Gini coefficient (aka income inequality) is far more closely correlated to gun violence than gun ownership is. Pushing for more/stonger unions, socializing healthcare, building walkable cities, and spending more on education would do far more to reduce gun violence while improving people’s lives dramatically
The idea actually has plenty of merit, on both sides - homeless people absolutely are in desperate need for tools of self defence, but also if anything has proven to get the NRA to support tighter gun control it's people they consider "undesirable" arming themselves.
I'm all for marginalised people being armed, but there is also no doubt that "gun culture" in the US is an entity of its own (evident not only by the numbers and kinds of guns owned compared to other countries, but also the sheer number of shootings that happen) that is running rampant and needs getting rid of.
Guns should be treated as the tool and a last resort they are, not the basis for someone's whole personality.
While true. It’s because a lot of homeless are really unpredictable for various reasons.
The “down on their luck” homeless you see panhandling etc are generally the exception. Most have legitimate mental illness or drug problems. At least in my neck of America.
I'm well aware of the issues faced by homeless people, and none of that negates anything I've said, if anything, it actually strengthens my point - highlighting just how much more vulnerable and more at risk of being victimised they are. Mentally ill people are at a much higher risk of being the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it.
We're also not talking about ideals here because in an ideal world people wouldn't be homeless, but they are, and they deserve to be able to defend themselves with a weapon of their choice.
Maybe instead of worrying about the "unstable" homeless people, worry about the circumstances that put them there and the people who actively act to harm them (the government, the police, NIMBY's, and so on)? I guarantee that's a much better track to change.
Statistically, yes. Individually, guns are not bullet magnets, but they make their owners take more risks and try less hard to escape dangerous situations, which is a grave mistake.
Assuming concealed carry and the proper mindset of only using a gun as an absolute last resort (big assumption), a weapon is just a tool, and having it in the toolbox would be more useful than not.
'tis the heart of the debate. Individually, guns are tools. Yet societally, the damage caused by the mentally unsound gun owners vastly outweigh the individual benefits, which is why all developed countries besides the US heavily restrict their use (though guns are not as rare here than Americans might believe, especially in rural areas where they are used as tools to protect against or hunt wildlife, or in some countries with conscription where reservists might own a gun, but aren’t normally allowed to carry it in public).
I really recommend the video game Receiver 2 for anyone who would like to learn about responsible gun handling without actually buying one and taking courses.
I'd love to see this comparison between homeless and housed people, but let me save you time - A. homeless people shoot significantly less people and B. most shootings aren't done by those with mental illness.
But don't let reality get in the way of your bad and privileged take...
You’re completely missing the point. The point is that suicide is inflating the statistic of owning a gun increasing your chances of being shot. If you don’t have issues with depression, that increase in risk is significantly less.
A lot of people who live in unsafe situations/locations buy a gun to try to protect themselves. It’s not that buying a gun makes you more likely to be shot, but rather that people who are already likely to be shot buy guns.
In particular, the researchers found, people who lived with handgun owners had a much higher rate of being fatally shot by a spouse or intimate partner. The vast majority of such victims, 84%, were women, they said.
Living with a handgun owner particularly increased the risk of being shot to death in a domestic violence incident, and it did not provide any protection against being killed at home by a stranger, the researchers found.
People who lived with handgun owners “did not experience such fatal [stranger] attacks at lower rates than their neighbors in gun-free homes”, the researchers wrote, noting that stranger homicides at home were “a small minority” of the homicides observed in the study.
Lmfao, brings up DV stats about housed men shooting the women they live with after years of ongoing violence and abuse all directed towards the one person they end up shooting, to prove, what point exactly, about homeless people???
Maybe get your head out of your ass and admit you might not know what you're talking about?
No?
I didn't think so, but it was worth a try..
Either way, you're full of shit, and at the very least are a wilfully ignorant classist who thinks they know better than those with the actual lived experience.
You don't.
Well being homeless isn't safe either, and while it'd be much nicer if no one was homeless, they are, and they deserve the same level not only of safety, but also autonomy.
I bet you've never bothered piping up about guns not being safe when housed people are being discussed, that's what you should be focused on, not your paternalistic urge to control what others you feel superior to, do.
“Those homeless people are lowering MY property values with their continued existence!
How can they be so selfish?!”
My oligarch owned Government, culture, and it’s major media will never succeed in propagandizing me into the madness of putting property rights over human rights. America runs on schadenfreude, our values are beyond fucked.
I agree with the sentiment but there is a bit more to the argument than property values. You can simultaneously hold the positions of, “I think society should do more to solve this problem,” and, “I would really prefer to not have needles in my front yard.”
It’s a difficult problem to solve, and we don’t dedicate the resources or effort to solving it that are required.
Yes, but when your solution is to lock them up or have the cops come kick them out and move them along, you’re admitting you don’t actually care about solving the problem, only keeping it out of your sight.
Not to say that is what your solution is, but I live next to a high homeless population, but extremely affluent area, and the discussion on Facebook and Reddit would have you think that the only feasible solution is to build prisons and lock these people up forever, but they always preface it with that same needle complaint, as if that justifies dehumanization of people, and isn’t just an indictment on our systems.
Needles in your front yard isn’t as important a priority as human beings having a place to sleep and something to eat. It just isn’t.
We should house anyone without means as a society.
In lieu of that, they set up tents in the commons, because we are a profoundly antisocial, individualistic selfish society and aren’t willing to do better for our fellow citizens as they’re our capitalistic competition.
To then petition your local government to remove tent cities by your house, or call the cops on a homeless person taking refuge in an area of the commons near your home, is just further harassing the brothers and sisters of our society we have already failed so completely.
Our homelessness epidemic is a reflection and condemnation of all of us. It’s sad that for so many, the priority is getting that reflection out of their eyeline. Ignorance is bliss.
I don't disagree about guns, but even saying "just in case" at this point is pretty ridiculous.
Not only can fascism never be voted away, even if it was somehow possible, we're about a decade or two past that point now.
Just frustrated that people still say stuff like that as if it was ever even an option.
Instead of saying “We need universal background checks” he said “Hell yes, we’re going to take your guns”
In Texas, a state with a strong gun culture. 🤦♂️ He lost the gubernatorial election.
His chances weren’t that great to begin with, that was one of the many speeches that solidified his defeat.
Why not focus your compaign on healthcare, minimum wage, workers rights, so many issues that appeals to everyone. Nope, he handed the election to a fascist.
Is there an actual group pushing for that? (I’m pretty sure I remember a decade or so back there being an arm the homeless group, that put out santa’s etc… though didn’t actually accept donations. (Their actual goal was common sense gun laws, and they knew the people who are pro-gun would argue strongly against it shooting their own pro-gun arguements in the foot).
#libertrians#armtheHomeless The homeless are one of the most at risk group to authoritarian violence including, but not limited to, police. There is at least one campaign in my region looking to collect firearms that you don’t need anymore to donate them to the homeless.
This is literally a story arc in Bojack horseman, which is an homage to what California did when the black panthers showed up with guns to the legislature lol. In BH women start buying guns, men pass new gun laws in the blink of an eye. 
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