Gun Control Debate

[Frelga]

And yet. I don't like to think that there's a biological reason for the disproportionate number of male mass shooters. Perhaps CG is correct, and toxic masculinity is to blame.

[Maria]

It's social, not biochemical. When boys are taught that the only acceptable emotion to show is anger it's going twist them up inside in all sorts of bad ways.

[Nin]

It is also cultural. I am sorry, but seen from afar it is surprising how different the attitude towards weapons is in the US in comparison to Europe, even in a country like Switzerland where through the fact that young men can take their army rifle home, many houses have a weapon in the house. I am actually baffled by the fact that there is even a discussion. The connection between the number of guns in the population and phenomena like mass shootings is so obvious that there should be no debate. I don't understand how anybody can say that the number of guns is not a problem per se and that it leads to mass shootings. More Americans have been killed by gun violence since 1968 than American soldiers in all wars together...

And even the arguments about farmers do not convince me that much: I am not aware of the fact that in countries with much stronger gun control there are more incidences with wild-life or more life threatening situations for farmers and this even in countries as huge as the US, like Canada or Australia. And I tried to find data.

Stricter gun controls and the fact to simply forbid some types of weapons do not make it impossible for those who really need one to get one. In order to drive you need to pass a license too. It should be the same for other potentially mortal activities.

The US has a gun culture and it is paying the price for it. As long as they keep it like that to see guns as mean of defense and even an important and often justified means of defense, it won't change. I am pessimistic.

Other countries have other oddities: Germany has a terrible car culture (no speed limit on German highways...) and consequently, the number of deaths is higher than in other countries. Russia has a bad drinking culture. Life expectancy of men is the lowest in all of Europe. Men in other parts of the world are not less testeron driven than Americans. They just don't get guns that easily.

[Alatar]

What Nin said.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, I also agree with what Nin said.

[Sunsilver]

Agree 100%. Japan has very strict gun control laws, and there was only one shooting death in Japan last year.

Australia passed some very strict gun control laws after a mass shooting, and there have been no mass shootings since the passage of those laws.

[Frelga]

I also agree with Nin, but this is Catch-22. The reason those other countries are able to have effective laws is because they don't have the US gun culture and the powerful pro-gun lobby.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

Neither of these statements do anything to address to main point of V-man's post.

To be fair, when Voronwë was responding to me, there wasn't anything in that post addressing the main point of my post. Plus the language!

[yovargas]

To be fair, when Voronwë was responding to me, there wasn't anything in that post addressing the main point of my post.

Except for....pretty much all of it?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Maybe I just didn't understand the main point of C_G's post. I thought he was saying that it was senseless to pass new laws because the laws that we have are not very effective, and I pointed out in response to that that maybe the answer was to pass more effective laws. But perhaps the main point of C_G's post was something else altogether.

[Griffon64]

Another beautiful day in the United States with more people shot to death in what apparently started as a domestic incident and then spilt over to innocent bystanders at a nearby elementary school. Shooter had a semi-automatic rifle and a couple handguns:

http://www.kcra.com/article/4-dead-shoo ... 2/13600667

Was not unique or important enough to pop up on CNN's home page, which is full of their usual political feeding frenzy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hmmm, I just checked CNN's home page and this is the lead story. So sad and pointless.

[Griffon64]

So CNN did avert their eyes from Congress/Trump long enough to post it to their front page eventually.

I hope that these victims, and all the others murdered before them, will not have died in vain, and that this nonsense will stop in the US eventually. There's still a long way to go to build up momentum towards such an outcome.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wish I could say I had even a small amount of optimism of that happening in the foreseeable future.

[RoseMorninStar]

I find it unfathomable.. insanity & nonsense piled on top of ridiculousness.

[Frelga]

Another white man with an AR-15.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3633412

[River]

About five years ago, a troubled young man with axis to an AR-15 took up the weapon, shot his mother, and then went over to a local elementary school and opened fire. In the aftermath, there was shock, horror, grief, thoughts, prayers, talk of gun control and improving access to mental health services and all the usual.

And then nothing about anything changed.

Let's face it. When the nation faced a roomful of murdered six year-olds and did absolutely nothing more than chatter, we lost our right to grieve.

[Inanna]

I agree.

[Nin]

I read a very interesting article the other day, unfortunately in German. The question was if a social “pursuit” of death exists. (Gibt es einen sozialen Todestrieb?) There was an interview which gave an analysis of those questions discussed in the USA which are not concerns or questions in the rest of the western world, like health insurance or gun control. The author underlined that in the States measures which mean in one or another way to shorten the life of others are subjects of discussion in society, whereas not in other parts of the Western world. Which also somehow goes together with the death penalty, still applied in the States, whereas nowhere in Europe e.g.

His point of view was also that through the very high level of religious believe in the States, you have in many ways a society with modern means and structures but an almost pre-modern conception of the value of modern life, because so many people believe in afterlife and a form of divine justice.

This combination furthermore goes along with a dysfunctional political class in which the classical separation between public and private are abolished and private power and violence seem as legit as state violence and power. This means that the different problems existed before the Trump presidency but are strengthened by it.

I could try to link to the German version, but I doubt there is an English one. Fascinating read.

[Sunsilver]

Nin, if you link to the German version, we can likely get a fairly good idea of what it's saying using Bing translator.