As a means of stopping a mass shooter, this seems like a promising avenue.
We need more ways of incapacitating a dangerous individual without resorting to killing them.
We need more ways of incapacitating a dangerous individual without resorting to killing them.
The macro problem is decades of 2nd amendment “purism.” No other country has this problem to the extent that the USA has. Also, no other country has such lax gun laws. At least no country of which I’m aware.
In regard to this matter, I honestly don’t see what the political paths going forward could be for the USA.
It's much easier both practically and legislatively to prevent a mass shooting than it is to intervene in and halt one.
Obviously making it harder to get guns will prevent them, but I’m talking and asking about stopping an engaged active shooter.
Even a single soldier that catches the enemy by surprise while they’re resting or asleep is going to make an absolute carnage. This is known in the military since warfare is a thing and has been used by many successful generals.
It must not get to the point of an active shooter being on the loose, and somehow in other countries it manages to be a very strange occurrence, where the guns have been smuggled by a foreign enemy power, the gunners have been indoctrinated by whatever cult got their turn today, etc.
You also managed to skirt the other part that has been mentioned. If they are ever deployed, these toys will eventually kill the wrong person, which could be a child. Given that all you are interested about is in stopping the active shooter, will you deem this death justified, and agree that there is no liability because “the code did it”?
This is a symptom of severe underlying institutional failure.
Shouldn’t we address why we’re failing our children so spectacularly, such that our institutions are literally turning them into mass murderers at a historically unprecedented rate?
The gun is ancillary. The fact that it’s happening at all should be a klaxon wake-up call for institutions, mental health experts, educators, parents, and society.
Instead, we’re screaming about magazine sizes and the types of guns used by children driven to mass murder.
Like, uh, maybe ask yourselves why Jeremy is so disaffected?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_(song)
> After coming into class late that morning, [Jeremy] Delle was told to get an admittance slip from the school office. He left the classroom, and returned with a .357 Magnum revolver. Delle walked to the front of the classroom, announced "Miss, I got what I really went for", put the barrel of the firearm in his mouth, and pulled the trigger before his teacher or classmates could react.
Admittance slips. In-school suspension. Truancy laws. Zero-tolerance. Schools have become inescapable hell-holes for children that don’t fit the cookie-cutter institutional mold, but we’d apparently rather argue about the magazine size those children use once a vanishingly small percentage of them finally just lose their shit.
We choose to have more guns than people in this country and we choose to make them easy to attain and possess. If we add friction to some/all of these processes, then there will be fewer guns.
On a forum where people discuss applications, count clicks, clickthroughs and "dark patterns," this should be mathematically obvious.
Then you get to trace the chain of custody of the shooters guns and start arresting the people supplying arms to psychotics.
Back in the 90s when the assault weapons ban was in place, private sales prices for legal AR-15s were easily 3-5x more in 1995 dollars.
You regulate the legal sales to keep guns away from unqualified individuals. There such a glut of firearms on the market, a black market will spring up, so when those customers kill people, you go up the food chain and throw the black market arms dealers in prison where they belong.
Regulation works. There are people with NFA licenses who own Gatling guns, Tommy guns, BARs, etc. These are true firearms enthusiasts who don’t hurt anyone. Use a similar framework and get the crazy people away from firearms.
Felon's can't have guns already, and the quickest way to felon status is looking at someone cross-eyed with a firearm, and furthermore, if you're going off the handle and using it, I'm pretty sure your next visit to the ballot box is the last thing you're worried about.
The lowers are the only regulated part in the USA.
Raise the price, reduce demand and risk.
I’m not worried about amateur machinists making homemade weapons with bird shit bullets. The higher risk people in that category are people like Timothy McVeigh making IEDs, and we as a society were able to regulate fertilizer sales to reduce that risk.
If not, why not?
It’s even more clearly legal with the 2nd amendment, as taxation is clearly associated with regulation and paying taxes is a long established and enumerated power of the US government.
What’s the justification for registration and taxes on an individual citizen exercising their own first amendment rights?
Or their voting rights, for that matter?
I think that gun fanciers have benefited from a live let live attitude for a long time. As children continue to get slaughtered, I think the counter reaction to current gun stance will be extreme.
Personally, I grew up a country boy and had a .22 when I was 6. My position has changed and I’m not alone.
Thats not to say that some common-sense gun laws wouldn’t be a net benefit to society but they would ultimately do nothing to stop massacres from occurring.
Or are you just saying, “guns are illegal in countries where guns are illegal.”
Civility is having the means to end someone else's life, and not using it. I assure you, there is nothing more inherently civil about a government that refuses it's citizenry the right to arms.
Why would we look at a sword and consider it a shield?
I don't know what countries you're referring to "that have negligible mass shooting events" but I guess within the developed world "most countries" here is "every country other than the USA" ? I mean I'm open to other suggestions but, sadly and tragically, it seems to me the USA is out in front to a significant degree.
Saying that those other countries "don't have better mental healthcare" might be technically correct (or it may not I don't know for sure) but what does it mean when large swathes of the population in the USA can't access it anyway ? How many of those who perpetrate mass killings in the USA are actively being cared for ?
I don't know how to comment on the gun database thing. These other countries have gun databases but the key thing is you just can't buy a gun unless you have a very good reason to own one. When you can buy a gun it's not an automatic weapon. I mean I can't think of a developed world country, other than the USA, where it's possible to buy or own such a weapon legally. So regardless of the quality of such databases, and I'm not saying they're better or worse, the main thing is that there's just not many entries in such databases.
> Something fundamental has happened to American culture and it’s not clear what solves that.
I agree and I'm deeply sorry for it being the case.
I read an article recently I now can't find which discussed the Las Vegas[1] killer and attempted to put him in set of men of a certain age who have economically "failed" (I don't like that term) and how that was viewed by US society in a less forgiving way than in other countries and how it also led to lack of treatment for depression etc. I thought that was interesting but as I can't find the article it doesn't take us far. If anyone recognises it I'd be interested to know.
I agree mental health and gun control are important tools and maybe we need uniquely American solutions to this uniquely American problem. But something has broken in our culture that precipitates this.
Fwiw, the US never had this problem before the mid 90s.