I live in one of the safest neighborhoods in one of the safest cities in the country. I also didn't in any way indicate that I personally would seek the latter. Nice try, though.
The fact remains that the US has a lot of access to guns, and also a lot of gun violence. Something's wrong here. The rest of the industrialized world has solved this problem, yet somehow we're unable.
I'm not yet convinced that merely having a large market for guns necessitates gun violence. And while I'm definitely for increasing certain regulations, I just think it's a symptom of a larger problem. It's so easy to conflate correlation and causation in this situation, especially when we have such horrific and emotionally involved incidents like Newtown. But I think the political capital and energy spent on fighting for stronger gun control would be better served at solving much more of the root issues such as income inequality, affordable health care, and higher average living standards.
From a technical perspective, putting aside the tragedy for a second, I find it interesting how many horses there are in this race when these incidents happen. Pro-gun, anti-gun, video games, psychiatric institutions, the jail system, blame the parents, blame society, blame the media, any particular non-normative psychology. Without regard for which ones are right or wrong, there is definitely a sudden shock of indignation and then defense at play. It's like everything has to come into play and take part of the blame. What doesn't get thrown out there for consideration?
I think it's a big mistake for discussion of gun control to revolve around atypical incidents like this one. Sure, it's an interesting argument as to what could have been done to prevent what happened at Sandy Hook, but in an overall sense it simply is not the right place to direct one's time and effort.
I can understand why this happens - disasters like this have an emotional impact that cold, hard statistics do not. That, however, is rather a poor excuse for skewing the debate to this extent.
Better (and free) mental health care is something that is quite clearly needed worldwide, especially in the U.S., but it's hardly a magic bullet. It's a good course of action, but for the most part it's a solution to a different problem.
Also, when it comes to mental health care it's of crucial importance that people are able and willing to get that treatment. Perpetuating the stigma by tying mental health problems to violence and gun crime is not a good way to get people to accept and get help with their own problems.
In extreme cases where the sufferer will NEVER be willing to seek treatment, and that unwillingness is due to the illness itself, something still has to be done. The standards on forced incarceration for mental illness are very high by design but they need to be more nuanced, and there needs to be a reasonable number of facilities, with reasonable protocols and procedures and treatments in place, for those people to go once that very difficult hurdle is cleared.
Right now we have an insanely broken system with poor standards and almost NO facilities.
I'm not yet convinced that merely having a large market for guns necessitates gun violence.
Neither am I.
But a small market does correlate with reduced gun violence. That does not mean it is necessitated. I would, however, be extremely surprised if the US reduced its gun market and there was not a substantial correlated drop in gun violence, independent of all other factors.
There are large markets with low gun violence, but there do not appear to be small markets with high gun violence.
The US has proven that, for whatever reason, we have a propensity toward gun violence, well beyond that of all of our industrialized neighbors.
The fact remains that the US has a lot of access to guns, and also a lot of gun violence. Something's wrong here. The rest of the industrialized world has solved this problem, yet somehow we're unable.
Quite true. Even Switzerland, where every able-bodied male is pretty much required by law to own a gun and many able-bodied females also own them, doesn't have that problem. You are even allowed to own fully automatic weapons (though you need a special permit to do so). However, there are some caveats here:
You need a gun ownership permit (and the background checks that go along with it) to purchase a firearm from a commercial shop that limits you to three firearms, total. There are a few exceptions, such as hunting rifles and antiques, but there are no exceptions for autos and semi-autos, sniper rifles, and such.
You don't need a permit to purchase a gun from a private individual, but said private individual is required to write up contracts and is still pretty much required to contact the Criminal Records bureau to perform a background check before allowing you to purchase the gun.
All ammunition sales must be registered and logged
Every gun owner (or at least every male gun owner) in Switzerland is required to be in, or have been in, the national militia. Yes, basically, if you have a gun there, you had it as part of being in a "well-regulated militia." As such, you've received proper training in using your guns and so on. You are allowed to keep your service weapons after you retire from the militia, but only after you send it away to have any military-only features, such as fully automatic mode, disabled.
As a result, Switzerland has only 0.3 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 4.2 per 100,000 in the US.
Switzerland also isn't an imperialistic nation with a decades long history of abuse of their military for aggressive "pre-emptive" action all over the globe. Before we talk about compulsory military service let's talk about that.
In the US, veterans are disproportionately affected by mental illness and receive poor or no treatment. Not exactly your utopian crop of responsible and safe gun owners.
As a result, Switzerland has only 0.3 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 4.2 per 100,000 in the US.
I'd hesitate to use the words "as a result"; I very much doubt that Switzerland's gun legislation is the only reason, or even the primary reason, that they have a much lower rate of gun homicide.
I'm not yet convinced that merely having a large market for guns necessitates gun violence. And while I'm definitely for increasing certain regulations, I just think it's a symptom of a larger problem. It's so easy to conflate correlation and causation in this situation, especially when we have such horrific and emotionally involved incidents like Newtown. But I think the political capital and energy spent on fighting for stronger gun control would be better served at solving much more of the root issues such as income inequality, affordable health care, and higher average living standards.
Absolutely, although the greater question of what the root issues actually are is a difficult one and not quite so easily answered.
However, when the symptoms of the disease are killing people, it's still a good idea to treat the symptoms in addition to the disease itself.
You miss the point of that statement: the US has a higher per-capita violent crime rate than nearly any other industrialized Western nation. Homicide is the easiest to compare.
We have a problem, something fundamental to us as people.
Do US gun crime statistics account for gun training among those who use guns in crimes? Anecdotally I would expect to see a lower level of gun training among those who use guns to commit violent crime.
Also, on the oft-mentioned topic (though not in this thread) of blaming popular culture, I think I have a pretty good counterargument.
Since the U.S. exports so much of its popular culture (e.g. violent movies and video games) and other media worldwide, doesn't this make those media a very poor explanation for why the U.S. in particular, as compared to other countries, is so violent?
Also, on the topic of blaming popular culture, I think I have a pretty good counterargument.
Since the U.S. exports so much of its popular culture (e.g. violent movies and video games) worldwide, doesn't this make it a very poor explanation for why the U.S. in particular, as compared to other countries, is so violent?
Hardly. Pop culture is not an accurate representation of local culture. Also, Japan has a great deal of violence in pop culture and almost no actual violence.
The cultural problems are below the level of pop culture here. They're deeper seated and more profound.
It's both interesting and telling, for example, that I have almost no shared culture with many of the people I ride a train together with every single day, yet have a hugely similar culture with people I know who live on the other side of the world.
Um, you're agreeing with me. I'm not saying that there aren't local, deeper cultural (and societal) problems behind this; indeed I quite agree that there are.
I'm arguing against the not uncommonly expressed opinion that violence in the mass media is a significant contributor to the problem. That's exactly why I specifically said "popular culture".
I guess I should have been more clear that I wasn't arguing against something in this thread; "on the topic of" was clearly the wrong way to start my post. I kinda realised that when I posted it and I was already editing it when you replied :P
As sick as I am of thinking and talking about this tragedy, and sick of all the people (media, internet, co-workers, etc.) that think they know who/what to blame and the so obvious solutions of how to prevent tragedies like this from happening... I feel like making a comment in this thread anyway.
Of all the stuff to think about, I am really wondering about this guy and his mental state before he died. I know most people are as well, yet everyone seems to be focusing on "he was super cray" and "OBVIOUSLY had mental health issues" and "Oh, he had Asperger's? That's a mental disorder, so I guess that explains it." None of that thinking jives with me. Especially that Asperger's would explain this. As horrible as it sounds, I admit I'm relieved that he offed himself to save us the wasted time, money, and drama of sending him to trial. Yet I also wish he'd stayed alive, just to see what we'd learn about the mental state of people who commit these tragedies. To maybe find out what wire snapped, what caused it, and if its even preventable.
I don't know anything more than anyone else about what happened, or anything about this guy. But I feel that most likely some external factor (probably combined with years of emotional turmoil/neglect/whatever) caused an extreme mental breakdown in this guy's head, exacerbated by all kinds of crazy emotions of anger, rage, etc, that threw all of his morals to the wind, letting him commit this atrocious act. What really scares me is that maybe... this could happen to anyone. That we may not be able to predict the external factors or the "screw lose" in the brain before it happens. I wonder if this guy had any fleeting thought of getting help when the mental episode happened, and that if he did, he was discouraged by the stigma our society has placed on mental illness, or afraid he'd get sent to the nuthouse or jail (or maybe the breakdown destroyed all of his mental reasoning).
And if we come to the conclusion that its not always preventable, then we go down the route of "if he didn't have the guns, he wouldn't have done it" and "the media made him do it for recognition" and "video games taught him violence" and all the other "obvious reasons" I'm tired of right now.
I don't really have a point I'm getting at here, other than that these are just my thoughts. (Also I really don't like people blaming it on Asperger's, him being a smart nerd that had LAN parties, therefore he's anti-social and likes to kill people, etc.)
Switzerland also isn't an imperialistic nation with a decades long history of abuse of their military for aggressive "pre-emptive" action all over the globe. Before we talk about compulsory military service let's talk about that.
You know, there is the argument that compulsory military service would actually decrease the desire to abuse their military due to the fact that people in power would be less likely to "send in the troops" when their own kids are among those troops.
Also, Switzerland also has a history of providing some of the most badass mercenaries the world has ever seen (hence why they're charged with guarding the Pope) to any country willing to pay them enough. They may not, as a country, go about invading other countries, but their soldiers do have a history of doing so at an individual level to anyone who will pay them enough.
In the US, veterans are disproportionately affected by mental illness and receive poor or no treatment. Not exactly your utopian crop of responsible and safe gun owners.
Well, as I mentioned, even if you are a veteran in Switzerland, you still need permits that do background checks and such, including mental health checks, before issuance in order to purchase a gun. Presumably, in a Swiss-style system, any veteran that suffers from mental illness would be required to turn in his/her guns and be denied a permit to purchase new ones.
As a result, Switzerland has only 0.3 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 4.2 per 100,000 in the US.
I'd hesitate to use the words "as a result"; I very much doubt that Switzerland's gun legislation is the only reason, or even the primary reason, that they have a much lower rate of gun homicide.
You do have a point there. However, Switzerland is the industrialized country with a gun ownership rate closest to that of the US and with the most similar gun culture (i.e., you have 12 year old kids at the shooting range and participating in target shooting contests, albeit with adult supervision). While their stricter regulations and requirement of military service probably does contribute to their lower rate of gun violence, you do have a point in that it's probably not the only contributing factor.
Switzerland, has also a very homogeneous population, high standard of living, low income equality, a culture of neutrality... etc.
They also have a severe paranoia about being invaded. I mean, any barn you see in the Swiss countryside could actually be hiding a bunker containing heavy artillery. The entire country is rigged to be a potential booby trap to anyone foolish enough to invade them and the fact that the vast majority of the population owns guns is part of that paranoia.
As a result, Switzerland has only 0.3 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 4.2 per 100,000 in the US.
I'd hesitate to use the words "as a result"; I very much doubt that Switzerland's gun legislation is the only reason, or even the primary reason, that they have a much lower rate of gun homicide.
You do have a point there. However, Switzerland is the industrialized country with a gun ownership rate closest to that of the US and with the most similar gun culture (i.e., you have 12 year old kids at the shooting range and participating in target shooting contests, albeit with adult supervision). While their stricter regulations and requirement of military service probably does contribute to their lower rate of gun violence, you do have a point in that it's probably not the only contributing factor.
The gun culture may be similar, but the murder culture is not.
The gun culture may be similar, but the murder culture is not.
Define "murder culture" please. Unless you're going back to the whole discredited "we like violent video games/movies/music/etc., so we're one big murder culture" thing.
If we look at overall murder rates and not just gun violence, the numbers aren't that different. The US has a murder rate of 5.9 per 100,000 people. Switzerland has 2.9 per 100,000 people. So yeah, per 100,000 people, 3 more people are murdered in the US than in Switzerland. For the sake of comparison, South Africa has the world's highest with a rate of 69 per 100,000, Russia has the highest in Europe with a rate of 29.7 per 100,000, and Mexico has the highest in North America at 11.3 per 100,000. Hell, Switzerland has a higher murder rate than Canada, which clocks in at 2 per 100,000.
If there weren't such a demand for it, they wouldn't do it.
Yeap. You can't blame a rational actor for acting in their own best self-interest.
Until society can make it not in the media's interest to act this way, they will continue to act this way. We as a society practically beg them to do this.
Vultures. If there weren't such a demand for it, they wouldn't do it.
Yep, got no one to blame for the way Networks in general act, but ourselves. There are all kind of "shit" shows on that nobody admits watching, but there must be somebody watching that stuff, or it wouldn't last.
Just when I thought the Governor of my state couldn't get any stupider, he proves me wrong, http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/318076, because what we really need is more guns, especially in the schools.
Comments
The fact remains that the US has a lot of access to guns, and also a lot of gun violence. Something's wrong here. The rest of the industrialized world has solved this problem, yet somehow we're unable.
Right now we have an insanely broken system with poor standards and almost NO facilities.
But a small market does correlate with reduced gun violence. That does not mean it is necessitated. I would, however, be extremely surprised if the US reduced its gun market and there was not a substantial correlated drop in gun violence, independent of all other factors.
There are large markets with low gun violence, but there do not appear to be small markets with high gun violence.
The US has proven that, for whatever reason, we have a propensity toward gun violence, well beyond that of all of our industrialized neighbors.
- You need a gun ownership permit (and the background checks that go along with it) to purchase a firearm from a commercial shop that limits you to three firearms, total. There are a few exceptions, such as hunting rifles and antiques, but there are no exceptions for autos and semi-autos, sniper rifles, and such.
- You don't need a permit to purchase a gun from a private individual, but said private individual is required to write up contracts and is still pretty much required to contact the Criminal Records bureau to perform a background check before allowing you to purchase the gun.
- All ammunition sales must be registered and logged
- Every gun owner (or at least every male gun owner) in Switzerland is required to be in, or have been in, the national militia. Yes, basically, if you have a gun there, you had it as part of being in a "well-regulated militia." As such, you've received proper training in using your guns and so on. You are allowed to keep your service weapons after you retire from the militia, but only after you send it away to have any military-only features, such as fully automatic mode, disabled.
As a result, Switzerland has only 0.3 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, as opposed to 4.2 per 100,000 in the US.In the US, veterans are disproportionately affected by mental illness and receive poor or no treatment. Not exactly your utopian crop of responsible and safe gun owners.
However, when the symptoms of the disease are killing people, it's still a good idea to treat the symptoms in addition to the disease itself.
We have a problem, something fundamental to us as people.
Since the U.S. exports so much of its popular culture (e.g. violent movies and video games) and other media worldwide, doesn't this make those media a very poor explanation for why the U.S. in particular, as compared to other countries, is so violent?
The cultural problems are below the level of pop culture here. They're deeper seated and more profound.
It's both interesting and telling, for example, that I have almost no shared culture with many of the people I ride a train together with every single day, yet have a hugely similar culture with people I know who live on the other side of the world.
I'm arguing against the not uncommonly expressed opinion that violence in the mass media is a significant contributor to the problem. That's exactly why I specifically said "popular culture".
I guess I should have been more clear that I wasn't arguing against something in this thread; "on the topic of" was clearly the wrong way to start my post. I kinda realised that when I posted it and I was already editing it when you replied :P
Of all the stuff to think about, I am really wondering about this guy and his mental state before he died. I know most people are as well, yet everyone seems to be focusing on "he was super cray" and "OBVIOUSLY had mental health issues" and "Oh, he had Asperger's? That's a mental disorder, so I guess that explains it." None of that thinking jives with me. Especially that Asperger's would explain this. As horrible as it sounds, I admit I'm relieved that he offed himself to save us the wasted time, money, and drama of sending him to trial. Yet I also wish he'd stayed alive, just to see what we'd learn about the mental state of people who commit these tragedies. To maybe find out what wire snapped, what caused it, and if its even preventable.
I don't know anything more than anyone else about what happened, or anything about this guy. But I feel that most likely some external factor (probably combined with years of emotional turmoil/neglect/whatever) caused an extreme mental breakdown in this guy's head, exacerbated by all kinds of crazy emotions of anger, rage, etc, that threw all of his morals to the wind, letting him commit this atrocious act. What really scares me is that maybe... this could happen to anyone. That we may not be able to predict the external factors or the "screw lose" in the brain before it happens. I wonder if this guy had any fleeting thought of getting help when the mental episode happened, and that if he did, he was discouraged by the stigma our society has placed on mental illness, or afraid he'd get sent to the nuthouse or jail (or maybe the breakdown destroyed all of his mental reasoning).
And if we come to the conclusion that its not always preventable, then we go down the route of "if he didn't have the guns, he wouldn't have done it" and "the media made him do it for recognition" and "video games taught him violence" and all the other "obvious reasons" I'm tired of right now.
I don't really have a point I'm getting at here, other than that these are just my thoughts. (Also I really don't like people blaming it on Asperger's, him being a smart nerd that had LAN parties, therefore he's anti-social and likes to kill people, etc.)
Also, Switzerland also has a history of providing some of the most badass mercenaries the world has ever seen (hence why they're charged with guarding the Pope) to any country willing to pay them enough. They may not, as a country, go about invading other countries, but their soldiers do have a history of doing so at an individual level to anyone who will pay them enough. Well, as I mentioned, even if you are a veteran in Switzerland, you still need permits that do background checks and such, including mental health checks, before issuance in order to purchase a gun. Presumably, in a Swiss-style system, any veteran that suffers from mental illness would be required to turn in his/her guns and be denied a permit to purchase new ones. You do have a point there. However, Switzerland is the industrialized country with a gun ownership rate closest to that of the US and with the most similar gun culture (i.e., you have 12 year old kids at the shooting range and participating in target shooting contests, albeit with adult supervision). While their stricter regulations and requirement of military service probably does contribute to their lower rate of gun violence, you do have a point in that it's probably not the only contributing factor. They also have a severe paranoia about being invaded. I mean, any barn you see in the Swiss countryside could actually be hiding a bunker containing heavy artillery. The entire country is rigged to be a potential booby trap to anyone foolish enough to invade them and the fact that the vast majority of the population owns guns is part of that paranoia.
If we look at overall murder rates and not just gun violence, the numbers aren't that different. The US has a murder rate of 5.9 per 100,000 people. Switzerland has 2.9 per 100,000 people. So yeah, per 100,000 people, 3 more people are murdered in the US than in Switzerland. For the sake of comparison, South Africa has the world's highest with a rate of 69 per 100,000, Russia has the highest in Europe with a rate of 29.7 per 100,000, and Mexico has the highest in North America at 11.3 per 100,000. Hell, Switzerland has a higher murder rate than Canada, which clocks in at 2 per 100,000.
Seeing some "no media" signs. The main funeral home in town is surrounded by news vans.
Until society can make it not in the media's interest to act this way, they will continue to act this way. We as a society practically beg them to do this.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/18/obituaries/691335.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/18/obituaries/691337.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691212.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691211.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691208.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691205.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691204.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691203.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691200.txt
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2012/12/17/obituaries/691294.txt
http://stratford.patch.com/articles/obituary-victoria-vicki-soto-age-27
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2012/12/15/news/doc50cce7f2df5fa708346092.txt