Psychiatrists Can’t Stop Mass Killers
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
In areas with strict gun control but limited access to firearms, mass killings still happen with other modalities. A lot of things can effectively kill a bunch of human beings assembled in a restricted area: knives, machetes, bombs, trucks, etc..
The idea that restricting one modality of mass killing will prevent all mass killings is misguided. Would it reduce the frequency or the lethality ? That's debatable. Someone who has decided to pursue mass killing as systematically as the Las Vegas shooter will simply find another weapon to kill en masse.
If these things were as effective as suggested, why is it that in America, one of the prime examples of loose gun control, just about all the recent mass killings have been committed with guns?
The other modalities exist but they're less effective (knife/machete/truck) or are hard to manufacture and use (bombs).
To give an example in favour of reduced frequency/lethality, have a look at Australia. We just don't see many mass killings there.
Granted, attacks are much rarer in Australia. Part of this is attributable to the population difference: all things proportional, you'd expect 13 attacks in the US for 1 in Australia if the rate is the same between the two countries.
No, they aren't. This guy in Las Vegas killed ~160. The 9/11 attackers killed ~3,000.
> or are hard to manufacture and use (bombs).
No, they aren't. The Happy Land Social Club attacker killed 87 with a dollar's worth of gasoline.
People don't want to internalize the reality that society relies on an overwhelming amount of trust and there will always be abuses of trust. There are thousands and thousands of systems to prevent abuses of trust, and establish trustworthy institutions in society, but they all come at a cost, and are all fallible.
https://www.amazon.com/Liars-Outliers-Enabling-Society-Thriv...
The public should not be allowed to defend themselves with firearms. Only the government should have the monopoly on violence in a proper, respectable advanced society.
It's like saying "the way you stop war in the world is by making sure we all love each other". What's actionable about it? We have to work with the cards we've been dealt, not with hypothetical situations.
Right now 50% of the guns are owned by about 3% of the population. That's your first law-enforcement target right there.
Those people seem to have strong influence in government too.
The last thing you do is say "oh it will never happen" and stop. You just keep doing it, whether it takes one year or a hundred.
Cultural change is all a function of the effort you put in.
Nobody knows what the effects of mass-confiscation would have on American society, but the range of possibility includes civil war and massive unrest. Most people would surrender their firearms peacefully but there's a strong minority that would not do so peacefully.
Anyone that knows gun owners know this is exactly what will happen.
The kind of person that owns a gun are fearful people. They have absolutely no interest in fighting against and armed government when it comes to take away their guns.
I LOL whenever delusional people claim there will be some kind of "civil war" if gun confiscation happens. So much lolz.
Sure there will be some irrational people that might fight back at first, but that number will only be a handful and will be not be statistically different than the number of people that go on shooting rampages right now. Eventually the guns in society will go away.
If you believe this, you're clearly delusional. The United States is not Australia.
I know dozens of gun owners. I know full well that there would be no "gladly" about it.
"Eventually the guns in society will go away."
Yep, because declaring a law totally causes all the criminals to take a step back and say "hey man this is illegal so we shouldn't do it".
Black markets will always exist. Smuggling will always exist. There will always be some way for someone to obtain a firearm. Hell, in this day and age of 3D printing and DIY projects we're already starting to see folks working toward homemade firearms.
Gun control in this day and age is - at best - a temporary solution. Actually figuring out why people are so motivated to kill other people and addressing those reasons is much more viable as a solution that's actually somewhat permanent.
Side note: About 1/3rd of the US population owns a firearm.
You act like that's a bad thing. A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. A good chunk of their fear of government likely extend from the last time they tried.
All to often the argument against things like gun control or universal healthcare is "the US is far too big and diverse" and yet no one wants to consider getting smaller and less diverse.
Whether that's a desirable outcome or not is something I'm not even really going to touch.
It would be a very bad thing. I suspect that you don't have the faintest idea how bad it could be.
The previous U.S. Civil War was the war with the highest U.S. body count, by far, with somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million Americans dead (counting both military and civilians).
"A good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded. "
Wait: so you expect the side without any guns to win a civil war? How does that work?
The whole civil war was avoidable.
Perhaps, but historically that's not the way to bet. I can think of maybe two or three cases of peaceful secession, and dozens of cases where it resulted in a bloody civil war.
Why? Because some people tell them - loud and clear - that this is the goal.
Do I advocate being sneaky about taking away guns? No.
Instead I argue that US won't get rid off all guns and should instead focus on reducing the damage.
Why? Because it might actually work.
- The 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution enshrines the right to bear arms. To revoke that right would require either the states or congress to trigger a referendum _and_ the populace to vote in favor of revoking the right to bear arms. This would never happen.
- Even if it did happen, the kind of people who care about gun rights are the kind who'd fight for them. I honestly don't think it'd take long for riots to break out. It'd start with firearm-equipped protests, police would come, confrontation would happen and ultimately it just takes one pull of any of the numerous triggers to set off a whole lot of violence.
Yes, America has seen a number of mass shootings. But you have not seen any Rwanda, Srebrenica or Birkenau on your soil.
I absolutely think there exist a better way (as seen in Sweden, Norway, Austria and a number of other countries with very many guns on private hands) but removing all guns from the population should't be what you are looking for IMO.
It's kind of like insurance: costly and totally pointless until your house burns down.
Cherry picking examples doesn't really bring much to the discussion.
If you pull up the list of countries with the highest murder rates, you'll discover that virtually all of them have stringent gun control laws.