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This is by miles the worst firearm issue America has. Naive laws banning types of guns, magazine capacity, all that, do nothing for nearly half of all gun deaths.
Example after example shows that so much as inconveniencing a suicide is often enough to stop them. Guns are point and click. They are literally the most convenient way to surely die. This is why I didn't own a gun until I was 39, and most were bought recently at 50 or so. I wasn't mentally stable enough.
And if anyone wants to come in here screaming, "BAN all the things!", just don't. The 2A exists and the courts uphold it as an individual right, those are facts and not open to argument. And besides, I don't hear anyone screaming about a handgun ban. Long guns, shotguns/AR-15's/whatever, are something like 4% of gun deaths. Let's focus on reducing the most harm.
So what now? We somehow test people to practice their rights? There are plenty for whom I'd like to yank the 1A and the franchise. But I'm sorry, people are free to speak and vote in this country.
And if we impose some sort of test, what's the criteria, who administers it, who judges the results? What if one passes and later becomes suicidal?
I already know the answer to that one. Gun laws have always been, and always will be, racist. Don't take my word! Please look around for yourself on this one.
And don't start me with red flag laws, I know exactly how those would work out. Imagine vengeful exes, modern Brown Shirts, cops you pissed off, fuck me, even neighbors that are annoyed with you. While we're at it, let's just chunk the 4A right out the window.
Someone invariably starts talking mental health. And I'm 100% down with that, just as I am some form of universal health care. But here's the thing with the mentally ill, they often don't know they're sick or are too sick to go get help, even if it's free.
This is one of the most intractable problems in America, and I don't have a clue what can be done about it.
Anyone? I'm listening.
Yea, we definitely need a two-pronged (or more) approach to tackle it in the US. Mental health would go a loooooong way for both the suicides and mass shootings.
Red flag laws are just fine when written correctly. That's a ridiculous fear-mongering point. Not all of them are the same nor have the same agencies calling any shots.
You don't have a clue because you're being a pessemist about proven impacts. Red flag laws that target domestic violence and clinical depression have demonstrable impact on the problem. It's intractible because people like you refuse to accept that a step in the right direction is better than nothing. Your attitude is quite pathetic, and you are part of the problem when you go on about how nothing can be done.
Started out helpful, went downhill fast.
Do you not see the potential for abuse of red flag laws? FFS, teenagers get people "swatted" and you want trigger happy cops coming into the home of an "armed and dangerous man" to remove his guns!? Best case, only your dog gets shot. We liberals acknowledge that cops act as judge, jury and executioner, and yet, for some cases, they're all good?
20-years ago I had a gf drop a protective order on me. Because I dumped her. Didn't fight it. Big mistake. When the cops didn't arrest me on the spot, her and her boss fabricated a story claiming I violated the order. Got arrested for that one! Thank god mom was able to bum me $1,000 for a lawyer to get that charge tossed. No evidence, nothing, because it didn't happen. Still spent a night in jail and had to fight it.
20-years after that, my ex-wife took a clue from that story.
"Get out of this house!"
"I own this house too, not leaving, you can't make me."
"I'll get a restraining order."
"Good luck. I've never hit you or even threatened violence."
"I'll tell them you did."
And she did. She wanted that over my head for the child custody battle. Again, thrown out, but $8,000 and 4.5-years later I got my small children back last week. (And got married!)
Call me a pessimist. 🤷🏻♂️
Now I'm down to talk implementation, mainly that the local police have no say in it. But where are we summoning up the service to deal with such things? I'm all about listening to these ideas, but there are devils in the details.
Lol... I'm not even saying I agree or disagree with you, but that is some weak sauce barely anecdotal "evidence" to use as backup for such a claim.
Aside from the entire thing being a slippery slope argument, and completely fallacious, that's just not how reasoning works.
The potential for abuse is not a reason against the whole plan. Or should we kick you off the internet because it allows terrible people to communicate?
Your entire general attitude is a problem.
I am in a similar situation with my guns. I have two antique long guns. They're locked up, in the crawl space, and I don't keep any ammo in my house.
I have depression and I don't trust myself not to use my guns to kill myself. For me, the inconvenience of accessing them and obtaining ammo feels like a safe compromise.
I agree that this is an enormous problem with no easy solutions.
Good for you! Keep it that way until long after you feel more sane. Might take years, might never happen, but you know yourself. Keep on keeping on!
vs
The 2nd amendment needs to go on the dustbin of history. I'm not saying people can't own guns, but the right to should disappear.
"But that's not realistic", you might say. Sure, it's not going to happen any time soon but I think the US will get there eventually.
Maybe I agree, maybe I don't. Not 100% sure myself. But adding a constitutional amendment is unthinkable ATM. We couldn't pass an amendment making every 2nd Saturday of March "Chocolate Chip Cookie Day".
What I'm getting at is this: There is zero use talking about dumping the 2A, and neither your opinion nor mine will matter for decades to come. That discussion is off the table. And that's not fatalism, it's reality.
So again; Guns and suicide. Hell we do right now today?
All I got is health care, education, raising the poor from poverty, all the things conservatives won't let us have. Feeling so hopeless on this front, reaching out to anyone that has so much as a baby step.
99% of our gun issues are due to intractable poverty and inequality. 50 years ago we didn't have these issues because Corporations were not so overbalanced. There were perks to many jobs because taxes were very high on profits.
Fix the extreme poverty, housing, and take-home pay and most of these social issue will disappear. The rich and powerful ( Corpos and people) want people to give up rights because their problem is about control more than money.
Giving up rights won't change any suicides because there is no more hope in the US anymore.
This is where I'm coming from. Guns were a non-issue when I was young. I understand it's impossible for young folks to experience the past, but it wasn't like this. At all.
It’s like this now, though. Living in the past doesn’t do anything to protect those suffering today.
You're right, and you're going to get downvoted for it. We have an inequality problem masking as a gun problem. We have a mental health crisis masking as gun problem.
Possible solutions to these situations aren't fast and they don't stir up emotions enough to get people to vote for you. Riling people up and telling them you can fix their problems fast gets votes; saying we have work to do doesn't.
The stigma against mental healthcare won't be gone in my child's generation, but I am happy to see it is being accepted more than it was for mine. Of course, not thinking poorly of people for taking care of themselves doesn't matter if people can't afford to...
Hard agree. People would not be killing themselves in droves if these issues weren't present.
We have a shitload of guns in this country. Nothing is going to change that.
While I think we do need more strict gun ownership laws, they're not going to change the amount already in people's hands. Nor will they make people less miserable.
What we need are tangible improvements in people's lives. Improved wages. Lower housing costs. Affordable healthcare. Quality, free treatment for addiction.
These are the things that will keep people from killing themselves.
I'm glad to see this line of thinking in this thread, even if the "Take 'em all" sentiment seems to be more popular. Over the last 40ish years, gun ownership has slowly trended downwards.
The fact of the matter is, healthy & happy people tend not to shoot themselves or others. Depressed, desparate, jaded, and angry people are the ones out there abusing their 2A rights. Taking away their guns may stop them from using them on people, but it doesn't feel like a complete solution: you still have people who were unstable enough to commit murder /suicide out there.
I admit I have no data to support this next idea, but my gut feeling is that you could swap the gun laws & density of the US and one of those European coutries we're always compared to, and the rates of overall violent crime / suicide would not change that drastically.
And I agree with you! But we had a shitload of guns when I was a kid 40+ years back, and less stigma surrounding them. FFS, kids would never touch a real gun, or even think about it, without an adult present. LOL, I never even saw a gun despite being surrounded by them.
We have to attack the underlying issues you describe, but I've about given up hope on that.
I've often said: America doesn't have a gun problem. America has a culture problem. Funny to see the up and down votes depending on time, place and context. I feel like my opinion is borderline factual. (Still an opinion!)
I'll happily disagree with the stigma against mental health thing. This GenXer is damned happy to see Millennials and GenZ taking mental health seriously. Hell, wasn't even talked about when we were young. Verboten. For that matter, gays were firmly in the closet, even our friends hid that shit. Maybe we're agreeing but from slightly different age perspectives?
Little off topic, but I think the younger folks take it a bit far at times. Being a teenager, or even a 20-something, is a hella fucked up time in life. It just is. Yes, it's hella challenging. No, there's nothing wrong or unusual about you. All that confusion is normal. (Doesn't help hearing that when you're living it.)
No amount of social change is going to undo a hundred thousand years of evolution and the jacked up hormonal and social status changes that accompany growing up. (Plenty of room to improve though!)
We're on the same page re: mental healthcare. I was trying to convey I'm glad the stigma around it less and less with each generation, but we still have a ways to go.
The second amendment had a very different meaning before Heller. Scalia went against his entire fucking schtick of "originalism" in that case to completely ignore historical precedence because it was convenient at the time. When nobody seemed to try to stop him, or really give a shit at all, he realized he didn't even need to pretend to be consistent.
Here's a thought: gun ownership is not a right and it was a mistake for that to have been put in the Constitution.
If for the sake of argument we determine that it is not a right, then we can make some actual change. We heavily restrict ownership, prosecute those who have them after a grace period, stop sales of ammo to citizens, heavily monitor borders and ports of entry for firearms, and demilitarize the police.
In addition, we invest in education, social programs, mental health, and improve wages, housing costs, and food costs for everyone.
Instead of all that, we're going to do nothing and send more money into the military.
Ya know you mostly had me up until here. Red flag laws - when your neighbor becomes despondent they should just leave the firearms around? When some kook starts waving his pistol around at the 7-11, you think they're keeping and bearing arms responsibly? I don't. Red Flag Laws are necessary.
https://jalopnik.com/stop-leaving-unsecured-guns-in-your-cars-1850268670
This nation needs to be responsible with the 440 MILLION firearms it's accumulated if they're going to keep them.
I don't think it's intractable I think it's unenforced and under-reported.
The SCOTUS needs to revisit the issue. Heller was wrongly decided on the basis of shitacularly poor reasoning. There is no other solution. Unfortunately it's not going to happen any time soon. The plus side is that as Dobbs showed us, the court has no problem overturning long established precedent when it suits them.
I'm also not convinced that red flag laws can't work. They just have to be designed with a ton of safeguards in place. I think we should at least try them before deciding that they can't work. I believe there are already a handful of them in place at the state level, but I could be wrong as I don't follow the issue closely.
Yes. Because they're all based on the original racist law, the Second Amendment.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery/
Gun laws are the reason I can't take that easy way out. Not cause it's too difficult, I easily could, but I don't want my legacy to be a row in a database used to push gun control laws I disagree with.
Hell man, something like 47% of gun deaths are suicide. If that isn't getting us talking and taking action, your name on row 47,445 for 2023's Excel sheet ain't gonna matter.
Hang in there and fight the good fight. Fight useless gun laws that only cost political capital, fight for laws that might help us all.
We need people like you and keeping your death out a database is not helping. You're alive, you can help, now. So let's talk about it.
And if you ever want to talk, shit gets that bad, I've been there, done that. DM me and you got my email and phone.
Repeal and replace 2A.
Explain how a new Constitutional amendment is passed. This is high school stuff. Lay it out for us in case others don't know.
Next, give us a plan to move forward, even if that plans spans decades.
I am honestly listening.
Not saying it's easy or something that can be done soon. Just saying that a lot of things will change in this country once the silent gen and the boomers are gone.