It is well studied that Means Reduction saves lives. As easy access to weapons and methods to commit suicide/murder are reduced people do not often substitute other methods, therefore the tragedy is avoided.

Gun control does not confront any of the root causes of the problem, however. Isolation, loneliness, disenfranchisement, and hopelessness are at all-time highs in American society. Anyone feeling these, or other crushing emotions, is not alone. Restricting access to guns will avert tragedy, but neglects to treat a more serious illness of society.

According to Robert Putman’s Bowling Alone the transition from active engagement to passive consumption (the specific example he studied was how TV watching impacted Americans’ social lives) has been the single greatest factor contributing to an epidemic of social disengagement. Bowling Alone is now 21 years old, and the trends Putman identified in 1999 have not improved, they have been exacerbated by the internet, social media, and smart phones.

Gun control will save lives, and I am therefore in support, but it is not enough to take away access to guns and consider the problem solved. We must also address the difficult questions such as “in a democratic society, why does someone feel they have no say in their government and therefore they feel the need to own a gun in case violent revolution is necessary?” and “why do people in this community feel unsafe around their neighbors and feel the need to own a gun for self-defense?” We need to do a better job engaging the people who feel powerless, and the people who do not trust their neighbors, to promote positive social engagement within their communities.

I believe social media can be re-engineered to promote the positive characteristics of human psychology, instead of the current situation where social media (and consumptive entertainment generally) have been engineered to manipulate and exploit human psychology for profit. I believe gun violence and suicide are symptoms of a far more serious withering of American community by toxic hyper-individualism. I also believe these issues have reached a critical mass and solutions are beginning to be implemented, but change is uncomfortable and slow. I feel very hopeful that these problems will be solved, and we will look at the last 30 years in America as a tragic and confused period.

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Points I am seeing raised:

1. If outlawed guns will be available through the black market anyway. But now they will be unregulated.
2. Guns are needed to violently rebel against your government.

If 1. is true the rebellion will be able to get guns. So there is not much of a problem in terms of 2. for outlawing guns.

Whether the populace has guns or not doesn’t matter for the purpose of maintaining leverage against the state when the authorities have drones, tanks and a military air force. It does however matter for everyone’s security, as evidenced by the crime rate in the US compared to countries in the EU. At least I don’t have to worry about shootings in the grocery store here in Sweden.

Her, folks! I love the way this thread flows without insults. Not the way in other networks…

I’d like to look into this subject.

I’m European (and not a good English speaker, sorry) and we generally conceive our safety in the other way. We delegate the use of the force to the estate, in hands if the government. And I feel safe in general and it’s not a main problem for the society nowadays.

But, do you, individually and generally as American, feel yourself safe with the 2nd amendment or only feel more safe but always threatened?

I realize the difference among the vast US and its low population density and any country in Europe where anyplace is not more than 40 miles away a medium size city. And this is only one in a few.

That it’s a joke in America. 20 kids gunned down in their school, and nothing changed. Just keep pumping babies out to replace the ones that are lost, but we don’t dare lose our guns.

It’s depressing as fuck.

In a democracy, governmental authority derives from consent of the governed. If it is not functionally possible for a populace to withdraw its consent from its government, then its “consent” is meaningless. Therefore, democracy requires that the populace be capable of overthrowing its government. In a country where the government owns guns, private gun ownership is necessary for effective self-rule.

I believe people with a history of violence should be prevented from acquiring firearms and related stuff, but the general population should have access to most stuff. People with a criminal history that is non-violent shouldn’t necessarily be prohibited (getting caught smoking pot for example).

Favorite idea I’ve heard so far is a registry of people who are prohibited–what background checks are supposed to accomplish.

This prevents the government from tracking who has what, and also doesn’t negatively impact law abiding citizens like most proposed gun laws. Allowing most stuff also can help reduce the illegal market.

What seriously irritates me is that the focus is constantly put on firearms when it really should be mental health. You wouldn’t put a band-aid on a severe leg and believe that solved the problem would you?

I’m strongly against anything that specifically targets lower income people, such as licenses and tax stamps (e.g. FOID card in Illinois).

Shall not be infringed

It’s a difficult question in this day and age where balance of fire power between people and government is so mismatched. It might almost be more relevant to think in terms of cyber capabilities.

This passage from Georgetown professor and historian Carroll Quigley always comes to mind when people talk about the American 2nd amendment being a safeguard against totalitarianism. I don’t know the answer.

On the military level in Western Civilization in the twentieth century the chief development has been a steady increase in the complexity and the cost of weapons. When weapons are cheap to get and so easy to use that almost anvone can use them after a short period of training, armies are generally made up of large masses of amateur soldiers. Such weapons we call “amateur weapons,” and such armies we might call “mass armies of citizen-soldiers.” The Age of Pericles in Classical Greece and the nineteenth century in Western Civilization were periods of amateur weapons and citizen-soldiers. But the nineteenth century was preceded (as was the Age of Pericles also) by a period in which weapons were expensive and required long training in their use. Such weapons we call “specialist” weapons.

Periods of specialist weapons are generally periods of small armies of professional soldiers (usually mercenaries). In a period of specialist weapons the minority who have such weapons can usually force the majority who lack them to obey; thus a period of specialist weapons tends to give rise to a period of minority rule and authoritarian government. But a period of amateur weapons is a period in which all men are roughly equal in military power, a majority- can compel a minority to yield, and majority rule or even democratic government tends to rise.

“Under no pretext…”

But seriously. As a member of a minority group I understand that there are people who would have me killed. I understand as a worker living in the US that the government does not have my best interests in mind. I understand as a minority and a worker that the police are more likely to harm me than save me from a bad situation. So, with all that being known, how could I ever reasonably give up my weapon? It may stand between me and death some day.

Alongside this, the issue of gun violence in the US is not primarily an issue of people having guns, or mental illness. It is an issue of white supremacy and reactionary attitudes being normalized, and violent, toxic masculinity being entrenched in our society. The vast majority of shooters may have some kind of underlying mental illness, but notice the main things that are in common between them. Namely, they are generally white cishet men, and they almost always ascribe to some kind of hateful ideology.

like most things, if it’s not allowed the black market has higher demand. which in the end is still tied to government. I agree that less people in the first world will have it if it’s disallowed, but I recall vaguely that burglaries during blm protests were less common in the states where gun possession was legal.

I have not killed myself or someone else by far probably is due to strict gun control. If we were to have big problems with the government corruption I imagine we would manage to steal guns from the military if needed.