I love how all the people talking about how semi auto guns have been around for X years and blah blah blah completely ignore the massive uptick in production, sale, and distribution of those guns in the past 30-40 (or so).
People have more or less been able to buy assault style semi auto rifles for a long time, but they only “recently” (I guess 30-40 years might not be so recent?) started actually buying them in large numbers. Mostly thanks to the NRA, if I had to point a finger.
The problem is that a really angry or disturbed or whatever person with access to a high rate of fire weapon and lots of ammo (because they’ve been told that next election Jack Johnson or John Jackson will be taking their guns) can literally just pick it up and go kill half a dozen or more people in 30 minutes. There’s nothing we can do to intercept that. (And “good guys with guns” have a terrible track record, including cops.)
We even had a little experiment in the 90s where people were buying a lot of these and then we banned them. Mas shootings (4+ victims according to the FBI if I recall correctly) had been going up but then they went down until …
W and his Republican stooges (or maybe he was the stooge?) let the ban expire, mass shootings started ticking up.
The drivers that lead people to mass violence probably are the “root” of the problem, and I would guess hypothetically that if we could snap our fingers and solve those it wouldn’t matter how many or what type of guns there are out there. The problem is that we aren’t even trying to fix those problems, and the Republican Party is actively making them worse, AND we’re making these literal weapons of war easily available to everyone.
Total speculation from my own experience… so maybe just me.
It seems like there is just a completely different culture surrounding guns that didn’t exist before (or just wasn’t so damn loud). I’m talking about the whole I need guns for “protection” because crime is out of control, the 2nd amendment SHALL NOT be infringed, “don’t tread on me,” I have guns and I’d like to see the government “try” and take them, etc. It’s like this delusional, childish owning a gun so you can tell people you own a gun… thing? Anyone else notice you can always tell who owns a gun by how dumb their bumper stickers are?
I talked to an older dude who went to my high school 20 years before me and he told me how him and a buddy often brought their rifles to school. It was never a “thing.” They might have gone hunting before school or something… I forget. But the whole attitude he had about it was the polar opposite of what it has become.
No one is coming for your guns guys. On that note, no one fucking cares either.
The NRA started out as a well respected advocacy group for hunters rights and environmental protection. Then they were captured by the arms manufacturing industry, so now their only goal is to sell more guns.
And after every major mass shooting there is a significant uptick in sales of guns and ammo, so the arms industry is financially motivated to contribute to the culture of gun rampage.
Yeah, that makes sense. It used to not be a partisan thing to be an NRA member either. But I suppose I can say that about any bullshit culture war issue nowadays. This whole politics as a team sport thing is cancer.
Owning a gun just seems like another way to show support for your team. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that if it were somehow illegal to tell people that you own a gun, firearm sales would plummet. Otherwise, how would anyone know how cool they are?
The NRA has a bloody hand in promoting this culture. Decades of escalating fearmongering brought them members, money, and political influence. It also took them far off course from their original goals promoting safety and responsibility. They now exist solely to promote more firearms sales at any cost, and actively push legislation against any attempts to regulate ownership. I enjoy going to the range once in a while to do some target shooting, and used to hunt years ago, but will never be a NRA member. I have no respect for this organization and what they’ve become.
Financial stress. Go take a closer look at the crime stats that right wing racists like to hammer the black community with. Then adjust them for poverty rates in the community. All of a sudden the racial divide in violent crime goes away. If anything, poor white men are the most violent, but not by enough to really be significant. The driving factor, by around 10 or 15 to 1, is poverty.
We’re seeing declining standards of living across the country, while technology hides the true depths of it. The whole, you can’t be poor if you have a wide screen TV and a refrigerator, is almost true. It’s just enough to make it look like having no bargaining power, being locked into your zip code, buried in debt, and renting everything you own, somehow represents wealth.
Australian here. We had one really bad mass shooting and then our government (who was also one of the most conservative governments in the last 50 years) banned guns. Haven’t had one since. Guns just aren’t a thing here and we kind of think you’re a weird country for being so obsessed with guns. I also personally think it’s weird that guns are like the symbol of your freedom, yet you don’t have universal healthcare. Universal healthcare offers so much more freedom than guns do.
In saying that a lot of countries have guns and don’t have the same problem with mass shootings. What the US has is a cultural problem in terms of your relationship with guns and violence. Unfortunately, doing a mass shooting is now a normalised way to deal with your problems. Not all of you, obviously. But enough of you that it’s gotten completely out of control. In Australia I don’t think it was just the banning of guns that has reduced mass shootings. We have a culture in Australia of ‘don’t be a dickhead’. I think when we had our mass shooting we all collectively just said yeah nah mass shootings are next level dickhead behaviour.
We do have guns though, they are protected behind proper background checks and licences. And we dont fetishish them the same way many Yanks do. Definitely far fewer semi-auto and full auto guns though.
If you keep your eyes open, there are a number of gun shops around, often in quite unexpected locations. There is one near my local kebab shop, and its very subtle, so many people dont even notice it.
The Au and NZ experience with guns and pop culture vs the US is vastly different.
NZ is up there with gun ownership (in the top 20 per capita), but we have a very different culture around them, they are a hunting tool and not a misogynistic tool here. There was a bit of backlash with our last tightening of our laws - but to be frank, I got my licence after the law change with little difficulty, and who needs a semi auto AR style rifle other that those that can apply for for the appropriate licence?
Australian here, I’m literally less than ten metres away from 2 rifles and a shotgun. Used for pest control, which is mostly eaten cos rabbit and goat is delicious. Haven’t been bold enough to eat a fox yet. But yeah, they’re there. Have been visited by the cops a couple of times over the years to make sure they’re appropriately stored. Hell, you can even get a handgun here. The kicker is, you have to be a member of a gun club, regularly compete in competitions through said gun club, and the gun has to be stored at said gun club (although it can be transported from gun club to another venue for competition). So, yeah, they’re out there, but they’re heavily controlled. And we actually had an Olympic shotgun shooter get in shit a while back cos his gun was improperly stored in his car between competition and home. Nobody wants what happened in Port Arthur to happen ever again. Kids fucking died. That’s fucked. How America didn’t do something after Sandy Hook absolutely blows my mind…
I hear you, I have 5 rifles about the same distance, locked in a safe. The bolts and ammo are both in seperate lock boxes and not stored with the firearms; the keys to all are not store with any normal keys.
I think Australia has about 15-20 firearms pr 100 people and New Zealand about 25-30 (depending on where you get the stats from), compare that to the US where it’s above 150.
The whole culture around firearms is screwed there - you have senators posing for Christmas card photos with the whole family posing with a small arsenal of military firearms, or a guy guys caught on camera (clearly carrying side arms) saying “I feel threatened”, in a power pose/alpha-male stance, while advancing on some other guy in a mall.
From here, on the outside, the whole US feels quite fucked; and it’s not just gun violence…
The weird one for me is archery equipment. No licence, no checks, no storage requirement. And sure, you cant go on much of a spree, it still seems a bit odd that anyone can buy one. Crossbows are restricted though.
Amazingly, there’s more than one state in Australia, and they all have variances… As it is, I’m too tired to look into it and I was told this 10yrs ago, and I know requirements have change in this time so I acquiesce.
I’m not an expert in this stuff but my whole life I have been told to avoid eating mammals that primarily eat meat. Eating a fox just seems wrong, especially when there are so many good to eat rabbits.
Curious here. Just moved to a large acreage and have some 5 bears and about 10 wolfs that pose a risk to my dogs mainly. I grew up with guns so comfortable around them but had not really used one in twenty years. Now the laws require them locked up at all times but I literally need access in seconds. Have a few times have had to scare of the bears but it is the wolves that are my biggest concerns.
I can’t really lock them up or more to the point is that they would have near zero value locked up. I can’t imagine most farmers lock them up. What is the general idea around this?
Well I am deploying other options but not working that well. Just more curious what the ranch type guy that is using a rifle weekly if not daily does. Seperate lock up are not practical when you need them rapidly and at random times. I personally am for heavy gun regulation. Hand guns seem completely unneeded except for certain jobs and having more than say three rifles does not seem necessary. But in a farm or ranch situation, having them easily accessible is pretty important.
They might not have 5 bears and 10 Coyotes in a small area. Not sure what you are getting at? I suspect some of them, particularly the ones with cattle and large area often travel around with rifles. They are a bit of a necessity but I don’t suspect your much of an expert in that field. Looking for those that actually have more dangerous animals around they are dealing with daily or weekly.
Australia has predators, you donkey. And let’s look at the rest of the world. They have farmers and bears and wolves too. Many of them lock away their guns. At the risk of repeating myself, there are other options besides guns for the very specific use case you provided. I know you just want to hear what you think is right, but you’re asking the wrong person if you think I’m gonna do that.
I thought about poison but too likely a dog might get into it. Live traps are next best bet then they can be taken somewhere and shot safely. For bears the live traps are quite large so not so easy. Mind you not so worried about the bears. They run from even if small dogs. I am more concerned in the event where you need immediate access such as an attack. The Coyotes will come right up to the house but lucky the dogs have not been around or inside. They are crafty buggers so you pretty much need to be ready right then if you want to shoot them. Might just have to hunt them. We live right next to town and I know they have killed a few pets to date.
I suspect many with real wild animal issues do not lock their guns away although they may tell people they do. Curious how many people don’t.
This may surprise you, but farmers, shepherds etc, all defended their animals just fine before the invention of guns. You’re also making a lot of assumptions about others. But I guess that’s okay in your mind cos it validates your fears. Maybe look into changing that.
And to be clear, I’m not anti gun. Like I said, I am near a handful of them. But your commenting on a 4 day old post the way you are just screams “please validate my tiny dick energy”…
To be sure there are ways to defend animals and large animals usually will protect their young. The majority of farmers with livestock have guns in Canada and few have any qualms of using them. We are not living in the stone age. Not sure what your problem is as I am curious what most are doing overall. I suspect most don’t lock up not do I see it as a significant safety issue surrounding gun culture like there is in the US. I have never heard of a rancher going postal. Nearly all the mass shootings I can recall are from gun happy people that having nothing to do with ranch or farm type lifestyles. So not sure what your problem is unless you just like to be silly or argumentative or just a dink. Whatever. I am more worried about my smaller dogs. If I can kill them will do so but might have to hunt them down I suspect. Was hoping I could just take it the ones that approach the main yard but if hunting them, likely will have to kill them all as won’t know who the nuisance ones are.
Well that is why I would rather just kill the ones that are aggressive and less fearful and would approach people houses. Now I understand why you were being goofy. Is not about gun safety as I was asking but think any killing of nuisance animals it’s unwarranted. Not what I was asking but thanks for your input.
If it comes to the death of one of my dogs or some coyote that hangs around, my dogs will always come first. Sorry if you think that is not normal.
American here. This is sadly very true and I find it unbelievably distressing. For me, after Sandy Hook happened (the mass shooting of over 20 elementary school aged children) and nothing changed, it became clear nothing would ever change. And I feel completely helpless about it. I used to be highly opposed to having a gun in my home but it’s gotten so bad that I’m starting to consider getting one for our safety…which pisses me the fuck off because then I feel like I’m forced to be part of the problem. I went to a big trick or treating Halloween event last weekend in a major part of town with lots of kids and adults, and in the back of my head I definitely had a little fear that this would be the kind of thing that would get shot up these days. It’s so far out of control, it’s so disgusting.
I actually don’t blame you because I would feel the same way if I lived in America. I hate guns, but would feel the need to have a gun if I lived there. It seems like such a cycle of mutually assured destruction that just keeps escalating out of control.
My reaction was, instead of feeling hopeless, I’ve started to call for abolishing the Second Amendment. I’m done trying to compromise with people that care more about guns than children.
So, do you have a hunting or an sporting shoot license for your guns? France laws are the same as the rest of the EU, guns are very controlled, people in Europe don’t talk about guns as a means of revolution against the government. Unless you meant you’re french in the way 'Muricas say they’re Italian or Irish, i.e. they have a great grandfather that once passed through that country.
It’s not something we discuss often, and none of us have guns. But we all feel extremely weak against the government which we all hate, and that openly violates the core principles enonciated when we created the republic. People are getting angry, but it’s something that’s still very new
This is not to say economic desperation alone is the cause of gun violence, but easy access to guns, the complete disdain for funding healthcare mental or otherwise, the lack of vacation for most workers, these are all things which don’t make well people.
In my eyes it comes down to the possibilities of building up and maintaining some modest wealth. Most prominent examples are housing prices. With rising prices as we’ve seen in the past 2 decades, many people are forced to remain renters instead of being able to buy their own house or appartment. That’s wealth distribution upwards.
If you have some modest amount of money, say some 10k EUR, trying to invest that such that it doesn’t loose value is close to impossible. The whole finance industry seems to be set up to suck up any gains that these investments can get. As soon as you can juggle a few 100k EUR, a whole other range of investments opens up to you. That’s wealth distribution upwards.
In Germany (I don’t know about other countries) if you work to live and earn little, you’re taxed little, but you don’t earn enough to save anything anyways. If you earn more, you are taxed much more heavily than someone merely lives off a passive income. That’s wealth distribution upwards.
I wouldn’t be surprised, if this graph doesn’t concern itself with passive income anyways.
My theory: In the last 30 years, the topic “gun ownership” has been politicized. Which in turn brought in people who mix up “enjoying freedom” with “being able to own a gun, the bigger, the better”. Those people are part of an extreme end of a political spectrum. And guess what you also find at extreme ends of the political spectrum? People who want to cover up their insecurities, people with mental problems, people with extremist worldviews.
The political usurpation of the 2nd amendment by the right just to get a strong=fanatical voter base basically led to this rise in gun violence in the USA. Gun ownership as an “expression of freedom” is an artificial construct to harvest votes, just like “fear of immigration” (or worse: “replacement theory” bullshit) or abortion are artificial topics for the same reason. Although the abortion topic has the additional “benefit” of being a part of “suppressing women”, which also appeals to certain voter bases.
I think at the high level it’s the military industrial senatorial complex, the deregulation and reagonomics under Republicans, the neoliberalism under democratic, globalization, de-industrialization, the modern banking/credit system, the modern media complex, and personalized engagement algorithms… Downstream of that is a high rate of poverty, debt, illiquidity, a poor healthcare system, reliance on jobs for affordable healthcare, a lack of access to robust mental health treatment, modernization of weaponry, a radicalized and angry society, collapsing social cohesion, division along small tribal lines, lacl of patriotism, and upregulation of the average amygdala. Downstream of that you have homelessness, addiction, mental health crisises, violence, suicide, murder, and the institutional inertia that makes these intergenerational problems.
Yes, we need a multifactorial approach to all of these things both acute and chronic. It isn’t as simple or as possible to get rid of the guns, but we can increase gun laws. We could require training of all citizens, we can give a budget to support red flag law enforcement, we can give the alcohol and tobacco regulation to the FDA, and let at the ATF focus on firearm enforcement, or roll it in to the secret service or fbim We can make healthcare free. We can spend a fuckton of money on it. We can raise the minimum wage. We can actually govern the economic policy rather than outsourcing it to the Fed, and focus on demand-side instead of supply -side economic solutions, pay for college, guarantee a living wage and housing.
But not with most of the Republicans in the way and the lobbyists at the ear of our representatives.
We need a modern Robespierre. A charismatic leader to lead the public by uniting them rather than dividing them, who will make such massive changes that they’ll come for his head.
Exactly. Around the world, western countries seem to be enshittifying. The only difference is that the US has widespread access to guns which seems to lead to lots of shootings of all flavours. We don’t have that shit here.
Modern societies crush people. It breaks them. There are huge contradictions too: the idea of working to succeed when it is actually not working. The idea of freedom vs the wage slavery. The idea of being in a powerful and advanced country but still poor as fuck.
And then you have this culture of guns and violence. They go togethet: you get guns because you believe it can fix problems. Because you believe that killing people can fix problems.
Add 2 and 2 together: you have these life crushing problems, and guns as problem solver. Society provoque the problem. Kill them. Kill them all. Maybe they’ll understand after that and change something.
Far right and conspiracy theory give a theoric foundation for people to focus their rage or despair too.
And this is exactly how the system is designed to work. The purpose of the US gun madness is to keep the population scared. Scared people are more likely to agree to having their rights taken away in the name of “safety”. Having constant mass shootings just helps keep up the atmosphere of fear that authoritarians thrive on.
The world has been pretty shit for the entirety of history. Working conditions are better than they ever have been. People make more than they ever have. Crime is dropping year-over-year.
Arguing that this is occuring because everything is getting worse is just completely and utterly wrong. Quality of life is increasing greatly for the average person.
50 years ago you could shock the city, maybe the country. Now you can livestream it for the whole world and media makes a huge profit from these incidents I bet. So in short; attention. If you’re nobody and want everyone to know your name tomorrow - this is the way.
AR-15s existed long before the ban and people didn’t much care for them. They use an intermediate round which hunters consider too low-power to be humane, and I believe it’s illegal to hunt with those rounds in some states. Anybody could get one, only few people did.
So what happened? Democrats said, “You can’t have these!” and Americans, predictably, flipped out and bought tens of millions once available. Hell, I wasn’t interested until everyone was screaming BAN after Uvalde. Figured if I was ever going to get one, might as well get grandfathered in. The long-standing joke is that Democrats are the best gun salesmen of all.
Also, the media hype. Have you noticed the media salivates over “assault weapons” given the opportunity? ALL long guns, of which AR-15’s are a subset, are responsible for only 4% of the killing. Our media has beat it into our heads that the best way to kill a bunch of people is the AR-15.
There are so many other gun death related issues we should be beating the drum about. That’s another long post. :(
Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents^[1][5][6]. During the ten-year period of the ban, there were lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception[1][5][6]. However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths^[1][5][6]. Between 2004 and 2017, the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 25, compared with 5.3 during the 10-year tenure of the ban and 7.2 in the years leading up to the prohibition on assault weapons^[1][5][6]. It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups^[1][5][6]. Nonetheless, the data suggests that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents, while the expiration of the ban was associated with an increase in mass shooting deaths^[1][5][6].
Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents
Correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real significance, there would need to be a drop in mass shooting counts.
That aside, your own citation shows any change in deaths is questionable at best - it looks as if the average may have even increased, by the included graph.
It also seems to pretend that _merely banning the sales of more “assault weapons” would have nullified the impact of existing assault weapons.
However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths.
Again, correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real meaning there would have to be only one changing factor… and the trend would have had to been consistent with a near-elimination of the count of events.
Can you truly think of no other changes? No, say, incredible spike in the media glorifying and sensationalizing such events, inadvertently promoting them as a means of getting violent retribution as one commits suicide?
It boils down to this: was there any direct scaling of such values with the actual count of owned “assault weapons”? Of course not.
It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups
Wow. So, you dilute the value of your own correlation by highlighting factors known to be common underlying issues, yet double-down on “suggest” and “decrease”.
In order to judge the effectiveness of the assault weapons ban, we need to look at if the usage of the banned weapons themselves decreased in mass shootings. If mass shootings dropped by half, but the banned weapons only compromised a third of the shootings prior to the ban, then clearly there is much more at play.
As is most mass shootings are committed using handguns, not rifles. Even on the higher-end of causalities, handguns comprise about 50 percent of the biggest mass shootings. (Incidents like Orlando and Virginia Tech were committed entirely with handguns, Ar-15s aren’t actually advantageous in most shooting incidents, it’s purely aesthetic).
This is simply wrong. Many of the worst mass shootings in the last decade were committed with low power rifles and handguns. I’m actually pretty sure the two worst mass shootings (by count of those who were killed) in the US were done using .22 ammunition. Those weapons were not covered by whatever ban you’re talking about
It’s not about “assault weapons” and it’s not even about guns. It’s about the inability of our government to pass meaningful legislation around gun ownership and mental health and especially where those two topics intersect
The problem is that human suffering is normalized because the wealthy political class and those who fund them are not going to let things change for the better if it means less money for them.
There weren’t many school shootings, and suddenly Columbine happened.
The thing is - Columbine wasn’t really a school shooting.
It was a failed bombing. The shooting was to get everyone into the cafeteria where they’d set up barrel bombs which luckily didn’t go off. In fact, the largest casualty attack in a US school remains a bombing from 1927.
As a school shooting, Columbine was also quite atypical, with two perpetrators.
But as soon as you now had what was really a failed bombing being covered by the news as a school shooting, suddenly thereafter were a ton of school shootings (that fit the normal archetype of a mass shooting with a lone perpetrator).
And each of those got a ton of coverage and the numbers of mass shootings went up yet again.
If you suddenly prohibited covering mass shootings in media (impossible because of the 1st amendment, but hypothetically), I am certain you’d see mass shootings drop by double digit numbers.
The fact that Columbine was so atypical of what events followed in its planning but was so close to what followed in how it was covered in the news tells a pretty damning story of the role of mass media in this phenomenon.
Also see:
Towers, S., Gomez-Lievano, A. Khan, M., et al. (2015). Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings. PLOS One. 10(7): e0117259. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117259
Lankford, A and Tomek, S. (2017). Mass Killings in the United States from 2006 to 2013: Social Contagion or Random Clusters. The American Association of Suicidology. doi: 10.1111/sltb.12366
As massive consumers of American news media that includes the extensive covering of mass shootings, I wonder what is keeping Canadians from a rise in shootings that is equally meteoric.
Coverage - since so much media comes from America - would seem to be the same, but the results are different.
Far from gun-avoidant, Canada boasts the longest rifle hit on a target, both for moving and stationary.
Canada has fewer guns per person than the US, but still many more than most countries. I think there are a couple of other differences though. The types of guns are very different. Handguns are extremely restricted, and ownership is rare. Many (most?) semi auto rifles are either prohibited or restricted, and there are mag limits (5 rounds) for all centrefire rifles. This doesn’t exactly prevent people from committing shootings, but a lot fewer people have those types of guns because they’re kind of a pain in the ass get, store, and use. Safe storage is legally required, and much more encouraged by the gun-owning community.
The other factor might be what guns are used for in Canada. Concealed carry is practically non-existent, open carry is severely restricted, and while self-defence with a firearm is technically legal, ownership for that purpose pretty much isn’t.
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