On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
Hey I’m not super into politics, but maybe we should look into banning guns ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you need one for hunting or varmint control there can be a special license for that but you gotta admit we got a little problem with guns in America.
I have guns but if the day comes where they’re banned fuck it I’ll turn em in if that helps us move past daily mass shootings.
i dunno i think we should just pray more. that always seems to work after every mass shooting.
Prays are worthless without thoughts as well.
What they don’t tell you is every bad thought or greedy prayer cancels out a good one.
No, don’t you think that we should instead ban mental illness? Because I’m totally sure that will work out better.
I live in Australia, we have gun bans. We still have guns. It’s not even really hard to get them. There’s shops. It’s just more like getting a really easy drivers licence. It’s not about banning them. It’s more about screening the people who want to buy them, and regulating their use.
I’m in complete agreement though I do believe there needs to be an exemption for people like my parents. Every spring/summer they end up with something between 6 and 12 coyotes in their woods.
Lol I specifically said varmint control, if you live on land that has coyotes or whatever all the power to you.
Lol whoops I missed that
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Look at all this naysaying bullshit. Honestly 99.9999% of people aren’t going to lose their life over having a gun or not. Maybe a few guns will remain hidden or in black market or whatever, but how many more school shootings will it take before we actually try something instead of just pointing out the reasons it won’t be easy and throw up our hands?
It’s disgusting and I’m tired of it.
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I think the issue that a ban will take years to effectively cool the possession of assault weapons is not actually an issue worth stalling over. While a lot of people tend to look at a law as “if it’s not immediately 100% effective it is garbage” in reality if you call for a refund based recall it will take a chunk out of the total guns out there. Patience is nessisarily.
Seizures of weapons in illegal transport or market will eventually account for another chunk. Guns are regularly stolen from home break ins so a lot of personal arsonal will find it’s way into black markets. Over time when the things can be reported when used in gun clubs or spotted in the wild you take away a lot of the “fun” quotent of owning the weapons making surrender much more likely. The legal ramifications of finding the weapons in self defense cases motivates from another end. If you can’t use them for self defense then the argument of what the point of having them gets stronger. A lot of people own these weapons in part for the same reasons they do expensive cars - the joy of using them and the cashe of bragging and showing them off. While 2nd amendment stans might hoarde them for ideological reasons they probably are gunna be forced to make them hard to find and make sure they don’t mention them to young children who might narc on them making kids getting their hands on them less likely.
The more effectively useless and detrimental you legally make something over time you do wear away at the trouble and anxiety required to maintain ownership. What the US should aim for is long game de-escalation. If people don’t start the process it just means the payoff is gunna be that further down the road.
How it went is Australia (trust me, we had shitloads of guns, buddy) was, people who wanted to hand in the small selection of banned guns, did, the people who didn’t, didn’t. Then regularly the cops do an amnesty day, where you can hand in any illegal guns, no questions asked. If they change their minds. People still own guns. You don’t ban them all, just the unnecessary ones, and you regulate who can buy them, kinda like getting a really easy drivers licence.
I appreciate your candid attitude but how many mass shootings have you committed? None? Then how does turning in your guns solve this? The state once again failed to do anything when the perpetrator literally admired to be homicidal. Maybe there are gun problems other times, but this fucking wasnt one of those times
Well it’s both. Having access to such weapons when someone is mentally ill is a bad combination. And having mental health going unchecked just makes it hard to capture the rage.
The fact is this issue is not just the guns or the people. It’s both. And everyone trying to separate them is not understanding the true nature of the problem.
I have an idea, let’s just ban murder. That should work. Lol
It’s already banned. WTF are you on?
That was exactly my point, thanks.
Banning things doesn’t make them magically go away.
What is your point, exactly? Because maybe there’s a misunderstanding here, because you seemed to make a pro-gun argument by forgetting that murder is, famously, a crime.
If that’s the case, it would raise the question: do you think we should regulate gun ownership to lower the rate of gun violence, the same way that the penalties for murder are meant to lower the rate of homicide? Or do you think we shouldn’t criminalize homicide, the same way people don’t want to regulate gun ownership, because if it isn’t 100% effective then it’s not worth doing?
I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a joke. I was imagining a fictional character believing that illegal things magically can’t happen, and murder does happen so it must be legal, so the obvious solution would be to make it illegal so it would stop happening.
Ah, okay.
I was inclined to think you were serious because, believe it or not, it’s an argument I’ve heard before. Apart from random people trying to futz through an argument, Ben Shapiro complained that Democrats, when asked what they’d ban, didn’t say “crime.”
I should add in seriousness, I do think it’s important to recognize that laws don’t magically make things go away. Sometimes things are very hard to eliminate, and sometimes prohibition of something actually makes it worse like with the Drug War. But like you said about murder, we don’t say, “murder bans didn’t actually eliminate murder, therefore we might as well get rid of them.”
well, they’ve already shat on the rest of the bill of rights. what’s one more?
The Founding Fathers would never have signed the Bill of Rights if they thought it would ever be amended in any way, yeah. Great point.
Well when laws are woefully out of date they deserve to be shit on. That’s how democracy and progress works.
These aren’t laws they’re supposed to be guaranteed rights
How’d that eighteenth amendment work out for you? Just so you don’t have to go search for it, it’s the one that made production, distribution, etc. of alcohol illegal. AKA prohibition.
The 21st amendment eventually repealed it.
So these things are not set in stone as much as everybody would like to believe. They can and occasionally are amended, repealed, etc.
Thats not part of the bill of rights
The bill of rights are still just amendments. There’s nothing inherently different about their status as amendments.
Rights become out of date and change over time as well, with that brain dead logic we should still have the right to own slaves.
you can still own slaves as long as they committed a ‘crime’. also afaik there was no explicit guarantee on the right to own slaves prior to the ratification of the thirteenth amendment.
Prison work is not slavery since it is voluntary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#/media/File:13th_amendment_slave_labor_states.png
Instead of being simple minded linking a Wikipedia article you don’t understand you could instead search for a source of any US prison that enforces labor without consent.
The Bill of Rights is a set of laws, that’s what laws are.
In any case, who wrote the Bill of Rights in the Constitution? Men did. So, rules and laws were made by men for people. They were not ordained by God. They were written by people, and they can be changed.
How you gonna do that?
Are you more free because the GOP refuses to regulate the militia? These people aren’t. Are we more secure? Absolutely fucking not. Go back and read your precious bill of rights and tell us what the point of the second amendment is. Republicans wipe their ass with the bill of rights.
what
Are you dumb?
no u
Why are people with your positions rarely able to hold more than the most simple conversations?
what
I dunno man, if golfing killed 100,000 people a year don’t you think someone would investigate? Why should this sport be different?
As it is, the most dangerous sport in America (mountain climbing) kills 30 people a year.
you could argue golfing probably kills way more people you would expect with all that fertilizer and pesticide runoff
Let’s not let women or black people vote either /s
It’s fine, just because you want a killing machine doesn’t mean you or anyone else is entitled to it. Guns in 1776 were a little different than what we got now. I like guns and I think they’re neat, but the proof is in the pudding. They’re doing more harm than good.
Banning is never the solution. All it does is expand the black market. Those who want guns will get them.
If we have black markets for guns like Australia has them I think we’ll be in a much better position than we are today.
Australias were never gunfho as Americans about guns. American history is very short and not too long ago they used guns to get independence from britian, not to mention the civil war. Some believe that they will have to defend the country again in this lifetime, that’s why they value the 2nd amendment.
And some believe in Santa Claus. That doesn’t mean you should base laws on fairy tales.
If you want to defend your country with guns, join the military. Become a reservist.
Worshipping fear and delusions is the exact reason people like them shouldn’t own guns.
I mean… The rest of the world proves that you’re wrong. Like the whole world. They don’t have this problem. America does.
Right? Motherfuckers can’t afford rent or a home, but can shell out 10-15 grand for a black market gun lmao.
Most of the illicit guns people are buying are like $100 hi-point pistols. They’re not buying illegal ARs (also that’s what the Mexican cartels are doing).
Why even bother buying illegal ARs. They buy them in Texas .
The only thing expanding the black market is legal gun sales. Black market guns don’t just fall off the truck leaving the factory.
You know guns aren’t that hard to make, right?
Then why isn’t London full of homemade guns? If it’s not the availability of guns, then what is the reason the US has so many shootings?
London does have homemade guns. I wouldn’t say it’s full of them, of course, but they are there and they are a problem sometimes.
Availability of guns is obviously increased by the laws being such that large scale manufacturers can make and sell, as in the US. But it’s hard to disentangle America’s gun culture, gun availability, and its laws. America has so many more guns than the UK in large part because the gun played such a bigger role in US culture historically, you know, violent revolution for independence and settling the Western frontier and all that. Then once there are lots of guns more people need guns to defend themselves, and so on. That was all allowed by the laws. The culture perpetuates the laws, the laws perpetuate the culture, etc.
We had a shooting with homemade guns in Halle in germany in 2019. A nazi assaultet a synagoge. But his weapons were shit and he couldn’t kill anyone in the synagoge. So he shot random people on the street, killing two. If he had acess to reliable firearms the death toll would be much higher.
There are currently more guns than humans in the United States, and the reason is because industry mass manufacturers millions of these per year and they go on to the open market. While people could illegally manufacture ghost guns from a home workshop, if they were illegal these supply would be greatly diminished.
I don’t really think that’s an argument you can make.
It’s not really an argument. Other comment said “the only thing” contributing to the supply is manufacturers, like if manufacturers weren’t around guns would go away. I don’t think they would.
That isn’t even the issue here. This was an individual who was becoming more mentally disturbed and voluntarily checked himself into a psych hospital. It should not be controversial whatsoever that we enforce laws to remove guns from these individuals until the time an independent psychiatrist clears them.
This isn’t even just because of mass shootings. I’m worried about all the veterans with PTSD and depression who could commit suicide. We need to understand that taking someone’s guns when they’re in that state is helping them and could save their lives.
I will be the first person to protest if they illegitimately do this to people. I’m more concerned about the mental and physical health. Guarantee the return of their guns, or even allow a trusted individual to take them – just create incredibly steep charges if the person with custody of the guns hands them over prematurely and suicide or homicides happen.
None of this should be controversial. It literally helps no one to leave them with the guns. We can figure out a holding process for the firearms to ensure it isn’t abused to take guns away and that people have their property returned. But there should be absolutely no disagreement that people who are actively having mental health crises shouldn’t be near guns until they’ve recovered.
The corollary to your statement is that if we take guns away from people with mental illness, we are removing their ability to overthrow the government. This is a bad thing from the conservative mindset…
We want people to overthrow and kill people who are in the government, right? Right??
I know you’re playing devil’s advocate, but I’d point out that I don’t want to take away guns from people with mental illness, I want to temporarily confiscate them from people who are suicidal and homicidal until they receive proper treatment and stabilize.
After all, if they commit suicide, they won’t be very helpful for your (conservatives) ability to overthrow the government. They need to be alive, no?
Then let the get it guns in the black market. No reason we have to be selling military-style weapons to crazy people at retail.
This is a bullshit argument with no merit and you know it.
how successful was the war on drugs?
For the drugs, really successful. Drugs are doing great! Lol
At raising prices for people with money to pay off the law? Very
so, not successful?
I used to never smoke weed because it was so hard to get it just wasn’t worth the effort. Now that it’s legal and there’s a dispo right there, I always have my weed on me. availability matters.
On the flipside. Weed was always hard for me to get, so whenever I could I’d buy in bulk and it would last me for years.
Lol what a shit take.
it’s called an analogy you donkey
It’ll absolutely reduce the number of guns purchased and owned by the general population. Gun control isn’t an all or nothing situation.
It would almost certainly reduce the number of guns out there, I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Alcohol prohibition reduced the amount of alcohol and the number of consumers by a huge amount. What people would argue, however, is that Prohibition made the alcohol that was out there much more dangerous. They’d also argue that gun prohibition would reduce formerly legal owners by (made up numbers) 90% while only reducing already prohibited owners by 10%. Is that a net gain or a net loss?
Most people who do not have guns are totally uninterested in obtaining them. They currently face danger only from people who have them. They would face less danger if fewer people had them. This is purely statistical fact and is observable across the entire world. The US is unique both in gun laws and in gun deaths.
Gun laws, yes. Gun deaths, not as much The US does have a lot, I won’t argue with that, but I would not say it’s unique.
Gun crimes are committed by a very small portion of gun owners, so the statistics aren’t so simple. It’s like minnows and whales in sales. The issue is that if someone wanting to commit a crime is choosing not to because they worry their victim might turn out to have a gun and shoot them in defense, and then you remove that deterrent you end up with more crime. The number of guns randomly distributed would seem to correlate with increased violence and crime, but the distribution matters a lot. If you double the number of guns but somehow limited them only to the least criminal and most responsible, you’d probably actually decrease crime despite the number of guns going up. So whether a 90% decrease amongst good gun owners with 10% decrease amongst bad gun owners is actually a net positive, I’m honestly not sure.
I’ll put it this way, there’s never been a mass shooting where I live. Not one in my entire life. There’s only been a handful of people who’ve died to guns at all, and all of those people were killed by armed police officers.
The stats speak for themselves. Each bad gun owner can mass murder 20-30 people if they so choose. And if you’re gonna commit a mass shooting I don’t reckon you really give a shit if someone else there has a gun. Probably pretty laissez-faire about living at all if you’re willing to mow down as many people as you possibly can. That doesn’t happen here. That is a product of your country that continues to happen over and over again.
I do live in the US, and there’s never been a mass shooting where I live, either. The US is a very large place. Things vary quite a bit from place to place. A shooting totally could happen near me, I’m just saying the size of the US and its large population does make them look like a more common thing than they actually are sometimes.
I agree that public indiscriminate mass shooters probably are not deterred by the thought of someone else having a gun and shooting them to stop them. In fact that may be what they want a lot of times. Public mass shootings are a very small portion of gun deaths, though, even in the US. There are some lists of shootings that include things that don’t really belong. Gang violence is the one most often cited, if 3 people from one gang and 2 from another shoot at each other over a dispute, that’s technically a mass shooting by many definitions, even though its not really contributing to anyone else’s safety.
Those stats hide what’s truly happening (EDIT: Hide is the wrong word, these stats are deliberately dishonest).
TL;DR: Those stats are listed per capita, and USA is by far the largest country on that list. Statistics have been averaged through 2009-2015 even if listed countries (A lot of them) have only one shooting in the time period. The USA has like a dozen mass shootings in this time period. Multiplie countries are on this list because they had 1 shooting in 6 years and have a population of less than 20million people. It’s deeply dishonest.
Norway is at the top due to the 2011 attack that was incredibly deadly. Norway has a population of 5.4 million people today.
All of these statistics are listed as per capita. So because Norway had an incredibly deadly attack and is a small country compared to the USA, it becomes a clear outlier. The site lists norway as having 1.888 deaths per million people, yearly average from 2009 - 2015. Norway has 5.4 million people today. That’s about 10 people dying to mass shootings a year. But wait! Remember, in 2011, 77 died total in the event but 67 were victims of a mass shooting. That reaaaaally skews that figure. EDIT: It is also the only shooting that contributes to Norway’s Stats in this list.
None of those countries on that list have more than 100 million people today except for the USA (335 million according to wikipedia) (Edit: and Russia, 140 mil). There was a clear choice to massage the data to use per capita to push the message that “the USA isn’t that bad” and it’s still coming up #11.
This is the reason that other sources don’t report these statistics as per capita - they’re incredibly rare, even in the USA. 99.9999% of people will not experience them. This doesn’t change the fact they are terrible tragedies and completely preventable. You can easily see in other, less biased sources that this is a US problem.
I highlighted Norway because it was especially glaringly deceptive, I expect the other statistics have similar problems.
Further edit: Look at the spreadsheet this data is from (Here’s just European countries):
Spreadsheet
THERE IS ONLY ONE MASS SHOOTING EVENT FOR SOME OF THESE COUNTRIES and it’s being averaged over a period of 6 years! LOL. LMAO, even. These countries are not having mass shootings every year like the USA is. These stats are so dishonest. Norway has only the 2011 attack!
The US list is longer than the list of all of europe:
US list
This is the source:
Source for bad data
I appreciate your detailed response, but can you explain why per capita is hiding rather than revealing? To me it only makes sense to look at per capita. If you didn’t, and said the US had way more shootings than Norway, I’d say, “yeah, duh, the US has a lot more people so of course it will have more.” You have to compare to the population or else it’s all meaningless. Maybe you mean something else and I’m misunderstanding.
I was familiar with the one Norway shooting and how that’s an outlier, but I don’t think the article’s argument rests that strongly on that one data point.
It does strongly rest on that one data point. Norway has only one data point for that time range.
Just like Albania, with one data point.
Just like Finland, Italy, England, Germany, Belgium… with one data point. The spreadsheets are images and I’m tired of looking at them (I would prefer the actual spreadsheets obviously). France appears 3 or 4 times I think, it appears the most.
It’s a 6 year average, so the list becomes a list of small countries with exactly 1 shooting in 6 years, vs the 25 mass shootings the USA had in the same time period. It takes only 1 event to make it to the top of the list due to population size.
Notice, Spain isn’t on this list, nor is Poland, etc. Are they truly different than the rest of the countries on this list? Or did they just happen to not have one single shooting in this 6 years?
If the statistician truly wanted to compare US vs Europe per capita, they needed to not split the data up by country (but of course this wouldn’t produce the message they wanted). Basically, using a measure of 6 years is far too small for events this rare. Doing it for a longer period of time might cause problems, too. However, if this was done per year and not over an average of 6 years, the USA would consistently be on the top, except for 2011. Making it per capita and over 6 years is doing a lot of work!
I’m not sure that’s the best site to use for support.
The Crime Prevention Research Center is a nonprofit founded in 2013 by John Lott, author of the book “More Guns, Less Crime.” He is best known as an advocate in the gun rights debate, particularly his arguments against restrictions on owning and carrying guns.
I checked an npr article about the subject and we seem pretty bad…but far from the worst. Should do better. Could be far worse.
It doesn’t seem like the FEE article citing CPRC and the NPR article disagree very much. But it’s true that some people will trust the NPR one much more, so that’s valuable.
Edit: I mean, the numbers in the articles aren’t necessarily the same, but the idea that the US could be better and could be worse is present in both.
The black market might expand, but that’s one more deterrent for new attackers. However, the issue is that in the US alone there are something like 300million guns already in circulation or owner by private individuals. So a buyback program would need to happen as well and I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ve had mass shootings for decades and this government can’t do shit about anything any more as all bipartisan good will has completely evaporated and the discourse has become so toxic.