School shooting Florida

[P.J. Denyer]

But when I say that I am in favour of such firearms regulations, gun-nuts brand me a crazy-ass anti-gun fanatic.

Apparently not believing the claims of some (American) posters that absolutely anyone can walk into a pub in the UK with a few hundred pounds and buy a gun is on a par with believing in unicorns. We had a laugh about that in my local yesterday (where a number of people do own legal guns), oddly absolutely no-one agreed (or took me aside to offer to sell me one).

The pro gun side likes the dichotomy, gun control laws have to be either absolute or ineffective, by refusing to acknowledge that other countries have successful compromises they can keep those who might otherwise seek middle ground in their camp.

 

[Meadmaker]

... at the time when the person obtains a licence, they may indeed be able to show (at least on the application forms) that they are not currently on health records or criminal records as mentally ill or psychologically disturbed etc.

And I've been thinking about this as well in relation to the Florida shooting. Part of the coverage of this shooting has been about all the alarm bells that this guy was tripping, so the system ought to have stopped him from getting guns. Especially on the right wing, people have wanted to talk about mental health issues. However, would that have made a difference with this guy? Yes, people who knew him thought he was one scary dude, but there was no official record. As far as any evidence of mental health issues that could have been used by the gun dealer as justification for not selling the kid a gun, there wasn't any.

Shall we demand an independent psychological evaluation of anyone attempting to purchase a gun? If anyone is seriously proposing that, you could talk me into it, but I don't see our friends over at the NRA jumping on board with such a proposal.

 

[Darat]

Would a better approach or more acceptable approach in the USA be to look at restricting the ammunition someone can keep at home?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Shall we demand an independent psychological evaluation of anyone attempting to purchase a gun? If anyone is seriously proposing that, you could talk me into it, but I don't see our friends over at the NRA jumping on board with such a proposal.

No one on the NRA side really cares about mental health. The mental health argument is just a red-herring. If they cared, they would be talking about background checks to include mental health screenings and the like.

 

[Darat]

No one on the NRA side really cares about mental health. The mental health argument is just a red-herring. If they cared, they would be talking about background checks to include mental health screenings and the like.

Indeed - how could they be against making sure only those with good mental health can get hold of guns? That would like them saying that regardless of mental health anyone should be able to own a gun..... which would mean that mentions of mental health are as you say irrelevant....

 

[Belz...]

Was his wish to travel back in time or eliminate all advancements since guns became possible?

I don't know. Eliminating all guns right now would just make them pop up again, unless you alter the laws of physics, which would presumably throw us back to the middle ages.

 

[Belz...]

I am not convinced:

No.

Then I don't understand, or you don't understand. If guns are part of a technological evolution that has made us happier and healthier, then it seems like going back to a time before guns would make us more miserable. Since presumably your wish would be to make us _less_ miserable, that would seem counter-productive.

 

[Belz...]

- guns must be stored in a gun safe separate from ammunition and the firing mechanism.

I'Ve never understood that rule, unless the laws do not permit you to use your firearms to defend yourself in your home.

 

[Border Reiver]

???

There never will be. The states are not able to enforce federal laws -which is why we have the FBI.

Most countries have a single system of criminal law for the entire country - the idea that an act that is legal in one geographical region of the nation, while being illegal in another is bizarre and leads to a general disrespect for the laws.

Now this is a derail - I will start a thread in Social Issues.

 

[Belz...]

No one on the NRA side really cares about mental health. The mental health argument is just a red-herring. If they cared, they would be talking about background checks to include mental health screenings and the like.

Agreed. They might veyr well be correct that mental health issues are a major cause of incidents like this, but they are not helping by opposing such checks and restrictions.

 

[TofuFighter]

Are Theresa May and Angela Merkel European equivalents of Chuck Norris?

I certainly wouldn't try wrestle them. Well. maybe a bit.
But i wasn't using Chuck Norris as some kind of analogy.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I'Ve never understood that rule, unless the laws do not permit you to use your firearms to defend yourself in your home.

If you give self defence as one of your reasons for wanting a gun you won't get a certificate. Storing ammunition and bolt separately is to make a working gun harder to steal.

 

[Belz...]

If you give self defence as one of your reasons for wanting a gun you won't get a certificate. Storing ammunition and bolt separately is to make a working gun harder to steal.

No, I get that. What I mean is, if a state allows guns for home defense, the purpose is defeated if you can't get to your loaded gun relatively quickly.

 

[Darat]

If you give self defence as one of your reasons for wanting a gun you won't get a certificate. Storing ammunition and bolt separately is to make a working gun harder to steal.

It's also sensible if your aim is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from guns in the home. I'm sure someone has posted a few times the statistics that show in the USA the highest probability of you dying by way of a gun is from the guns in your own home. The idea of needing it for self-defence may have a strong emotional appeal but statistically such a choice puts you in more danger.

 

[Belz...]

It's also sensible if your aim is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from guns in the home. I'm sure someone has posted a few times the statistics that show in the USA the highest probability of you dying by way of a gun is from the guns in your own home. The idea of needing it for self-defence may have a strong emotional appeal but statistically such a choice puts you in more danger.

That's true on the whole, but may not hold for certain areas, I suppose.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Most countries have a single system of criminal law for the entire country - the idea that an act that is legal in one geographical region of the nation, while being illegal in another is bizarre and leads to a general disrespect for the laws.

You sort of have to think of the United States, in certain ways, as more like the European Union than the individual EU member countries.

That's not an exact comparison, the individual states aren't nearly as autonomous as the individual EU countries in matters like international relations, defense, etc but we do have a pretty uniquely structured duel level of government and I'm not sure either the spirit or letter of the US's weird Federal/State dynamic really translates well to other countries.

 

[Disbelief]

Agreed.

This debate would go a lot better if hyperbole like didn't get dropped into it so much.

The odds of dying by murder by gun are still... pretty low on the list of things Americans need to individually worry about happening to them on a statistical level. American's murder rate is high, way, way too high no arguments but it's not like its really the thing most of us worry about on a day to day level. This idea that modern America is some country sized Laser Tag arena with live ammo is just silly.

If this is an average year 15,000 to 16,000 Americans are gonna die by murder, roughly 1/2-2/3s of those by gun violence. Yes that's way too high, stupid high, way past the point of solving the problem high.

But over, again if this year is average, 1.3 million are gonna die in traffic accidents (incidentally our rate of 13 deaths per 100,000 cars on the road yearly is below Europe's rate of 19 deaths per 100,00 cars on the road yearly) and 250,000 are gonna die due to medical mistakes.

Hell our actual overall mortality rate (8.10 deaths per 1,000 people a year) is lower than Spain, Norway, France, the United Kingdom, and even the glorious wonderful post-singularity socialist utopia of Sweden were all the hyper evolved space people have transcended their primitive mortal coils and are now one with cosmos which despite being a flawless place to live with zero problems that every country in the world needs to emulate manages to have a morality right higher than North Korea's, along with Italy, Japan, Germany and a bunch of other places I keep getting assured are safer and better places to live.

Like a lot of discussions I don't think people really care about the violence so much as see it as another go to have a jab at the backwater Americans.

I mean crap what do you European Master Race people care if a bunch of dumb Americans shoot each other? Isn't it pretty well established that we're not worth saving?

Yet the automotive industry is taking it upon themselves to work towards autonomous vehicles to drastically reduce traffic deaths. Over 90% of deaths are caused because of human error, not the car, yet the industry is stepping in to reduce human input. It will take decades to come to fruition, but it has started. Better gun regulation will take time as well, but let's get started.

 

[Finster]

It's also sensible if your aim is to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from guns in the home. I'm sure someone has posted a few times the statistics that show in the USA the highest probability of you dying by way of a gun is from the guns in your own home. The idea of needing it for self-defence may have a strong emotional appeal but statistically such a choice puts you in more danger.

Yeh, I've heard many advocates for having a gun for home defense compare it to a fire extinguisher. "You don't expect to have a fire but you still have a fire extinguisher just in case." The thing is, if it was statistically more likely that my fire extinguisher would explode and burn down my house, or that someone would steal it and burn down another house with it, I wouldn't have one.

 

[IanS]

No one on the NRA side really cares about mental health. The mental health argument is just a red-herring. If they cared, they would be talking about background checks to include mental health screenings and the like.

I doubt if it would make any noticeable difference anyway. Because afaik in most if not all of the high-profile cases (and even more-so in less well publicised shootings), although the killer is often said to have been "mad", or if caught alive their lawyers may of course plead "insanity", they are rarely if ever actually mad or insane in the sense of suffering from a true mental illness such as paranoid schizophrenia ...

... afaik, and again people are welcome to correct me on this, the vastly more usual case is that the killer is psychologically or emotionally disturbed to some extent ... e.g., they hold some irrational or unreasonable grudge against a former employer, against a former school/college, or against a certain group of people (e.g. Muslims, or Christians, or some other group). In many of the less well publicised cases I suspect the killer may also be under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the shooting.

But the main reason why more and better mental health checks won't make much if any significant difference, is that perfectly normal people (or at least not noticeably or diagnosably insane or even emotionally disturbed) can change very quickly in a matter of just weeks or months from being outwardly perfectly normal, to developing some lethal dangerous grudge, obsession or fixation which leads them to do something very dramatic such as pick up a gun and start taking out what they see as ultimate revenge against those who have offended them. That is - people change ... and they can do that very quickly, with lethal consequences.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I want to address one specific... argumentative being used in the gun control debate.

//Note: And I get I'm sorta waffling back and forth between the two "sides" on this and hopefully that doesn't come across as too wishy-washy.//

"Nobody's saying we should ban all guns."

No, not in so many words. But I do think there are a not statistically insignificant number of people (no I'm not gonna sit here and define some X percent of Liberals or whatever) that are not comfortable with any level of private gun ownership and absolutely would push for a total gun ban (or something functionally equivalent) if it was politically viable.

Let me put it this way. Whenever a Republican says they don't want to ban abortions they just want to "make sure they are being done safely" or "Make sure women are given all the tools they need to make the right decision" and then they propose some dumb ass nonsense like "Abortion Clinics have to meet the medical standards of that secret underground medical laboratory from the Andromeda Strain" or "Women have to listen to the fetus's heartbeat, pick out the college the fetus would hypothetically attend and paint the potential baby's room before having an abortion".... do you believe they aren't honestly trying to ban abortions or at believe that that isn't at least their goal?

Because that's what (some) liberals sound like when they say "I don't want to ban guns."