[achtung]

Could someone (other than swantz) please comment on the gun shows thing?

People may not have anything super-intresting to add to the conversation man. It's a pretty cut-and-dry thing anyway. The only people that really benefit from it are those who run the shows, and those who want to legally obain firearms with minimal wait time.

[karajorma]

What is there to say about them except that they should have been either banned or heavily regulated long ago?

[NGTM-1R]

Nothing, really. I don't think anyone here is interested in defending that as a thing.

[Luis Dias]

IFF America shreds the 2nd ammendment and bans the use of weapons (and is actually able to enforce the banning), then these killings will end.

This will not happen. Americans love their freedom to hold as many guns as they want to, and any government that tries to impose such bannings will be shredded to pieces (or holes).

Therefore the killings will not end, and these discussions will continue forever. Simple as that.

Carry on.

[achtung]

IFF America shreds the 2nd ammendment and bans the use of weapons (and is actually able to enforce the banning), then these killings will end.

This will not happen. Americans love their freedom to hold as many guns as they want to, and any government that tries to impose such bannings will be shredded to pieces (or holes).

Therefore the killings will not end, and these discussions will continue forever. Simple as that.

Carry on.

Way to oversimplify brutha.

[Polpolion]

No, he's 100% correct. If all guns magically disappeared overnight there would be no shootings until more were made. Why he bothered posting that I do not know, it doesn't add anything at all to what's been already said.

[achtung]

People would just use something else. Molotovs are insanely easy to make. They would be extremely effective in a space such as a classroom with no windows and a closed door.

 Knives, propane, household chemicals, vehicles, and much more would be the next step up for someone determined to kill as many people as possible.

[Polpolion]

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed by "these killings" he meant shootings, otherwise yeah. There are always ways to kill people. It's never about preventing all killings, that's pretty much impossible, it's about taking steps to minimize chances at an appropriate cost. The gunshow loophole is a simple, common-sense step to take that can reduce the number of unchecked firearm sales without significantly harming MUH FREEDUM, for example. If anyone actually want to ban and confiscate all guns in an effort to halt violence, well, good for them.

[karajorma]

People would just use something else. Molotovs are insanely easy to make. They would be extremely effective in a space such as a classroom with no windows and a closed door.

 Knives, propane, household chemicals, vehicles, and much more would be the next step up for someone determined to kill as many people as possible.

So how do you propose to stop killings like this happening if not a gun ban then?

Cause if America is against a gun ban, they're sure as **** against the kind of socialised health care you'd need to catch the mentally ill who would do something like this.

[NGTM-1R]

That does not logically follow in the slightest, see also Canada.

Or, you know, everyone who was disappointed with the lack of a single-payer system back when the big healthcare thing went through during Obama's first term.

[achtung]

People would just use something else. Molotovs are insanely easy to make. They would be extremely effective in a space such as a classroom with no windows and a closed door.

 Knives, propane, household chemicals, vehicles, and much more would be the next step up for someone determined to kill as many people as possible.

So how do you propose to stop killings like this happening if not a gun ban then?

Cause if America is against a gun ban, they're sure as **** against the kind of socialised health care you'd need to catch the mentally ill who would do something like this.

I propose what I originally proposed. Safety lessons, sufficient mental healthcare (I've experienced what a struggle it can be to get proper care), a push to stop labelling mental illness as something terrible that you should never reveal to anyone (which pushes people to avoid treatment due to stigma), and regulations to patch up loopholes. To be honest, the news reporting style on these events literally BEGS copycats to come out of the woodwork to do their deeds. These events are important and should cause discussion, but starting reports with sirens blaring and filling every cable news channel 24/7 with the bodycount and the weapons used really gets the copycats sitting on the edge of their seat. They're creating anti-heros for copycats to rally around.

Who said you can't support universal healthcare and oppose gun bans? I was seriously psyched about "Obamacare" at first. I'm not as excited now, but it's still a step in the right direction. One thing that really catches me hard in politics is the need to fall to one "side." I support universal healthcare, a woman's right to an abortion, gay rights (human rights really), science funding, public education, "high" taxation, and many more things typically considered liberal. I also support gun rights, military spending, heavy restrictions on wasteful welfare programs (don't get me started on people being allowed to purchase soda and chips on food stamps), and minimizing government involvement in the market whenever it is safe/beneficial to do so.

Also what NGTM-1R said.

[General Battuta]

I don't think people would be as likely to attack, or as successful in their attacks, using non-firearm weapons. The only real alternative I'd worry about (bombings) requires a lot more in the way of commitment and resources.

[BlueFlames]

Or, you know, everyone who was disappointed with the lack of a single-payer system back when the big healthcare thing went through during Obama's first term.

While the two positions are not obviously linked, the people who were in favor of a single-payer healthcare system were from the wing of the Democratic party a lot more likely to favor tighter gun control.  Meanwhile, those in favor of the loosest restrictions on gun ownership tend to be from the side of the American political spectrum that thought an insurance mandate was a Socialist practice to be opposed at all costs.  It's not a 100% overlap in either case, but it's a significant enough correlation to forgive Karajorma for linking the two.

An interesting point to note, as I go back over Wayne LaPierre's post-Sandy-Hook press remarks again, is that he mentions mental illness exactly once, in a call, not to ensure treatment of their illness, but to ensure proper cataloguing of the mentally ill.  So, the official stance of the largest of the United States' pro-gun lobbying organizations is to do nothing with the mental health system, except to demand that doctors violate patient confidentiality by putting those patients in a national database.  In fact, LaPierre's thesis was that mental illness wasn't even the problem, but that television and movies and video games have corrupted our youths and so greatly desensitized them to violence that they're more willing to commit violent acts.  (If that sounds familiar, it's because it's a stock script that the NRA has been using since the 1990's at least.)

The big reason why, up to this point, I had been talking about the politics of gun control, instead of the politics of mental health reform, is that the people with political clout are talking about gun control.  We could, on this forum, come up with a solution to eliminate mental dysfunction as we know it, without any civil rights or budgetary impact on the country, but unless someone on the forum is a U.S. Representative or Senator who intends to take our ideas back to Capitol Hill, it doesn't do us a lick of good.  (If someone here is an incognito Congressperson or Senator, drop me a PM, and I'll be happy to discuss any topic you want to bring up.  )  At least in discussing gun control, in this period, when politicians are wearing their gun control positions on their sleaves, forum members may give a measure of consideration to what candidates they will support or oppose in the 2014 midterms, if this is a priority issue for them.

[General Battuta]

On the whole 'improving mental illness tracking' issue, I just wanted to add that shootings of this kind are so incredibly rare that we have no diagnostic criteria with predictive validity. Any system of that kind would be built almost entirely of false positives.

[achtung]

I don't think people would be as likely to attack, or as successful in their attacks, using non-firearm weapons. The only real alternative I'd worry about (bombings) requires a lot more in the way of commitment and resources.

While I won't deny the ease-of-use a modern firearm provides being a big issue, I still kind of debate this with myself frequently. The type of person who pulls a shooting like this one off is clearly already devoted enough to destroy their own lives and the lives of many others. Why wouldn't they deal with a little more difficulty in planning if they've already made a commitment like that? For example, the deadliest mass murder in US History was accomplished by a devoted farmer with explosives. Dynamite was far too easy to acquire at the time, but a little googling could teach most of today's would-be bombers how to turn some fairly common (and far from expensive) chemicals into bombs/gassing agents.

Maybe firearms are just what's in vogue?

[NGTM-1R]

To echo Swantz, the trend in recent years for mass shooting attacks has been away from the disorganized and unskilled Columbine shooter we usually think of when we talk about mass shootings. Many of them have shown enough organizational skill, patience, practice, or all three, to have gone for bombs.

[BlueFlames]

Dynamite was far too easy to acquire at the time, but a little googling could teach most of today's would-be bombers how to turn some fairly common (and far from expensive) chemicals into bombs/gassing agents.

Maybe firearms are just what's in vogue?

One needn't buy a gun's constituent components and assemble them, prior to use.  If you do buy a gun in pieces, since it is a mechanical device, rather than a volatile chemical, it is far simpler and less hazardous to assemble and test.  A gun also comes with its own instructions; you don't have to go searching for them.  Guns are also relatively uniform, so that if you know how to operate and maintain one, you know how to operate and maintain a wide variety, while different types of explosive vary widely in their safe handling and (deliberately unsafe) detonation.  Guns are capable of being used in both targeted and indiscriminant violence, while bombs always produce collateral damage.

Finally, guns, in the United States at least, are widely available, whether you seek to purchase one from an arms dealer or steal one from an unsuspecting victim.  The eighty-eight guns per hundred people statistic has been tossed about quite a bit already, but pre-made explosives are not nearly as common among the civilian population.  If you intend to undertake a bombing, you will have to make your own bomb, but if you plan to undertake a shooting, mass or otherwise, chances are strong that you'll be able to get a gun.

Firearms are not just what's in vogue.  Firearms are the right tool for the job of killing, and they're a tool that is easier to come by than any other.

[AtomicClucker]

Well, while I still agree that we need to examine the gun control debate especially the mental health of legal weapons owners, I often counter with a whimper: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/the-police-state-comes-to_b_2321878.html

We debate the types of weapons that citizens can use and obtain, but our own police forces are making an alarming trend with the heavy militarization that actually puts a heavy cost on the tax payer both in damages and puppy shootings. Often, gun control advocates often turn a blind eye towards the heavy fire power that numerous police departments obtain as they fatten budgets with SWAT gear, armored vehicles, and the like. It's one thing to remove weapons from the hands of citizens, but I don't feel comfortable knowing that our own police are developing an unneeded taste for military equipment in common situations. But I tend to also argue this is the further symptom of our inability to fully rationalize why we kill and methods of prevention, and as a result, build up a sense of false security through either gun control or guns themselves as a crutch.

[achtung]

Dynamite was far too easy to acquire at the time, but a little googling could teach most of today's would-be bombers how to turn some fairly common (and far from expensive) chemicals into bombs/gassing agents.

Maybe firearms are just what's in vogue?

One needn't buy a gun's constituent components and assemble them, prior to use.  If you do buy a gun in pieces, since it is a mechanical device, rather than a volatile chemical, it is far simpler and less hazardous to assemble and test.  A gun also comes with its own instructions; you don't have to go searching for them.  Guns are also relatively uniform, so that if you know how to operate and maintain one, you know how to operate and maintain a wide variety, while different types of explosive vary widely in their safe handling and (deliberately unsafe) detonation.  Guns are capable of being used in both targeted and indiscriminant violence, while bombs always produce collateral damage.

Finally, guns, in the United States at least, are widely available, whether you seek to purchase one from an arms dealer or steal one from an unsuspecting victim.  The eighty-eight guns per hundred people statistic has been tossed about quite a bit already, but pre-made explosives are not nearly as common among the civilian population.  If you intend to undertake a bombing, you will have to make your own bomb, but if you plan to undertake a shooting, mass or otherwise, chances are strong that you'll be able to get a gun.

Firearms are not just what's in vogue.  Firearms are the right tool for the job of killing, and they're a tool that is easier to come by than any other.

You're right. They are a great tool for the job of killing. The point I'm really trying to get across in that post is that even removing those firearms from the hands of the populous won't seriously dent the number of mass killings such as these. I hate to sort of echo the NRA, because I don't agree with their social-conservatism crap, but US media and culture really are pretty violent. Sex scenes are considered heinous, while the goriest image of murder is A-OK. We've got a perfect storm of violence glorification, lack of effective gun education, widespread gun ownership, avoidance to psychiatric treatment (I'd bet large numbers of people think all psychiatry is totally bull****), and a mildly tumultuous socio-economical situation. One of those is easy to fix, but doesn't really solve the problem, sort of like taking cough syrup when you have a cold. It's really just a stopgap, it doesn't clear out the rhinovirus infection. The rest of those are much harder to fix, like curing the common cold, but are the true "solution" to the greater problem.

I don't want to get down into a 1st amendment vs 2nd amendment thing, because I honestly like the 1st a whole hell of a lot more. The problem is that part of me wants to feel like the 1st might, and that's a very big might, need to be defended by the 2nd one day. You can take this and roll the fictional revolution ball for a while if you like.

[AtomicClucker]

Humorously swantz, i think you summed up Americana in a neat package. We are quick to act, brutal in fashion and last to think (if at all). And often to any of these debates, thinking is usually put on the sidelines while both sides launch political jockeying and currying favors rather than sitting down for a serious set of discussions on why psychological factors play an important role in such tragedies. To be honest myself, I don't see even the "liberals" actually supporting any moves towards building a better infrastructure for mental healthcare and diagnosing problems, as it would serve to backlash against police and prison service unions that push for stringent laws that are hard on crime, soft on reality and punishing to our national budget.