> There is one developed country—and only one—in which it is not only legal, but easy and convenient, to amass a private arsenal of mass slaughter. That country also happens to be the one—and the only one—regularly afflicted by mass slaughters perpetrated by aggrieved individuals.
> You would not think that this is a complicated problem to puzzle out. Yet even as the casualties from gunfire mount, Americans express befuddlement, and compete to devise ever more far-fetched answers.
* https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/guns-are-a...
A similar column from a few years ago:
> A village has been built in the deepest gully of a floodplain.
> At regular intervals, flash floods wipe away houses, killing all inside. Less dramatic—but more lethal—is the steady toll as individual villagers slip and drown in the marshes around them.
> After especially deadly events, the villagers solemnly discuss what they might do to protect themselves. Perhaps they might raise their homes on stilts? But a powerful faction among the villagers is always at hand to explain why these ideas won’t work. “No law can keep our village safe! The answer is that our people must learn to be better swimmers - and oh by the way, you said ‘stilts’ when the proper term is ‘piles,’ so why should anybody listen to you?”
* https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/the-rea...
Sure, “the unique access to guns is a significant cause of the unique problem” is an obvious conclusion. Others are plausible, however, the most obvious alternative being that the two are effects of a common cause rather than cause and effect: that is, that America is uniquely heavily populated by violent maniacs, which produces the access to guns as a political result (both of the maniacs seeking arms to commit violence and others seeking access in fear to the maniacs) and the mass slaughter as a more direct result.
In that case, cutting off access to the guns might not have as much result as one might hope.
Do you think these numbers are even remotely comparable to US ones, where there have been hundreds of incidents only this year?
And when we make comparisons with Europe, we should remember that violence in Europe is rising, while violence in the US is declining.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-abo...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-c...
https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-bombings-grenade-atta...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shoot...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest-40-...
The general crime rate in the US is not too different from the crime rate in most other developed countries; see point seven:
* https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/u...
However there's a lot more violent crime; see point one (ibid).
> it's about average, and far better than our neighbors to the south.
And yet as someone who lives in Canada, your neighbour to the north, we have a lot less gun crime. The difference is that we have good social services and decent filters on gun ownership. I don't know all the nitty-gritty details, but it seems that Canada's laws are roughly in line with what Massachusetts has:
* https://www.vox.com/2018/11/13/17658028/massachusetts-gun-co...
There will always probably be mass shootings:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Toronto_shooting
But I think adding some filters or speed bumps to ownership (and especially CCW) will weed out the hot heads and incompetents that cause so much low-level carnage:
* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/11582078708082647...
* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/11575509903437127...
So it's not just easy access to guns. It's the surrounding culture of gun play, gun heroism, gun rhetoric, gun rights, gun "freedom", gun permissiveness, guns-make-you-a-real-person-who-matters - and so on.
Other countries don't have anything like the same culture to anything like the same extent. Which is why you can have equivalent levels of gun ownership without the same problems.
Here's a book that takes a closer look at how guns took on this sort of mythic role -- more special than other tools and appliances -- in American identity:
Then I come back to the States and I'm honestly shocked at how macabre American TV is in comparison. It's non-stop crime shows, murder investigations, action, and militarism, with a shootout key to the resolution of almost any episode.
Is it any surprise that Americans reach for their weapons to solve problems with increasing regularity? I blame American's Puritanical streak.....we can't have nice, pleasant things like topless women on TV like they do in Europe.
This doesn't fit in the 'a gun is a tool' mindset, it's fetishism, pure and simple.
They aren't, but it's a convenient fiction.
Well let's look at just the United States, over time, rather than the US compared to other countries. In the US, a proliferation of firearms has been a constant throughout our history. But it is only recently (really starting with Columbine) that we've had REGULAR outbursts, almost always by men under 30. I would hypothesize that the elephants in the room are a)prescription psychotropic drugs and their side-effects b)constant negative media about males/toxic masculinity c)overall ineffective child-rearing practices and extended adolescence, some of which stems from a reduction in two-parent households.
These are vague partly because so few people will take a deep dive into these subjects when so much money flows from these influences (pharmaceuticals, media, etc...).
But why aren't we looking at the variables, instead of the constant?
>>>it is absolutely progress to have mass murderers be forced to utilize something like a knife than head on down the street and pick up an automatic/semi-automatic weapon.
1. You can't "head on down the street" and pick up an automatic weapon in the US. You need a Federal Firearms License for that. And historically, FFL holders are some of the most law-abiding citizens in the country. Even if there were a ban on semi-auto weapons, the market would adapt. I've already brainstormed on how to optimize a bolt-action rifle for rapid, sustained fire and I'm not even a firearms designer.
2. Tightening the gun proliferation sounds great...in theory. How do you actually accomplish it in practice? There are 300 million+ firearms spread across the country in about 40% of households. This is a land area greater than that occupied by the Germans on the Eastern Front, with a greater number of potential "partisans", and the Germans never even came CLOSE to securing their rear areas. That anyone expects widespread gun confiscations to NOT turn into a bloodbath is naive IMO, and if the objective is saving lives than it would also be counter-productive.
3. Maybe the mass murders will switch to homemade explosives instead of knives, which would be a significantly WORSE outcome? Ever think of that? Maybe they'll get guidance from jihadis. Hell, explosives already gave us one of the worst school massacres in American history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
