2022 is America's deadliest year for mass shootings.
- Thread starter Zoii
- Start date
-
- Tags
- gun violence mass shooting usa
- Sep 4, 2005
- 24,706
- 14,589
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
I don't think that's the case at all. Sure, you'll find some "El Chapos" and Escobars that enjoy a criminal lifestyle and make millions off of it. Or you maybe be able to find a few sociopaths in the mix...
But for your average street-level "criminal/thug/gang member/drug dealer/etc...", if you asked them whether they'd prefer to be making $60k a year at an office job... or what they're doing now (avoiding cops, dodging bullets, and tip-toeing around "rival turf") for the surprisingly small amount they're making doing that, most would undoubtedly say the former.
There's also a strong correlation between being born into poverty, and ending up in that kind of lifestyle. So unless you're suggesting that there are 9 and 10 year old who just inherently like the idea of hurting people and are just "following their dreams of becoming a gang member", then your stance on this is ignoring a lot of social aspects of the equation.
Upvote
0
- Sep 4, 2005
- 24,706
- 14,589
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
It's not surprising they keep making the same choices, because society keeps giving them the same bad options to pick from. In fact, the options are often even more limited and harsh after they get out of jail.
If an 18 year old has the choice of "sell drugs so I can actually afford a cheap apartment" or "live on the streets", and opts for the former, their choices when they get out (now with a criminal record) aren't any better than when they went in.
Upvote
0
Whyayeman
Well-Known Member
- Dec 8, 2018
- 3,891
- 2,521
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Married
This is the first line of the OP. Just a reminder that this discussion is about mass shootings. They are mainly carried out not by criminals but by sick young men with no criminal record. What is all too often the case is that they have psychiatric problems in their backgrounds.
It is naive to suggest that such men and boys could be dissuaded by the prospect of a long prison sentence. In the majority of these dreadful events the last person to be killed is the perpetrator, turning his gun on himself.
Upvote
0
Say it aint so
Well-Known Member
- Jun 19, 2020
- 1,560
- 1,525
- 26
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Deist
- Marital Status
- Single
Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths
Angry Drivers, Lots of Guns: An Explosion in Road Rage Shootings
Dozens have been reported in Texas alone amid a pandemic surge in gun purchases and a country increasingly on edge.I mean even fundamentally, if like straight out of Star Trek if Scotty were able to beam all guns out the US to a unknown planet, would that increase or decrease the number of US gun deaths?
Upvote
0
Say it aint so
Well-Known Member
- Jun 19, 2020
- 1,560
- 1,525
- 26
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Deist
- Marital Status
- Single
Upvote
0
Remember when the gun-lovers would try to claim that lots of guns would make for a "polite society"?
Yeah - about that....
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
- Sep 4, 2005
- 24,706
- 14,589
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
I think some pro-gun folks were missing a crucial part of the equation...which is that in order for that to happen, the people who own the guns have to be polite in the first place. Polite people with guns are great. People with guns who look to foist their own definition of "politeness" on everyone else, while having no filter themselves when they're armed are a word that I probably can't post here lol.
As someone who's a "gun guy" who dabbles in competitive shooting myself and spends a decent amount of time at the range (and therefore, encounters a lot of other "gun guys"), the unfortunate reality is that a number of them aren't "polite" people (about 1 out of 5 in my experience are jerks). They were regular old jerks before, and are now armed jerks (which amplifies their jerk-ness because they think they now have an answer to someone getting in their face when they shoot their mouth off), or it emboldens them into getting themselves into situations with their gun, that they wouldn't dare get themselves into without one.
They're usually pretty easy to spot. At the risk of sounding like I'm "judging a book by its cover", imagine an overly opinionated loudmouth wearing an XXL "Kneel for the Cross, Stand for the Flag" shirt who looks like he'd get winded walking up a half flight of stairs with "Punisher" and "No step on snake" stickers on the back of their truck and spend half their time bragging about "what they would do" if someone ever broke into their house (like they're looking forward to it)
You can almost guarantee they're the "just give me an excuse to use this thing" types.
"This is the same holographic red dot sight the Army Rangers use" (to which I think to myself "yeah, well army rangers can do a push-up, maybe you should think about trying to emulate that")
For some of us, we enjoy the recreational aspect of guns and understand the practical self-defense advantages in very specific situations. For others, their gun is their "Makes me feel confident in running my mouth in front of people I wouldn't dare confront if I were unarmed" security blanket.
Upvote
0
disciple Clint
Well-Known Member
- Mar 26, 2018
- 15,258
- 5,991
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
Upvote
0
disciple Clint
Well-Known Member
- Mar 26, 2018
- 15,258
- 5,991
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
Upvote
0
disciple Clint
Well-Known Member
- Mar 26, 2018
- 15,258
- 5,991
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
Yes once again the criminal is the victim, that kind of thinking is exactly why people no longer feel safe in our nation. Where is the compassion for the victims of these poor misguided "victims of society" that elect to be criminals, we need to get the focus where it belongs.
Upvote
0
disciple Clint
Well-Known Member
- Mar 26, 2018
- 15,258
- 5,991
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
Since guns are inanimate objects they do not by themselves kill anyone, therefore the number of guns has no relationship to the number of gun deaths other than the fact of course that if Scotty did beam away all guns people would need to use an alternate weapon. The problem is with people misusing guns, it is a people problem not a gun problem.
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
- Sep 4, 2005
- 24,706
- 14,589
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
The harsh reality that many don't want to acknowledge (and in some cases don't want to fathom about themselves, and especially don't want to dare fathom about their kids) is that for a lot people, they're as ethical as their options allow them to be.
There are many people who are in the middle-upper and upper classes who I have no doubt wouldn't hesitate to steal or "do what it takes, even if it's outside the law" if their options are more limited, they just never have to make that choice because they have money in their bank account.
For kids from "well-to-do" families, the thought of "I should steal that toy when no one is looking" doesn't pop into their head as often because they know the process for getting toy only involved asking mom and dad for it.
But, again, this conversation still circumnavigates my original line of inquiry that I never really got a straight answer from anyone on...which was, why do you think the US has so many people people who end up behaving this way vs. other Westernized countries? Even omitting the murder rate, there are other metrics to look at.
For instance, you look at the robbery rate:
...and look at where some other countries are at:
What is Italy, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Poland, and Switzerland doing that we're not? Or what do they have that we don't?
Does being born on one particular patch of soil vs. another cause people to inherently have a few screws loose? (and unlikely theory)
Or are there some things in a person's environment that could be driving some of this?
Upvote
0
expos4ever
Well-Known Member
- Oct 22, 2008
- 10,655
- 5,767
- Country
- Canada
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
Anybody can say this kind of thing - anyone can simply assert something based on their "experience". But no reasonable person would be convinced by such a flimsy argument. You are claiming that "criminals want to be criminals". Given many reasons to suspect that this is an oversimplification, are you not going to provide at least some evidence to support your assertion, other than a vague appeal to your "years of experience"?
Upvote
0
If your boat has a hole in it and is sinking, it's initially more important to patch the hole rather than grabbing a cup and bailing the water overboard...
Upvote
0
- Sep 4, 2005
- 24,706
- 14,589
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
I would say where the focus belongs (at least to some degree) is finding ways to make the criminal lifestyle less appealing in the first place by making sure certain needs are met and making it a less enticing choice.
The less desperate people are, the less likely they are to resort to desperate measures.
It would seem as if some other countries have caught on to that and taken certain measures that have had a positive impact in that regard.
If Finland, Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland can find ways to keep robberies below 50 per 100k and keep homicides below 1 per 100k without having to incarcerate people at twice the per capita rate as Russia, certainly we can too, right? Whatever happened to that good old American exceptionalism that dictated that "if another country can do it, we can find a way to do it too...and better"?
Or has that sentiment of exceptionalism been reduced to only apply to the military, and opting to solve every other problem with a handbook out of the 1950's?
Last edited:
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
- Oct 13, 2016
- 5,811
- 3,982
- 23
- Country
- Australia
- Faith
- Seeker
- Marital Status
- Single
Thats exactly what I'm referring to - to utilize the standards other countries have applied - Even in Australia you can own a gun, but we have very strict controls about it. There is no way any man with a history of domestic violence, aggression, unstable mental health issues etc, would be permitted to own a gun. And there's no way someone with a criminal background can own a gun. Lastly, there's controls around why you choose to own a gun - if its for sport then the requirement is that you are a member of a gun club and you secure your weapon there. Now its not infallible, but it helpsIt's important to compare cultures when looking at "trying to compare nation A to nation B".
What may be easy to do in UK or Australia may not be so easy in other places.
I've noted before, the US has a gun culture...like it or not, it's there and it's not going away. So looking at nations that didn't have a gun culture, and trying to implement a carbon copy of their policies are doomed to failure and strong pushback. You can reduce drunk driving deaths by draconian levels of beer and wine control. Look at certain middle eastern countries and how low their drunk driving rates are...so clearly that's the solution, right? How easy (or impossibly hard) do you think that'd be to clone those policies in say, Germany, France, or Italy where enjoying those types of beverage has a deep cultural tie-in?
If the US wants to make our gun culture safer, we should be looking to emulate other countries that had/have a gun culture, and managed to foster a pretty safe society.
As noted in my reply to another user, the answer is not to look to the UK, but to look to the Czech Republic
Gun law in the Czech Republic - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
They're a country where gun ownership is a constitutional right
They're a country where people can own/carry guns for defensive purposes (as hunting isn't terribly popular there, most guns there are for defensive reasons)
They're a country where people can have AR-15s without restrictions pertaining to "type of gun"
Yet, when you look at their murder rates, they're on par with the Nordic countries and actually performing better than the UK and Australia.
View attachment 325964
That should be the country that the US tries to learn from and emulate. They have common-sense upstream restrictions and licensing/vetting, and they were able to achieve the same low murder rates as countries that took much stricter approaches.
Looking at ways to make something that a lot of people like, a lot safer...is much easier and more achievable than trying to completely take away something that a lot of people really like (which is dang near impossible in most cases)
It takes away the impulsive nature of murders - particularly domestic murders.
As for criminals, it means that to weaponize will be expensive; which immediately takes it out of the hands of the petty criminals.
So I agree with you - your country has a love of guns and a culture where you are prepared to use them when and where you choose - so I guess you have to work with that and exert controls - If the Nordic countries are your favoured benchmark then fine - but at least do something.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
