Or just fix the underlaying issue. Switzerland has 2 million guns on 8 million citizens. Yet no school shootings. Why don't they have school shootings and can we apply the Swiss system to the United States?
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-o...
If the progressives were willing to accept the Swiss laws in the US under the stipulation that they would never again be made more strict, the US gun owners should be thrilled.
Part of the problem is that US gun laws are often motivated by misunderstanding or spite rather than reason or compromise.
[0] It would be practically impossible to enforce because states can't put up barriers from things coming into their state from other states.
That's because those increases are never compromises or exchanges. They are simply demands. Republicans and the NRA look at what the gun laws in DC and Chicago were before the Supreme Court cases and think: "That's their end game. Zero guns. Because look: when they had the political power to take them away, they did." They have no rational reason to support increases in gun control that come in exchange for nothing.
If the Democrats offered a compromise, in the form of a constitutional amendment, not repealing the 2nd amendment but detailing it out, we could probably see real talk and progress. If it's not an amendment then it's simply "pray I don't alter it any further".
The whole NRA situation in USA seems so absurd from outside.
And to the most common objection: yes they are. Gun control proponents often bring up and praise the UK (near total ban) and Australia (significant limitations compared to the U.S.) as examples to emulate.
And in Chicago and DC, before the Supreme Court cases, there were effectively total bans. And when the plaintiffs sued, they didn't say, "well I guess we went a little too far, let's establish a regulated framework under which responsible, qualified and trained citizens can own guns". Instead, they went all the way to the Supreme Court to try to defend their bans.
So, even if a gun owner agrees with a particular piece of proposed regulation (and I'm sure plenty do), they would be acting against their own long term interests giving the block trying to ban guns political momentum and capital.
That's actually wrong. Gun control isn't banning guns, and if you consider background checks a "ban" - then driving licence requirement is a "ban on cars" :)
If someone had the bright idea to put the right to drive a car in constitution - Americans would be now arguing whether countrywide requirement to have a driving licence to drive a car is ok or not :)
I said that there is a large political block trying to ban guns. Not that they are banned, or that they are more regulated than cars. Is that what you're referring to?
Their current tactic is to revoke a law that makes it too far into the judicial system to avoid having it receive constitutional review by the Supreme Court and thereby invalidate it nationally.
It speaks volumes to the underhandedness of the gun control proponents.
[1] https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/dam/data/fedpol/sicherheit/waffe...
[0] They do have a high rate of suicide by guns than the rest of Europe though and that number has dropped as, surprise surprise, gun laws have been tightened.
There are just way too many guns in the US (i.e. "it's just way too easy to get a gun in the US").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
US has a mental illness problem. At some point, a societal sickness entered the country. A sickness of nihilism and hopelessness. A sickness where (mostly men) feel lonely and unloved and powerless to change their futures. A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way.
Why does America have these kinds of people at such high frequencies compared to Switzerland?
The mental illness occurs when their cognitive dissonance is strained to the breaking point. When someone realizes that they have labored their whole life, possibly at significant risk to life and limb, for the primary benefit of other people, who do not even return a minimum level of respect, a psychic pseudopod of rage reaches out, questing, for someone or something to blame.
And it usually lands somewhere that is merely close, rather than deserving. They do not understand why their life has been considered disposable, and become determined to make their mark--even if it is to be a scorch mark or track mark--on the world. We are likely already familiar with some common modes of midlife crisis: buy a motorcycle, buy a sports car, buy a boat, get really into one's religion, volunteer for some charity, go back to school, etc. It may well be that when those sorts of outlets are financially unavailable, then "buy a gun, write a manifesto, and start the revolution" is one of the few that remain within reach. Or it may be that they just preferred that one from the start.
Perhaps Switzerland is better at making people feel important, and is not exploitative to a point far beyond the breaking point?
Could part of the problem be bullying? I've watched a lot of American movies and any time a school is depicted it has some pretty awful bullying going on. I've not heard of anything remotely like it elsewhere. Sure, there's bullying, but most of it ends in name calling or sometimes fights, rather than this harassment that goes on for years.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/#!po=0....
Almost all of the mass shootings were committed by men with a history of domestic abuse and violence. I think the real root cause is entitlement and not seeing other people as humans.
And what makes women immune to being entitled and not seeing other people as human?
Personally I would explain the fact that most of these shootings are committed by men by the fact that men are generally speaking more likely to react in a physically violent way to stress than women are. That plus the fact that these shooters are an incredibly tiny portion of the population would explain why most shooters are men.
>Personally I would explain the fact that most of these shootings are committed by men by the fact that men are generally speaking more likely to react in a physically violent way to stress than women are.
Men are not rabid dogs incapable of making their own decisions. If someone lashes out violently and murders a bunch of people, they're responsible for the choice to play god with other people's lives.
Public schools.
But maybe they have functional public schools...