Gun Control in the US

[Diagoras]

I realise that there are other factors at play, but it's remarkable how many people are psychologically incapable of making the connection between gun availability and gun deaths.

 

Every other stone gets turned, but it's like it's sacrosaint to even suggest that fewer people would get shot if fewer people had guns to shoot with.

 

Why are you restricting the domain to gun deaths? It's overall homicide rate, or violent crime rate we're targeting, not specifically killing people with guns. It's no good reducing the metric if there's a substitution effect.

[Volourn]

"Our culture has become much more corrupted since then."

 

L0L But, no.

[LadyCrimson]

I have no desire to debate gun law politics or morals, but I am curious what people think about the news media's possible influence in regards to these type of incidents. That is, the potential impression (to someone of disturbed mind) of "if I do this, I'll be famous...media will talk about me for weeks...I'll go out in a blaze of glory/get to send a message to the world etc."

 

....while reporting news/free speech is important, I long ago decided the methods used in the US (can't speak for anywhere else), perhaps particularly in regard to video news, are terrible and sometimes morally questionable, and can/may cause more fear/paranoia than is truly justified. They do not report ... they sensationalize. It is not helping.

 

Edit: ... perhaps my point/question is about the difficulty of changing certain trends/attitudes when one of the possible causes is that "everyone" is constantly deluged with information that tells us/teaches us to be afraid all the time.

Edited December 16, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[Diagoras]

That is, the potential impression (to someone of disturbed mind) of "if I do this, I'll be famous...media will talk about me for weeks...I'll go out in a blaze of glory/get to send a message to the world etc."

 

Is there any evidence of this? I genuinely don't know - I've never read any psychological studies of mass murderers. Are there different kinds, multiple separate motivations, etc.

 

Anyone with knowledge/citations, toss in your two cents.

[Valsuelm]

I realise that there are other factors at play, but it's remarkable how many people are psychologically incapable of making the connection between gun availability and gun deaths.

 

Every other stone gets turned, but it's like it's sacrosaint to even suggest that fewer people would get shot if fewer people had guns to shoot with.

 

I think you're mistaken. Few if any people I've ever talked to who are all for the 2nd amendment in the U.S. or just generally for the right to bear arms anywhere doesn't make that connection. It's more a matter of there are many people who make that connection and think it's THE connection, as if there aren't other things at play or those other things are trivial at best. That is not the case.

[Valsuelm]

I have no desire to debate gun law politics or morals, but I am curious what people think about the news media's possible influence in regards to these type of incidents. That is, the potential impression (to someone of disturbed mind) of "if I do this, I'll be famous...media will talk about me for weeks...I'll go out in a blaze of glory/get to send a message to the world etc."

 

....while reporting news/free speech is important, I long ago decided the methods used in the US (can't speak for anywhere else), perhaps particularly in regard to video news, are terrible and sometimes morally questionable, and can/may cause more fear/paranoia than is truly justified. They do not report ... they sensationalize. It is not helping.

 

Edit: ... perhaps my point/question is about the difficulty of changing certain trends/attitudes when one of the possible causes is that "everyone" is constantly deluged with information that tells us/teaches us to be afraid all the time.

 

It's not just in the U.S.

 

While there may be some folks out there who are considering perpetrating crime X or have perpetrated crime X primarily for the notoriety, if you've spent time looking into why many tragedy Xs were perpetrated you'd see that that is almost never the primary motive, though rarely it is a secondary, tertiary, etc one. Motives for crimes vary greatly, though when it comes to mass murder vengeance against someone(s) or some group is a common one.

[LadyCrimson]

It's not just in the U.S.

 

While there may be some folks out there who are considering perpetrating crime X or have perpetrated crime X primarily for the notoriety, if you've spent time looking into why many tragedy Xs were perpetrated you'd see that that is almost never the primary motive, though rarely it is a secondary, tertiary, etc one. Motives for crimes vary greatly, though when it comes to mass murder vengeance against someone(s) or some group is a common one.

That's likely (imo) largely true for most murders, but in terms of rage/spree murder-suicides I'm not so sure. It's especially difficult to determine if the perpetrator dies/shoots themselves during the process of the crime, for one thing.

 

Anyway, even if the "fame" aspect isn't a large (or conscious) aspect, I guess I was kind of thinking along the lines of the so-called Werther Effect. In terms of school-shootings, my impression has been a lot of them are rage/vengeance/suicide oriented ... different from something like a serial killer. I'm not, btw, saying media exposure is the cause, but that such exposure may have an effect on the method such distressed/disturbed people may choose.

 

Btw, does anyone know if it's true that in Norway the reporting of (non-murderous) suicides is practically banned or something (maybe just a journalistic code, not officially)? I read that somewhere but y'know the internet...can never be sure.

[MrBrown]

Did someone here create this? Didn't spot it in the thread.

 

 

 

 

 

[casa]

Did someone here create this? Didn't spot it in the thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, I see the discussion has reached the lowest level again. At least it made me check out both's recent tweeds and on Ray's I found another great example for media coverage and misguided audiences again:

 

http://www.destructoid.com/mass-effect-and-more-attacked-over-school-shooting-240657.phtml

 

This is to me almost more sickening than the gunning itself, because it's showing such an incredible amount of dumbness in our society it makes me speechless. If you look up the name of the gun kid's brother(sic!) on facebook now you can already see a good example for medieval-style lynch mobs, and it continues to ridiculous stuff like in the above link. Honestly, would you allow such a mob to carry guns? They'd storm Bioware's HQ with them, only takes a small spark and the feeling of "being right".

 

Anyway, no idea who created that pic, I think it's dumb, and as much as I like Josh I'm obviously with Ray's "uneducated" opinion.

[Hurlshort]

There is some atrocious spelling and grammar in that pic, so I know it wasn't anyone on this forum.

 

I kind of wish I had used a more general topic title when I created this thread, because I think discussing the media and psychiatric care are very important to the discussion as well. That being said, I still think a reasonable discussion about guns is necessary, and that pic is ridiculous.

[Diagoras]

That being said, I still think a reasonable discussion about guns is necessary

 

What is a reasonable discussion of guns? Because in the '90s, that was a code-word for passing useless, feel-good laws like the Assault Weapon ban.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The guns angle is wrong. It serves no purpose but to drive the discussion into a dead end street.

 

Psychiatric care too. These aren't typical psychiatric care patients, and they can't be treated by doping them up with whatever drugs are available.

 

The root cause, amongst other things is the horrible social dynamics at play in school and in the office. Competitiveness takes precedence over cooperation and honest communication, getting results whether they be grades or profit over any moral dilemma and employee rights. The results are stressed individuals out of which a certain percentage will not be able to cope, of which the majority will behave in a damaging way to themselves (alcoholism, mood altering medication, drugs etc.) and a minority which will place the blame on society and snap back.

 

Its the result of the system you've put in place (particularly the downward cultural and economic spiral of the west since the 70ties) and now you have to live with it.

 

Its not going to get better and no amount of additional security or contingency planning is going to change it, until the state or a cultural [r]evolution enforces the notion that the dog eat dog rules and norms of business are not acceptable for societal interaction, particularly amongst children and teens who are not yet fully formed individuals.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Hurlshort]

I see society as being way less competitive nowadays, to be honest. Everyone gets a trophy. I don't really agree with that aspect.

 

Also I'm not sure what you studied about the 50's, 60's, and 70's, but they weren't glory days.

[Gorgon]

We touched on how the media spectacle was a catalyst for copycats earlier, I wonder if the president's visit is going to exponentially increase the chances of aother incident. What if from now on no self respecting mass murderer would make do with anything other than children.

 

I suppose it's part of his job to adress a tragedy like this and attempt to be a cohesive and healing influence. A leader is not supposed to think with his heart though.

[Raithe]

And the comment going around that's being attributed to Morgan Freeman to add that other perspective..

 

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed

people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

 

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

 

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

[obyknven]

too much Hoplophobia in this thread.

When you disarm your subjects you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.

 

Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.

 

[Gorgon]

Well, whoever it is kinda tipped his hand in favor of not talking about gun control. One has to be careful not to hijack the national sentiment suit one's campaigning. Not if it happens at the expense of achieving some kind of agreement or common ground. (I'm looking at you Bloomberg)

 

Talking about gun control won't create any copycats though. Spending money on psychological reserach... I seriously doubt that will translate into anything tangible. Psychological research is not fueled by money in the way that, say, cancer research is.

[Gorgon]

This from the guy who famously said that if forced to chose between them, it is far better to be feared than loved. Pulling quotes out of the air to suit your position is almost always a trivial and pointless game.

[Oerwinde]

Psychological research has been hindered by the way its carried out. The problem is that to get accurate resulta, the subjects can't know they're doing an experiment. But that can lead to all sorts of fallout for the subject as a result, so now there has to some sort of disclosure so as not to screw up the subject, but this taints the results.

[Zoraptor]

Btw, does anyone know if it's true that in Norway the reporting of (non-murderous) suicides is practically banned or something (maybe just a journalistic code, not officially)? I read that somewhere but y'know the internet...can never be sure.

Don't know about Norway but here they generally don't say 'suicide' or give any details if they can avoid it, saying something like 'no one else is being sought in relation to the incident' or 'there were no suspicious circumstances' instead, though context makes it clear what is meant. Fairly sure it came about after a spate of suicides in one particular town got a lot of attention, and may have been prolonged by the attention.

[Tsuga C]

Well, at least try to stop these things from happening so often.

 

The USA currently has a population of more than 310 million and we have more than 250 million firearms in private hands. Given the number of people and firearms, the frequency with which this sort of despicable act takes place is rather low. In fact, the number of mass shootings is NOT on the rise, but the press (reliably Statist and anti-Second Amendment, for the most part) is working overtime to sensationalistically exploit such horrific killings to advance their political agenda. Semi-automatics are not new technology and they are most certainly NOT "assault weapons" as true assault weapons are selective fire (semi-auto + either a 3-round burst or fully automatic).

 

I'm sure you've already encountered people asking, "How could he do that?" You already know the answer: he was mentally defective. Deranged individuals do such things--always have, always will.

 

The question I have is why did his mother purchase multiple firearms for him when she knew that her son was mentally unstable? For the price of one of those handguns, she could've also purchased a solid gun safe and kept them locked up so that her whack-job of a kid wouldn't have had access to them unless it was when they were going to the range and he was using them under her direct supervision.

 

Who do we blame for this? The shooter, that’s who. If you're looking to extend the blame, then you might focus on the mother, as well. We of the NRA--hunters, collectors, Second Amendment advocates, and target shooters--are not to blame. "Society" is not to blame. Violent crime has been trending downward while firearms sales have been trending upward for quite a number of years. Our nation is getting safer, not more dangerous.

 

Bottom line, this latest horror shouldn't be used to compromise our God-given, Constitutionally enumerated rights.

[Raithe]

I think the figure I saw the other day was that there are 88.8 owned, legal guns per 100 citizens in the USA.

 

Although that was from a QI thing. But they're usually quite good with research....

[Tsuga C]

I think the figure I saw the other day was that there are 88.8 owned, legal guns per 100 citizens in the USA.

 

Although that was from a QI thing. But they're usually quite good with research....

 

Given the rising sales figures, the ratio might very well approach 1:1 before the year 2020. Of course, many people own multiple firearms, so not every household contains one.

[obyknven]

Btw, does anyone know if it's true that in Norway the reporting of (non-murderous) suicides is practically banned or something (maybe just a journalistic code, not officially)? I read that somewhere but y'know the internet...can never be sure.

Don't know about Norway but here they generally don't say 'suicide' or give any details if they can avoid it, saying something like 'no one else is being sought in relation to the incident' or 'there were no suspicious circumstances' instead, though context makes it clear what is meant. Fairly sure it came about after a spate of suicides in one particular town got a lot of attention, and may have been prolonged by the attention.

Sometimes i try find information (in English language ) about genetic diseases between Scandinavians ( because their inbreeding traditions) but fail. Same situations with suicides statistics. Meanwhile Russians have informations about this: Scandinavia have 1 place by suicides in Europe, and 1 place by genetic diseases ( especially Mental retardation ). Because this Scandinavian countries funding investigations of this problem ( Russian scientists are participating in this ) and have welcoming Immigration policy, they trying fix this by mixing with another populations ( and because this they have bad reputation in Russia, and Russians don't want to mix with them ) . But in Europe this information are banned.

[obyknven]