Come and Take It!
As attacks on libraries, librarians, and books escalate, I think it's time to be a bit more defiant. This image takes inspiration from the banner created for the Battle of Gonzalez during the Texas Revolution.
In general, words on a flag are a terrible design choice and you should never, ever do it. I'm willing to allow an exception here. That Texian flag has also been updated by various groups over the years. The cannon is often replaced by a rifle to represent defiance to regulatory overreach against guns and gun owners. I am also a fan of Deterrence Dispensed, and they have a version, too. There was even a coronavirus meme with a roll of toilet paper! I think that elevates this from historical footnote to full-fledged meme.
Freedom is one piece, and anyone who claims a need to infringe anywhere should be seen as suspect. Books, guns, weed, it's all interconnected. The more they make excuses saying it's "for the children," because of "public safety," or to "protect the vulnerable," the more you should suspect their honeyed words are a veneer of decency covering tyrannical intentions.
Image created in Canva. Please share widely. No attribution required. Information wants to be free.
Ah.... I'm not sure you can put book and guns in the same sentence. School kids are murdered in their classrooms while they are trying to learn, by guns in the US. Banning books, however, is just politicians trying pretend they're actually doing anything.
Schoolchildren are not murdered by guns, they are murdered by people. People who were arguably broken by the school system. Banning or restricting guns is also just politicians trying to pretend they're actually doing anything. Schools have been "gun-free zones" for 33 years. This disarms potential victims instead of protecting them. Violent crime and mass shootings do not correlate with gun ownership within the US, and per capita mass shootings are higher in many countries with more restrictive gun laws.
I don't think that's correct.
The children killed in school shootings are absolutely murdered by guns... by bullets shredding their bodies at high velocity. They're not being punched or choked to death by people, they're being shot... in their classrooms... with guns.
Without guns, the murderers wouldn't be able to kill nearly as many children in these school shootings.
Politicians don't want to ban guns... they love receiving money from the NRA. It's parents and citizens who want common sense gun regulations. The majority of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center want more gun regulations. That's not politicians, those are your fellow American citizens.
I don't know about mass shootings per capita, but by school shootings the USA has a very serious problem:
19 Countries with the Most School Shootings (total incidents Jan 2009-May 2018 - CNN):
United States — 288
Mexico — 8
South Africa — 6
Nigeria & Pakistan — 4
Afghanistan — 3
Brazil, Canada, France — 2
Azerbaijan, China, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kenya, Russia, & Turkey — 1
Source
by -> with
Okay, murdered with a weapon that shoots 60 rounds per minute, enabling the murderer to kill more children in their classrooms.
Do you have any personal experience with firearms? You keep throwing out random nonsense like "60 rounds per minute" as if you are regurgitating someone else's talking point instead of making any real effort at discussion. Repeating rifles have been a thing since the 1860s. Semi-automatic rifles have been for sale to the public since long before militaries adopted them.
After World War II, the M1 carbine was a popular surplus semi-auto. It was made with a wood stock, but it was a mag-fed semi-auto with widely-available "high-capacity" magazines. The AR15 went on sale to the public in the 1960s. Before it exploded in popularity as prices fell later on, the Ruger Mini-14 has been for sale since the early 1970s, and is also a semi-automatic in .223/5.56mm with readily-available "high-capacity" magazines.
I don't remember school shootings being a thing until Columbine (also an attempted bombing, BTW). That was during the Clinton gun ban, and long after the gun-free school zone act. This is decades after "high-capacity" semi-automatic rifles and pistols became popular in the firearm community.
People wanted to blame guns, video games, movies, and TV then. People still want something they can ban today so it looks like they are doing something. However, this is completely irrational. And the loudest cries of action are from people who don't know a damn thing about the topic at hand.
I've fired a 9mm at a firing range a couple of times and my grandfather won a ridiculous amount of awards for marksmanship with rifles... but that's my only experience. I don't own any guns and have never fired a semi-automatic rifle.
The US has a huge number of school shootings annually and large numbers of mass shootings and firearm deaths of children. This is a problem that seems to be increasing, and is a problem worth addressing.
Do you think school shootings are a problem worth addressing? If so, what are your proposed solutions?
My very first post on this blockchain was Basic Firearm Safety and I have considerable experience with firearms. Imagine if someone who never drove anywhere tried to declare how traffic laws should be written and enforced. Can't you see how absurd that might be? It's almost like the armchair quarterback certain he could lead a team to victory better than the pro athletes on the field.
I think it is a problem worth addressing, I just reject your proposals as misguided and unjust. Correlation is not causation. Again, guns have been banned on school grounds by federal law for about 33 years, and the result is an increase in school shootings. Meanwhile, firearm sales have grown and restrictions on carry have been relaxed while overall violent crime has plummeted. If you want to make a correlation/causation argument, the basic data suggests we need to just allow teachers and other school staff to arm themselves if they wish.
What if the very structure of modern schools is detrimental to mental health? We aren't just seeing more shootings. We are seeing suicides, substance abuse, gender dysphoria depression, and other widespread signals of a deeper crisis. The symptom is not the disease. And school isn't necessarily the only factor. I am just pointing out the single most influential institution in the lives of the youth should not be overlooked. We also have economic chaos, over 2 decades of war abroad, the collapse of religious institutions and the nuclear family, government de facto segregation policies, toxic social media, and a legacy media which thrives on tragedy, and innumerable other factors all spiralling into the issue.
Can't you see how "regulate guns" entirely misses the mark now?
I don't disagree that all those factors are contributing and important, extremely important, but the problem with this argument is that lots and lots of other countries have very similar issues. This deeper crisis affects both developed and developing countries all over the world... and yet the USA has dramatically more school shootings than other developed countries. Why is this?
I think there are a slew of reasons, but a major contributing factor is the ease in which someone can legally buy high-powered weapons and ammunition.
Giving a 50 year old, overworked, underpaid, overweight, stressed-out, female English teacher the option to carry a pistol in her workplace I don't think is enough to deter an 18-year old to walk into her class with a loaded semi-automatic rifle and a gym bag full of ammunition. The teacher would be the first one killed. Teachers would also start to be targeted by gangs as a means to get more weapons. It would just make schools more dangerous.
An AR15 is not at all a "high-powered weapon," it's just an intermediate-caliber semi-automatic rifle. Again, firearms fitting this general description have been on the civilian market for over 100 years, and long before the AR15 became affordable, other rifles filled that same niche. So why indeed have school shootings become prevalent? It's not the availability of rifles, no matter how much you imagine that to be the root cause.
The funny thing about firearms is that they create an equality of sorts between overweight, middle-aged women and young aggressive males. And I am not saying teachers should be required to carry, only not forbidden from carrying. This doesn't make them a guaranteed source of anything except risk to would-be wrongdoers. School shootings seem to be the domain of one or two aggressors, not gangs. And it is precisely the victim of gang violence who benefits from the higher magazine capacity and faster firearm operation which seems to scare you about semi-autos.
You present scenarios based on fear and ignorance combined with blind faith in legislative solutions handed down from on high. I argue based on the principles of self-ownership, personal responsibility, and individual rights. Again, I ask you: if I decline to obey an edict, yet harm no one else, why should I be deemed a "criminal?" Do you really advocate violence against me because I dissent and disobey?
Semantics of firearm specifics aside, the point was that someone with the reflexes of a young man with a weapon that can fire rapidly against someone who is stressed, underpaid and armed with a pistol is not going to be an equal battle... and therefore likely not a deterrent.
If the availability of the weaponry is not the root cause, then why does the US have so many more school shootings than other developed countries? Other countries have all the problems you listed previously, but the USA has so many more school shootings. If not the ease in obtaining the weaponry then what is it?
I answered your question in length already. Your question is too simplistic and doesn't take into consideration the wider societal affects. What works for one individual doesn't necessarily work for every single person within a society. You might be able to handle Fentanyl perfectly safely, but that doesn't stop it being a societal issue. That aside, the changes I'd like to see probably wouldn't affect you at all unless you have convictions for domestic violence or known mental health issues related to violence.
How many school children are you willing to witness being murdered in their classrooms before you're able to look at solutions that have been successful in other countries?
The USA is a massive outlier in school shootings. This problem has been solved in numerous other countries.
I'll take experience of age and training over unfocused youthful aggression any day. Your refusal to accept the deterrent effect of increased risk of effective resistance is irrational. It takes very little consistent training to be reasonably proficient, and it wouldn't just be the teachers. Janitors, the principal, clerical staff, the lunch ladies, librarians, everyone has the natural right to self-defense with the most effective technology they wish to use. Disarmament is trespass.
If the availability of weapons is the root cause of violence, why is it only manifesting in mass shootings at "gun-free zones" while violent crime rates overall plummeted, and most violence is associated with black market drug trade and economic segregation? Do you know what else started spiking in the 1990s? Drug prescriptions for kids. Antidepressants, ADHD medication, and other psych meds meant to help them cope with the antisocial school structure imposed upon them. You look at the guns as the root problem. I suggest we look at the schools themselves.
Your answer of government violence is too simplistic. How many people are you willing to see murdered to impose your dystopian ideal? We already see brutal police abuse against people who are making, selling, and consuming drugs in spite of prohibition. Alcohol prohibition created violent gangs in the 1920s. Government violence is not the answer, it is usually in fact the root problem of societal ills.
Without guns, there are still pipe bombs (Boston Marathon bombing), truck bombs (Oklahoma City bombing), mail bombs (The Unabomber), and other mass murder options for those with ill intent, to say nothing of poisons, biological weapons, etc. Banning guns will not address the root cause of the violent impulses, and only serve the demonstrate the Politician's Syllogism yet again.
Using real government violence against peaceable people who have harmed no one does not solve crime, it institutionalizes crime. Governments are by far the greatest mass murderers in history, and democide dwarfs "private sector" murder rates. You present raw numbers of incidents, not deaths per capita. You also treat the US like a homogeneous whole when it has more states, more land mass, and about 3/4 the population of the entire EU.
How easily can people get access to bombs? How easily can they purchase poisons or biological weapons? How many school children have been murdered in their classrooms by bombs or poisons?
The problem is the absolute ease that people in the US can get weapons of war to carry out their ill intent against innocent school children.
Nearly half of US parents are worried about their children getting shot Source... how many people in the US are truly worried about the government murdering them versus a random lone gunman with a high-powered weapon?
I understand your concern, really I do, the US government has never proven itself to be trustworthy... but my question to you is what percentage of school children would it take to be affected by gun violence before you'd change your mind on gun regulations?
Many deadly poisons are (or can be made by mixing) household chemicals. Fertilizer has been used to make bombs. Black powder can be made at home.
Guns are not "weapons of war" by default. The obstacle erected to prevent people from buying guns do not promote safety. Crime does not correlate with firearm ownership rates or types of firearms available.
Appeals to fear and popularity are irrational. Do you know what the real trend has been in violent crime over the past 35 years? It was dropping before the Clinton gun ban in the 90s. It continued to drop after Bush allowed that law to end per its sunset clause. It has dropped as states relaxed restrictions on carry. It remains high in two key areas: 1. impoverished neighborhoods with gangs and a black market in drugs, and 2. "gun-free zones."
No misdeeds by others can ever justify anyone infringing on peaceful people. Should crypto or cash be banned because they are "preferred by criminals"? No. Same for firearms, even machine guns. "But what about the children" is the exact same argument used by these book-banning Karens who prefer state violence as a solution to their fears.
What are the leading causes of death of children in the United States of America?
It's not poison. It's not bombs either.
At what point is the "cure" (guns) for "government violence" worse than the disease (children being killed by firearms)?
What would it take to change your mind on gun regulations in the US? What percentage of school children affected by gun violence will it honestly take to change your mind on this? 100%?
People who want common sense gun regulation and people who want to ban books are not making the same argument. The people who want regulations on guns are trying to solve the very real problem of children being shot in classrooms. Too many children are being murdered in their classrooms in the USA. That is a real problem that requires a solution.
Book banning is just religious people trying to enforce their views on others. They are very different arguments... the similarity is that children are involved in both scenarios.
How many "firearm-related deaths" are suicide or gang violence as opposed to school shootings? How does a ban address the root problem? How many instances of war, genocide, and police brutality will it take for you to change your mind about governmental legitimacy? We are facing a mental health crisis and a police state crisis. Blaming guns and demanding new laws is scapegoating, not taking serious responsibility. Your faith in political solutions is religious.
Honestly, I think there is a ton of work to be done in the USA to solve the violence affecting children.
I would absolutely love to see more resources devoted to mental health services, to housing, to solving rampart drug-use, etc. I absolutely want to see far more accountability for police in the United States. Police are absolutely a huge problem in this country, especially in their actions towards underserved communities.
If an increase in mental health services decreased gun violence in the United States, great, amazing, let's do it. If putting more resources into communities reduced violence, then awesome. I'm all for that.
To me, common sense gun regulations are part of the overall solution, and I might be wrong here, but they also seem like the easily place to start... the quickest win as it were, especially with buyback schemes that have been successful in other countries.
There is a problem with the amount of gun violence in the USA that I think needs to be solved.
Right, now you're starting to get it. The problem, however, is that the quick and easy solution is rarely the best.
First of all, judging by the rates of violent crime in your own country, I think it's safe to assume that the 1996 gun buyback didn't actually do anything. I sincerely doubt that gun buybacks in general are actually effective, even if the violent crime rate decreased afterwards. Correlation does not equal cause.
Second, the problems usually start in the public school system, which is why I mentioned the "public school to prison pipeline," in reference to the fact that the Prussian model (which American schools are based on) is an absolute failure, and @jacobtothe could explain why if you don't already know, because I can't be arsed to explain at the moment. I was spared from that experience, fortunately, otherwise I may very well have turned into a murderous psychopath... okay slight exaggeration there, but maybe you see my point.
Third, consider what I told you about the average school shooter, and bear in mind that not only are these (usually) boys abused at school, they are also neglected at home. Parents who don't want to raise their children stick them in public school and don't help them with their problems. Some people shouldn't be parents, simple as, but I don't think the government should be making the determination of who can or cannot be a parent; as before, Russia has this problem too, as @taliakerch routinely mentions.
Common sense gun regulations are part of the solution though.
Australia has 3 firearm murders per 1,000,000 people and the USA has 32.
I don't think that's correlation. That's because firearms are not easy to get in Australia which is part of those reforms. The buyback scheme got 650,000 firearms out of circulation, that has an effect on violent crime.
The murder rate in Australia is 1.3 per 100,000 people and in the US it's 5.
There are obviously a whole lot of factors that contribute to this. The Australian tax rate is really high, and a lot goes into services for mental health and low-income communities, but one of those factors is the inaccessibility of handguns and semi-automatic rifles.
The problem isn't with public schooling per se... it's with the resources that go into low-income areas. Lots of public schools have minimal violence, but when you have entire communities with very little opportunity, then violence increases.
Absolutely agree with your third point. The introduction of abortion laws and the outlawing of lead paint in the US had a significant impact on lowering crime 20 years later. The US is a great case study on this because the different states enacted different laws at different times so you can see the actual causation.
Hopefully reducing neglected children is something that countries and states get better at over time with family planning and health services... but if there are children that are neglected, you definitely don't want them to have easy access to high-powered weapons.
Judging by your reaction to my explanation of Russian gun laws, I'd say you call those "common sense," so what does the following data tell you?
From 1990 until 2022, the "intentional homicide rate" (which is different from "murder rate" for strictly legalistic reasons) in Russia spiked from 14 to 33 per 100,000 people in 1994, then dipped down to 23 in 1998 before going back up and spiking again at 31 in 2002, and it has declined every single year since then. According to the Russian government (NOT a reliable source of information), the murder rate in 2022 was 3.7 per 100,000 people. However, according to independent studies, it was 12 per 100,000 people back in 2014 (the most recent year I was able to get an independent study from), at a time when the Russian government reported only 8 per 100,000 people. In other words, despite Russia's gun restrictions and relatively low rate of firearm ownership (approximately 9%), the murder rate is either comparable to or roughly double that of the US. The only source of information in English that contradicts the trend and reports an increase in 2022 is a single article in The Moscow Times, which claimed that Kommersant reported 296 additional murder cases from 2021. That same article mentioned that this data conflicts with official reports from the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs). Feel free to read the report for yourself, but it's all in Russian.
The last time that the Russian government confiscated civilian-owned weapons en masse was in 1941, not to combat gun crime or put down a rebellion, but to supply the woefully under-equipped Red Army. In fact, to the best of my knowledge (and as before, @apnigrich can fact-check me), Russian gun laws, at least those with respect to what citizens are allowed to own, have remained virtually unchanged since 1924, the year that Iosif Stalin took over.
Granted, comparing data from only three countries isn't statistically significant, but the point is that I'm completely unconvinced that getting rid of guns would do anything for the US, even if people complied with a confiscation order (which is exactly what a mandatory buyback is). Curiously, when looking up this information, the same independent study reported that although the murder rate in Russia is more than double that of the US, the rate of rape is 17 times higher in the US than in Russia. I know that's not relevant, but I thought that was interesting.
17 times?!?!? That is... extreme.
I wonder if means rape happens less often, or if rape is less reported in Russia.
33 people murdered for every 100,000 people is absolutely huge. Very brutal.
This data tells me there are a number of factors at play; poverty, education, police response, resources, access to weapons, etc etc. Common sense gun regulations aren't the only piece of the puzzle... but I do think they are an important piece.
The US does have a precedent for this... in 1994 they passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that lasted for 10 years and only applied to the purchase of new semi-automatic rifles during that time (weapons already owned were not affected).
Source
You can see that when there were fewer mass shootings in the US between 1994 and 2004, and then a rise in mass shootings from 2005 to 2017.
I'm not an expert and I might be completely wrong, maybe common sense gun laws would not impact the USA in any way, but to me this problem seems big enough to try something to solve the problem. If the concern is that common sense gun regulations will do absolutely nothing, then do the same thing as in 1994 and have the act automatically expire... but at the moment the problem just seems to be getting continually worse, so the US needs to try something.
Oh bugger, here we go again.
The term "mass shooting" has been dishonestly re-defined to artificially inflate the rate and scare people, when the reality is that the overall violent crime rate has remained on a downward trend since 1981 in the US, as I believe @jacobtothe has already pointed out. What I mean is that, as violent crime (including gun crime) drops, the number of victims in a single event to categorise it as a "mass shooting" has also dropped. This is bog-standard statistical deception. As of 2013 per the FBI's criteria, the threshhold is 4 people being shot (not killed, simply shot; all four could survive and the event will still be called a "mass shooting" by the current definition), and the media reports on as many such events as possible in order to fearmonger with such headlines as "there have been more mass shootings than days in 2023". As much as I hate the idea of the government having a monopoly on the media, credit where credit is due, Russian state media such as RT doesn't do that... still, take everything they say with a
pinchfistful of salt.I wonder how many "mass shootings" were related to inner-city gang activity, which is usually committed with stolen guns by those who already have criminal records and are not allowed to own them under US law already (one of the demands I keep hearing is "universal background checks," which the US already does). Seriously, I have no idea, I'm left to wonder simply because of how many times "the shooter was known to law enforcement".
I think that's incorrect. Only 14 states have background checks on firearms (Source). As far as I understand, it's pretty easy to purchase guns at expos and gun shows is the some states without there being any record that you now own a firearm. Of course, the US has open borders between states, so there's nothing stopping someone from bringing a firearm into a state with background checks without anyone knowing.
I'm sure the majority of mass shootings occur between gangs... but to me the high number of school shootings, where kids are being murdered in their classrooms is the first problem to try and solve.
The media definitely tries to get as many clicks and views as possible, there's no denying that... but I think most Americans would not know how many mass shootings there have been in the US.
Apparently there has been 466 in 2023 (Source) but I've personally only heard about 10 of those.
Whenever you buy a firearm from a retailer, you are buying from a federal firearm license holder. You must fill out a federal form and pass a NICS background check in order for the sale to proceed. This is nationwide and has been in place for decades. It has a lot of false positives, too, in spite of technological progress.
Requirements for private sales have been added by some states, but this is not progress, it is overreach. A gun is just another object free people own freely.
In any emergency, the people there are the real first responders. The solution is simple. Instead of victim disarmament zones, allow teachers to carry a concealed weapon if they wish. Set a simple training standard. Defensive firearm courses abound. The risk/reward ration for violence dramatically shifts. When a citizen stops a shooting, the average casualties are a tiny fraction of when people must wait for the cops... if they even do their job in the first place.
Because my previous responses were so long, I never got to address the issue of economics, which I should, because @aussieninja does bring up a perfectly valid point, and that's the connection between crime and poverty. Economic downturn is the single largest correlating factor when looking at violent crime data. This is just as true for Russia as it is for the US. I don't have any data for violent crime in Russia prior to 1990, but I'm told it was relatively low until 1986... from civilians, anyway, whereas state-perpetrated violent crime was extremely high, just ask my maternal grandfather. Oh, wait, you can't, because he "fell off a train." Sure, comrade trashca- I mean commissar, was that before or after you shot him in the back of the head?
Anyway, the high murder rate in Russia in 1990 correlates to the economic situation, which was bad. Very bad. Between 1989 and 1990, the inflation rate was a whopping 2600%. The 1990s were no better, and the economic situation didn't begin to improve until Vladimir Putin implemented his own economic reforms and the country finally started to rebuild. The economic situation has continually improved, and the violent crime has continually dropped. I've seen it firsthand, because the last time I visited my hometown of St. Petersburg was in 2007, and other than the well-maintained tourist attractions such as Peterhof Palace, much of the city looked like it hadn't been touched since the siege was lifted in 1944. Okay, slight exaggeration, point being it was a wreck. However, @tatdt lives there, and she routinely shares pictures of the city. I recognise some of the locations, and they look nothing like when I was there. The city has changed a lot in the past 16 years, and everything I've seen so far looks like it's for the better.
Furthermore, where the crime is committed and who is committing it is the same in Russia as it is in the US: the inner cities. In Russia, this is gopnik territory, which most people avoid as much as possible. It's a fair assumption that drugs are also involved, and drug laws are just as ineffective there as they are almost everywhere else.
The bottom line is that the data shows a strong connection between economic prosperity and low violent crime. Since we know that free markets are more prosperous than command economies, I don't think it's much of a stretch to conclude that freeing the market would eliminate most violent crime.
Calling something "common sense" doesn't meant it's actually common sense. That is dishonest debate.
It's not my intention to have dishonest debate. I'm using that phrase because its widely used in the US media. If there's a better phrase to use I'm happy to adopt that.
My use of 'common sense gun regulations' is to differentiate from banning guns. "Banning guns" as a phrase is too confusing... which guns, which accessories, etc etc.
By 'common sense gun regulations' I'm talking about things like permits/licenses, tracking all gun sales, gun registries, requirements for gun lockers, no licenses for people convicted of violent crimes/domestic abuse, etc etc. Instead of writing that all out each time, I used that phrase, but again, it's not my intention to be dishonest, I'm trying to be more exact.
He's not going to listen. He's just going to keep brow-beating you until you make some kind of concession. I thought he was a useful idiot, but now, I'm starting to think that he's just another narcissistic moral busybody. Arguing with such people usually feels like this after a while:
I'm absolutely willing to listen.
I totally understand why people would want to own single shot rifles for hunting, but I don't understand why someone might need to own a firearm that can fire 60 rounds a minute.... especially now that we know so many innocent children have died in school shootings to those types of weapons.
If there is a real reason why citizens need those weapons that is more important than the lives of those school children I'd love to hear it.
Your failure to understand is irrelevant. Your are building a false choice when you present either owning modern firearms or protecting children. You are also deliberately ignoring the violence necessary to enforce these arbitrary edicts and the dearth of evidence that firearm freedom is the root cause of violence in society.
Why are your fears more important than my liberty? Why do you advocate government violence against peaceful people as a solution to your fear?
He completely missed the point of my arguments as well. When I informed him that countries which restrict access to firearms tend to have a lot of knife crime, he deflected to "gUnS dO mOrE dAmAgE tHaN kNiVeS."
When I informed him that his statistics are lies by omission, he said they weren't misleading.
When I informed him that the majority of gun crime in the US is committed with handguns, he expressed support for banning them as well, not just semi-automatic rifles. Apparently he really liked my brief explanation of Russian gun laws, and fully supports implementing them in the US. I don't. Russian gun laws are a wee bit restrictive IMO, but I could at least live with them, unlike British or German gun laws.
Are more children killed by knives in Japan or England than by firearms in the USA?
Obviously knife crime will rise in the USA if common sense gun regulations were introduced, but I imagine the overall numbers of school children affected by violence would be lower. Is that not a fair assumption?
That assumption is not remotely fair, and you basically admitted that your solution is bollocks anyway: "just keep banning implements until citizens have nothing left to kill each other with, and don't ever address why they want to kill each other in the first place... because that's hard, banning stuff is easy."
I'll put it this way: I hate football, and I hate football hooliganism even more. Should we ban football to stop football hooliganism, or should we figure out the underlying reason that football fans are so truculent?
Look, if pouring resources into mental health services, police reform, low-income communities, etc all reduce gun violence in America, without having to change any gun laws, then great. Let's get it done. Whatever it takes to prevent so many children dying needlessly.
The problem is that the solutions never seem to get implemented either. No one wants to pay higher taxes, or decrease military spending, to pay for those services.
So yes, I'd like to see:
to help decrease the violence in the United States.
The quickest win, to me, is the gun regulations. It would likely have an immediate positive effect, where the other solutions may take years, decades or generations to really improve. Very happy to be wrong on that.
I want to see the government get out of medicine and stop extorting the populace for the "public services" it offers as a facade for funding a military-industrial complex for war abroad and police abuse at home. You want the police to enforce arbitrary "regulations" which require threats of violence against peaceful people.
Again, first principles matter. I advocate for a society where people interact by mutual voluntary consent. Firearm ownership does not violate this concept. In each instance, you advocate for a nanny state imposing coercion instead. Why do you believe this to be a solution?
One of the stats often included in "gun death" statistics is suicide. Japan has a far higher suicide rate than the US despite the absence of guns. You can't legislate away the root problem.
That's not correct:
Source
In your original post you treated banning books, guns and weed as equally insane. I agree that banning books and weed doesn't solve many problems, and is more likely to cause more problems in society.
My objection to your statement is that guns are in a very different category, and that common sense gun regulations would reduce problems like school shootings. I'm not advocating for banning guns at all... but I do think something needs to change to solve the uniquely American problem of school shootings. I think the real solution is a number of things, including increased mental health services and resources for underserved communities, and I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I haven't seen anything yet that leads me to believe that common sense gun regulations would not decrease school shootings in the USA.
My data may be outdated. Until recently, japan far outpaced the US. same source. However, the point that firearms ownership is not a demonstrable cause of suicide remains. Fixating on the guns misses the mark. You can't argue against my point that violent crime has plummeted from its peak in the late 1980s, with no demonstrable effect from the Clinton-era gun ban. Guns are not the root cause of suicide or violent crime.
Guns are inanimate objects. Drugs are merely substances people choose to injest. Books are filled with ideas. People may choose to use any of these to endanger themselves or others. Bans and restrictions are the wrong response in each instance.
I don't advocate for government violence against peaceful people.
Is a child in the United States of America more likely to be killed by a firearm wielded by a US citizen... or by government violence?
Aight, Ima post this again:
Also, have you ever heard of the "public school to prison pipeline"?
When Australia banned semi-automatic rifles and handguns in 1996... how many people were killed in that process? Was it more than the 35 dead and 18 injured massacre that prompted the regulations?
I have heard of the public school to prison pipeline. The USA needs to do a lot more to help its population avoid poverty. The USA is the world's richest country but for a huge slice of its population the opportunities are bleak. I would love the USA to put more resources into helping those communities. It would likely lift the economy of the entire country.
RazörFist phrased it best when he said "what you demystify, you disarm, what you demonize, you attract the impressionable to."
@aussieninja is hardly a unique case, as you may have guessed. I have never seen an honest argument for gun control. The people presenting the arguments may honestly believe what they are saying (thus making them useful idiots), but the arguments themselves are always dishonest in one way or another, from misleading statistics to misinformation about guns themselves.
I've known many people who were terrified of specific guns, and even guns in general, simply because all they know about them they have heard from legacy media propaganda. I've managed to "cure" one such person, and I'm working on two others. Luckily, my neighbour owns an AR-15 and I own this thing:
so exposing people to such items and informing them that what they've been told is wrong isn't all that difficult.
That is misleading data, because it ignores all the mass killings committed with knives in those other countries.
BTW, I'm from Russia (though I don't currently live there), and I can tell you that the overall violent crime rate is about twice that of the US, but again, the actual numbers aren't going to be nearly as high on account of the fact that Russia has about half the population. Furthermore, what is true of school shootings in Russia is also true of school shootings in the US: nine times out of ten, the perpetrator is a dejected young man who was failed by the system but had no prior criminal record, hence no-one was watching him.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Russian state media doesn't sensationalise mass murder the way that western media does. In fact, it's so rarely reported on that you have to do a lot of digging to find out about it. According to the Russian government, we don't have half the problems that we actually do.
Feel free to show me the data where Child Deaths were caused more by knives than with firearms in the United States...
Source
It's very unlikely a bad guy with a knife is going to do nearly the same kind of damage as someone armed with an AR-15. To me it makes sense to try and tackle the actual problem causing the real harm. Tackle gun regulation first... tackle knives afterwards.
Knife crime is more of an issue where guns are not easily accessible, such as in Japan or the UK. It is as @jacobtothe has been saying this whole time: people with violent intent will use whatever they can get their grubby little paws on to commit violence. The underlying cause of violence needs to be addressed, not the implements used to commit it.
Edit: also, I have seen this deliberately misleading graph before. It omits children under the age of 1, because if it didn't, firearms would no longer be the leading cause of death.
Right... but a bad guy armed with an AR-15 is likely to do way more damage to a classroom of children than a guy armed with a knife.
That's my point. It's not comparable.
The graph isn't misleading, it shows that firearms cause more death of children in the USA than knives do. If your argument that knives are just as dangerous or more dangerous than firearms then I'd love to see some data on that.
The fact that you fixate on the AR-15 and you defend this misleading information means that you aren't actually interested in protecting children. If you actually cared, you would be proposing Russian-style gun laws. What I mean by that is that roughly two thirds of all gun crime in the US (including school shootings) is committed with handguns, whereas semi-automatic rifles are used in less than 1% of gun crime. Handguns are flat-out illegal for private citizens to own in the Russian Federation, but semi-automatic rifles are not (@apnigrich can fact-check me on this). I know of four school shootings that have taken place in Russia since 2009, and in every single one, the weapon used wasn't a rifle of any kind, it was a shotgun, which is the only type of weapon that a Russian citizen may own for the first five years of holding their firearm license. Everyone I've ever spoken to agrees that the five-year smoothbore restriction is the dumbest of Russia's gun laws, primarily because a shotgun does a hell of a lot more damage than a rifle.
I'm not fixated on the AR-15.
You said that knife crime is more of an issue than guns, and I was pointing out that someone armed with a high powered weapon is more dangerous than someone with a knife... and that knives don't seem to rank too highly in the stats of children's death in the United States.
I would absolutely support regulations on handguns in the USA. 100%! Completely agree. Making handguns illegal for private citizens in the USA sounds like an incredible step forward and I think lots of lives would be improved in the world's richest country if that were to happen.
OK. I have no intention of complying with your proposed regulation. What now? Do you believe your fears really justify using violence to coerce me into compliance? How does that make you the good guy in this scenario?
Just to be clear, I'm advocating for common sense gun regulations, not a ban on guns.
I'd love a ban on handguns, but I also know it would be extremely difficult and maybe impossible... so I think there are a number of important steps before it came to making handguns illegal:
1.) Require licensing/permits for firearms.
2.) Ensure all firearms are tracked and recorded.
3.) Impose gun safety requirements (lockers, separation of ammunition and firearms etc).
4.) Removal of firearms license/permits for other crimes.
Even these steps will be difficult, but I definitely think it's worthwhile to reduce the gun violence in the USA.
I see it similar to owning a car. You can drive around without a license and never be caught... but if you are caught then you risk fines and jail time. if you're firing guns on your property, hunting grounds or shooting ranges then you'd also expect to prove that you have the correct permits/licenses, or else risk fines or jail time.
Calling it "common sense" does not make it common sense.
A license or permit is, by definition, paying for permission to do something which is otherwise illegal. It does not guarantee competence, it just creates a revenue stream for government while creating a "crime" of mere non-compliance. Do you believe failure to comply with a regulation where no person or property suffered any injury really justifies fines, imprisonment, or death? That is the necessary and unavoidable consequence of your proposal.
One of the chief reasons to own firearms is to resist governments. A government which registers and traces firearms is antithetical to this purpose. Again, democide is a leading cause of death worldwide. Governments fundamentally do not represent the people as a whole or serve their interests.
Another reason to own a firearm is to defend yourself against two- or four-legged threats. Mandates for locks, separation of firearms and ammunition, etc. are antithetical, and serve only to again make "criminals" out of people who have committed no crime.
Revoking licenses for crimes sounds great until you see, again, how many acts and objects which are fundamentally not criminal are declared "crimes" by governments.
If people can drive safely without a license, and yet be criminals with its absence, where is the crime? I say the crime is with the law and its enforcement.
First principles: no victim? No crime. Simple as. You are advocating violence against people who have done nothing wrong because you imagine it will make you feel safer.
Drugs are illegal. Machine guns without a $200 tax stamp and registration are presently illegal in the US. Criminals manufacture or smuggle drugs anyway, and prohibition creates a violent black market which fuels a demand for guns. Blaming guns for gang violence is dumb.
Back to my initial point of press freedom, historically speaking, printing pamphlets and books without a government license was even illegal. People could face fines, imprisonment, or even execution for printing unapproved literature. How is that just? Sure, it was The Law, but legality doe snot define rationality or morality. You demand similar legislative threats against peaceful people and call it "common sense," when you are (knowingly or not) demanding violence against them. How can you justify this without appealing to emotion or some status quo in other countries?
@steampunkkaja, do you have anything to add?
Well, since we've so thoroughly covered both the moral and statistical angles to write a book on the subject, I think we should also mention the civic angle. Because the US is a constitutional republic, the legislature cannot simply pass a law to solve something. Look, I know that the government does unconstitutional stuff all the time, but the chief reason that gun control advocates will never get what they want is because it would set a dangerous precedent. Here, have another meme:
Outright repealing the 2nd Amendment (which a lot of people would love to see) would allow the government to repeal any of the other first ten. "Hate speech laws" for example, have also been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Thus, the government engages in constitutional "workarounds" with Silicon Valley corporations in order to manipulate the narrative because "private companies can do what they want," never mind that most big tech companies are publically-owned.
Furthermore, the massive surveillance state (think NSA spying scandal) was a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. Either citizens have a constitutionally-protected right to privacy or they don't.
Despite what the current dementia patient-in-chief has repeatedly said, Constitutional Amendments are absolute, and the statement that "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theatre" is just as invalid as the statement "you couldn't buy a cannon when the 2nd Amendment was written." The reason I bring that up is because far too many people who go after gun rights are also after free speech; maybe not in Australia, but it's certainly the case in every other country that has introduced stricter gun control in recent years; Switzerland, Canada, and Serbia are prefect examples.
The purpose of licenses and permits aren't to pay governments for access... the purpose is to prove competency. Lots of permits and licenses don't carry any cost.
You don't get a driver's license by paying the DMV, you have to pass a series of tests.
A gun permit shouldn't be provided to someone who knows how to handle a firearm safely.
Ideally you would want a licensed electrician, plumber, accountant, mechanic, etc to provide their expertise instead of some random who has no experience but is filled with unearned confidence they can do the job for you.
When flying interstate, I'm confident that the people in charge of the 787 are all appropriately licensed. Same if I need surgery.
Licenses aren't a revenue stream, they are the way that people can find an expert they need without needing to do all the background work themselves.
The way to resist governments isn't with firearms - it's with collective action. Physically fighting the entire US military will just end in lots and lots of death. Governments are there to represent you and your wishes, if they're not doing that then the people need to collectively change that. Shooting someone isn't productive, it takes organizing and protesting and getting representatives in that will look after your interests to make actual meaningful change.
There is a whole ecosystem in the United States to keep people divided, to keep people scared... fearful of other groups or anyone different, fearful of the government, fearful of criminals, etc... all to keep people in the US buying more and more weapons and accessories. It's obviously a huge business and extremely profitable, especially since fear also helps get clicks and views too. Keeping people divided is extremely profitable for so many reasons... but the solution to that is for people to unite and work together. A united people is an unstoppable force.
You are conflating licenses with certificates. A certificate is usually a prerequisite for a license, I am aware, but licenses expire; certificates don't. I don't need to prove I know how to hunt (or even how to shoot straight) in order to get a hunting license. All I needed to do was pass a safety/regulation exam and pay a small fee.
To hire, yes. But I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in another house built by one; electricians and electrical engineers understand the principles well enough to know what they can get away with doing, regardless of code. Ask any building inspector what sorts of illegal shit they've seen licensed electricians do in their own houses... I'll wait.
Yes, they are. Fees that pay for hunting licenses and game permits support state-funded wildlife conservation efforts. Likewise, public transportation infrastructure is paid for by drivers' license fees, vehicle registration fees, and petrol taxes.
"Коллективные действия"? Пффффт ХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХАХА!!!
Right... and if the work of Jordan Shanks-Markovina is anything to go by, those are rare, even in Australia. People who go into politics do so to make money, and they get elected on empty platitudes and false promises; Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the ultimate example of that.
Yes, and literally every single organisation that you have cited as a source thus far is part of that ecosystem. Throughout this entire discussion, you've been projecting your own propaganda-induced fear and paranoia onto us. I do not fear criminals precisely because I am armed. Almost everyone in my neighbourhood is... and so far, the only house that has been broken into has been one with no guns in it.
Remember, division is only one layer of propaganda, its ultimate purpose is demoralisation, and that's what makes it so evil.
I was a loyal Soviet citizen until the age of twenty. What that meant was to say what you were supposed to say, read what you were permitted to read, vote the way you were told to vote, and at the same time, to know it was all a lie. - Natan Sharanskii
I think you're right... but in the situation of obtaining your driver's license... I don't think you get a certificate first. Apologies if I don't have the semantics right... but my point was that you often have to prove something in order to be allowed to do it.
In the example of your hunting license, you had to prove that you knew some rules on safety before you're allowed to hunt.
My understanding is that in some states of the USA, you can purchase a high-powered firearm and ammunition at a gun show, with cash, and take it home the same day without anyone knowing you have it nor having to prove to an expert that you know how to use it safely.
If I'm trying to solve the problem of the high number of school shootings in the USA, that might be a scenario to tackle. You're not allowed to drive a car in the USA without proving to an expert that you can, I don't see any reason a high-powered weapon should be all that different.
Sorry, I should have said that licenses don't exist for the sole purpose of only being a revenue stream.
Politicians in the UK and Australia and many countries in Europe don't go into politics to make money... the public service is usually paid lower than corporate pay. This does often mean that the only people who can afford to go into politics are already independently wealthy or they are chasing power... but all that aside... the use of deadly force by the people shouldn't be the only way to make change. The people change governments in many countries without a deadly coup all the time.
In the case of dictatorships, yes, violence might be necessary, but hopefully a politically engaged population can prevent a dictatorship from occurring.
My intention wasn't to project my fears onto you.
My intention was to that I think the idea of banning books and weed is stupid, but the idea of banning guns is far more complex, and a problem like US school shootings can't be solved if people are against even discussing changes in firearm ownership.
You don't fear criminals because you are armed... but the majority of parents in the US fear for their children's safety in school. That is not usual in developed countries and I'd love for the US to try something to address that.
I agree with competency. Why do you believe a government monopoly is the best, or even only, way to train people? You clearly have zero experience with firearm culture in the US, just distorted media representations. What if trade unions offered guarantees for the work of union members instead of outsourcing to governments and insurance corporations? You appeal to the status quo and just assume it is right and proper without any examination.
I am not advocating civil war. I am advocating the same deterrence for the individual against trespassers you believe threat of legal action from government will impose on people who fail to comply. You, however, are advocating for open war against non-criminals because you believe in arbitrary laws enforced by men with guns.
People like you demanding government violence against peaceful people are divisive. However, unity is not inherently proper. Progress always comes through deviation from the norm, and appeals to popularity and consensus are irrational.
If I refuse to obey new laws, but do not violate the life, liberty, or property of others, how am I a criminal, and how is violence against me justified? Just answer that simple question.
I don't believe a government monopoly is the best.
I'm not advocating for open war against non-criminals.
I'm definitely not demanding for government violence against peaceful people.
The problem is the number of school shootings in the USA.
The solution, I think, is increased mental health services, increased resources into lower-income communities, increased gun regulations and police reform.
They're all complicated and expensive solutions but I think the number of mass shootings and school shootings is worth the increased effort and expenditure.
For school shootings in particular, I believe part of the issue is the ease and speed in which people can legally get themselves a high-powered weapon and then use that weapon on the innocent.
You think that the solution is to deter the shooters by increasing the number of guns in schools. I don't agree with that solution.
I personally think that limiting who can access those weapons (ie, people with a history of domestic abuse) and increasing the requirements so that people have to prove their competency would help reduce the numbers of school shootings. If a non-government agency is in charge of that process, that's fine, as long as there are results. It may take years to work out the systems and processes, which is unfortunate but understandable.
I know this answer is frustrating... but I think this is too simple a question.
All of our actions affect others.
Let's say you're choosing to purchase a pair of shoes.
There's two that you like... and you don't know anything about them.
One pair is made by child slavery overseas and the other is made by an American shoemaker.
You probably don't think you're violating the life, liberty or property of others... you're just buying a pair of shoes! People do exactly that all the time.
But buying the pair made by child slavery provides incentives, which forces more children into shoe-making slavery and you have actually, unknowingly, violated the liberty of someone else.
I see this in a similar way.
You having the freedom to buy an AR-15 in a private sale with no records whatsoever and no checks on your safety knowledge or intentions, also means someone with ill intent can do the same. By voting for representatives that push for unlimited access to firearms you do end up affecting the lives, liberty and property of others, even if that's not what you intended.
Living in a society is amazing. We don't have to do literally everything ourselves for ourselves. We can share resources and specialize and look after each other, but for society to work we do have to make small sacrifices in personal freedoms for the health and wellbeing of the group. From a purely selfish perspective, the healthier the group is, the better it can look after us.
Just curiously, how do you know you'll never violate the life, liberty or property of another? What stops you from snapping one day and shooting hundreds of people? What if you get drunk and accidentally shoot your neighbor's house? How can you be sure you won't develop dementia, get confused and shoot a girl scout in the face? What happens if someone breaks into your house when you're not home, steals all your guns and ammo and shoots up into a crowd?
If I had a mental health crisis, I'm probably pretty limited in the damage I could do... but if you had a crisis you could potentially destroy thousands of lives. That's a lot of responsibility.
Sure you can, especially if you're talking about things people love to try to ban.
And banning firearms will differ from that how?
Less people will be killed by firearms in the US.
You believe less people will be killed by people with guns.
Less people are being killed even as guns proliferate in the US, though. If your premise of more guns making the US more dangerous were accurate, violent crime rates should trend up as carry restrictions are relaxed and more firearms are sold. The opposite trend happened over the past 35 years, with zero demonstrable effect by the Clinton Gun Ban other than the increased threat of government violence against peaceful people.
We see violent crime largely associated with drug gangs, which is a consequence of government prohibition. Mass shootings are rare, and school shootings moreso. The US is a big country with a large population, an industry dedicated to sensationalist "journalism," and a lot of people broken by government institutions.
You keep asking what arguments will change my mind. What arguments will change yours? What facts, evidence, and reasoning will cause you to reconsider your premise that guns are to blame for violence in society?
That's a great question.
These conversations have already taught me a lot. I didn't realise death by handguns was so much higher than death by rifles.
As you've mentioned, there are a lot of factors at play in the violence in the USA, and so obviously it's always going to be hard to compare lots of different countries or states with each other.
To be convinced that access to guns are not a significant factor in violence in society, I think I'd need to see data from a range of countries with differing levels of firearm regulation on violent deaths, particularly of children.
Has the US become less dangerous over the past 35 years?
Mass shootings and school shootings are rare ways to die in the US, but both events seem to occur more frequently than in other developed countries.
You seem to be conflating making something illegal with making something unavailable. If this country's attempts at banning alcohol and drugs are any indication, the opposite is likely to happen. Less guns in circulation does correlate with less firearm deaths but in this country there's already more guns in civilian hands than there are civilians. Until someone comes up with a way to convince people to voluntarily give up those, politicians attempts to ban firearms will remain nothing more than 'trying pretend they're actually doing anything.'
Yeah, you're right.
To be honest, I don't think banning firearms is a workable solution in the USA.... but I personally don't think the current scenario of a vast array of weaponry available to private citizens is healthy either. I do think that the number of school shootings in the US is a problem worth trying to solve.
The intention behind my original comment was that lumping guns in with books and weed doesn't work because firearms are a much more nuanced conversation.
I am in complete agreement with you on that. Earlier this year we had a mass shooting here in my city, that is an experience I wish no one and no place had to go through. (You can see my posts on that here, here, and here.) We went through the same tired routine in the aftermath, and exactly nothing changed. We had another mass shooting before that week was through, although that one seems to have been more of a gunfight rather than a killing spree.
Gotcha, firearms are definitely a much more complex issue than the others, I was just taking issue with that complexity disqualifying them from a discussion on banning things.
Yeah, I was too flippant in my response to you and should have put more thought into my answer. I knew it at the time too, but I was too distracted with my responses to the other posters. Sorry.
Aw man, that is brutal. I've never been personally affected by anything like that and my heart really does go out to everyone affected. I really do think the USA could do better in this arena. I'm in the US but I'm not from the US and so I don't always understand the nuance and complexity, but I do also think I can bring some different insights and ideas to the discussion.
!MEME
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I completely agree with you about the importance of maintaining a defiant attitude towards restrictions on books, weapons, and other aspects of individual freedom. However, it's essential to remember that the balance between freedom and public safety is a complex issue that requires informed debate and consideration of different perspectives
I don't see a need to balance anything. individuals who violate the life, liberty, or property have committed a crime. People who own "illegal" objects or hold unapproved opinions have not.
How can I not understand it. We Cubans cannot speak freely because the government imprisons us with up to 20 years in jail. Do you think it is a crime to express yourself freely? Of course I understand what you mean. And you can't be more right. Greetings
Do you think if every moral and upstanding Cuban citizen owned a modern rifle, the Cuban government would think they could get away with putting you in prison for a good part of your life for saying something they didn't like? When governments have an effectively absolute monopoly of violence, they tend to do whatever they want to the people they pretend to serve.
Given the stakes you face, you don't feel like you need to reply. I think we're on the same page.
Socialists before the revolution: "Every worker must have a rifle! Every worker must speak out until we are heard!"
Dictators who take power after the revolution: "Not anymore though!"
Of course you are right. If the people of Cuba had guns, the dictatorship would have ended.
In general, white is a terrible background color for flags, they tend to get mistaken for surrender flags , as the Confederates discovered with their 2nd national flag.
Agreed. Again, I can make an exception in this case since it was a hasty expedient rather than a properly-designed flag.
As for text, I allow one other major exception, which I hastily parodied in Canva here with two variants:
Get a shotgun and blast them all to bits 😂 if they're unhappy about the books and whatever the content may be. You also have the right to be unhappy about them... Isn't that?
!BEER
Guns are loud, and blood is messy. Neither is appropriate in the library. Let's avoid that outcome. Besides, I don't like the idea of inflicting lethal force except in response to a clear and present danger of harm to myself or my patrons.
Fun fact: I have had patrons present concealed carry permits as ID. If some idiot did try something violent, they are likely to be in for a surprise. Out here in the middle of nowhere, not only are there a lot of permit holders, not everyone bothers with asking permission to carry.
More and more states have dropped license requirements over the past 30 years. Violent crime rate shave trended down over that same timeframe. I'm not saying there's a causal relationship, but those who think guns cause crime have some serious statistical challenges once we strip away media hype and yellow journalism.
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BEER.It is true that if restrictions are not imposed then people will not respect books or anything else. They will start respecting that way.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting restrictions will remind people why freedom they previously took for granted was important and valuable?
!LOLZ
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