the Swiss government sponsors a yearly “shooting festival” participated by the whole family (parents and children alike); the Swiss government pays for the ammo used in these “shooting festivals”.
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Israel is in a neighborhood where people are incentivized (by HAMAS and PA) to murder Israeli Jews. Murder Israeli Jews by any means: guns, cars, knives, bombs, etc.. And yet, one does not hear about school shootings by palestinians or by fellow Israelis. Why? Many, if not most, school teachers pack heat. Essentially all teachers (male and female) did their military duty and thus know how to use guns. Yes, there is a lot of woke-ism in Israeli society but fortunately not to such a degree to degrade Israeli societal values. Self-Defense, visceral, physical self-defense plays a key role in Israeli culture.
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Napoleon -- an agnostic -- recognized the value of religion: religious people need less policing than non-religious people; Napoleon wanted to divert resources from police to the military. It is not so much religion per se but the cultures fostered by religion. Friedrich Nietzsche understood the danger of liberalism (Twilight of the Idols (1888)):
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“Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. One knows, indeed, what their ways bring: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic -- every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.”
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When USSR was founded, religion was prohibited in schools and open society. Then, in the 1920’s, there was an epidemic of crime (including murder) by young men. The Soviets quickly placed mandatory philosophy classes in lieu of religion. Disruption of traditional cultural values brings on an avalanche of violence. It seems Mr Singham’s embrace of atheism does not allow him to have the proper perspective on violence as a function of cultural causes.
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A common thread amongst the various school shootings is the sequence of missed red flags long before the shootings. Why are the red flags missed? Answer: Liberal, Progressive/Socialist mindsets made people blind to the warnings. The Media are not interested in documenting the numerous cases where the red flags were acted upon and prevented tragedy. President Trump was correct: the Media is the enemy of the people. The people need to be instructed on the various red flags to violence so the people -- as a community -- can suppress impending violence. But the Media cares more for woke ideology than the needs of the Great Unwashed.
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Mr Singham’s question “What would it take for them to change their minds?” is so much spitting into the wind.
friedfishe, what a remarkably ignorant and foolish opinion you exhibit!
It’s all very silly, but this bit made me chuckle:
Fact: the USA is an extreme outlier in terms of gun violence among all developed nations (and most others, too), so it follows you believe that the USA is therefore an extreme outlier in terms of Liberal, Progressive/Socialist mindsets.
<snicker>
(https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country)
But hey, the USA is not resting on its Liberal, Progressive/Socialist mindset — the rate went up after 2018. Getting ever more Liberal, Progressive/Socialist, apparently.
(Sheesh!)
Dumb. Conversations might be about a broad topic, or they might be about a narrow topic. This conversation is the latter. I take it you and your social circle don’t ever talk about anything specific, keeping yourselves strictly general…?
Dumb again. This conversation is about how to limit the harm of those that choose violence, taking as granted that some people will choose this. The best way to do this is to limit the arms available to them.
But hey, since you are interested in the origin of violence as a topic of policy, I can help. Violence, and crime in general in fact, is closely linked with poverty. (Please note that ‘violence’ is a narrower topic than ‘crime’, being that it is a subset of crime. You’re a fan of general over specific, so I’m sure this more general topic is the actual one you want to tackle.) Since this it a topic of special interest to you, I am sure you knew this and seek to end poverty though proven methods -- often referred to as ‘social safety net’ policies.
The rest is a hilarious grab-bag of historical just-so stories shaped to fit your pet topic.
Always preview! (I never preview)
Looks like I missed the slash in the quote close.
[I took care of it. _ Mano]
There should be more interaction between law enforcement and Constitutional gun carry folks. Issues like when to carry, when to be vigilant, where to carry… etc.