Gun Violence and how to address it

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119176991#Comment_119176991

It's per 100,000 not per capita. Can't compare per capita as you have huge differences between states like Montana and California (or Texas.) Montana, Wyoming, etc. are above the national average (and very low population). Utah is slightly below. Data from here.

Gun friendliness is subjective, New Hampshire is below the national average for firearms deaths per 100,000 and is gun friendly, so 1/50 are gun friendly, and below the national average in 100,000 deaths due to firearms. It's an interesting question as to why, New Hampshire's residents always have been reputed to have that New England character ("Live free or die.") Maybe whatever model they use for gun ownership works.

I'm getting my gun 'friendliness' data from here. What is your source?

Sam Russell

If the USA constitution guaranties the right to carry arms, and that is interpreted to allow a callow eighteen year old youth to go into a gun shop on his birthday and buy a couple of military grade assault rife and quite a bit of ammo. But when the 2nd amendment was passed, that eighteen year old was considered a minor, and would have been prevented from even buying a musket.

The proposed increase in gun control is just moving the minimum age to buy an assault rifle be increased to twenty one, which would have applied when the 2nd was passed.

Alternatively, they can hope the next time a deranged eighteen year old who has just bought assault rifles is prevented from getting inside a school, and if he does, the local police do not wait outside for an hour while he executes all the kids inside.

The Republicans can all wait for the next school shooting and hope the electors can forgive them (again) for doing nothing to protect the children.

Leroy42

"The Republicans can all wait for the next school shooting and hope the electors can forgive them (again) for doing nothing to protect the children."

They don't need to hope, recent history tells us they are perfectly right to think that way. This is not a vote loser for the GOP

Now you have to be 21 to buy an assault weapon!

problem solved! :o

Sudden Valley

Im not sure a mad 18 year wont turn into a sane 21 year, especially if they have grown to hate their society.

There is something wrong with US society that strangers would kill children in a school or patients would kill their doctors. All countries have mental health issues and some of those countries have guns but dont have these issues. Perhaps the super-competitiveness in the US is a cause.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119177317#Comment_119177317

Per capita is just per 100,000 divided by 100,000. The ratios are the same.

Murder rates are simply from Wiki. You can sort by ranking by year, and are shown per 100,000. Gun ownership percentage from worldpopulationreview

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119177936#Comment_119177936

It's a start though... at 18, your main perspective and experience of the world has come from school structure. You're still a kid, you're likely at the most volatile emotional stage of your entire life by dint of a vast swathe of hormonal changes, and most of your personal issues are going to be tied up in things like school bullying, or anger at what you consider an oppressive school system. Even though it's just 3 years, a 21 will usually have moved past that a bit, with a broader experience of the world. And most of all, just having a few years distance from the weight of emotion they would've associated with school.

So I think it would have something of an impact on shootings, but actually a particularly large impact on school shootings specifically. Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Buffalo etc shooters, were all under 21. The average age of school shooters is 18.

I've little doubt even this bit of common sense legislation won't pass though.

y0ssar1an22

to address a problem, you must 1st recognise what the problem is.

what % of violent crime in the US happened via knife, handgun, assault rifle, fists?

you cant really reach a conclusion till you have all the data

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186766#Comment_119186766

The problem itself is far larger than just guns... it's the long term erosion in the sense of community and support within American society. Being squeezed everywhere you look, from education, to medical care, to workers rights, to maternity care etc etc, every direction effectively saying "you have no value". And when you fundamentally lose social buy-in from so many people, these are the things that happen. It's insane that people setting up go-fund-me's are now pretty much the default for a huge section of society to deal with issues that should be supported by social safety nets.

Add to this the ease with which you can get guns, and the total lack of requirement to even inform you how to be a responsible and trained gun owner, and it makes the fall out from said missing buy-in all the worse. That vast swathe of irresponsible gun ownership in the home, combined with the social backlash, have made guns the highest killer of children, above traffic accidents or cancer etc.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186796#Comment_119186796

gimme paragraphs at the very least

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186797#Comment_119186797

Done.

looksee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186796#Comment_119186796

I was talking to an otherwise apparently reasonable Texan woman who believed that social medicine was not good as charitable medicine allowed people to practise their Christian duty by giving to charities that supported hospitals for poor people. An attitude that most civilised countries got over more than a century ago. She also complained, in tones that suggested I would of course agree with her, about the numbers of 'our brown friends' that were populating her area. Quite what the problem was with them was not specified, it was just understood that there was a problem.

It seems innocuous on the face of it - after all a bit of patronage and racism isn't going to kill anyone, is it? But add it to all the 'rights' that some (obviously not all) members of society enjoy, the insecurity of an unreliable police force, a government largely based on wealth, and you have a good basis for discontent. All you need then is guns thrown into the mix.

MakersMark

I wonder why Irish people, living in Ireland get so worked up about gun deaths in the US, but dont appear to care in the slightest about the 250,000 African children killed annually by war over the last 20 years.

Plenty of left wing racists here, that's for sure.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119187041#Comment_119187041

Plenty of us live in, or have family in, the US. Ireland also has loads of US based companies, with Irish staff working side by side on a daily basis with their American counterparts. I've been living in the US for a decade now myself... so as long as we have a thread about the subject, I and I presume others, will continue to chat about it as it's quite close to home for a lot of us in different ways.

Caring or chatting about one subject does not mean another subject is irrelevant. Pop up a thread if you have insights on other subjects, or even just want to discuss them - I'm sure many of us have huge blind spots on loads of international issues that we're less closely connected to, but which we'd be only too happy to learn more about.

looksee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119187041#Comment_119187041

It is perfectly possible to be concerned about two things at once, but usually it is less confusing to stick to one topic per thread. Feel free to start a thread about African children, or maybe you don't actually want to discuss them, you just want to score points?

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119186766#Comment_119186766

Here you go. Sortof. It's murder, not violent crime.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11.xls

Knives, 10.5%. Handguns 45.7%, Rifles ("assault" or not), 2.6%, fists/feet etc, 4.3%

riclad

Its very obvious the bare minimum gun control in america is no one under 21 can buy rifles , strict background checks of anyone who buys a gun, red flag laws to take guns away from people who the police deem to be dangerous .we have seen the worst mass shootings seem to be carried out by people under the age of 21 .

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245952#Comment_119245952

It's a common misconception that the worst mass shootings in the US have been carried out by people under the age of 21. Based on the number of casualties, below are the people who have killed the most in mass shootings. Only two of the 10 were under the age of 21.

Paddock - Age 64 - Las Vegas - 60 deaths

Omar Mateen - Age 29 - Pulse Nightclub - 49 deaths

Seung Hui Cho - Age 23 - Virginia Tech - 32 deaths

Adam Lanza - 20 - Age 20 - Sandy Hook - 27 deaths

Patrick Kelley - Age 26 - Sutherland Springs Church - 26 deaths

George Hennard - Age 35 - Luby's - 23 deaths

Patrick Wood Crusius - Age 21 - Walmart, El Paso - 23 deaths

James Huberty - Age 41 - McDonalds, San Diego - 21 deaths

Salvador Ramos - Age 18 - Uvalde - 21 deaths

Charles Whitman - Age 25 - University of Texas Tower shooting - 17 deaths

America do need to do more when it comes to keeping the guns out of the hands of crazy fcukers. I don't really agree with under 21's not being allowed to buy rifles as I had a rifle from the age of 18 and I was safe with it. I would have hoops for everyone to jump through to get any firearm such as background checks, mandatory waiting periods, only buying guns from FFL dealers etc.

The red flag laws have some merit but I'd need to know what exactly they entail before I'd support them. What evidence would suffice for banning someone from having a gun? My fear would be that the system would be open to abuse by people who didn't like each other.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246434#Comment_119246434

What's sad about your post is whatever site you used, you missed Parkland and Columbine. Cruz killed 17 at the age of 19. And I guess the Columbine massacre by two 18 year olds didn't make the cut as it was 'only' 12 people? Two of the biggest school shootings in history and your site didn't mention them?

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119250944#Comment_119250944

I didn't leave out Parkland and Columbine on purpose. I was replying to post #198. If you give it a read, it doesn't mention school shootings anywhere in the post. I've quoted the bit of the post I was replying to below. That's why I didn't just focus on school shootings, I focused on the worst mass shootings, including school shootings.

we have seen the worst mass shootings seem to be carried out by people under the age of 21 .

I doubted the accuracy of the statement above so I went onto Wikipedia and listed the 10 worst shootings based on deaths and checked which shooters were under the age of 21. Given that I was replying to the above quote and it says "the worst mass shootings" I felt it was reasonable to base my answer on the top 10.

It's not that I left them out on purpose, they weren't in the top 10 worst shootings based on the number of deaths. But if we include them, then that would mean that 4 out of the top 15 were shooters under the age of 21. My point still stands, it's a misconception that U21s carry out the worst mass shootings.

Sorry, forgot to add this. The site I used is wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246434#Comment_119246434

The majority of school shooters are teens. Which, of course they are. The people most motivated to shoot people in schools are those whose main life experience is school, and they’ve not yet had time to move past that. That alone is reason to not allow teens to have handguns or assault rifles.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246434#Comment_119246434

I mean sure plenty of the worst ones have been carried out by older people but man 1 fifth of the worst shootings, plus some other really bad ones carried out by that 3 year window between 18 and 21 does suggest a 21 year limit would be smart. Certainly it will hit a lot of 18 year olds who would be safe but there are also probably a lot of 17 year olds who would be safe with a gun.

That list is not a good one if you want to argue that under 21s should have guns.

looksee

There really isn't any argument for the general population having uncontrolled guns, as almost the whole of the rest of the world shows.

Large parts of the US is still living a romantic but warped notion of the Wild West, and many are well brainwashed by the whole 'the US is the greatest, we have FREEDOM!' Right. Freedom to control women's bodies, freedom to keep poor people poor, freedom to have their health - provided they can afford it, and devil take the rest, freedom to subject little children to prison conditions in schools - and/or to die because of the FREEDOM to have a gun. Its pathetic, antiquated and absolute selfishness. Leave them at it.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119255769#Comment_119255769

You are right on two counts.

It's not a good list and it will hit a lot of 18 - 20 year olds, 99.99% of whom will never shoot up a school. Given that the vast majority of them would be safe with a firearm, I wouldn't be inclined to ban U21s from owning firearms. That said, I'd put in place plenty of hoops for them to jump through to try ensure that they are sensible, well adjusted young people and not the type you wouldn't trust with a gun.

I don't think they'll ever ban U21 from owning firearms, it's probably not constitutional to do so, e.g. California's U21 gun sales ban is unconstitutional.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/11/1098432386/california-21-gun-sales-ban-unconstitutional-court-says

Sam Russell

There are restrictions in the USA for minimum age on a lot of human activities. Alcohol, sex, driving, aircraft piloting, contracts, and many more, so why not guns?

The 'right to bear arms' is truly an anachronism - since the original purpose was to the ability for an ad hoc militia to defend the state. For over 100 years the USA has had a standing army to defend the state, plus the National Guard which can be turned out to counteract any emergency. So why have a random militia? When it was introduced, the musket would be the 'arm' of choice, not aa assault rifle that is akin to a machine gun.

Even restricting guns to requiring a capability test in being able to use one safely (if it is possible to use a lethal weapon safely), and a lower age limit of 21 would be a minimum in my mind.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119255861#Comment_119255861

So what if people have to wait a few years for guns if it cuts down on the number of mass shootings it is a win.

You are right they will never do it but my suggestions are to cut down on the number of mass shootings which just is not a priority for most in the US.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119256510#Comment_119256510

There is a minimum age on guns. At this time, a person has to be 21 to purchase a handgun. Long guns remain at 18, the argument being that they have the right to buy other guns, just not handguns. My guess is that the handgun limit will drop to 18 as well on the basis of past rulings.

SCOTUS today also remanded two cases (one from California and one from New Jersey) to be reheard by lower courts which had upheld laws on maximum magazine capacity.

looksee

From here it looks like a dystopian nightmare. A country where wealth goes to one side of the population and their ability to own an armoury of weapons is facilitated, while on the other side the right to life of the poor's unborn is enforced (the rich will always find a way) - though once they are born their health and education is left to chance and charity and their lives to the whims of those with guns.

Overstated? Probably. But no more than the horror stories of the dreadful effects of 'socialism' that are used to support these policies and attitudes.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119274916#Comment_119274916

...a classic case of severe social breakdown, whereby most citizens are unable to provide themselves with their most critical of needs, watch out europe, this dystopia isnt too far away for you to!

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119274916#Comment_119274916

Don't think it's overstated at all; it's a neat summation of the vulgar contradiction that corrupts the Myth of America. The American conservative will make it their mission to defend the rights of the unborn - but once your out of the womb? You're one your own, and any travails are probably your own fault, or god punishing you (hi there, Wealth Bible). Nor do I think it's overstated for me to repeat the reminder that Sandy Hook couldn't shift the conversation an inch; quite the opposite, in the case of the likes of Alex Jones.