In reply to Boost_Crazy :
Well said.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
Well said.
Boost_Crazy said:There is no data that shows that extremists on one side or the other commit more of the mass shootings,
I must respectfully disagree with this part. I'm not trying to make things political, but there is pretty overwhelming evidence that far-right extremists commit the vast majority of mass shootings. Again, I want to emphasize that this is not left-wing or right-wing, but extremist far right-wingers. No one is talking about regular Rs and Ds in here, so please, no one get ruffled at this.
An anti-domestic terrorism bill from congress:
Congress finds the following:
(1) White supremacists and other far-right-wing extremists are the most significant domestic terrorism threat facing the United States.
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s894/BILLS-116s894is.xml
They cite multiple sources (DHS, FBI) that point out that white supremacists and far-right extremists are responsible for a majority of mass shootings and have been a growing threat. They also mention that law enforcement has been slow to respond.
As far as mass shootings go, we know exactly who commits the majority of them: white males, usually under the age of 30, that are seduced by extremist rhetoric and usually get their guns legally (or steal them from a family member, who bought them legally). Now, the question is, how do you deal with something like this? I'm honestly left scratching my head a bit. Outlawing Nazi and white supremacist media would possibly help (worked for Germany) but people would immediately scream and cry about their freedoms.
Mass shootings aside, another big source of gun violence is gang-related. This one is more cut-and-dry; people with guns, probably obtained illegally, killing other people. Getting rid of their guns is difficult, as many/most are illegal. You can lock up the criminals, but new ones will keep committing the crimes. I think in this case, one of the most important things is to prevent them from happening altogether. Give the kids something to do, so they feel like they might have a chance at a decent future instead of turning to crime. After-school programs have been repeatedly shown to reduce juvenile crime.
I think a focus on education would help with this, moreso than many other things. Of course, this would require cities to start spending money on schools in high-crime areas, which they don't seem to like to do (at least in all the big cities I've lived in). The money spent would likely cost less than all the money spent dealing with all the crimes committed by kids that turn to a life of crime.
There are a lot of gun deaths by suicide as well. Improving mental health care would probably help with that. We, as a nation, have an unfortunate tendency to tell people to stop complaining and suck it up. If we had a bit of compassion and took mental health more seriously, perhaps fewer people would kill themselves. If we talked more about mental health and how to talk to people that are suffering, maybe that would help. On a related note, about a decade ago I found my mother after she had taken her life with a pistol. Looking back, if people had talked about mental health more, we all would have recognized the signs and maybe my mom would still be alive. To this day, seeing a Glock still makes me want to vomit.
Then of course we have the issue with so many people being absolutely obsessed with guns. I swear, some people whack it to issues of Guns and Ammo. I'm not saying they're the ones committing crimes, but they are absolutely the ones in the way of any real progress. You can't even have a conversation about gun violence without them frothing at the mouth.
So, while I'm a supporter of more strict gun control measures (which data has also shown to work, to an extent) I feel there are other issues in this country that are equally important, or in some cases even more important, if we want to reduce gun violence. Dealing with them is going to require lots of money and a change in mentality for this country, which means that sadly it'll probably never happen and the violence will continue.
In reply to infinitenexus :
Boost_Crazy said:There is no data that shows that extremists on one side or the other commit more of the mass shootings,
I must respectfully disagree with this part. I'm not trying to make things political, but there is pretty overwhelming evidence that far-right extremists commit the vast majority of mass shootings. Again, I want to emphasize that this is not left-wing or right-wing, but extremist far right-wingers. No one is talking about regular Rs and Ds in here, so please, no one get ruffled at this.
An anti-domestic terrorism bill from congress:
Congress finds the following:
(1) White supremacists and other far-right-wing extremists are the most significant domestic terrorism threat facing the United States.
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s894/BILLS-116s894is.xml
They cite multiple sources (DHS, FBI) that point out that white supremacists and far-right extremists are responsible for a majority of mass shootings and have been a growing threat. They also mention that law enforcement has been slow to respond.
As far as mass shootings go, we know exactly who commits the majority of them: white males, usually under the age of 30, that are seduced by extremist rhetoric and usually get their guns legally (or steal them from a family member, who bought them legally). Now, the question is, how do you deal with something like this? I'm honestly left scratching my head a bit. Outlawing Nazi and white supremacist media would possibly help (worked for Germany) but people would immediately scream and cry about their freedoms.
Mass shootings aside, another big source of gun violence is gang-related. This one is more cut-and-dry; people with guns, probably obtained illegally, killing other people. Getting rid of their guns is difficult, as many/most are illegal. You can lock up the criminals, but new ones will keep committing the crimes. I think in this case, one of the most important things is to prevent them from happening altogether. Give the kids something to do, so they feel like they might have a chance at a decent future instead of turning to crime. After-school programs have been repeatedly shown to reduce juvenile crime.
I think a focus on education would help with this, moreso than many other things. Of course, this would require cities to start spending money on schools in high-crime areas, which they don't seem to like to do (at least in all the big cities I've lived in). The money spent would likely cost less than all the money spent dealing with all the crimes committed by kids that turn to a life of crime.
There are a lot of gun deaths by suicide as well. Improving mental health care would probably help with that. We, as a nation, have an unfortunate tendency to tell people to stop complaining and suck it up. If we had a bit of compassion and took mental health more seriously, perhaps fewer people would kill themselves. If we talked more about mental health and how to talk to people that are suffering, maybe that would help. On a related note, about a decade ago I found my mother after she had taken her life with a pistol. Looking back, if people had talked about mental health more, we all would have recognized the signs and maybe my mom would still be alive. To this day, seeing a Glock still makes me want to vomit.
Then of course we have the issue with so many people being absolutely obsessed with guns. I swear, some people whack it to issues of Guns and Ammo. I'm not saying they're the ones committing crimes, but they are absolutely the ones in the way of any real progress. You can't even have a conversation about gun violence without them frothing at the mouth.
So, while I'm a supporter of more strict gun control measures (which data has also shown to work, to an extent) I feel there are other issues in this country that are equally important, or in some cases even more important, if we want to reduce gun violence. Dealing with them is going to require lots of money and a change in mentality for this country, which means that sadly it'll probably never happen and the violence will continue.
While I appreciate that you understand that the extremes on both ends don't represent the vast majority, politicians and the media do not appear to share you opinion. Rather, they often go to great lengths to link the extremists to the mainstream. Your link above shows has a list of shootings said to be committed by those on the far right. But where is the rest of the data? If that list is complete, it is far from the majority of mass shooting compared to the other data shared in this discussion. The common claim that white people commit the vast majority of mass shootings is misleading. They do. But they are also a much higher percentage of the population. Dig deeper, and you will find that the percentage of white mass shooters is slightly higher than their population percentage. Overall, mass shooters largely reflect demographic percentages, well within statistical variance. If anything, black mass shooters are the most overrepresented vs. their population percentage, by a much greater degree than white shooters. If our goal is to reduce gun violence, than it is a disservice to not look at the whole problem.
I also challenge your assertion that people are seduced by extremist rhetoric and become violent. You did not provide, and I could not find, any evidence to support that. It appears more likely that violent people gravitate to extreme views and other violent people.
I'm sorry to hear about your Mom. I've lost people to suicide too. But I have a hard time putting much blame on the gun. I think guns are pretty far down the list causes (not methods) of suicide. I agree that there needs to be a lot of discussion on mental health, but the intricacies of that would make the gun discussion look simple.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
Thank you, this is a very well thought out rebuttal. The rest of this isn't in reply to you BoostCrazy, more of a to whom it may concern.
My biggest gripe is that as an avid collector and sportsman of all things that go bang, I get vilified and considered a 'roadblock to progress' as mentioned further above. I'm fairly certain that the majority of firearms owners in the nation want this problem of senseless violence resolved, but if you would like insight into why we don't support the control side of the argument I can add some context.
Over the last 90 years, we have restricted and outright banned inanimate objects to fulfill the need to 'just compromise this one time and we will stop' argument from the control side, but then they just double down and come back asking for more. This is why there was a sunset on the '94 AWB, kind of a trial run which didn't really have any effect on preventing anything. Since that ended in 2004 and an awakening of sorts of what had been lost in prior 'compromises', it has been almost complete gridlock on that front since. Due to the gridlock, the control side has been using federal agencies in improper manners that has just galvanized us even further in our stance of no more compromising. Flip flopping 'interpretations' depending upon whom is in charge is not how things should ever be done in this nation, and this means on ANY issue.
I could go into plenty of examples if requested, but my post is simply just offering the perspective of the side I am part of. We all want this nonsense to stop, but when the same thing is tried over and over and it doesn't work, you have to seek out different solutions.
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