We’ve known how to meaningfully address this for ages - with the side benefit of actually improving lives - and neither party is willing to pursue it as it lies outside partisan wedge-driving around various bans.
Bullshit. Democrats would be happy to try ANYTHING to solve this issue.
Republicans have blocked every avenue.
Do not both-sides this extremely one-sided issue.
Bullshit. Democrats would be happy to try ANYTHING to solve this issue.
And yet they’ve pushed literally nothing but various restrictions and bans focusing on firearms rather than attempting to address underlying root issues.
Do not both-sides this extremely one-sided issue.
Don’t pretend a failing of both parties is somehow only a failing of one.
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As another poster highlighted, blue team doesn’t want to kill the golden goose.
As things stand, they have a perpetual wedge issue to capitalize on, they have no obligation to actually put up as voters are too willfully ignorant to actually hold them accountable, and they get to profit off blue-aligned media every time they sensationalize such a thing, all while not actually having to address the pesky class/inequality issues they depend on.
They have absolutely no incentive to change status quo.
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Mass shootings make up a tiny albeit horrific number of gun injuries and deaths. Suicide is the top spot, domestic assault and other crimes are next, followed by accidents/negligent discharge, and way down at the bottom of the list is mass shooting. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ we need to focus on the whole issue. One thing is clear though, more guns is not the answer.
I’d argue the quantity of firearms is largely irrelevant unless you only care the thing was done by firearm.
Guns are very effective at killing, something like 5% of people attempting suicide by gun are unsuccessful. Other methods have a much higher rate of survival. Taking the guns out of the equation means more lives saved.
Taking the guns out of the equation means more lives saved.
May mean more lives saved, even if it were feasible.
Alternatively, addressing the suicide motivations and pressures addresses all means of suicide - not just those by firearm.
Or perhaps improving the conditions that leads to most suicidal tendencies. Access to healthcare, mental health care, livable wages, housing, etc. Not addressing these issues is social murder.
You’ll excuse me if I don’t hold my breath waiting on Republicans and centerist Democrats to deliver on those items.
And yet you believe they’ll deliver on making firearms go away? Is it more or less likely, in your estimation?
So that answer to suicide by guns would be to make people not want to kill themselves so much, maybe by making a less desperate world to live in, such as by ending capitalism – but you instead just want to make a statistic not look as bad by making suicide less efficient?
You’re being obtuse and not making a good faith argument so I refuse to give a substantive response.
They’re highlighting the glaring flaw to your symptom-focused measures and the risks of clutching pearls about a specific subset yet they’re not making good faith arguments? Lol.
Look cognitive dissonance!
I don’t see anything in the article that suggests the new office will only focus on mass shootings. While identifying and treating potential mass shooters would be great, they only account for a small percentage of overall gun deaths.
Do you believe the overall pressures toward non-mass firearm violence are so different as to not overlap?
I do not.
Maybe the pressures are the same, but that has nothing to do with how you prevent him violence. Your article is super specific to mass shootings, and this office, as far as we can tell, is about all gun violence.
Maybe the pressures are the same, but that has nothing to do with how you prevent him violence.
Other than highlight exactly what pressures to address, you mean? Given they are the pressures behind firearm violence? Those pressures?
Your article is super specific to mass shootings, and this office, as far as we can tell, is about all gun violence.
… which is why I highlight and ask about that overlap between the two.
You’re linking an article about a study funded by Biden’s justice department and the other poster is right about your both sides comments
The OPs article is about an office Biden is creating for this exact type of research too.
I understand the frustration. I have a 13 year old who his mom has tucked away in gun loving rural America.
But your both sidesisms are not helpful.
Who wants to bet this is the only thing we will ever hear of this study?
To that point - where have you seen it mentioned, cited, referenced, etc. anywhere, even in threads such as these?
In contrast, how often do you see PR campaigns around Giffords or Everytown nonsense?
You’re linking an article about a study funded by Biden’s justice department and the other poster is right about your both sides comments.
Care to support that?
The OPs article is about an office Biden is creating for this exact type of research too.
Right - Biden, of AR-ban fame.
It remains to be seen whether or not this office will support any research or just parrot Everytown.
I understand the frustration. I have a 13 year old who his mom has tucked away in gun loving rural America.
But your both sidesisms are not helpful.
I don’t believe you do, given your refusal to hold blue team accountable for their failings here in doing anything beyond focusing on symptoms. I’d argue such willful partisan blindness is less helpful.
Funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice
From the article you posted.
The rest is math. They decided to do the project in 2019. Grants take anywhere from 8-20 months to get funded. It also takes time to put together the application.
Biden’s Justice department funded this research. And since you’re being rude, for ages was clearly bullshit too. You linked an article talking about research that was conceived in 2019.
From the article you posted. The rest is math. They decided to do the project in 2019. Grants take anywhere from 8-20 months to get funded. It also takes time to put together the application.
Ah, I see - you argue that a department is Biden’s for nothing more than his being President at the time.
And since you’re being rude, for ages was clearly bullshit too. You linked an article talking about research that was conceived in 2019.
Don’t project.
You could argue it was exaggerating, sure. It doesn’t change the information has been available and continues to be summarily ignored by both parties.
The NRA (and GOP), have been stifling this type of research for years. So yes, I doubt the justice department under Trump would have approved their research grant.
I forgave your hyperbole the first time, as you said, it was an exaggeration. Then you came at me like I don’t care about my son because you think I have political bias.
I’m an anarcho-syndacalist. And I’m sure there’s a lot of other far left people down voting you. I’m not sucking the Democrats off. And acting like both sides are to blame isn’t helpful.
The Democrats are sick of gun violence and I’m sure they’re aware of the research the justice department, under Biden, funded.
The NRA (and GOP), have been stifling this type of research for years. So yes, I doubt the justice department under Trump would have approved their research grant.
The NRA hasn’t been doing anything but fundraising for the GOP for quite some time.
There’s not much reason to doubt such a thing - it would be one thing if there was a clear pattern of this institution rejecting such based on the current president but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I forgave your hyperbole the first time, as you said, it was an exaggeration. Then you came at me like I don’t care about my son because you think I have political bias.
I’m not sure how you interpreted my response as a criticism that you don’t care about your child, though I do understand how such would make a person defensive. To be clear, I don’t believe you understand my frustration.
I’m an anarcho-syndacalist. And I’m sure there’s a lot of other far left people down voting you. I’m not sucking the Democrats off. And acting like both sides are to blame isn’t helpful.
I’m somewhere around left-libertarian, not that it matters. I find much common ground with an-com and an-syn and generally find these labels to be somewhat meaningless distinctions when considering the sheer overlap of beliefs and values.
Intentionally withholding responsibility from one of the sides present in the equation, one which continues to ignore these inputs in favor of their own wedge-issue positions, is not just not helpful but is actively harmful.
Or do you truly believe there’s absolutely nothing blue team could or should be doing here to use such findings in addressing the root issues of the most sensationalized facet of firearm violence which quite likely overlap with the rest of firearm violence?
The Democrats are sick of gun violence and I’m sure they’re aware of the research the justice department, under Biden, funded.
Their complete lack of action in line with the findings of such research combined with continued action in favor of their dear bans would disagree.
Their complete lack of action in line with the findings of such research combined with continued action in favor of their dear bans would disagree.
This will be probably be my last response.
Near the same time the article you linked was published, the Justice department started moving on, quite possibly, the very research they funded and that was discussed in the article.
Red flag laws and community based violence intervention. Those are the two things the researchers suggested, no?
Anyway, I think you made up your mind ages ago and there’s nothing me or anyone else can say that will change it.
Take care.
They know better than to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.
How about you allow the CDC to register official statistics on gun deaths and injuries?
With that data you can then at least start to shut-the-fuck-up-bitch-slap any gun advocate that claims that “arming teachers is the solution” and work on actual measures that will solve this issue
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So long as they’re in the context of overall homicide, suicide, and injury, sure.
It would highlight the severity of the overall issues so we might get some focus on addressing these societal pressures and - just maybe - improve lives.
Here’s the trick… the Nashville shooter had no criminal record and bought the guns 100% legally. There is no gun restriction that would block someone who passes the background check from buying a gun.
BUT:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Nashville_school_shooting
“Hale was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally purchased seven firearms, including three recovered from the shooting scene, between October 2020 and June 2022.[1]”
If someone is under psychological care, should that be allowed to pop up on a background check? Maybe not as an instant disqualification the way a court ordered commitment or conviction would, but as an advisory note? Leave it to the discretion of the firearms seller? “By the way, this person is undergoing psych care, you could be held liable if they use this firearm in a crime.” That kind of thing?
Because right now, the only stuff that shows up on the background check are things that were ruled on by a judge, and sometimes not even all of those.
For example:
The guy who shot up Michigan State University:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Michigan_State_University_shooting
“McRae was arrested in June 2019 for carrying a weapon without a concealed pistol license.[38] Initially charged with a felony, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful possession of a loaded firearm as part of a plea agreement in November 2019.[39] He was originally sentenced to twelve months’ probation, which was later extended to 18 months, and in May 2021, he was discharged from probation.[35] Because McRae was not convicted of a felony, his ban on possessing weapons ended with the end of his probation.[40]”
Arrested for a felony gun charge, pled out to a misdemeanor, did his time, did his probation, was allowed to buy guns again.
Had he been convicted of the felony, he would have been blocked from owning a gun. The misdemeanor was not a barrier and did not appear on the background check.
Maybe it should have? Maybe ANY gun charges, felony OR misdemeanor should bar you from gun ownership?
Stopping people in therapy from owning guns is a good way to stop people from getting mental health care.
And anyone who has therapy billed to insurance has a mental health diagnosis. That’s just the nature of healthcare billing in the U.S.
I agree, but what’s the alternative?
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The Supreme Court specifically addressed that in 2016 in my favorite one of these cases because it didn’t initially seem to involve firearms:
Caetano v. Massachusetts - 2016
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caetano_v._MassachusettsWoman was being threatened by an abusive ex and bought a taser for protection.
MA charged her saying that tasers didn’t exist at the time of the 2nd amendment, so she had no right to own one.
Enter the court:
“the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding” and that “the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States”.[6] The term “bearable arms” was defined in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and includes any “”[w]eapo[n] of offence" or “thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands,” that is “carr[ied] . . . for the purpose of offensive or defensive action.” 554 U. S., at 581, 584 (internal quotation marks omitted)."[10]
Anything you take into your hands for defense is allowed under the 2nd amendment. So, no, you don’t have the right to a cruise missile or a tactical nuke, but if you can carry it, it’s yours.
So I can carry Sarin gas “for the purpose of offensive […] action”? How about a non-grandfathered automatic weapon? Hand grenades? MANPADS?
This ruling is nonsense, along with the expansion of the second to self-defense 15 years ago. We’ve banned the stuff that could support a rebellion and legalized the stuff that’s just good for murder.
Gas is banned by the Geneva convention, so no. Grenades are classified as “destructive devices”, so no.
Automatic weapons are fully allowed so long as you’re willing to do the paperwork and pay the tax. It’s not an easy process, and it’s SUPER expensive, but it can be done.
Who the fuck cares what the Geneva convention bans? That’s a nation-to-nation treaty. We won’t use this if you won’t, not “no one can ever use this”. And the very fact that you approve of “destructive devices” being banned but not handguns proves the whole damn point. The 2nd is about rebellion, but we let the government defang rebellion while playing to petty interpersonal fears. You don’t need a constitutional amendment to define the rules regarding fighting off robbers, you need it to define the rules for fighting off the government.
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So to call for a ban on semi-auto means just about all firearms.
I suspect they know and that is the actual intent.
Of course. Just waiting for the “No one wants to take your guns” comment. But everything they propose as “common sense” would do just that. But it also very likely that they just have no idea what semi-auto means and just repeat what’s on TV. That’s the extent of ‘critical thinking’.
Semi automatic weapons existed at the time.
Furthermore, following that logic leads to TV, Radio and the Internet not being protected mediums for the first amendment. I don’t think anyone wants to think about the power that decision would give the government.
I’m not sure you really want carry permits to be more like driving a car. Go to the local branch and take a written 15 minute test to get an initial permit and then take a brief range trip for basic proficiency 6 months later and at 16 you can get your license. As long as you don’t get caught doing major bad things you can just pay a fee every 4 years and keep your license. If you commit small infractions you pay a fine and move on. Just don’t get caught more than once a year. What’s a little negligent discharge every now and then really hurt anyway. Plus if you do commit a large violation we’ll just suspend it for a couple years and after 30 days you can apply for a hardship permit. Plus your license is valid in all 50 states and most foreign countries.
Excellent highlights - I’m saving this for future reference. I hadn’t really considered the glaring flaws to such an approach and you highlight them well.
While I like your idea, also consider the adverse impact: people will sometimes not treat their mental disorders anymore because they could pop up in a background check.
There has to be some more nuance to this. I didn’t study law though,so idk how to make it better.
Yeah, I don’t know how to make it better either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But when you start looking at the shooters who had documented mental health issues that never showed up on background checks, it gets a little scary.
Right now, it only counts for the background check if it goes through a Judge.
So when the Jacksonville shooter had an involuntary mental health hold under Florida’s Baker act, that didn’t stop him from later buying the guns completely legally:
Same with the Buffalo shooter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
“In June 2021, Gendron had been investigated for threatening other students at his high school by the police in Broome County.[20][58][64] A teacher had asked him about his plans after the school year, and he responded, “I want to murder and commit suicide.”[65] He was referred to a hospital for mental health evaluation and counseling but was released after being held for a day and a half.[20][64][66]”
Same with the Parkland shooter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkland_high_school_shooting
“The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated him in September 2016 for Snapchat posts in which he cut both his arms and said he planned to buy a gun. At this time, a school resource officer suggested[94] he undergo an involuntary psychiatric examination under the provisions of the Baker Act. Two guidance counselors agreed, but a mental institution did not.[95] State investigators reported he had depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However Psychologist Frederick M. Kravitz later testified that Cruz was never diagnosed with autism.[96] In their assessment, they concluded he was “at low risk of harming himself or others”.[97] He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.[98]”
Maybe only include it if it’s an involuntary mental health hold and/or have practitioners have an option to report if the individual should in their opinion be barred from purchasing a firearm (with the capacity to revoke that opinion, if their situation changes)?
These guys have quite a few suggestions meant to address prevention up through mitigation.
Maybe ANY gun charges, felony OR misdemeanor should bar you from gun ownership?
In general I’m not opposed, but I think that needs to come with some sort major reform to make our gun laws more consistent across the country, because currently there can be situations where you can be legally carrying a firearm in accordance with all of your state laws, but make a wrong turn or miss your exit and cross state lines and you’re technically committing a felony because the laws are different in that state. Then you’re just a burned out tail light away from prison time if you get pulled over and the cop finds out you have a gun.
Not that it’s a super common situation, but it’s not totally outlandish either, and I don’t think that’s exactly the kind of person we want to punish with these laws, especially since those are the sort of thing that you know would be enforced inconsistently- the white guy gets directions back to his home state and the nearest AutoZone to fix his tail light and sent on his way, and the black guy gets arrested on the spot (if not tazed, beaten, or shot)
That’s absolutely true and something I think about when I leave the house.
I live in Portland, Oregon which is just a river and a bridge away from Vancouver, Washington.
I have a concealed carry permit for Oregon, but Oregon and Washington don’t have laws for reciprocity.
So my carrying concealed in Oregon is perfectly legal, but would get me in trouble in Washington and vice versa.
So it’s contingent on me, the gun owner, to be aware of the laws and remain in compliance. Mostly going “Do I need to go to Vancouver today?” If yes, leave the gun at home.
From my personal experience, I live near Philly, which is similarly a river and a bridge away from NJ, where gun laws are drastically different. I don’t drive in the city super often, and there are some real doozies of confusing intersections, at least one of them is right by a bridge to Jersey, so once or twice I’ve gotten stuck in the wrong lane because city traffic sucks and no one would let me change lanes, and so I had to make a quick detour into the garden state, find somewhere to turn around and head back to the city of brotherly love. At no point was “go to Jersey” on my itinerary, and yet it happened.
I don’t carry a gun, but if I did that would put me in a potential bad position. As it is, I can take that detour to Jersey with impunity and only be out a few minutes of my time and maybe a couple bucks in tolls and gas rather than make some unsafe turns and lane changes trying to stay on the PA side of the river. If I did carry a gun though, that becomes a matter of weighing the risk of a potential felony in Jersey against the risk of driving like an unsafe asshole in PA. That’s obviously kind of a shitty choice I’d rather not have to make.
I live in TN and have a carry permit. Last week, I had to drive up to PA.
During the drive, I passed through TN, VA, WV, MD, and PA. Every single state honored my permit except for Maryland. I had to stop in WV, disarm myself, unload the gun, then lock the gun and ammo into SEPARATE locking compartments in the trunk. In order to be legal by federal law, I had to straight-through Maryland without stopping. Fortunately, on 81, Maryland is only like 15 minutes, but still - if I had had some kind of emergency, had to get off the highway, and got pulled over for any reason, it would have been a firearms charge.
I pulled off at a gas station to do the unload, got witnessed by some random lady getting gas, who promptly panicked, jumped in her car, and sped off. I expected to get blue-lighted the entire way to PA after that.
I’m really fucking tired of the inconsistency. Make some laws, fine, but make them fucking consistent. Don’t make me have to spend an hour online digging through different states’ laws just to make sure I don’t become an accidental felon.
Fortunately here there are only 2 paths to Washington and you pretty much have to do either intentionally.
I-5 gets backed up so you sit in traffic for 20-30 minutes before you hit the final exit in Oregon.
I-205 has the exit to the airport before you’re on the bridge to WA so it’s kind of hard to miss.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It’s a move long sought by gun-control activists, who have been privately advocating for such an office for years and it comes as hopes of additional gun reform legislation seem unlikely.
Murphy has been a leading proponent of gun control legislation since the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Conn., that killed 20 children and six adults.
The new office is expected to be led by Stefanie Feldman, currently White House staff secretary, who has worked on policy issues with Biden for more than a decade.
Reports about the announcement were praised by advocates like David Hogg, who co-founded March For Our Lives after a mass shooting at his high school in Parkland, Fla. five years ago.
Advocates say Biden’s new announcement helps show he is willing to act unilaterally on an issue important to young voters – at a time when he needs to energize this crucial voting bloc ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“We need a White House team to focus on this issue on a daily basis,” said Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance, a grassroots organization started after the shooting.
The original article contains 657 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
You know what’s a good way to prevent shootings? People not having guns. You guys in the US should try that sometimes…
OR…we could actually tackle the problem at it’s core and create meaningful changes that would curb the violence over all without even touching guns:
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Ending the War on Drugs
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Ending Qualified immunity
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Properly funding our schools and not just rich white suburb schools.
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Build more schools and hire more teachers for proper pay so the class room sizes aren’t 30-40 kids for one teacher.
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Single Payer healthcare
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UBI (at least start talking about it) once AI takes over most of the blue collar jobs.
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End for profit prisons
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Enforce the laws already on the books
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Make sure there are safety nets for poor families so the kids don’t turn to violence/gangs to survive.
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Increase the minimum wage
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Recreate our mental healthcare so kids don’t turn to the internet for support. And to help veterans not end up as a suicide number.
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Actively make a law to solidify Pro-choice rights. More unwanted children do not help our situation.
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Banning Insider Trading for Congress
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Term limits
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Ranked Choice Voting so we can move away from a 2 party system
Very good, very nicely done list. Add to it strict gun control and it will be very close to perfect
Yea gun control isn’t solving shit. We don’t have a gun problem we have a society one…mexico has some of the strictest gun control out there but tons of deaths. Same with Brazil… it’s society.
Yeah, let us just fix all the society problems real quick. Then we only have to worry abour kids killing themselves and each other with random guns lying around, some suicides, and very occasional family feuds turning murders. But that all is a very reasonable price to pay, those are just people, who the fuck cares.
Or we could just touch guns instead of pretending we only need to completely fix every aspect of our society instead.
450+ million firearms. When they effectively banned firearms in Australia…60% was the turn in rate. You know how many millions will be left? Which the majority will stay in the crimals hands? And that’s if 60% handed them in. It’s not happening
270 million fewer firearms sounds great. Australia’s 60% turn in rate wasn’t 100% and it worked, and having fewer firearms in circulation means fewer firearm deaths and fewer firearms available to criminals and a continual reduction over time as new firearms aren’t added to the system.
Gun nuts just throw shit at the wall to see what sticks. Sometimes it’s that all those guns aren’t a problem, sometimes it’s that it’s too big a problem. You’re just tedious.
Australia had around 1mil firearms in civ hands, they also didn’t have anywhere near the level of violence we do. Those 270mil firearms will come from mainly people who collect them. It won’t magically make the other 180mil safer. Most criminals get their firearms from straw purchases, not theft.
Australia had around 1mil firearms in civ hands, they also didn’t have anywhere near the level of violence we do.
It’s almost like they impact each other.
Those 270mil firearms will come from mainly people who collect them.
Great. Find a new goddamned hobby that doesn’t end up distributing guns into communities through theft and careless transfers. Not to mention when one of those “collectors” just decides it’s time to start killing people like the Las Vegas shooter.
Most criminals get their firearms from straw purchases, not theft.
Buyback should be paired with greatly restricted purchasing. Fewer and harder purchases with more tracking means fewer straw purchases and over time fewer guns. Machine guns are hard and expensive to get in part because you’re not allowed to make or sell new ones.
Or, if you contend it’s really just straw purchases that are the problem (and want to ignore the legally purchased guns used in crimes all the time), then lets lock that down. Register every gun, require background checks for every sale, and hold the last known owner liable if it’s used in a crime and wasn’t reported stolen.
So you’re end goal is to ban guns completely?
Yeah, now Australia is having their human rights stripped away at an alarming rate. What a victory for liberty!
Owning guns is “Human Rights”. You guys are so fucking weird.
270 million fewer firearms sounds great
No, that sounds terrible
I wish you the best of luck in addressing that symptom in a society where such bans aren’t commonly-supported, where the law isn’t conducive to such, where there’s such an incredible established base of ownership, and where “fuck the government and/or police” is the prevailing theme.
By all means, when you’ve discovered some way of meaningfully and feaaibly surmounting these, share with the class. You’ll be the first to have done so.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will focus on the root issues - the pressures toward violence - rather than only caring someone decided to use a rifle to when finally pushed to the brink.
Ending the War on Drugs
Sure. So do you mean fully legalizing all drugs for recreational use? Or just not cracking down on pot? Or something in between? I’d want to know exactly what you mean by this one, in detail.
Ending Qualified immunity
Disagree. Dramatically limit Qualified Immunity, but don’t eliminate it entirely. Sometimes violating a law is required in the process of enforcing other laws. So, only extend qualified immunity as far as the officer in question can prove to a jury that the officer’s violation was actually required for law enforcement.
Properly funding our schools and not just rich white suburb schools.
Since schools are run at the state level, the simplest way to do this would be to pool all the tax revenue ear marked for schools at the state level and distribute based on student population. Something like $X + $Y/student, as some costs are basically fixed but others directly scale with student body size.
Build more schools and hire more teachers for proper pay so the class room sizes aren’t 30-40 kids for one teacher.
The previous item would probably directly fix this for the worst outliers.
Single Payer healthcare
Obvious. Sure, it’ll raise everyone’s taxes but well implemented it would raise everyone’s taxes by less than what they are already paying for insurance + copays. The rough part would be when it first happens, as a bunch of people who have been avoiding medical care that wasn’t going to immediately kill them for financial reasons flood the system in the first months under it.
UBI (at least start talking about it) once AI takes over most of the blue collar jobs.
This is one of those things where it, something very like it, or some drastic change in the entire economic system is going to happen, and it would probably be better for everyone if it was well thought out. I’m personally fond of the idea of UBI + single payer healthcare, removing most other forms of public assistance aside from a few narrowly targeted programs (single payer eliminates most of your health care government programs, UBI replaces at least SNAP and TANF, etc). Then, eliminate the minimum wage, replacing it with a maximium wage (essentially the total compensation of the highest compensated employee must be no more than X% of the median employee or Y% of the lowest paid employee, whichever is lower - the C-suite can’t get a raise without the workers getting one too).
End for profit prisons
Another obvious one.
Enforce the laws already on the books
Your literal first item is specifically about not enforcing laws already on the books, and the second is about limiting what an officer can do to enforce the laws already on the books. I assume you have specific laws in mind with this item?
Make sure there are safety nets for poor families so the kids don’t turn to violence/gangs to survive.
UBI/single payer would already solve this.
Increase the minimum wage
This is very much a choose one or the other sort of thing - do you want UBI or a high minimum wage? Because they solve the same problem, and the UBI solution also doesn’t indirectly harm people who were making more than the new minimum wage but not dramatically more.
Actively make a law to solidify Pro-choice rights. More unwanted children do not help our situation.
This should have been done 40 years ago. Roe was a shoddy decision from a legal standpoint. While I’m pro-choice from a policy standpoint, Roe was never more than a band-aid and should never have been treated as more than a band-aid.
Banning Insider Trading for Congress
Another obvious one. Though that would make them easier to bribe, so that might require additional enforcement. Maybe make them keep their assets in a blind trust while holding office.
Term limits
For who? Everyone? Just Senate? Just the House? All of Congress? SCOTUS? How many terms? This is one of those things where a lot of details are sorely needed.
Ranked Choice Voting so we can move away from a 2 party system
Sure. Either Ranked Choice, Preference, or something else that approximates the Condorcet winner.
This is all pretty typical progressive policy positions but out of the entire list only 2-3 are actually about gun violence. No amount of term limits, ranked choice voting, or cracking down on Congressional insider trading is going to impact gun violence, for example.
I started reading your comment expecting to disagree with a lot of what you said but ended up doing the opposite. You seem like an intelligent person. Maximum wage in particular is something I’ve never heard of but seems good in theory. I could see this being easily circumvented by corporations just registering their different departments as their own businesses though.
That’s just a question of implementation. You could easily do something like count wholly owned subsidiaries as part of the parent corporation.
The whole point of a maximum wage is that it essentially creates a curve for compensation - the more the top gets paid, the more at least half the employees have to be paid and the more the bottom employees have to be paid.
This means that huge corps like Amazon and WalMart have to pay substantially more to be able to pay what the executives they want will demand but small businesses operating on thin margins can get away with lower pay. Which means it simultaneously promotes small business and does a measure of wealth redistribution from the obscenely wealthy.
Also UBI and minimum wage solve the same problem and UBI does it better so it makes sense to go with UBI and drop minimum wage.
Ok… what do you tell the parents of children that will get killed in the meantime? Because your solution is a good way to solve the issue in 30 years.
30 years!? If the US does five of these things in the next 50 years I’ll eat my hat.
Stay strapped or get clapped?
Yeah, let’s give guns to kids because clearly the solution to gun violence is more guns!
It’s a joke hun. 🙂
Will they? How likely is a parent to actually have to have that discussion?
More likely than anywhere else in the world!
School shootings are rare even here in the USA. We’ve had 15 since columbine, still to many but acting like they happen every day is bullshit. Even NPR called it out with this article:
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent
Source on the 15? Because your article dates from 2018.
What’s the leading cause of child mortality in the USA?
What’s the leading cause of child mortality in the Canada?
I’m using both these countries because they’re very close, geographically and culturally…
Hint: One starts with a G and it’s not the same as the other!
Edit: By the way, I didn’t bring up school shootings, just child death, funny you tried to switch it to school shootings only…
It’s near the bottom.
And child death? More children drown in pools each year than die from guns. Cars are still the number one cause of children dying.
Ah, you have nothing but hyperbole. Fair enough, this is about what I’d expected.
-Can’t handle the truth? Guns are the number one child killer in the USA, it’s the only country where it’s the case.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761
And cars are just getting safer and safer, can you say the same about guns? Oh no, you can’t, because killing is their purpose.
Which is largely irrelevant; try comparing our rates of child death by violence overall to other countries. I think you’ll be surprised at how the US stacks up.
None of this changes the mentally ills right to go shoot up a school,office,building or anything.
They do, however, provide the necessary institutions to reduce pressures and otherwise provide de-escalation options preventing those individuals from wanting to “go shoot up a school,office,building or anything”.
That would be the entire point to addressing the actual underlying issues.
-
We try, but we are surrounded by stupid
It’s also talks like this (or rather the threat of this) that got Trump elected. Guns in America are not going away.
That’s just idiots being idiots and an election system that doesn’t make sense.
Gun owners that are dumb enough to make gun ownership their only compass to decide who to vote for even if it goes against their general best interests would have voted Republican no matter who was there as a candidate.
In the meantime here’s reality when you’re the country with the most guns/people
Gun owners that are dumb enough to make gun ownership their only compass to decide who to vote for even if it goes against their general best interests would have voted Republican no matter who was there as a candidate.
There are a lot of single issue voters out there, who will vote for whoever takes their stance on their one issue regardless of anything else.
Frankly, this is one Democrats need to drop - any bill they might pass is either a violation of citizen’s constitutional rights or isn’t going to do much to curb actual gun violence. At the same time “Democrats want to take away your constitutional right to bare arms” is one of the easiest wedges to draw people to vote for ever-shittier Republicans. And most of the people doing the shooting don’t particularly care if their gun is owned legally or not.
The Constitution has been amended in the past and could still be amended and it wouldn’t be the first time that an amendment removed a right to ownership.
Right, but that requires, you know, amending the Constitution. Which requires 3/4 of the states sign on. 3/4 of the states are not going to sign on to throwing out the 2nd Amendment. 2/3 of states wouldn’t sign on to that. I don’t think you could even get 1/2 of the states to sign on to that.
Especially because no Republican is going to vote for it, and neither is anyone representing a rural area. And we’re talking state legislatures, and Dems aren’t great at expanding their influence in state legislatures.
How likely do you believe that is?
Are you aware of what’s required to bring about such a thing?
I dunno, you tell me how many people, especially children, need to die for people to wake up
Is there a threshold of sensationalism of such events that changes the number of states required to ratify the thing? That would change the number of supporting Congressional members?
I’m amazed you still believe this is feasible despite the lack of support for such a measure.
You’re preaching to the choir. But that doesn’t change anything. Those idiots are a massive number of voters, and they were willing to elect an obvious terrible presidential candidate because of the threat of losing their guns.
Even if democrats wanted this, there is literally no path we could take towards this. So saying, “get rid of your guns and you won’t have a problem” is the least helpful thing somebody could say.
Have you considered… not making the threat?
No, surely it’s the voter’s faults for rejecting candidates for their stated positions…
Guns aren’t the issue that makes fascists vote fascist. Even if you make gun violence activist shut up completely they’ll just lie and say they’re under threat anyway or that trans people are going to steal their children or Christians will be banned from buying gas stoves. Every single Democrat not appropriately muzzling themselves isn’t what causes Republicans to vote Republican.
Yes please use the GVA as a source of truth…NPR and Mother Jones both called out that site as bullshit.
It’s just a list of all shootings in the USA, that’s data without analysis.
No it is not, its not been called out multiple times for how error prone it is. People who use it as factual loose all credibility with anyone who knows anything about gun violence.
Funny how I search for “gun violence archive unreliable” and I don’t come up with anything… Except for the “Second amendment foundation”… Have you thought that maybe it’s the people calling them out that are unreliable and that have an agenda that GVA goes against? 🤔
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/gun-violence-archive/
They provide their methodology and a source for all shootings. Just because Jo nobody calls them out doesn’t make them unreliable.
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/no-there-were-not-355-mass-shootings-this-year/
That’s 5 seconds of liberal/left bias places calling out the bullshit numbers.
Gotta vote for the fascists so we can have our personal arms in case the fascists take power.
One could suspect blue team politics of having stock in Ruger etc. given the sheer extent to which firearm sales spike every time in reaction to blue team’s nonsensical ban rhetoric.
How about we create a government bureau… like a regulatory agency that specifically deals with firearms. To save money, maybe they could deal with a couple other things too, something not too overwhelming though you know, so they could mostly focus on firearms… maybe like alcohol and tobacco, since the FDA and USDA kinda already covers lot of the policy and licensure of those things anyway… we could call it the bureau of Firearms, Tobacco, and Alcohol, or FTA for short…
I mean… I’m just saying…
What noooo we need another government office to
give cushy administration jobs to Biden’s supporterstotally solve gun violence for realzies this time
