What can be done to stop gun violence

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Theo520 said:
As the video states, fewer guns doesn’t equal less gun crime.
My link just above shows how gun crime can be reduced in the USA.
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Well, Theo520, what do you think of Jesse Russell’s commentary?
 
vern_humphrey said:
Now back to the original question: Varmint hunters do a service to ranchers and farmers, and harm no one. Why should they be penalized?
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To save innocent children who are in danger of being shot to death while attending school.
 
Theo520 said:
I posted this analysis a while back, but it never got much viewing.

Urban areas have shown they can dramatically reduce gun violence, without changes to their gun laws. It can be done.

How to fight gun violence in American cities - Vox
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A very good article. Thank you for posting. Here are some excerpts:
German Lopez author of the Vox article:
As someone who’s written about gun violence for years at Vox, I’ve typically focused on gun control — and I’ve made it no secret that I think the US will have to heavily restrict access to guns and reduce the number of firearms within our borders if we ever hope to get to the much lower levels of gun violence that all other developed countries experience.
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on Thomas Abt author of the book cited in the article:
In Bleeding Out , Abt argues that law enforcement and other government agencies can address these problems by focusing on three elements: focus, balance, and fairness. Police, other officials, and community leaders should focus on the few individuals who commit and are victim to the great majority of local violence, balancing the threat of punishment with offers of help. To give the process a sense of fairness, officials should communicate clearly and transparently, bringing in the community to provide feedback and accountability.
. . .
The idea was to convey a clear, direct message, something like: “We know who you are. We want the best for you, but we can’t and don’t approve of what you’re doing. We will crack down quickly and harshly if you continue down a path of violence. But if you agree to stop, we’ll give you an array of services — jobs, education, health care, and so on — to help you build a better, violence-free life.”
. . .
But balance is key. Local governments and police have tried in the past to use only the law enforcement side of the strategy. That doesn’t work; offering social services — which sometimes requires more resources — is crucial to the strategy’s success, Abt emphasizes.

As Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, previously told me, offering social services “lends a certain legitimacy to the police. They’re not there to just serve warrants or warn people about what’s going to happen to them if they commit another crime, but also conveys a certain degree of concern for those individuals and their lives.”
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AlNg said:
To save innocent children who are in danger of being shot to death while attending school.
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How many varmint hunters have shot up schools??? Your statement is an non sequitur.
 
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AlNg said:
To save innocent children who are in danger of being shot to death while attending school.
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An unwarranted accusation.

It is this type of thought process that keeps real progress to finding a solution from happening.

While people should be focused on how to reduce violence, some are content to simply throw out accusations without regard to who they are pointing a finger at or if they are actually guilty of anything.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
German Lopez author of the Vox article:
As someone who’s written about gun violence for years at Vox, I’ve typically focused on gun control — and I’ve made it no secret that I think the US will have to heavily restrict access to guns and reduce the number of firearms within our borders if we ever hope to get to the much lower levels of gun violence that all other developed countries experience.
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I think it’s reasonable to think that restricting handgun access severely will promote fewer suicides per capita. I don’t think that that is a good reason to do it.

And what “other developed countries” don’t have but that the US does have—although surely not as severely as “murder capitals” of the world suffer from—is a much higher proportion of murderers per capita. Even if we vacuumed up all the guns magically, that would not change killers into non-killers.
 
Nihilo said:
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LeafByNiggle:
German Lopez author of the Vox article:
As someone who’s written about gun violence for years at Vox, I’ve typically focused on gun control — and I’ve made it no secret that I think the US will have to heavily restrict access to guns and reduce the number of firearms within our borders if we ever hope to get to the much lower levels of gun violence that all other developed countries experience.
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I think it’s reasonable to think that restricting handgun access severely will promote fewer suicides per capita. I don’t think that that is a good reason to do it.

And what “other developed countries” don’t have but that the US does have—although surely not as severely as “murder capitals” of the world suffer from—is a much higher proportion of murderers per capita. Even if we vacuumed up all the guns magically, that would not change killers into non-killers.
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It is not accurate to classify people into categories of killers and non-killers the way you might classify them into blonds, redheads, and brunettes. A non-killer is just someone who has not killed (yet). A person can move from one category to the other depending on many factors, not the least of which are the means, the motive, and the opportunity.

If you accept that unchangeable categorization of people as you suggest, it leads to some very unreasonably responses, such as mass incarceration with no possibility of release, which is not economically feasible, not to mention immoral.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
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Nihilo:
I don’t think that that is a good reason to do it.
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Why don’t you think that that would be a good reason?
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Because handguns chambered in larger calibers than .22 LR are weapons of war useful for the well regulated militia, although they are in all ways besides concealability, inferior weapons of war to any rifle not chambered in .22 LR.
 
Though I am for gun restriction and regulation, I do believe that hunters should be allowed to own a rifle and/or a shotgun.
There is no need for anyone to own the type of weapons that have been used in these mass killings. Those weapons are designed for a max kill of people, not for shooting varmints and such.
It should be mandatory, everywhere, for those who own a rifle and/or a shotgun to take a training course in the safe use of a weapon.
As for handguns, I am torn between a person’s need to own one for personal safety and knowing that so many crimes are committed by people using a handgun. Most suicides are committed with a handgun.
Handguns are a tough call.
 
po18guy said:
Focusing on cars will net far greater results - without shredding freedom. Why does no one focus on cars?
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This is known as a false dichotomy. And if you know anything of the history of the automobile, you know there has been a tremendous focus on car safety in the last few generations.

Yet people still die. We would have never achieved greater automobile safety standards had we taken the same defensive attitude that we do with gun safety, that since we can’t stop everything bad from happening, we should not attempt to stop as much as we can.

You want to use car safety as an example? Fine. Then let us start to day doing all we can to save some lives, knowing we can’t save all, and move forward.
 
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Nihilo said:
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JoeShlabotnik:
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Nihilo:
I don’t think that that is a good reason to do it.
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Why don’t you think that that would be a good reason?
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Because handguns chambered in larger calibers than .22 LR are weapons of war useful for the well regulated militia, although they are in all ways besides concealability, inferior weapons of war to any rifle not chambered in .22 LR.
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The question is, does the value of this use out-weigh the value of the lives lost to suicide? I think not.
 
vz71 said:
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LeafByNiggle:
The question is, does the value of this use out-weigh the value of the lives lost to suicide? I think not.
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So you suggest these suicides would not have come about were it not for firearms?
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Studies show that a good number of them would not have come about. Yes. The main reason is the transient nature of depression. If a gun is handy, there is very little delay between the moment when depression hits its peak and the successful completion of the act. And the act when done with a gun is almost always successful on the first try. On the other hand, if the victim has to take more time executing his intention, it quite often happens that the peak of the depressive episode passes and he reconsiders. And even if he does manage to stay focused on his intention to the point of taking action (with hanging, or pills, or other means) the success rate is much lower. A failed attempt, at the very least, alerts his family or others that there is a problem. This offers another opportunity for intervention. This isn’t just speculation. This is born out by systematic studies.
 
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