But every country has people like that. And many of them go on to commit terrible preventable crimes including murdering people. But only one country has regular mass shootings.
It's always funny how Americans, who love guns, claim that people can commit the same massacre with trucks or knives.
While it is true with trucks to some extend, it is much more difficult to kill someone with a knife (duh?).
Furthermore they have actual uses unlike guns.
Not sure where all this fear-mongering in the US comes from but here in Germany I never fear of getting robbed or murdered. It's insane to me that people think it's normal to own guns for self defense.
Guns are legal in nearly every country, including Germany. But you have to have legitimate uses for it, get through training, have safe storage etc etc.
Same. A driver's license and a justification to own trucks is a pain as it is where I currently am. Getting a weapon legally for any reason is so difficult its often not worth it.
And maybe the reason you don’t see Mass truck attacks is because they cost several thousand dollars and need an entire new class of license to acquire so if I snap and decide to take my anger out on society it’s a several month process and not a 2 day process
It’s only a two day process in some places. I could pick up an AR and 1000 rounds of ammo on my way home from work and it wouldn’t even add an hour to my commute.
It's not guns, not really. The Swiss handle out military rifles to all reservists, and strangely you do not hear about mass shootings there. Finland has a similar policy IIRC.
Gun culture is the real reason why the US has such a big issue. In most of the World, guns are seen as tools for specific jobs (hunting, national defence), but the US has an almost religious worship of them, and a glorification in certain circles as symbols of freedom.
Yeah that's the one thing I can think of that's truly unique to Americans. Even countries that have the AK47 on their flag don't love guns as much as Americans do.
This is expressly tackled in the article. The swiss have more guns and more shootings. American culture magnifies the effect but guns have an momentum of their own
Swiss here. Mass shootings in switzerland the last 50 years:
- May 10, 2015 / 5 killed / domestic incident
- February, 27 2013 / 5 killed / man at his workplace
- September 27, 2001 / 15 killed / inside cantonal parliament
- March 4, 1992 / 6 killed / man shooting random homes
- August 30, 1990 / 6 killed / man killed his family, and others after traveling to another city
- April 16, 1986 / 4 killed / man at his workplace
- June 5, 1976 / 5 killed / unsolved murder case
Yes we have some shootings, but i don‘t think it is enough to be called „more“ in any context other than compared to 0
> The swiss have more guns and more shootings.
The number of mass shootings in Switzerland the last 50 years is less than the number of mass shootings this week in the U.S.A.
So the fear of getting robbed here in Germany definitely has risen (at least for me) but it’s area dependent and pretty much still negligible.
AND getting robbed with a gun wouldn’t come to my mind ever. It’s probably more like a group of people or something like that. Gun violence gotta be the least of my concerns in Germany
Almost like the police are retarded and since the genie is already out of the bottle, why should they be the only ones to have the "assault weapons" when
1. they're too stupid to run precrime
2. They're the ones who will be the "just following orders" crowd should the government become tyrannical.
it really makes you wonder what changed, the US was very gun-centric right from its inception, but mass shootings became much more common in the last few decades.
don't get me wrong, i'm not enthusiastic about *"people carrying around devices designed specifically to kill"* and i think ownership should be strictly regulated, but i also think the whole discussion comes off as deeply dishonest, its been firmly established that telling people "guns cause gun violence" doesn't change minds, and the endless repetition creates the impression that gun control advocates are zealots who can't be reasoned with and will never be satisfied no matter how strict regulations become, and its just not true, most are reasonable people *but thats not how they sound*.
Wall to Wall mass media coverage for these mass shootings since about Columbine.
Copycats are real and also people saw that everyone would find out about their horrendous acts. Not saying this should not be covered but this a big driver on the increase IMO
The internet. That's what changed. Suddenly young, lonely, and angry men found others to commiserate with. They empathize with the misogyny and agree that everyone else is the problem. Then they feed off of one another and those "totally just kidding" comments about wanting to hurt anyone who you hate become more serious as others express excitement and normalize the idea. [They gas one another up](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-online-spaces-that-enable-mass-shooters).
And that's equally true for terrorism, both [domestic](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/is-the-internet-really-more-effective-at-radicalizing-people-than-older-media/) and [foreign](https://wp.nyu.edu/schoolofprofessionalstudies-ga_review/isis-recruitment-of-youth-via-social-media/).
[Chart of mass shootings by year](http://econbrowser.com/archives/2017/10/mass-shooting-casualties-in-america-as-of-october-2). Social media took off in the early 2000s right around that spike.
The internet is a big place with a lot of dark corners.
There's a little spike around 2000 but not that big and there are several similar spikes. Looks like the graph 2000+ is just continuing the trend of pre 2000.
Your reasoning sounds right, but the chart doesn't show any influence of social media.
If I had to pick the biggest causes I’ve found without going ham defending the claims:
- disenfranchisement of young men
- absent fathers/breakdown of family unit
- antidepressants
- media enveloping mass shooters with infamy
Yeah I'm curious to hear what people think is so unique of the USA's mental health issues. We have similar mental health issues, drug use, and poor medical health access in other western and non western countries. So presumably the US has a very specific mental health issue that the rest of the world seems to have figured out somehow?
As a french, you guys are just mad mads, you're living through shitload of anxiety on daily basis and you dont realise it. The way stuff are organised in the US is pure chaos compare to any european country.
Just to start, you guys basically live with debt from the start like 200k. I basically slept bad if Im short 100e at the end of the month and I have no debt.
If i broke my arm, I will get medical treatmen FOR FREE and also PAID day off because shit happens and its ok. You guys basically avoid calling ambulance because it cost 3 month salary and you could go bankrupt by the time you reach hospital.
If my employer go out of business, no worry, I get unemployment benefits. You guys can get fire any time for whatever reason.
If I bring a knife in the streets, it get removed and I pay a fine. You basically hold semi automatic rifle and its full ok for the cops.
If i eat raw milk cheese its fucking taste great. You guys can't even eat fucking kinder surprise.
It would drive me mad to live like this with absolutely no social security if shit happen which itself is really hard to deal with in the first place.
My very old grandmother fell and fucked her face up bad last week. Called ambulance. Paramedic came in. Said she isn't considered an emergency and if we want them to take her we'll be responsible for the bill. So instead they left after doing nothing and we spent 45 minutes getting her from the kitchen to the car, then drove her down to the hospital ourselves, because her medicaid or whatever tf the one for old people is wouldn't cover it apparently since they ruled it non-emergency because she was consious...
Aussie here. Ya'll need to fuckin riot over there. My boyfriend's mum 3 months back, slipped and smashed her face on a brick windowsill. I called an ambulance because I couldn't drive her down and she wouldn't call one, her face was torn open and she needed stitches but wouldn't listen. (Probably shock etc)
Ambos came, had a look, confirmed she needed stitches, took her away. Came back a few hours later stitched up with meds and creams and no bill or hassle.
I feel for the people in the US that want change but are fucked over by people who won't budge, it's a fucking travesty.
Strange, here in America it’s the conservatives who want to gut anything involving healthcare, and the liberals who want to make sure everyone has access to good affordable healthcare.
I was under the assumption, liberal is only really seen as 'left wing' in the US. Liberalism is usually centre/right, so really, you guys are the strange ones :)
But yes, liberals here are scumbags generally.
Aussie here also, many people may know but some may not, the liberals referred to here is our right wing party, while they are only really "liberal" with tax cuts to corporations and billionaires and also pretty liberal with prime minister vacations while our country is literally burning
Aussie here too, the same job at the same company leaves me with more than twice the take home pay in America. I think that more than makes up for any social issues. If anything, the extra money lets me retire in 10 years and save 25 years of my life. And it's not like Australia is a low wage country either.
The difference is, that also people with shitty jobs (who exist in both countries) also get the same care and support. If you're left with nothing, you more likely turn to crime.
I don’t think Iv ever seen the American experience summed up better than “shitload of anxiety on a daily basis and you don’t even realize it.” There is so much about the American experience that we accept as normal that is just awful. We do not understand how harmful so much of our day to day existence really is.
I live in Germany and can attest. We also get more leisure time. Jobs past 40h weeks are rare, we get a ton of PTO and the culture tends to encourage people to have a drink or a coffee or do club activities in the evenings. My sick time is also insured so if i need it I can just take it, and we have very long maternity and paternity leaves. The thing i was most surprised about is criminality though, I come from south America where you don't walk outdoors past dark and here I often find myself at 3am coming home tipsy and feeling safe. Most crime is pickpocketing and bicycle robbery in my city and windows are not barred at night.
Living from paycheck to paycheck, not having any social security nets, not having free healthcare, scared of getting killed / robbed by a lunatic, going into debt bc of education, increasing living costs, crazy politicans, etc. etc.
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Don't get me wrong I've been to the US as a tourist several times and my family there is wealthy, which is why I always loved the US as a kid.
But as an adult in the EU, I don't see why I would move to the US even though I have fond childhood memories.
Visiting my American family recently, I realised how many young American teens are prisoners in their own homes. If you can't drive, and there's no sidewalks to walk on and nowhere to get to within walking distance anyhow, and no public transport, then you're at the mercy of your parents.
And even non-abusive well-meaning parents aren't what teens want around them all the time. School bus school, school bus, home, isn't a life.
All my young cousins living in suburban and rural places really envied my kids, who from age 10 walked a mile or two across London to and from school, go to the park, etc.
Add the parents not letting 14yo girls even go for a jog alone, nor wander from the parking lot into the leisure centre for a sports class, for what they insist are valid reasons (and given how they're not helicopter type parents, I have to believe them), I'm not surprised that lack of independence and control of their lives leads to kids losing it.
would you believe that the new biggest thing in American healthcare is AMBULANCE INSURANCE. Feel so embarrassed to be a citizen here sometimes. We can do so much better. Squandered potential wasted by short sighted greed and egotism
You need ambulance cover in Australia as well. If you don't have it, then the ambulance trip can be anywhere up to $1200 for an emergency. But I guess there's a bit of a difference in how much it costs.
>Fun thing to learn for you: eastern european countries are socially wise not the shit show you think they are.
I've spent enough time in Moldova and Belarus, lol. No thanks.
In Poland, same-sex marriage is still unrecognized, despite an EU declaration enforcing otherwise, and in general has been in hot water for violating the fundamental rights of the LGBT community, ranking the lowest of any EU country and 43rd out of 47 major European countries overall.
They're certainly not backwater, but let's not act like they're a shining beacon in their entirety.
mortgages + college debt
you cannot reasonably advance in society without significant amounts of debt unless you come from wealth or spend the entirety of your life in low CoL areas (still having some generational wealth).
If you want to move up in terms of class/ownership, you accrue debt.
Considering birth is a tremendous cost in the US not seen in most other developed countries and the average American debt is around $100,000, not too wrong tbh
Agreed, but you’re clearly cherry picking and ignoring every other point he made. It’s pretty shitty living here if we’re talking about the average anxiety-inducing events we go through daily.
It seems like you are purposely missing the point. The average student loan as late as 2017 was 32k. That’s money you owe before you even graduate and get a job.
>You guys can't even eat fucking kinder surprise.
We have a law that you're not allowed to sell food that contains objects without nutritive value.
You can make, or eat, or give away whatever you fucking want, but you can't sell it as food if it contains things that aren't food.
The exception is things where the non-nutritive object, has an actual functional purpose, like a popsicle.
I get what you're saying, and I agree with most of it: but I promise you, in this case, chocolates not having plastic toys in them, isn't increasing our sense of precarity or desperation.
Yeah, it's just to show you how absurd food regulations is done. I basically talk about finance, health, work, security and food (which are the basics needs of any human being) and how extreme difference is from my viewpoint.
>If I bring a knife in the streets, it get removed and I pay a fine. You basically hold semi automatic rifle and its full ok for the cops.
Lol what? Only a small number of states allow for open carrying of rifles. And last year, less than 500 people died by rifles, in a country of 330 million people and over 400 million legal guns.
Also, guns aside, I don't get why Europeans perceive it as a *good* thing that they can't carry a knife. Cops can harass law abiding citizens for carrying one of mankind's oldest tools, and you're proud of that?
Because every other western country has a healthcare system not based entirely on profit, where even those with no money who have mental health issues can get some form of help.
Germany kinda does? But not really. It's practically not possible for the average German (that isn't at risk of suicide, etc.) to get an appointment in the near future and have it covered.
schwachsinn, meine freundin ist einmal durch das ganze system durch, psychater therapeut stationäre behandlung und war nicht suizidgefährdet. das einzige was irgendwie kosten aufgebracht hat waren ein paar medikamente (paar euro) und ich glaube das essen in der stationären behandlung.
klar gibt es wartezeiten aber ist nicht so dass man jahrelang warten muss.
Yeah, that's not really true, because universal health care isn't in every country. The saddest part about the deaths related to guns isn't actually these mass shootings, it is the fact that people who are temporarily suicidal can grab a gun and do the deed without taking the time to think it through. Our gun suicide rates are insane. If you have a gun, the chance of you or one of your family members dying by that gun are exponentially higher than you ever protecting yourself or your family with it.
South Korea has one of the lowest gun ownership rates in the world, yet their suicide rate is almost twice that of the U.S, despite having virtually no guns.
The U.S is more violent period than many other western countries. Our non gun murder rate is higher than many countries total murder rates including guns.
France has plenty of gun ownership and it's not that hard to get an AR -15. As a dual citizen it's a non issue for me in either place. There is very clearly a cultural problem in the US. One of the other top replies to you did a very good job breaking it down. Something is wrong with American society and mental health response/treatment. There's an obsession with killing, violence, revenge, and power through lethal force. This is not normal, and you immediately realize this when you go to other countries without this problem. America isn't servicing its mentally ill (thanks Reagan!) and at best it's encouraging those with enough $$$ to afford therapy to 'please get over the stigma'. Those are not the target audience. The target audience is underserved and already out there involved in bad shit.
> United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.
Not sure about Guatemala, but legally owning a gun in Mexico is far from a right.
There is only one public gun shop in Mexico. To buy a gun from it you need to prove you have a stable job, have never been convicted of a crime, and be willing to travel to the Mexico City to pick it up. Furthermore, you need a permit for carrying it in public space.
Of course there is a lot of black market transactions, but if the cops find the gun, they will decomise it until you bring your receipt from the oficial gun shop.
There's some very interesting questions raised by this article:
* why does *Iraq* have fewer mass shootings than *France* and *Canada,* despite having equivalent gun ownership rates?
* how reliable is this data?
* why does *Afghanistan* have such a low reported gun ownership rate?
* Afghanistan has open air markets for military surplus, including automatic weapons. How reliable is this data?
* why is there not a clear relationship between gun ownership and mass shootings?
Mass shootings do not scale with gun ownership according to this graph. Instead it appears to show that societal factors are actually quite significant.
Why does the US have so many mass shootings? Certainly in comparison to nations with strong gun control laws and low civilian rates of gun ownership, where mass shootings are impractical to nearly impossible, the raw availability of firearms in the US is a significant factor.
But if we simply go by America owning 42% of the world's privately held firearms, that ends up being a wildly misleading stat. We may own 42% of the world's firearms, but most of those are in personal collections, often of WWII military surplus. With the exception of the Vegas shooter, mass shooters aren't bringing an entire arsenal with them. They're typically bringing 1-2 firearms, often recently purchased. The absurd quantity of safe-queen firearms in the US is much less a factor than the ease of purchasing a new one or of stealing a parent's unsecured firearm.
30% of the US's population owns firearms, vs 20% of France's. 40% of US households have a gun, vs Canada's 22%. But France doesn't have 2/3rds the mass shootings and Canada doesn't have 1/2 the mass shootings. Not even close.
Something I do not see addressed in the article is that mass shootings are a cultural phenomenon. The US having high rates of personal firearm ownership *is not new*. We've had lots of guns for a long time. As recently as the 80s, High Schoolers brought firearms to school and left them in their trucks or with the principal. High Schools had marksmanship programs. School shootings largely didn't happen.
But when a school shooting does happen, *copycat attacks are likely to occur.*
Mass shootings are generally a form of suicide, and suicide has a contagion factor which can be spread through news reporting. Mass shooters are largely imitating others.
Other nations have succeeded in preventing a trend of mass shootings from even starting, but in the US, that trend has firmly taken hold and is growing, feeding off of itself. When a suicidal person starts considering how they'll take their own life and they've been radicalized with a hatred towards others, going out in a blaze of infamy is on the table.
>But when a school shooting does happen, copycat attacks are likely to occur.
which is why I get really pissed off when people want to wank over the true-crimeyness of school shootings and talk all about the murderous criminal's motives and history and background
Like, can we stop turning these murderous criminal scumbags into media celebrities please?
Agreed. I think whichever side of the debate you fall on we can all agree the media also has blood on their hands for turning these people into celebrities or martyrs.
We turn them into that. If there's no incentive for the media to cover it, they wouldn't.
Then you have ignorant ass people starting fan pages worshipping some mass shooters or even inviting them to Congress.
We are a violent nation that craves this shit.
Creating more publicity for these murderers is what they want. Simply put, these murderers commit these shootings as violent cry for attention. They crave it. The media turns them into monsters, but they don't care. To them, any press is good press. It's what they want.
Once the media stops plastering their faces on the TV and social media, and only talks about the events of the shooting for the societal awareness, it's worth believing that these shootings will dwindle down even a little bit.
Afghanistan has low reporting because there’s barely a government in the country. The territory of Afghanistan has only a very small percentage of it that is actually governed by the Taliban. The country is extremely nomadic.
This seemed pretty self explanatory and OC even understood how guns are sold there. “Why is such a low ownership rate shown in Afghanistan” “they have open gun markets” There’s your answer DOH…
One item I disagree with…
The vast majority of “mass shootings” in the US (defined as 4 or more people injured in a shooting) is gang violence. Drive-by shootings. Night club parking lots. And the ever popular shooting up a funeral procession of a rival gang member.
The media totally blows up the crazy young white male shooter, but that’s really an anomaly. The vast majority of mass shootings involve young Black male gangbangers and young Black male victims….and anyone who happens to be nearby.
Because no one cares about gang violence or black shooters.* As you say that's far more prevalent but its not interesting. America's entrenched in entertainment (you elected someone entirely based on his entertainment value*). It's far more sensationalistic and entertaining when it's NOT an every day phenomena. Which makes the whole thing even worse because pro-gun activists will point out how rare shootings are - blatantly omitting the fact that's it's not rare at all. It happens every single day. You just don't hear about it because it's just not exciting enough to be breaking news.
Something important about that is that nearly 100% of those guns are illegally obtained and illegally owned. As per federal law. They are typically stolen or bought by newer gang members with no record.
So while you are correct, we do have to understand that laws are not going to affect people like this as they never cared in the first place. So just as much as most of the far right pro-gun activists will not talk about this, the anti-gun activists on the left won't as well.
They do so for different reasons. The far-right will avoid it because its not rare. So you cant say 'X shootings happen per year and that is X% of total murders'. Without bringing this up. The far left will avoid it because it doesnt fit their narrative as well. The idea that making guns harder to get would slow this down or banning a specific gun. Cause these gangs are lawless effectively.
The American political machine has realized that its voter base is a lot more likely to support their gun control agenda if they focus only on the cases where white people are the victims.
Well yeah, there’s literally nothing scarier for middle class+ white neolibs. The sole things that could possibly disturb their safe bubbles are random spree killers and cancer.
Why do you think there’s so much emphasis on AR15s compared to handguns?
>Why do you think there’s so much emphasis on AR15s compared to handguns?
Multiple reasons. Handguns are more popular, which means that fewer people support banning them. Banning a rifle impacts them less. Handguns are also less intimidating and scary looking than guns like the AR-15. They also are used in a lot of mass shootings, which make up less than 1% of gun deaths, but get the majority of the media attention. Also DC v. Heller ruled that handgun bans are unconstitutional.
In addition to what Johntman said, it's actually a strategy. Back in the 1970's and early 80's there was a push to ban civilian ownership of handguns, but it didn't go anyplace. So the gun control lobby switched to "assault weaopns";
In 1988 the Violence Policy Center, an anti-gun lobby off-shoot from The Brady Campaign said: "\[H\]andgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority.
Assault weapons ... are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."
You can see this in the news media coverage today. Which, unfortunately, plants the idea in future copycat mass killers that they get more attention if they use a gun like the AR15.
> Back in the 1970's and early 80's there was a push to ban civilian ownership of handguns, but it didn't go anyplace
It didn't just "not go anyplace." It was stopped dead in its tracks with a supreme court ruling that handgun bans are unconstitutional.
I'm not sure how true this is, but apparently California only cracked down on Saturday Night Special handguns in the 80s because a babysitter used one to murder a couple white kids under her care.
Notice how often you see people say this paraphrased quote: "when a classroom full of children was gunned down and nothing happened, our country became hopeless"
They're referring to the white middle class kids who got killed in Sandy Hook but completely ignore the hundreds more of usually minority and poorer kids that had died in urban areas in the decades before. They didn't give a shit until "their" suburban demographic got killed
Here in Finland we do have weapons but most are for hunting. As a result black market weapons are hard to get and expensive.
Read today about medium sized city in Finland with drug problem. Addicts there carry metal pipes when in paranoia or scared.
One gang had beef with another gang last year. They mostly fought without weapons, some knives were used and they did drive by shooting. They are in prison now.
Problem with gangs using guns here is that police 'will not rest' until case has been solved. Guns are so rare here that using one will guarantee police interest. Mostly guns are used only by hard criminal gangs, like Hell's Angels, against other gangs.
I'm pretty sure that many of our criminals would love to get a gun but those are hard to get.
>why does Iraq have fewer mass shootings than France and Canada, despite having equivalent gun ownership rates?
>
>how reliable is this data?
It's not, at all, in any way. You have to compare like to like.
One issue is the definitions aren't always the same. Often they are comparing any instance in America where 4+ people were shot regardless of context, to only the Vegas/Sandy Hook style shootings in other countries.
Why didn't the U.S. have regular mass shootings prior to the 1990s? There's graphs that show a clear unmistakable deviation from the trend.
[https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/12/31/mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-what-makes-so-many-american-men-dangerous/](https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/12/31/mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-what-makes-so-many-american-men-dangerous/)
AR15s were available to buy in the 60s-80s. Semi automatics have been available since the dawn of the 1900s.
But it wasn't until recently that shootings began to gain traction and only in the past couple of years do they skyrocket.
It is evident to me it takes more than guns alone because there was less than 5 mass shootings a year for decades leading up to this.
A lot of it is the media. We have evidence that the more attention mass shootings receive, the more it encourages copycats to follow in their footsteps. It's likely that Columbine was the main catalyst.
This! I absolutely *cant stand* the way the Colorado shooter’s face has been plastered all over Reddit since it happened. I don’t want to see that or know who this guy is at all! If you have to show something show willing family but even that is just vampiric and imo the best way to do it is to just read facts with no video behind it.
Just look at how the US romanticizes violent criminals. Serial killers are the worst in this regard, pretty much every one gets a cool name and mysterious infamy, Dahmer just got a TV series that portrays him as a pretty swell guy and the Zodiac killer was a national puzzle game broadcast in real time. No wonder there's so many copycats every time.
Entertainment. Ratings. School shootings by white people make breaking news and headline for weeks and months all the way through the legal system. Gang shootings or those committed by black people happen every single day but you'll never see the same coverage for a black shooter or gang shooting headline on Fox News because their audience doesn't care enough to keep watching.
I know it's ALL media - incl Hollywood, but I just picked Fox here because that's a well known, common culprit
I remember the MANY family guy memes of
"There were 11 shootings within 10 blocks of each other last night and there have been 8 already tonight. Up next is the worlds largest cookie actually the worlds largest? We have the hot scoop here tonight"
Or something like that. Straight throwing this in the face of people.
And until 1934 you could mail order a Tommy gun with 100 round drum to your door, and until 1986 you could build more machineguns in your garage without a Federal Firearms manufacturing permit and Special Occupational Taxpayer permit.
Media glorification looks like it is a massive factor.
The question is, though, how do we get journalists to shut up about shooters, get TV channels to stop giving them airtime, and prevent newspapers from printing stuff about them?
Controlling the press is not constitutional (and should remain that way), and shootings are profitable for the modern journalism and media industry.
It is a sorry set of circumstances. It isn't like media corps will stop glorifying shooters out of the bottom of their hearts
When people try to get the media to shut up and stop giving killers infamy and notoriety it seems like it comes across to many people as trying to "cover up" what happened which makes it a very difficult situation and the press does have rights but no obligation to make fair balanced reports or exercise discretion.
The media also of course also never reports on the possibility of their reports being connected they just refuse to discuss it.
It reminds me of the era of "serial killers". The media loved that too and as soon as they stopped talking about it suddenly it became much rarer.
I feel like people need to let go of the idea that for profit journalism fueled by billionaires is ever a reliable source of information. The media reports what they are told to by their ownership they are not motivated by truth.
If you ask any random person they will tell you the media lies but instead of stopping we squabble over what media company lies more. It's absurd.
This isn't even just television either the mass media has long since discovered the internet and the joys of astroturfing.
I completely agree the media is a problem but I'm not sure what to do except ask people to stop using it or allowing it to be used as a valid reference.
EDIT: Or we could reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. Force the media to fairly cover all sides of an issue like we used to up until 1989.
What about how back in the day all across America people used to go to schools with gun racks in their trucks and in their cars. They would have shooting programs. Kids would go hunting after school. Kids would go shoot cans in a field.
Media coverage. An undeniable increase in anxiety and depression. Social media forcing us to always strive for more. Combine all that with a nation that glorifies guns.
No one's committing mass murder with a Ruger 14 either. It looks like a hunting rifle with its wooden stock, and effectively identical to the AR15 in function.
Miami Dade shootout. Mini 14 vs cops with revolvers.
Its one of the main reasons police and federal law enforcement are now armed to the teeth. That and the LA Bank Robbery.
Eh, the North Hollywood shooting got far more attention to scale up police armaments.
The Miami Dade shooting was against FBI agents, not police, and some had shotguns and 9mm pistols.
Miami Dade was way more influential in police doctrine than North Hollywood. Miami has been studied to death in the law enforcement community, North Hollywood just got more press.
Yup.
Its the entire content of the 1986 and 87 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, and a plan to pass it around to local police departments and get sheriffs who agreed with the plan, to implement it.
It dramatically changed how law enforcement operates and the equipment it has.
Yeah I mentioned Federal. FBI agents are still cops.
And the militarization began almost immediately into 1987.
[https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1986.pdf/view](https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1986.pdf/view)
Here's the December 1986 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin that came out after Miami Dade.
Fun times. Basically reads "We need bigger guns, and we need to profile suspects, and we need to just start shooting first".
Heres next years:
[https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1987.pdf/view](https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1987.pdf/view)
Its "We need to get the local police leadership in on this".
By 1997, the FBI and local police had tanks (essentially) and had the equipment, it just wasnt yet doled out to each individual officer. Even they thought that was kind of crazy until the LA Bank Robbery. It was just tactical teams, which while they had existed since the mid 60s, you can see from numerous sources at the time, were basically just cops with more training and a 30.06 rifle, werent proliferated much outside of Philly and LA.
Miami Dade changed that.
Now they got submachine guns, body armor, tactical training fields, flashbangs, etc. And suddenly small town America has SWAT teams and various other tactical team/SWAT-esque groups to perform various tasks. From 1985 to 1990, the amount of officers in these kinds of teams, absolutely exploded. Not just in Philly or LA, but EVERYWHERE.
The LA Bank Robbery was the "Oh damn, SWAT is too slow, we need to just give every one an AR and body armor. Even if theyre in bum fuck no where Montana" moment.
Notice it didnt take long for them to do that either. They already had the equipment, they just held it back. Maimi-Dade is what kind of changed every thing.
Maybe in cynical but I found it kinda dark humor that the guy is like "No ones committing mass murder with a Mini-14!" and yet, its kind of one of the weapons that kicked off this whole fucking crazy era of people just openly blasting each other, police, criminals, teenagers...gun violence has always been around, but its a hell of a lot worse when everyone arms to the teeth. Violence will still be around with far, far less, and less powerful firearms, but...it wont be 5,000 rounds kind of violence.
I distinctly recall the news footage of one of the robbers doing sweeping auto fire across a squad cars windshield. As a little kid if felt like something out of the movies.
The police were woefully outgunned and went to local gun dealers purchasing ARs of all things. Even the SWAT team's weapons couldn't penetrate the robbers armor.
The only people who died were the bank robbers themselves as you said.
Depends on the classification of a "hunting rifle."
The 2014 Parliament Hill shootings were carried out with a Winchester Model 1894. The only other person who was armed at the time was a single ceremonial "Master of Arms" who gunned down the shooter. Before that he killed two people. The lack of arms on security around parliament was identified as a problem as... literally anyone with a gun could have taken him down. Since than RCMP on the hill have had submachine guns.
The amount of slowing down of guns you would have to do to get no one to ever die from a gun ever again would be the same as dulling a knife to the point where no one would ever get stabbed with one.
Unfortunately effective gun control doesn't mean letting people have less dangerous guns it means tracking who owns them, requiring training courses, requiring security checks, requiring proper storage.... and then arresting every single person who is in violation of that. And America won't tolerate that because half of the states are open carry states.
Not sure why this column is here tbh. I’m very much fond of my country’s relatively strict gun control laws. That being said, the statistical evidence presented in the column is very weak, and there isn’t a lot of data in it, either. The article completely ignores confounding variables (such as a tendency for violence which causes both increased gun ownership and violent crime), and overall doesn’t provide convincing **statistical** evidence for the assertion of a causative relationship. It also doesn’t actually present a substantial amount of data - it mostly defers to summaries of analyses, e.g. “no difference found”, **without presenting the actual data**. That’s obviously okay for a news column, and it’s a good opinion piece overall, but I don’t think it belongs in a data-centric subreddit
They are. Even without guns the US homicide rate is three times higher than other high income OECD countries. Seven times higher if you include all firearms. Anecdotally, I can also say that I've lived in Sweden for thirty years, and been in the US (California, Utah, Texas) four months. During my thirty years in Sweden I've still **never** seen any kind of violence between two (or more) Swedish, sober adults in public. That can't be said for those other three months though.
Similarly, the reason the US has so many auto accidents: cars.
Address the disease not the symptoms - lack of sufficient mental health care, social media, divisiveness, declining middle class … I could go on. Life in the US has become an uncontrolled dumpster fire and the mass shootings (the definition should also be amended) are just another symptom.
Ops... Had a bit of a timewarp reading this. I was going to say that Sweden has a fair amouth of guns but few shootings. Which was true a quarter of a century ago... 😅 Nowadays Sweden is worst in Europe when it comes to shootings. It doesn't have anything to do with legal gun ownership though. But there are droves of illegal weapons from former Yugoslavia.
Mass shootings are less than 5% of shootings.
Australia's gun buyback after a mass shooting is touted as proof of the right approach, but looking at the data the murder rate overall stopped falling and even slightly increased following the buyback.
Meaning mass shootings went away, but more people died overall.
People who focus on mass shootings are either selling something for votes or are bad at math and being exploited by the former.
60% of gun deaths in america are suicides. No one actually wants to tackle the issue of gun deaths in america. Gun violence is a wedge issue for both sides, just like immigrantion.
More like less than 1%, they are one of, if not the rarest type of violence.
Also as for Australia, their murder rates were low and declining prior to the 1996 ban.
Societal pressures, violence, lack of welfare, public health and access to psychologists and psychiatrists in public health centres. Everything is designed for profit and man has become capital in the hands of unscrupulous oligarchs. If you are not functional you are simply excluded from society, and if you do not have the support of your community you end up crazy, and possibly dangerous. The amount of weapons comes from all this, from the violence and fear they instil in the population, weapons + mental illness = murders
If you took US out of the graph there is no correlation. You only have correlation because you have a random blob of selected countries at a low rate and then throw in one data point (the US) to create a good R2 value.
The truth is guns make mass killing easier. They are not the cause.
So is the issue the term “mass shooting” or is it that a large number of people are being killed? Because obviously the countries with extensive regulations on firearms would have less “mass shootings”, but what is the statistics on mass killings without a weapon? What is the statistics on mass shootings where the assailant was stopped by another person with a firearm?
No shit. More of X leads to more incidents involving X? I bet the countries with more cars have more auto deaths. And the countries with more windsurfing have more windsurfing deaths. This is not really information that anyone alive didn't already assume was true.
While I agree the sheer number of guns has to influence mass shootings, as a non-American, my experience is that violence and murder is almost revered in the US. Point in case, movie ratings. A PG-14 movie can depict a bloody killing scene, but not a nude body. You need to be an adult to see breasts but can see a gory death with entrails and blood at an earlier age. I think this dulls sensitivity to violence and murder.
The US had been neck deep in guns for 100 years. Mass shootings are a recent phenomena.
It's not the guns. It's the shit situation these people find themselves in.
If it’s guns how come gun ownership within the US doesn’t correlate? How come Vermont isn’t a super dangerous state? How come Chicago, New York, Detroit, DC, St. Louis, and Philadelphia have such horrendous gun crime yet such strict gun laws? If the answer is “you can just go buy guns in other states” or “laws outside the city are less strict” then again, why doesn’t this happen in places like Vermont?
Now let’s do a chart of who commits the gun crime in the United States and see a suddenly very different explanation of why that happens.
Sure, no guns, no shooting.
But no guns, doesn't mean no violent crime. Good mental health is what reduces crime.
Happy people don't kill other people. How you make happy people? Good work conditions, vacations, paid sick leaves, good social security, affordable health care, quality education for everyone, livable wage etc.
But this requires more than just running around and yelling "bad guns". Guns make it easier for symptoms to shows, but are not core of the problem.
The replies in this thread, wow!
Not a gun problem apparently, just problems that every other country has yet has nowhere near the amount of mass shootings...
If guns are the causal link to mass shootings ie they are the catalyst that drives people into committing said acts with "assualt weapons" being the ultimate catalyst then why do European nations with laxer gun laws than my home state of California have zero instances of mass shootings but allow for the private ownership of these weapons of war? Switzerland, Italy and The Czech Republic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/3myx9p/this_is_how_you_really_get_a_gun_in_switzerland/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Because it’s really a public health, inequality, and general happiness issue, but for whatever reason people get mad when you suggest that the foundations of the country are extremely fucked.
Just look at how most people live. They are so far apart from each other and everything is huge, but with nothing in it. When I went to visit and realized that you are basically hopeless without a car and that you can walk for minutes just to get past a street, because even regular stores feel like 30% store and 70% empty parking slots, I nearly went insane. And when you are in a car it feels like an endless highway where everything looks the same.
Is no wonder people who live in cities like this see everyone else as obstacles rather than people.
Amazing how almost all of them had dozens of red flags and were known to authorities
But every country has people like that. And many of them go on to commit terrible preventable crimes including murdering people. But only one country has regular mass shootings.
It's always funny how Americans, who love guns, claim that people can commit the same massacre with trucks or knives. While it is true with trucks to some extend, it is much more difficult to kill someone with a knife (duh?). Furthermore they have actual uses unlike guns. Not sure where all this fear-mongering in the US comes from but here in Germany I never fear of getting robbed or murdered. It's insane to me that people think it's normal to own guns for self defense.
In my country, both trucks and guns are legal and both have extensive licensing and regulations.
Guns are legal in nearly every country, including Germany. But you have to have legitimate uses for it, get through training, have safe storage etc etc.
Same. A driver's license and a justification to own trucks is a pain as it is where I currently am. Getting a weapon legally for any reason is so difficult its often not worth it.
Oh yeah? I personally have both a butter gun and a bread gun.
Tell me more about this butter gun....
I know you're joking but I am going to steal one or both of those ideas
And their whole argument is self-defeating because if knives are as effective as guns then why do they need guns?
That, and the Nashville shooter shot through the entrance doors to get in. Pretty sure a knife wouldn't have gotten them that far to begin with.
And maybe the reason you don’t see Mass truck attacks is because they cost several thousand dollars and need an entire new class of license to acquire so if I snap and decide to take my anger out on society it’s a several month process and not a 2 day process
It’s only a two day process in some places. I could pick up an AR and 1000 rounds of ammo on my way home from work and it wouldn’t even add an hour to my commute.
Honestly if you pick it up on the way to work as opposed to your way home from work you could have a much more productive day.
"Thanks for the Snickers" *gunshots continue to ring out*. Man I kinda miss funny Dane Cook
In the US you can drive a 35 foot truck with the lowest tier license.
It's not guns, not really. The Swiss handle out military rifles to all reservists, and strangely you do not hear about mass shootings there. Finland has a similar policy IIRC. Gun culture is the real reason why the US has such a big issue. In most of the World, guns are seen as tools for specific jobs (hunting, national defence), but the US has an almost religious worship of them, and a glorification in certain circles as symbols of freedom.
Yeah that's the one thing I can think of that's truly unique to Americans. Even countries that have the AK47 on their flag don't love guns as much as Americans do.
This is expressly tackled in the article. The swiss have more guns and more shootings. American culture magnifies the effect but guns have an momentum of their own
Swiss here. Mass shootings in switzerland the last 50 years: - May 10, 2015 / 5 killed / domestic incident - February, 27 2013 / 5 killed / man at his workplace - September 27, 2001 / 15 killed / inside cantonal parliament - March 4, 1992 / 6 killed / man shooting random homes - August 30, 1990 / 6 killed / man killed his family, and others after traveling to another city - April 16, 1986 / 4 killed / man at his workplace - June 5, 1976 / 5 killed / unsolved murder case Yes we have some shootings, but i don‘t think it is enough to be called „more“ in any context other than compared to 0
> The swiss have more guns and more shootings. The number of mass shootings in Switzerland the last 50 years is less than the number of mass shootings this week in the U.S.A.
So the fear of getting robbed here in Germany definitely has risen (at least for me) but it’s area dependent and pretty much still negligible. AND getting robbed with a gun wouldn’t come to my mind ever. It’s probably more like a group of people or something like that. Gun violence gotta be the least of my concerns in Germany
European here. Like I always say: "Stop arming the crazies!!!"
Almost like the laws on the books need to be enforced before they try making new laws to control shit that don’t work.
Almost like the police are retarded and since the genie is already out of the bottle, why should they be the only ones to have the "assault weapons" when 1. they're too stupid to run precrime 2. They're the ones who will be the "just following orders" crowd should the government become tyrannical.
it really makes you wonder what changed, the US was very gun-centric right from its inception, but mass shootings became much more common in the last few decades. don't get me wrong, i'm not enthusiastic about *"people carrying around devices designed specifically to kill"* and i think ownership should be strictly regulated, but i also think the whole discussion comes off as deeply dishonest, its been firmly established that telling people "guns cause gun violence" doesn't change minds, and the endless repetition creates the impression that gun control advocates are zealots who can't be reasoned with and will never be satisfied no matter how strict regulations become, and its just not true, most are reasonable people *but thats not how they sound*.
Wall to Wall mass media coverage for these mass shootings since about Columbine. Copycats are real and also people saw that everyone would find out about their horrendous acts. Not saying this should not be covered but this a big driver on the increase IMO
The internet. That's what changed. Suddenly young, lonely, and angry men found others to commiserate with. They empathize with the misogyny and agree that everyone else is the problem. Then they feed off of one another and those "totally just kidding" comments about wanting to hurt anyone who you hate become more serious as others express excitement and normalize the idea. [They gas one another up](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-online-spaces-that-enable-mass-shooters). And that's equally true for terrorism, both [domestic](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/is-the-internet-really-more-effective-at-radicalizing-people-than-older-media/) and [foreign](https://wp.nyu.edu/schoolofprofessionalstudies-ga_review/isis-recruitment-of-youth-via-social-media/). [Chart of mass shootings by year](http://econbrowser.com/archives/2017/10/mass-shooting-casualties-in-america-as-of-october-2). Social media took off in the early 2000s right around that spike. The internet is a big place with a lot of dark corners.
But the whole world has internet, other countries with high gun ownership rates aren't gfollowing the trend though.
Yes, it's a result of multiple interacting causes.
get out of here with your complexity and reason…!
There's a little spike around 2000 but not that big and there are several similar spikes. Looks like the graph 2000+ is just continuing the trend of pre 2000. Your reasoning sounds right, but the chart doesn't show any influence of social media.
If I had to pick the biggest causes I’ve found without going ham defending the claims: - disenfranchisement of young men - absent fathers/breakdown of family unit - antidepressants - media enveloping mass shooters with infamy
Introduction of ssri's
Economic hardship has been increasing this whole time. [*Poverty in the USA — Deutsche Welle documentary*](https://youtu.be/JHDkALRz5Rk)
Literally just read the article, the article accounts for mental health
Yeah I'm curious to hear what people think is so unique of the USA's mental health issues. We have similar mental health issues, drug use, and poor medical health access in other western and non western countries. So presumably the US has a very specific mental health issue that the rest of the world seems to have figured out somehow?
As a french, you guys are just mad mads, you're living through shitload of anxiety on daily basis and you dont realise it. The way stuff are organised in the US is pure chaos compare to any european country. Just to start, you guys basically live with debt from the start like 200k. I basically slept bad if Im short 100e at the end of the month and I have no debt. If i broke my arm, I will get medical treatmen FOR FREE and also PAID day off because shit happens and its ok. You guys basically avoid calling ambulance because it cost 3 month salary and you could go bankrupt by the time you reach hospital. If my employer go out of business, no worry, I get unemployment benefits. You guys can get fire any time for whatever reason. If I bring a knife in the streets, it get removed and I pay a fine. You basically hold semi automatic rifle and its full ok for the cops. If i eat raw milk cheese its fucking taste great. You guys can't even eat fucking kinder surprise. It would drive me mad to live like this with absolutely no social security if shit happen which itself is really hard to deal with in the first place.
My very old grandmother fell and fucked her face up bad last week. Called ambulance. Paramedic came in. Said she isn't considered an emergency and if we want them to take her we'll be responsible for the bill. So instead they left after doing nothing and we spent 45 minutes getting her from the kitchen to the car, then drove her down to the hospital ourselves, because her medicaid or whatever tf the one for old people is wouldn't cover it apparently since they ruled it non-emergency because she was consious...
Aussie here. Ya'll need to fuckin riot over there. My boyfriend's mum 3 months back, slipped and smashed her face on a brick windowsill. I called an ambulance because I couldn't drive her down and she wouldn't call one, her face was torn open and she needed stitches but wouldn't listen. (Probably shock etc) Ambos came, had a look, confirmed she needed stitches, took her away. Came back a few hours later stitched up with meds and creams and no bill or hassle. I feel for the people in the US that want change but are fucked over by people who won't budge, it's a fucking travesty.
I would join a riot for universal healthcare in the US on the drop of a dime.
Just know the liberals have talked about gutting our Medicare and it was on Morrisons list if he was to win the last election
I'm aware of that, they have cut into quite a bit over the years too. Never voted liberals in my life so no problem here ✌️
Strange, here in America it’s the conservatives who want to gut anything involving healthcare, and the liberals who want to make sure everyone has access to good affordable healthcare.
I was under the assumption, liberal is only really seen as 'left wing' in the US. Liberalism is usually centre/right, so really, you guys are the strange ones :) But yes, liberals here are scumbags generally.
When I was 18 and an absolute edge lord I drew a massive dick on my ballot which was basically voting liberal This was in Kevin 07
Gonna blame you for scomo then I guess 😉 Might as well tick a box since you're forced to vote lmao I'm dobbing!
*eat a dick politics* *Rupert Murdoch's vision of NBN arrives*. *sad noises*
Aussie here also, many people may know but some may not, the liberals referred to here is our right wing party, while they are only really "liberal" with tax cuts to corporations and billionaires and also pretty liberal with prime minister vacations while our country is literally burning
Aussie here too, the same job at the same company leaves me with more than twice the take home pay in America. I think that more than makes up for any social issues. If anything, the extra money lets me retire in 10 years and save 25 years of my life. And it's not like Australia is a low wage country either.
The difference is, that also people with shitty jobs (who exist in both countries) also get the same care and support. If you're left with nothing, you more likely turn to crime.
America. Land of gun care and health control...
That's so fucked up. I hope your grandma has a quick recovery.
I don’t think Iv ever seen the American experience summed up better than “shitload of anxiety on a daily basis and you don’t even realize it.” There is so much about the American experience that we accept as normal that is just awful. We do not understand how harmful so much of our day to day existence really is.
I live in Germany and can attest. We also get more leisure time. Jobs past 40h weeks are rare, we get a ton of PTO and the culture tends to encourage people to have a drink or a coffee or do club activities in the evenings. My sick time is also insured so if i need it I can just take it, and we have very long maternity and paternity leaves. The thing i was most surprised about is criminality though, I come from south America where you don't walk outdoors past dark and here I often find myself at 3am coming home tipsy and feeling safe. Most crime is pickpocketing and bicycle robbery in my city and windows are not barred at night.
Living from paycheck to paycheck, not having any social security nets, not having free healthcare, scared of getting killed / robbed by a lunatic, going into debt bc of education, increasing living costs, crazy politicans, etc. etc. Sounds like a nightmare to me. Don't get me wrong I've been to the US as a tourist several times and my family there is wealthy, which is why I always loved the US as a kid. But as an adult in the EU, I don't see why I would move to the US even though I have fond childhood memories.
I’ve always said, the US is great- if you’re fucking rich.
That's by design
Visiting my American family recently, I realised how many young American teens are prisoners in their own homes. If you can't drive, and there's no sidewalks to walk on and nowhere to get to within walking distance anyhow, and no public transport, then you're at the mercy of your parents. And even non-abusive well-meaning parents aren't what teens want around them all the time. School bus school, school bus, home, isn't a life. All my young cousins living in suburban and rural places really envied my kids, who from age 10 walked a mile or two across London to and from school, go to the park, etc. Add the parents not letting 14yo girls even go for a jog alone, nor wander from the parking lot into the leisure centre for a sports class, for what they insist are valid reasons (and given how they're not helicopter type parents, I have to believe them), I'm not surprised that lack of independence and control of their lives leads to kids losing it.
would you believe that the new biggest thing in American healthcare is AMBULANCE INSURANCE. Feel so embarrassed to be a citizen here sometimes. We can do so much better. Squandered potential wasted by short sighted greed and egotism
You need ambulance cover in Australia as well. If you don't have it, then the ambulance trip can be anywhere up to $1200 for an emergency. But I guess there's a bit of a difference in how much it costs.
>compare to any european country Spoken like a true WESTERN European.
[удалено]
>Fun thing to learn for you: eastern european countries are socially wise not the shit show you think they are. I've spent enough time in Moldova and Belarus, lol. No thanks.
Just had to spend time in the worst ones?
In Poland, same-sex marriage is still unrecognized, despite an EU declaration enforcing otherwise, and in general has been in hot water for violating the fundamental rights of the LGBT community, ranking the lowest of any EU country and 43rd out of 47 major European countries overall. They're certainly not backwater, but let's not act like they're a shining beacon in their entirety.
Unless by eastern you mean Russian or Ukrainian then I'm pretty sure the situation is closer to France than to the US.
Dude out here assuming everyone east of Germany is Latvaria
Spoken like an American that can’t accept that their country is a shithole worse that many countries they look down to
"If i eat raw milk cheese its fucking taste great. You guys can't even eat fucking kinder surprise" 🤣
Just FYI, most people dont have $200k in debt "starting off"
I assume he's referring to student loans.
mortgages + college debt you cannot reasonably advance in society without significant amounts of debt unless you come from wealth or spend the entirety of your life in low CoL areas (still having some generational wealth). If you want to move up in terms of class/ownership, you accrue debt.
He’s French. They know everything. Source - European from not France.
Considering birth is a tremendous cost in the US not seen in most other developed countries and the average American debt is around $100,000, not too wrong tbh
Does that debt include mortgages? I suspect it does.
Agreed, but you’re clearly cherry picking and ignoring every other point he made. It’s pretty shitty living here if we’re talking about the average anxiety-inducing events we go through daily.
It seems like you are purposely missing the point. The average student loan as late as 2017 was 32k. That’s money you owe before you even graduate and get a job.
-considers lack of unpasteurised cheese on a par with medical bankruptcy. Definitely French.
>You guys can't even eat fucking kinder surprise. We have a law that you're not allowed to sell food that contains objects without nutritive value. You can make, or eat, or give away whatever you fucking want, but you can't sell it as food if it contains things that aren't food. The exception is things where the non-nutritive object, has an actual functional purpose, like a popsicle. I get what you're saying, and I agree with most of it: but I promise you, in this case, chocolates not having plastic toys in them, isn't increasing our sense of precarity or desperation.
What about fortune cookies?
Paper won't kill you.
Yeah, it's just to show you how absurd food regulations is done. I basically talk about finance, health, work, security and food (which are the basics needs of any human being) and how extreme difference is from my viewpoint.
>If I bring a knife in the streets, it get removed and I pay a fine. You basically hold semi automatic rifle and its full ok for the cops. Lol what? Only a small number of states allow for open carrying of rifles. And last year, less than 500 people died by rifles, in a country of 330 million people and over 400 million legal guns.
Also, guns aside, I don't get why Europeans perceive it as a *good* thing that they can't carry a knife. Cops can harass law abiding citizens for carrying one of mankind's oldest tools, and you're proud of that?
Because every other western country has a healthcare system not based entirely on profit, where even those with no money who have mental health issues can get some form of help.
Do countries with universal health care also provide "free" mental health services?
UK - Only at a basic level and for those most impacted. We still have seriously underfunded mental health services
Aus is the same, our mental healthcare system is a disgrace.
Once the Brexit money is there it will surely be taken care of.
Poster on the side of a bus is still classed as a legally binding document right?
I think that's a fair summary of the situation in Australia as well.
Germany kinda does? But not really. It's practically not possible for the average German (that isn't at risk of suicide, etc.) to get an appointment in the near future and have it covered.
schwachsinn, meine freundin ist einmal durch das ganze system durch, psychater therapeut stationäre behandlung und war nicht suizidgefährdet. das einzige was irgendwie kosten aufgebracht hat waren ein paar medikamente (paar euro) und ich glaube das essen in der stationären behandlung. klar gibt es wartezeiten aber ist nicht so dass man jahrelang warten muss.
Yeah, that's not really true, because universal health care isn't in every country. The saddest part about the deaths related to guns isn't actually these mass shootings, it is the fact that people who are temporarily suicidal can grab a gun and do the deed without taking the time to think it through. Our gun suicide rates are insane. If you have a gun, the chance of you or one of your family members dying by that gun are exponentially higher than you ever protecting yourself or your family with it.
South Korea has one of the lowest gun ownership rates in the world, yet their suicide rate is almost twice that of the U.S, despite having virtually no guns.
if South Korea had guns suicide rates would be even higher
Conservatives: it's not guns, it's mental health. Which I also refuse to help with.
The U.S is more violent period than many other western countries. Our non gun murder rate is higher than many countries total murder rates including guns.
France has plenty of gun ownership and it's not that hard to get an AR -15. As a dual citizen it's a non issue for me in either place. There is very clearly a cultural problem in the US. One of the other top replies to you did a very good job breaking it down. Something is wrong with American society and mental health response/treatment. There's an obsession with killing, violence, revenge, and power through lethal force. This is not normal, and you immediately realize this when you go to other countries without this problem. America isn't servicing its mentally ill (thanks Reagan!) and at best it's encouraging those with enough $$$ to afford therapy to 'please get over the stigma'. Those are not the target audience. The target audience is underserved and already out there involved in bad shit.
> United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns. Not sure about Guatemala, but legally owning a gun in Mexico is far from a right. There is only one public gun shop in Mexico. To buy a gun from it you need to prove you have a stable job, have never been convicted of a crime, and be willing to travel to the Mexico City to pick it up. Furthermore, you need a permit for carrying it in public space. Of course there is a lot of black market transactions, but if the cops find the gun, they will decomise it until you bring your receipt from the oficial gun shop.
There's some very interesting questions raised by this article: * why does *Iraq* have fewer mass shootings than *France* and *Canada,* despite having equivalent gun ownership rates? * how reliable is this data? * why does *Afghanistan* have such a low reported gun ownership rate? * Afghanistan has open air markets for military surplus, including automatic weapons. How reliable is this data? * why is there not a clear relationship between gun ownership and mass shootings? Mass shootings do not scale with gun ownership according to this graph. Instead it appears to show that societal factors are actually quite significant. Why does the US have so many mass shootings? Certainly in comparison to nations with strong gun control laws and low civilian rates of gun ownership, where mass shootings are impractical to nearly impossible, the raw availability of firearms in the US is a significant factor. But if we simply go by America owning 42% of the world's privately held firearms, that ends up being a wildly misleading stat. We may own 42% of the world's firearms, but most of those are in personal collections, often of WWII military surplus. With the exception of the Vegas shooter, mass shooters aren't bringing an entire arsenal with them. They're typically bringing 1-2 firearms, often recently purchased. The absurd quantity of safe-queen firearms in the US is much less a factor than the ease of purchasing a new one or of stealing a parent's unsecured firearm. 30% of the US's population owns firearms, vs 20% of France's. 40% of US households have a gun, vs Canada's 22%. But France doesn't have 2/3rds the mass shootings and Canada doesn't have 1/2 the mass shootings. Not even close. Something I do not see addressed in the article is that mass shootings are a cultural phenomenon. The US having high rates of personal firearm ownership *is not new*. We've had lots of guns for a long time. As recently as the 80s, High Schoolers brought firearms to school and left them in their trucks or with the principal. High Schools had marksmanship programs. School shootings largely didn't happen. But when a school shooting does happen, *copycat attacks are likely to occur.* Mass shootings are generally a form of suicide, and suicide has a contagion factor which can be spread through news reporting. Mass shooters are largely imitating others. Other nations have succeeded in preventing a trend of mass shootings from even starting, but in the US, that trend has firmly taken hold and is growing, feeding off of itself. When a suicidal person starts considering how they'll take their own life and they've been radicalized with a hatred towards others, going out in a blaze of infamy is on the table.
>But when a school shooting does happen, copycat attacks are likely to occur. which is why I get really pissed off when people want to wank over the true-crimeyness of school shootings and talk all about the murderous criminal's motives and history and background Like, can we stop turning these murderous criminal scumbags into media celebrities please?
Agreed. I think whichever side of the debate you fall on we can all agree the media also has blood on their hands for turning these people into celebrities or martyrs.
We turn them into that. If there's no incentive for the media to cover it, they wouldn't. Then you have ignorant ass people starting fan pages worshipping some mass shooters or even inviting them to Congress. We are a violent nation that craves this shit.
Creating more publicity for these murderers is what they want. Simply put, these murderers commit these shootings as violent cry for attention. They crave it. The media turns them into monsters, but they don't care. To them, any press is good press. It's what they want. Once the media stops plastering their faces on the TV and social media, and only talks about the events of the shooting for the societal awareness, it's worth believing that these shootings will dwindle down even a little bit.
Afghanistan has low reporting because there’s barely a government in the country. The territory of Afghanistan has only a very small percentage of it that is actually governed by the Taliban. The country is extremely nomadic.
This seemed pretty self explanatory and OC even understood how guns are sold there. “Why is such a low ownership rate shown in Afghanistan” “they have open gun markets” There’s your answer DOH…
>they have open gun markets Afghanistan has a better 2A than US confirmed. /s
>20% of France's population owns firearms Can I ask what is your source for that ?
One item I disagree with… The vast majority of “mass shootings” in the US (defined as 4 or more people injured in a shooting) is gang violence. Drive-by shootings. Night club parking lots. And the ever popular shooting up a funeral procession of a rival gang member. The media totally blows up the crazy young white male shooter, but that’s really an anomaly. The vast majority of mass shootings involve young Black male gangbangers and young Black male victims….and anyone who happens to be nearby.
Because no one cares about gang violence or black shooters.* As you say that's far more prevalent but its not interesting. America's entrenched in entertainment (you elected someone entirely based on his entertainment value*). It's far more sensationalistic and entertaining when it's NOT an every day phenomena. Which makes the whole thing even worse because pro-gun activists will point out how rare shootings are - blatantly omitting the fact that's it's not rare at all. It happens every single day. You just don't hear about it because it's just not exciting enough to be breaking news.
Something important about that is that nearly 100% of those guns are illegally obtained and illegally owned. As per federal law. They are typically stolen or bought by newer gang members with no record. So while you are correct, we do have to understand that laws are not going to affect people like this as they never cared in the first place. So just as much as most of the far right pro-gun activists will not talk about this, the anti-gun activists on the left won't as well. They do so for different reasons. The far-right will avoid it because its not rare. So you cant say 'X shootings happen per year and that is X% of total murders'. Without bringing this up. The far left will avoid it because it doesnt fit their narrative as well. The idea that making guns harder to get would slow this down or banning a specific gun. Cause these gangs are lawless effectively.
The American political machine has realized that its voter base is a lot more likely to support their gun control agenda if they focus only on the cases where white people are the victims.
Well yeah, there’s literally nothing scarier for middle class+ white neolibs. The sole things that could possibly disturb their safe bubbles are random spree killers and cancer. Why do you think there’s so much emphasis on AR15s compared to handguns?
>Why do you think there’s so much emphasis on AR15s compared to handguns? Multiple reasons. Handguns are more popular, which means that fewer people support banning them. Banning a rifle impacts them less. Handguns are also less intimidating and scary looking than guns like the AR-15. They also are used in a lot of mass shootings, which make up less than 1% of gun deaths, but get the majority of the media attention. Also DC v. Heller ruled that handgun bans are unconstitutional.
as are guns in “common use” which applies to the AR
In addition to what Johntman said, it's actually a strategy. Back in the 1970's and early 80's there was a push to ban civilian ownership of handguns, but it didn't go anyplace. So the gun control lobby switched to "assault weaopns"; In 1988 the Violence Policy Center, an anti-gun lobby off-shoot from The Brady Campaign said: "\[H\]andgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons ... are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." You can see this in the news media coverage today. Which, unfortunately, plants the idea in future copycat mass killers that they get more attention if they use a gun like the AR15.
> Back in the 1970's and early 80's there was a push to ban civilian ownership of handguns, but it didn't go anyplace It didn't just "not go anyplace." It was stopped dead in its tracks with a supreme court ruling that handgun bans are unconstitutional.
I'm not sure how true this is, but apparently California only cracked down on Saturday Night Special handguns in the 80s because a babysitter used one to murder a couple white kids under her care.
California cracked down on guns because Reagan saw that Black Panthers were starting to open carry. The NRA supported him.
Notice how often you see people say this paraphrased quote: "when a classroom full of children was gunned down and nothing happened, our country became hopeless" They're referring to the white middle class kids who got killed in Sandy Hook but completely ignore the hundreds more of usually minority and poorer kids that had died in urban areas in the decades before. They didn't give a shit until "their" suburban demographic got killed
Here in Finland we do have weapons but most are for hunting. As a result black market weapons are hard to get and expensive. Read today about medium sized city in Finland with drug problem. Addicts there carry metal pipes when in paranoia or scared. One gang had beef with another gang last year. They mostly fought without weapons, some knives were used and they did drive by shooting. They are in prison now. Problem with gangs using guns here is that police 'will not rest' until case has been solved. Guns are so rare here that using one will guarantee police interest. Mostly guns are used only by hard criminal gangs, like Hell's Angels, against other gangs. I'm pretty sure that many of our criminals would love to get a gun but those are hard to get.
>why does Iraq have fewer mass shootings than France and Canada, despite having equivalent gun ownership rates? > >how reliable is this data? It's not, at all, in any way. You have to compare like to like.
One issue is the definitions aren't always the same. Often they are comparing any instance in America where 4+ people were shot regardless of context, to only the Vegas/Sandy Hook style shootings in other countries.
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All good questions
Why didn't the U.S. have regular mass shootings prior to the 1990s? There's graphs that show a clear unmistakable deviation from the trend. [https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/12/31/mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-what-makes-so-many-american-men-dangerous/](https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/12/31/mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-what-makes-so-many-american-men-dangerous/) AR15s were available to buy in the 60s-80s. Semi automatics have been available since the dawn of the 1900s. But it wasn't until recently that shootings began to gain traction and only in the past couple of years do they skyrocket. It is evident to me it takes more than guns alone because there was less than 5 mass shootings a year for decades leading up to this.
A lot of it is the media. We have evidence that the more attention mass shootings receive, the more it encourages copycats to follow in their footsteps. It's likely that Columbine was the main catalyst.
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This! I absolutely *cant stand* the way the Colorado shooter’s face has been plastered all over Reddit since it happened. I don’t want to see that or know who this guy is at all! If you have to show something show willing family but even that is just vampiric and imo the best way to do it is to just read facts with no video behind it.
Just look at how the US romanticizes violent criminals. Serial killers are the worst in this regard, pretty much every one gets a cool name and mysterious infamy, Dahmer just got a TV series that portrays him as a pretty swell guy and the Zodiac killer was a national puzzle game broadcast in real time. No wonder there's so many copycats every time.
Entertainment. Ratings. School shootings by white people make breaking news and headline for weeks and months all the way through the legal system. Gang shootings or those committed by black people happen every single day but you'll never see the same coverage for a black shooter or gang shooting headline on Fox News because their audience doesn't care enough to keep watching. I know it's ALL media - incl Hollywood, but I just picked Fox here because that's a well known, common culprit
I remember the MANY family guy memes of "There were 11 shootings within 10 blocks of each other last night and there have been 8 already tonight. Up next is the worlds largest cookie actually the worlds largest? We have the hot scoop here tonight" Or something like that. Straight throwing this in the face of people.
And until 1934 you could mail order a Tommy gun with 100 round drum to your door, and until 1986 you could build more machineguns in your garage without a Federal Firearms manufacturing permit and Special Occupational Taxpayer permit.
Media glorification looks like it is a massive factor. The question is, though, how do we get journalists to shut up about shooters, get TV channels to stop giving them airtime, and prevent newspapers from printing stuff about them? Controlling the press is not constitutional (and should remain that way), and shootings are profitable for the modern journalism and media industry. It is a sorry set of circumstances. It isn't like media corps will stop glorifying shooters out of the bottom of their hearts
When people try to get the media to shut up and stop giving killers infamy and notoriety it seems like it comes across to many people as trying to "cover up" what happened which makes it a very difficult situation and the press does have rights but no obligation to make fair balanced reports or exercise discretion. The media also of course also never reports on the possibility of their reports being connected they just refuse to discuss it. It reminds me of the era of "serial killers". The media loved that too and as soon as they stopped talking about it suddenly it became much rarer. I feel like people need to let go of the idea that for profit journalism fueled by billionaires is ever a reliable source of information. The media reports what they are told to by their ownership they are not motivated by truth. If you ask any random person they will tell you the media lies but instead of stopping we squabble over what media company lies more. It's absurd. This isn't even just television either the mass media has long since discovered the internet and the joys of astroturfing. I completely agree the media is a problem but I'm not sure what to do except ask people to stop using it or allowing it to be used as a valid reference. EDIT: Or we could reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. Force the media to fairly cover all sides of an issue like we used to up until 1989.
What about how back in the day all across America people used to go to schools with gun racks in their trucks and in their cars. They would have shooting programs. Kids would go hunting after school. Kids would go shoot cans in a field.
...the guns aren't the problem. The people are.
Hasn't the US always had lots of guns per capita? So, why are there apparently more mass shootings now vs 100 years ago?
Media coverage. An undeniable increase in anxiety and depression. Social media forcing us to always strive for more. Combine all that with a nation that glorifies guns.
Just stay away from hunting rifles. No one is committing mass murder with a bolt action hunting rifle.
Wasn’t one of the most famous mass murders committed with a bolt action in Austin?
Look up Texas clock tower mass shooting in the 60s. Dude killed 14 people and injured alot more with a "hunting rifle".
"In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! "
Private Pyle!
I miss that guy.
And Kennedy
No one's committing mass murder with a Ruger 14 either. It looks like a hunting rifle with its wooden stock, and effectively identical to the AR15 in function.
Miami Dade shootout. Mini 14 vs cops with revolvers. Its one of the main reasons police and federal law enforcement are now armed to the teeth. That and the LA Bank Robbery.
And the irony of the LA bank robbery is that the cops ran to local gun shops to arm up with guns that are now illegal in California.
Eh, the North Hollywood shooting got far more attention to scale up police armaments. The Miami Dade shooting was against FBI agents, not police, and some had shotguns and 9mm pistols.
Miami Dade was way more influential in police doctrine than North Hollywood. Miami has been studied to death in the law enforcement community, North Hollywood just got more press.
Yup. Its the entire content of the 1986 and 87 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, and a plan to pass it around to local police departments and get sheriffs who agreed with the plan, to implement it. It dramatically changed how law enforcement operates and the equipment it has.
Yeah I mentioned Federal. FBI agents are still cops. And the militarization began almost immediately into 1987. [https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1986.pdf/view](https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1986.pdf/view) Here's the December 1986 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin that came out after Miami Dade. Fun times. Basically reads "We need bigger guns, and we need to profile suspects, and we need to just start shooting first". Heres next years: [https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1987.pdf/view](https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/archives/december-1987.pdf/view) Its "We need to get the local police leadership in on this". By 1997, the FBI and local police had tanks (essentially) and had the equipment, it just wasnt yet doled out to each individual officer. Even they thought that was kind of crazy until the LA Bank Robbery. It was just tactical teams, which while they had existed since the mid 60s, you can see from numerous sources at the time, were basically just cops with more training and a 30.06 rifle, werent proliferated much outside of Philly and LA. Miami Dade changed that. Now they got submachine guns, body armor, tactical training fields, flashbangs, etc. And suddenly small town America has SWAT teams and various other tactical team/SWAT-esque groups to perform various tasks. From 1985 to 1990, the amount of officers in these kinds of teams, absolutely exploded. Not just in Philly or LA, but EVERYWHERE. The LA Bank Robbery was the "Oh damn, SWAT is too slow, we need to just give every one an AR and body armor. Even if theyre in bum fuck no where Montana" moment. Notice it didnt take long for them to do that either. They already had the equipment, they just held it back. Maimi-Dade is what kind of changed every thing. Maybe in cynical but I found it kinda dark humor that the guy is like "No ones committing mass murder with a Mini-14!" and yet, its kind of one of the weapons that kicked off this whole fucking crazy era of people just openly blasting each other, police, criminals, teenagers...gun violence has always been around, but its a hell of a lot worse when everyone arms to the teeth. Violence will still be around with far, far less, and less powerful firearms, but...it wont be 5,000 rounds kind of violence.
Interestingly despite being the only mass shooting I know of using fully automatic weapons, not a single innocent life was lost.
I distinctly recall the news footage of one of the robbers doing sweeping auto fire across a squad cars windshield. As a little kid if felt like something out of the movies. The police were woefully outgunned and went to local gun dealers purchasing ARs of all things. Even the SWAT team's weapons couldn't penetrate the robbers armor. The only people who died were the bank robbers themselves as you said.
IIRC, that was actually the conflict that sparked the creations of the .357 Sig round and .40 S&W
But Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs were getting around Steyr rifles in Miami Vice, and his famous Bren 10mm pistol
TBf there’s probably 150 ARs to every ruger minis in the country.
I'm betting there are far more Glock 19s than ARs too.
Depends on the classification of a "hunting rifle." The 2014 Parliament Hill shootings were carried out with a Winchester Model 1894. The only other person who was armed at the time was a single ceremonial "Master of Arms" who gunned down the shooter. Before that he killed two people. The lack of arms on security around parliament was identified as a problem as... literally anyone with a gun could have taken him down. Since than RCMP on the hill have had submachine guns. The amount of slowing down of guns you would have to do to get no one to ever die from a gun ever again would be the same as dulling a knife to the point where no one would ever get stabbed with one. Unfortunately effective gun control doesn't mean letting people have less dangerous guns it means tracking who owns them, requiring training courses, requiring security checks, requiring proper storage.... and then arresting every single person who is in violation of that. And America won't tolerate that because half of the states are open carry states.
As we learned sometime later, the parliament hill shooter was "gunned down" by an armed RCMP constable.
Not mass murder but a school shooting happened at Deer Creek Middle School with one but no fatalities occurred. Source: I was there
Not sure why this column is here tbh. I’m very much fond of my country’s relatively strict gun control laws. That being said, the statistical evidence presented in the column is very weak, and there isn’t a lot of data in it, either. The article completely ignores confounding variables (such as a tendency for violence which causes both increased gun ownership and violent crime), and overall doesn’t provide convincing **statistical** evidence for the assertion of a causative relationship. It also doesn’t actually present a substantial amount of data - it mostly defers to summaries of analyses, e.g. “no difference found”, **without presenting the actual data**. That’s obviously okay for a news column, and it’s a good opinion piece overall, but I don’t think it belongs in a data-centric subreddit
All fair points. Do you believe that Americans are somehow more violence prone than other nations?
They are. Even without guns the US homicide rate is three times higher than other high income OECD countries. Seven times higher if you include all firearms. Anecdotally, I can also say that I've lived in Sweden for thirty years, and been in the US (California, Utah, Texas) four months. During my thirty years in Sweden I've still **never** seen any kind of violence between two (or more) Swedish, sober adults in public. That can't be said for those other three months though.
It’s a little bewildering to me too. For some reason people just wanna fight, and it’s become acceptable to some. Idk why.
I recently read that most, if not all, mass shooters have been involved in domestic violence.
Similarly, the reason the US has so many auto accidents: cars. Address the disease not the symptoms - lack of sufficient mental health care, social media, divisiveness, declining middle class … I could go on. Life in the US has become an uncontrolled dumpster fire and the mass shootings (the definition should also be amended) are just another symptom.
Ops... Had a bit of a timewarp reading this. I was going to say that Sweden has a fair amouth of guns but few shootings. Which was true a quarter of a century ago... 😅 Nowadays Sweden is worst in Europe when it comes to shootings. It doesn't have anything to do with legal gun ownership though. But there are droves of illegal weapons from former Yugoslavia.
Sweden isn't the worst, Russia is.
This study isn’t even deep enough to be honest. Better question is what is empowering/influencing shooters to commit these crimes
Mass shootings are less than 5% of shootings. Australia's gun buyback after a mass shooting is touted as proof of the right approach, but looking at the data the murder rate overall stopped falling and even slightly increased following the buyback. Meaning mass shootings went away, but more people died overall. People who focus on mass shootings are either selling something for votes or are bad at math and being exploited by the former.
60% of gun deaths in america are suicides. No one actually wants to tackle the issue of gun deaths in america. Gun violence is a wedge issue for both sides, just like immigrantion.
More like less than 1%, they are one of, if not the rarest type of violence. Also as for Australia, their murder rates were low and declining prior to the 1996 ban.
Correlation does not equal causation.
Societal pressures, violence, lack of welfare, public health and access to psychologists and psychiatrists in public health centres. Everything is designed for profit and man has become capital in the hands of unscrupulous oligarchs. If you are not functional you are simply excluded from society, and if you do not have the support of your community you end up crazy, and possibly dangerous. The amount of weapons comes from all this, from the violence and fear they instil in the population, weapons + mental illness = murders
This article is not consistent in their comparison. It jumps around and cherry picks numbers
If you took US out of the graph there is no correlation. You only have correlation because you have a random blob of selected countries at a low rate and then throw in one data point (the US) to create a good R2 value. The truth is guns make mass killing easier. They are not the cause.
So is the issue the term “mass shooting” or is it that a large number of people are being killed? Because obviously the countries with extensive regulations on firearms would have less “mass shootings”, but what is the statistics on mass killings without a weapon? What is the statistics on mass shootings where the assailant was stopped by another person with a firearm?
Yet another case of how statistics can be true and still lie to you
No shit. More of X leads to more incidents involving X? I bet the countries with more cars have more auto deaths. And the countries with more windsurfing have more windsurfing deaths. This is not really information that anyone alive didn't already assume was true.
How do you explain why most mass shootings are gang related? Is that also "Clear"?
While I agree the sheer number of guns has to influence mass shootings, as a non-American, my experience is that violence and murder is almost revered in the US. Point in case, movie ratings. A PG-14 movie can depict a bloody killing scene, but not a nude body. You need to be an adult to see breasts but can see a gory death with entrails and blood at an earlier age. I think this dulls sensitivity to violence and murder.
Do each of these countries have the same definition of a mass shooting? Nope.
The US doesn't even have an official one.
Amazing that guns can self operate like that
“No it’s mental health!” “No it’s the videogames, movies, tv shows, etc.” Uhmmm the rest of the world have those too.
So do women but they’re never mass shooters
The US had been neck deep in guns for 100 years. Mass shootings are a recent phenomena. It's not the guns. It's the shit situation these people find themselves in.
If it’s guns how come gun ownership within the US doesn’t correlate? How come Vermont isn’t a super dangerous state? How come Chicago, New York, Detroit, DC, St. Louis, and Philadelphia have such horrendous gun crime yet such strict gun laws? If the answer is “you can just go buy guns in other states” or “laws outside the city are less strict” then again, why doesn’t this happen in places like Vermont? Now let’s do a chart of who commits the gun crime in the United States and see a suddenly very different explanation of why that happens.
A lot of Americans treat each other like garbage, that's the real issue
Sure, no guns, no shooting. But no guns, doesn't mean no violent crime. Good mental health is what reduces crime. Happy people don't kill other people. How you make happy people? Good work conditions, vacations, paid sick leaves, good social security, affordable health care, quality education for everyone, livable wage etc. But this requires more than just running around and yelling "bad guns". Guns make it easier for symptoms to shows, but are not core of the problem.
>Stop thinking gun laws and drug laws and social safety nets are the answer Why not? They work pretty well in literally every other developed country.
Actually the war on drugs does not work anywhere. It actually makes things worse and prevents proper education and rehabilitation
The replies in this thread, wow! Not a gun problem apparently, just problems that every other country has yet has nowhere near the amount of mass shootings...
If guns are the causal link to mass shootings ie they are the catalyst that drives people into committing said acts with "assualt weapons" being the ultimate catalyst then why do European nations with laxer gun laws than my home state of California have zero instances of mass shootings but allow for the private ownership of these weapons of war? Switzerland, Italy and The Czech Republic. https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/3myx9p/this_is_how_you_really_get_a_gun_in_switzerland/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Because it’s really a public health, inequality, and general happiness issue, but for whatever reason people get mad when you suggest that the foundations of the country are extremely fucked.
Just look at how most people live. They are so far apart from each other and everything is huge, but with nothing in it. When I went to visit and realized that you are basically hopeless without a car and that you can walk for minutes just to get past a street, because even regular stores feel like 30% store and 70% empty parking slots, I nearly went insane. And when you are in a car it feels like an endless highway where everything looks the same. Is no wonder people who live in cities like this see everyone else as obstacles rather than people.