Limit second amendment more to prevent mass shootings.
Limit first amendment more to prevent suicides.
Really though, we should be focusing on the root cause: lonely/sad/broken people. Focus on helping/loving them and I bet suicide/mass shooting rates drop significantly.
"Focus on helping/loving them" is not a policy change, to me it's nothing but "thoughts and prayers". Rhetoric that might make us feel better but will help nothing.
The clear change that should be suggested is more proactive identification of mental illness and increased guaranteed access to mental health services. If that reads to you as nothing but "thoughts and prayers", I don't know what to say.
https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide
It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment will work around it, but for those just teetering on the edge guns are very very effective.
Here's an idea that doesn't infringe on any rights: Mandate each handgun sale come with a free suicide prevention pamphlet. That would definitely lower suicide rates measurably at a low cost that everyone can agree on.
The evidence says otherwise. Most suicidal ideation is brief and impulsive, so making it harder to access effective means of suicide doesn't just lead to a substitution. Multiple studies have found a lasting reduction in the overall suicide rate after a highly lethal means of suicide became less easily available.
The majority of people who survive a suicide attempt say that they decided to attempt suicide less than an hour beforehand; simply increasing the delay between impulse and action can be life-saving.
90% of people who attempt suicide do not go on to make a further attempt, so merely inducing people to choose a less lethal method is a net win.
Even still, there are other ways of increasing suicide friction than outright bans. Firearm waiting periods (to prevent same-day purchase suicides) would increase friction, suicide pamphlets with every sale would increase friction, etc
- When Sri Lanka replaced a common pesticide which made it easy for farmers to commit suicide with another one that was not as toxic to humans, suicide rates fell by half: [1]
- Many different bridges which were popular suicide sites installed bridges and found that overall suicides decreased and did not relocate to nearby bridges without nets. Here is one example from Montreal, there are many others: [2]
It is very well-established in the literature that eliminating easy means to suicide does reduce total suicides and causes only a minor a displacement effect to other methods. Your obstinance on this fact is only making you look like a flat-earther.
[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/
- The coal gas phaseout's associated decrease in suicide rates principally affected men; women more readily jumped to other alternatives (as indicated on the graphs). It also principally affected England and Wales (Scotland showed far more modest decreases in suicide among men, and effectively no change among women), which prompted the authors of that paper to exclude Scotland from their conclusions due to the anomalous data; it's possible that Scotland didn't phase out coal gas as quickly, but the drop in suicide-by-CO-suffocation seems to support the idea that Scotland and England/Wales were under the same conditions.
- Per the chart in the Sri Lanka article that breaks down poisoning v. "other specified methods" v. "other means", poisoning actually increased (even ignoring the spike in 1983), and most of the reductions were in the "other means" category (which was completely eliminated by 2005). The "Data for risk factors in suicide" section also details various other factors that are more probable than banning a specific kind of poison (namely: the civil war that was raging in Sri Lanka during almost all of time period when suicide rates fell, consistent with the article's remark that suicide rates do typically fall significantly during times of war).
- The Montreal article only concludes that suicide specifically by jumping did not displace to other jumping sites. It makes no conclusion around other means of suicide (and while suicide rates did fall in general, the article states that this trend began 5 years before the installation of the nets on the studied bridge).
EDIT: in general, I don't feel like any of those sources do an adequate job of isolating these potential causes from other factors; they do demonstrate at least some correlation, but - as the saying famously goes - correlation != causation, and there are numerous other factors that tend to drive suicide rates, especially socioeconomic and cultural.
I know the US is just very bad at this, but you can literally look at other countries and learn from their experiences. I know, some of them don't speak the same language, but it turns out Americans are just human like everybody else.
Interventions _work_ without making suicide impossible, because the suicide victims aren't rational people looking to kill themselves, they are crazy and have fixated on a plan that would kill them. When the plan doesn't work they are reset by that and most won't kill themselves.
The most internationally famous example is Town Gas. Britain used to make a dangerous but useful flammable gas called "Town Gas" by processing coal. The gas burned reasonably cleanly and coal was readily available, but the gas was toxic and so you may have heard the phrase "Stick your head in the oven" - the idea isn't that you could somehow cook your own head, but toxic Town Gas will poison you and you'd die. Britain used to see lots of suicides by this method.
And then, not to prevent suicide but for simple economic reasons having discovered huge natural gas reserves in the North Sea, Britain switched to Natural Gas. Things had to be reconfigured, there are still left-over buildings and equipment littering the country decades later, but it just made obvious economic sense to switch. Natural Gas, however, though technically it could suffocate you, isn't poisonous and is very disinterested in remaining even a poorly ventilated kitchen, it just floats off. So people who lay down with their head in the oven after Natural Gas didn't die. They'd lay there, and eventually they'd realise this isn't working - and they would get up and get on with their lives.
This _actually worked_ entirely by accident, the suicide rate dropped significantly. A natural experiment, and to refuse to learn from that is extremely dense.
And if guns aren't available, they'll fixate on a plan which does not involve them. The coal→natgas switch only worked to prevent suicides because (at least per your description) people still expected the gas to kill them; if suicidal people already know ahead of time that a particular strategy is not actually an option (e.g. because they know they can't get guns, or they know that the gas in their ovens ain't toxic), then they'll consider some other strategy in the "pick a strategy" stage of suicidal ideation.
That is: this sort of "prevention" is temporary at best. Even in the UK, phasing out coal gas only decreased suicides specifically via carbon monoxide inhalation, while other methods of suicide rose in frequency [1]. The overall rate did decrease, but more for males than females (who readily seemed to start flocking toward other methods of suicide, at least per the graphs and the apparent far-more-modest decrease in overall suicide rate), and primarily only in England and Wales (Scotland's male suicide rate barely budged, and the female suicide rate held steady, with a visible switch from CO suicide to non-CO suicide in the graphs).
Hangings are currently the most common means of suicide in the UK [2], with poisonings a close second among women. Neither of these are likely to go away any time soon without actually addressing why people feel inclined to self-terminate in the first place (unless you're going to propose trying to ban all alcohol and drugs - like the US tried (and failed) to do - and require background checks and mental health checks when buying ropes and bedsheets, and even that almost certainly won't be effective).
You have to be prepared for legislation like this only slightly decrease the number of suicides but drastically increase the suffering of the people that do.
From wikipedia's page on LN2:
> the liquid-to-gas expansion ratio of nitrogen is 1:694 at 20 °C (68 °F)
(so it can easily displace a lot of air in a small volume and)
>As liquid nitrogen evaporates it reduces the oxygen concentration in the air and can act as an asphyxiant, especially in confined spaces. Nitrogen is odorless, colorless, and tasteless and may produce asphyxia without any sensation or prior warning
Also, you know what takes even less willpower than passing a background check (or stealing/borrowing/buying a gun + ammo from someone else illegally), paying hundreds of dollars for a gun + ammo, pointing it at the right spot on one's own head (to actually die instead of just maiming oneself) and pulling the trigger? Buying $20 worth of over-the-counter painkillers and chugging the bottle, or buying a $10 bottle of hard liquor and chugging that (with or without the painkillers), or running a $5 tube from the exhaust of a running car to the interior and taking a nap.
And on that note, firearms are only more popular than other means of suicide among males; per your source, females typically prefer poisoning (though firearms are almost tied). Both males and females have an equally-high tendency (around 25%) to commit suicide via suffocation (and for females under 24, that skyrockets to almost an absolute majority). A "perfect" world where firearms don't exist won't make those go away, and the people who'd kill themselves with guns would almost certainly gravitate toward other means (as the multitude of suicidal young people without firearms access already tend to do).
(Additionally: your source doesn't seem to specify whether or not those numbers are for actual deaths or attempts; lots of people survive their suicide attempts, whether because they didn't use an effective method or because someone intervened. It'd be interesting to see that distinction; I suspect the graphs are only recording actual deaths, which means that firearms are going to be skewed because they're more effective at actually ensuring death, while poisoning and suffocation might be far more popular but less effective.)
Getting enough pills to do yourself in without a prescription is super hard and not very reliable. Most OTC drugs will cause you to vomit long before you die. Anyways, this is the route my terminally ill mom took with a doctor’s help, the best way to do it anyways. (I only knew two people who committed suicide, the other one was a girl who shot herself in the head in high school)
Surviving a suicide by gun is kind of gruesome, it isn’t something I want to think about.
There are plenty of great reasons to restrict firearms, making suicide more difficult is just one of them. Honestly, it’s only something you have to worry about if you have guns in the house in the first place (the girls’ dad was the heavily pro gun type, so she had easy access), so it’s easy to opt out of that problem for us anti gun types (unlike say mass school shootings).
It's actually ridiculously easy in the US, especially when combined with alcohol (probably easier than illicitly obtaining a gun, given that far more Americans have pills laying around than guns). Reliability is another story (but - again - increases with alcohol). This also assumes that even kids (let alone adults) don't have access to prescriptions (which would be a poor assumption, given the ongoing opiate addiction crisis and American doctors' tendencies to write morphine et. al. prescriptions up the wazoo, as well as the fact that sometimes kids get sick, too).
And that ain't even mentioning illegal drugs; heroin and methamphetamines are pretty commonplace in the US, as are accidental overdoses (and given that suicides do tend to be spur of the moment, it's possible - probable, even - that suicide by illegal narcotics - be they illegally-obtained prescription drugs or hard recreational drugs - goes substantially unreported and instead lumped in with accidental overdoses).
For many however - through personal experience - it is something planned for, hoped for, dreamed about - for as long as decades.
Which is why there has been a push to secure bridges and add crisis phone lines to these areas.
We should be tackling the problem from every direction. I'd love for it to happen but it sure doesn't seem like the US is going to make any progress in guaranteed access to mental health services anytime soon.
Yes!
One thing that help to increase mass shootings and suicide was the anti-asylum movement. many people who clearly are a danger to himself and others should be hospitalized. unfortunately asylum got a bad reputation for inhumane treatments, but modern psychiatric treatment is completely different that the past inhumane treatments.
I'm on board with increased access to mental health facilities, but I'm skeptical of using them for convicts unless the convict consents. Psychiatric treatment often involves medication, and I don't believe anyone should be forced to take medicine, especially mind-altering medication.
People who would not be able to stick a knife into themselves fatally, or dare to jump off a high place, are nevertheless capable of shooting themselves.
I had a friend who unsuccessfully attempted suicide by a pistol in the mouth. He ended up with a hole in his nose. Having only brought one bullet with him, was in enough pain to get treatment. He still wears a small bandaid on the side of his nose, but he’s in a stable place now.
What change(s) as relates to limiting the 2A would help to reduce suicide?
We also know poverty and financial stress leads to increased suicide, in fact close to 20% are directly related.
and yet, while the stock market is at record highs, companies are more profitable than ever, workers are more efficient than ever, inequality and debt has skyrocketed to historical highs.
The real question is what would come first: gun regulation(s) or some reforms to our economy so people are not living hand to mouth, indebted their entire lives, and have access to healthcare which includes mental health. My guess is neither. People in the US will continue to offer hopes and prayers (over social media no less for the virtue signaling and likes) but the vast majority wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
An analogy: I have some fairly severe sinus issues. I'm working with professionals to figure it out. In the meantime, I'm regularly told to "treat the symptoms." At first, this was really frustrating! I wanted to solve the root problem, not just take pain meds and decongestants for the rest of my life! But the reality is, we may never figure out the root problem, or the root problem may turn out to be intractable. In the meantime, I can significantly improve my quality of life by simply doing what can be done: treating the symptoms.
At the risk of being facetious: we don't stop preparing for hurricanes just because we can't stop their root cause.
Every day we delay making hard choices because we want to wait for a root cause solution is another day we allow the root illnesses more time to inflict damage on us and our society.
The supply is limited to what was legally owned as of 1986.
I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines.
Not sure why you put quotes around constitutional freedom.
The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine.
As simple as that.
It's weird to me that advocating for the cessation of an absolute right to self-defense is a mainstream political position.
It's not as if history is one peachy peace-and-love orgy.
The other side here is basically just people supporting and voting for the laws they think will improve society, a.k.a. democracy working normally.
On the other hand, the moral majority can make the law and then murder people who don't follow it. This is called "democracy working normally".
Your position just comes off as saying "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges".
There are also certain demographics that are much likelier to own guns, so "is armed revolution necessary" is really more a question of "is this particular group of people unhappy".
So much this. Growing up, it was so strange to see people pulling out a gun on someone for walking on their lawn in Hollywood movies.
Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for?
At least that's what they're for in my part of the world.
That works fine and well until the police are the ones kicking in your door to drag you away.
Fortunately for us all, that's not a thing that ever happens.
Since it clearly needs said, the 2A is not about day-to-day life. It's about large-scale societal failure modes.
In a situation in which you have to shoot someone to save yourself, it's implicitly understood that the law enforcement won't be there for at least another 15 minutes.
Also, who will call them? You may have to shoot your opponent first, just to be able to call the police. At least in the leg or something, if killing makes you squeamish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
Every adult should have the means to protect who they care about.
> At least that's what they're for in my part of the world.
I really wish the Jewish populations of Warsaw had known this. If only they had called on the professional law enforcement to help them! And then the Tutsi made the same mistake in Rwanda 50 years later - shouldn't people have learned by then?
Point is, sometimes it's the "professional law enforcement" that's coming to kick your face in, and asking them to defend you doesn't work so well. And even when they aren't the ones doing the kicking, their priorities might not match yours - as Koreatown found in the LA riots.
No, the reason for the amendment was the perception (possibly true) that reliance on citizens militias for internal and external security was an essential guarantee of liberty, as otherwise the government would have no choice but to rely on professional forces (army/police) that would become culturally distinct from the general population and become oppressive either on their own or on behalf of the government which would become more attached to it's security services through whuhbit applied force, and which could withhold that ability or use it in ways the political authority did not approve of unsatisfied, than the general public. Combined with the perception (false, as it turned out) that the only thing needed to protect this model was to assure that the government's understandable desire to regulate weaponry didn't make it impractical to rely on militias of the citizenry for this purpose.
The idea was that it would be impossible to oppress the general public if the government had to call up the general public to do the oppressing, whereas if there was a distinct warrior tribe whose whole profession was applying force as ordered by higher authority, the government would be much more able and inclined to be oppressive.
Unfortunately, even those who hold themselves out as defenders of the second amendment have forgotten it's purpose.
That's not true, though. U.S. laws and their enforcement are extremely punitive compared to most other western countries. It seems the values are very specifically centered around the right to own guns, not around protecting individuals from society in general.
That's not true, though. The US is a lot less punitive regarding cars compared to most other western countries.
Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Since the military is made up of normal people that live among civilians. It's more likely the military would split into factions, with the revolutionaries gaining control of a sizable chunk of tanks, airplanes, etc. Or maybe the military would stage a coup.
However, a truly tyrannical government would have long purged guns from its civilian population as evidenced by every tyranny ever.
It'd be a mess.
Very unlikely. Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. People that resist brainswashing are quickly discharges as "unfit for duty".
The US military has both Republicans and Democrats in it (though probably a larger percentage of the former). If there is any sort of internal conflict, it would likely split along those party lines. Also, the US military does not advocate blindly following orders. The person receiving the orders should only obey lawful orders and should resist and disobey unlawful orders ("I order you to go shoot all those unarmed civilians over there!")
Could you point out the brainwashing sessions in Navy boot camp perhaps?
I do remember a constitutional law class we all had to take where we were specifically taught that we had an absolute duty to refuse unlawful orders, maybe you were confused and for things backwards?
Look at the Chinese response to the protests in Hong Kong. Are they flying bombers over the city and setting up artillery? No, they're using forces of infantry, police, and paramilitary thugs who are far outnumbered by the protesters. If they actually leveled one of their own cities the entire government would collapse on itself.
However, given a sufficient percentage of the population which is interested in doing this, it would be very difficult even for the US military to completely conquer.
87 deaths from a truck ramming attack. The existing licensing system was obviously insufficient to prevent this attack. What do you suggest be done to prevent attacks like this in the future?
If that's not your intent, can you clarify what your intent is? I'm probably not the only one who read it that way.
If it's motivated purely by the desire to shoot people with cool badass assault rifles, then banning things that look like assault rifles would solve it. If it's just the desire to shoot people, then you would have to ban all firearms.
However, if it's caused by the desire to kill, with no regard for the mechanism, then banning guns would have no or little effect: they would move to the next-easiest node in the attack tree.[1] If you ban all trucks, then attackers would try to burn down high rises, or poison water mains, or release sarin gas in subway stations, etc etc.
The observation that these other attacks are exotic and weird is only weak evidence for to the question if mass shootings are for the shooting, or the killing.
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1: https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1999/12/attack_tr...
I'm in favor of gun control but I don't think it's clear whether it would actually make it meaningfully harder for people who want to kill lots of people indiscriminately-ish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of...
That said, there's certainly another conversation over whether we should consider how valuable human life is compared to the conveniences modern tools like firearms and private vehicles give us. Or I guess we've already collectively decided that the answer is no.
I disagree with this formulation of the question. It isn't either or. For a lot of people, that "freedom afforded to us by constitutional degree" is what allows to protect the value of their own human life in the case of an immediate danger, as well as that of people close to them.
While I'm sympathetic to the argument of weaponry as a balance-of-power between government and governed [1], in the modern era it's hard to see its application to civilian-grade firearms as anything more than a fantasy. (If one wants to examine this seriously, I suspect the weapons of choice for a modern insurrection would be things like IEDs, micro-drones, and hacking/encryption.)
Still, I think the argument is sound for a right to self-protection independent of government. There just isn't an obvious "bright line" as to what level of destructive power is reasonable for a private citizen, as one progresses from muskets to AR-15s to RPGs to hydrogen bombs. (It is also an open question as to whether regulations like licensing, mandatory safety training, and civil liability count as "infringement", to say nothing of denying weapons to known criminals or the mentally ill.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_de...
It's "too powerful" for civilians if it's fully automatic or explosive (RPGs, hand grenades, bombs, etc.)
I think the amendment seems fairly clear to me. I, too, disagree that it should be enshrined in the constitution, or even that it should exist as a right in such an unrestricted form. But there's no doubt that it's in there, and we already have a process for changing the constitution.
If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would push to invalidate all laws that limit the ownership and carrying of guns or any armaments by private citizens. This is really the only thing that would force us as a nation to come to some sort of consensus on what the bounds of gun regulation and legislation should be, on a constitutional level.
This is reasonable as a principle of justice, but it means that we are prevented from achieving consensus on the bounds of Congress's and the several state's power to regulate the keeping and bearing of arms unless we amend the constitution to make those boundaries clear. My approach above is a bit scorched earth, but I think there's a consensus to be found between the anti-gun people and the reasonable-gun-control people that might exclude the gun rights absolutists, but result in some sensible middle ground.
> Limit first amendment more to prevent suicides.
The logical conclusion from social-contagion would be not to report or limit reporting, both for suicide and mass-shooting.
The US is an extreme outlier in terms of gun homicide in the first world, is the assumption that every country except the US has solved lonely/sad/broken people?
The second amendment (the full reading of it) doesn't give carte blanch coverage to own firearms and the US populace agrees that, for instance, inmates in prison and domestic abusers shouldn't be given firearms. There are sane ways to limit the second amendment.
Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense?
You could say the same thing for the 1st amendment for individuals vs large media companies. Individuals will always be weaker than well organized, better funded groups. It's impossible to know what would happen in the event of a modern civil war, but it's conceivable that the military would fracture.
As far as reading the 2nd amendment, I have been arguing lately that the "well regulated militia" should mean that gun owners should be required to attend militia training at least once a year, and if you don't, your weapons must be stored in an armory instead of at home. Something more akin to the Swiss system. Having to attend some classes would greatly reduce the number of people that would bother keeping guns at home I think, and would allow others to identify people with mental health issues. I would argue that right now we don't have a "well regulated militia" in any sense.
If the militia was self organized and this came with a relaxation of all the other gun regulations, I'd be all for it! 'destructive devices' would be rather useful in any sort of real insurgent campaign, but are basically banned for civilian ownership today.
But that's not what "well regulated" meant, and I suspect you know that.
But it's not nearly as extreme an outlier when it comes to homicide, which is what should be compared. I don't care how someone killed me, I care that they killed me.
And when you start comparing demographic groups, the gap between the US and Europe goes down even more. (Approximately half of the total US homicide rate is African Americans killing other African Americans. This is a major problem, but also says that perhaps gun ownership rates are not always the primary factor here. After all, African American gun ownership rates are about 2/3rds that of caucasian ownership in the US)
> Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense?
Vietnam. Afghanistan.
Suppressing insurgents with small arms is really damn hard. It'd be even harder in the continental US, since there wouldn't really be a "home" to rotate back to. Not a safe one, at least.
If Netflix was oblivious about that when they were working on the show, there was plenty of chance to become aware if they paid attention to the outcry before the show came out.
> used as reasons to limit constitutional freedoms
The implicit assumption in your statement appears to be that constitutional amendments are invalid/ineffective. But that's far from the truth as its a man made artifact and reflects the beliefs and biases of its times which may or may not hold true in the present.
And, yes, we should _also_ focus on the lonely/sad/broken people.
We need some level of balance here.. unlimited guns and unlimited media has been a recipe for disaster.
So why weren't teenagers in the 60s shooting up crowded places with full-auto machine guns (they were fully legal and accessible back then)?
It’s certainly not the case that they had more access to mental health.
Hence back to the media part. Society / culture changes... 60s was a wave of anti-violence by youth. That likely had carry over effects. What was on TV and the methods of consuming information was totally different. You also didn’t have so much contradictory (dis)information going around.
Given where we’re at, something needs to give or we’ll just continue to spiral. This report is a great micro-example of how environmental stimulus affects drastic action.
* Let's not examine root causes of anything because freedom
* Freedom by itself is good no matter of consequences
* This is a very US-centric view as no other country has first or second amendment
* How preventing mass shootings is a scary thing, and in which way limiting second amendment is scary?
* Same argument applies to the question you raise about first amendment. What is the use of free speech if all it does is exploit people who are vulnerable to committing suicide?
* Your comment about lonely/sad/broken people is not constructive. There are no actionable items. Instead of academic research you are proposing hearsay and a bet.