American Gun Control

[Bolt the Cat]

This is yet another situation where it's pretty obvious what we should be doing but isn't going to get done because of the current political situation. Yes, we need stronger background checks, better mental health programs, and bans on assault weapons, but how do we get these policies actually enacted when the NRA is fighting tooth and nail to block them? I feel like the conversation should be less "What do we do about guns?" and more "What do we do about the NRA?". And no one seems to have any answers for the latter.

 

[chess-z]

The NRA exemplifies the seminal problem with American politics; money. What we need is systemic reform to the way corporations and other very large private groups interact with the political process. Transparency laws, maximum donations, anti-corruption task forces. The problem we encounter is that these large groups will fight tooth and nail to keep any reform from happening at a national level. The problem you described can be extrapolated at large, and therein lies the crux of the issue.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

The NRA exemplifies the seminal problem with American politics; money. What we need is systemic reform to the way corporations and other very large private groups interact with the political process. Transparency laws, maximum donations, anti-corruption task forces. The problem we encounter is that these large groups will fight tooth and nail to keep any reform from happening at a national level. The problem you described can be extrapolated at large, and therein lies the crux of the issue.

Well yeah, that's what I mean by "current political situation". Thing is everyone says "We need to do X or Y", but without addressing the issue of money in politics all of that discussion goes pretty much nowhere. Which again, is something that no one seems to have any real solutions for.

 

[chess-z]

The unfortunate fact is we can't really do anything about it as the conclusion is essentially forgone. Our government has given too much power to these institutions, and outside of Supreme Court rulings or violent revolution, we're powerless in this plutocracy.

 

[Gamzee Makara]

The NRA exemplifies the seminal problem with American politics; money. What we need is systemic reform to the way corporations and other very large private groups interact with the political process. Transparency laws, maximum donations, anti-corruption task forces. The problem we encounter is that these large groups will fight tooth and nail to keep any reform from happening at a national level. The problem you described can be extrapolated at large, and therein lies the crux of the issue.

The NRA's money-pumping is only legal because of a very flawed Supreme Court(Which should have cyclical judge rotations instead of life terms in order to get fresh, young, relevant minds in there) ruling that anyone was allowed to fund any campaign. Blame the deceased Antony Scalia for it being "constitutional". And it will only get worse due to Congress blocking Obama's last Justice appointment so a Republican president could appoint a member of Republican "Literal Constitution" royalty to sway things in Libertarian-Plutocrat-Oligarch-Kleptocrats favor.

 

[Zora]

There's a lot of thoughts I have, in no particular order; afterwards I'll give my opinion on the matter. Lots of spoilers to save space since I tend to ramble.


First, the central epistemic/logistic question is this: does gun control actually reduce homicides?

Spoiler: spoiler

The preponderance of evidence would suggest, yes. I say preponderance of evidence since there's more specific questions we could ask (e.g. how does gun control work in rural vs urban areas where police response time differs drastically), but let's put aside.

First and foremost, great resource: https://jhupress.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/1421411113_updf.pdf , with the only caveat being it might be outdated. I want to draw your attention to PDF page 14-15 which compares aggregate statistics in states with high gun control and low gun control. Despite being comparable both in population size and nonlethal violent crime, firearm homicides and suicides are vastly more represented in high-gun states compared to low gun states relative to total homicide and suicide rate.

That resource in other chapters also points out that a lot of firearm related violence is domestic abuse (hence why firearm related homicides among women are nearly twice as much as men). I bring this up to point out that must gun-related violence is *not* premeditated but rather spur-of-the-moment.

The Australian study as has also been brought up, but I'm hesitant to cite that one. See figure A. Overall homicides in Australia went down, so while firearm related homicides in Australia went down; furthermore, overall homicides went down at a faster rate. So the question is, was the homicide decline driven by gun control or this larger force driving total homicide decline? I don't know. It's worth mentioning Australia did not have a single mass shooting after their gun control law and overall homicides (both by firearm and in general) declined.

Even if we can "argue away" the Australian study, we must consider all other evidence. Denying that guns aren't part of the narrative only begs the question what is.

The Dickey Amendment, or why the CDC cannot fun gun violence research.

Spoiler: spoiler

I imagine most people would like stronger evidence. This brings up the fact that the CDC is effectively outlawed from researching gun research via Dickey Amendment.

Dickey himself wrote an opinion piece in Washington Post that more or less says plainly that he sponsored this law because the NRA was concerned about what research would find.

Spoiler: spoiler

From 1986 to 1996, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sponsored high-quality, peer-reviewed research into the underlying causes of gun violence. People who kept guns in their homes did not — despite their hopes — gain protection, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Instead, residents in homes with a gun faced a 2.7-fold greater risk of homicide and a 4.8-fold greater risk of suicide. The National Rifle Association moved to suppress the dissemination of these results and to block funding of future government research into the causes of firearm injuries.

One of us served as the NRA’s point person in Congress and submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill that removed $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget, the amount the agency’s injury center had spent on firearms-related research the previous year. This amendment, together with a stipulation that “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control,” sent a chilling message.

Nor do I feel it's hard to explain why. If the preponderance of evidence suggests gun control might be necessary, a full investigation might conclude so beyond a reasonable doubt. The NRA was scared of that possibility. My first question is why--if more guns truly does curtail gun violence why wouldn't the NRA like research concerning that. I can't escape the obvious conclusion: The NRA suspects, like most of us, more guns creates more violence and know that gun control debate will be that much harder if this issue was settled--so the Dickey Amendment simply makes sure the epistemic/logistic question remains in a state of uncertainty.

Perceptions vs Reality of US Gun Control Law (or lack thereof)

Spoiler: spoiler

One other aspect concerns propaganda. There's probably people who are much more in touch with NRA to point out their specific messaging (forgive me: I don't want to look at NRA media); but one thing worth pointing out is that there is much confusion over existing gun control law. "In a nationally representative survey, they found that many people already thought tough gun laws were in place. For example, 77% of Americans want universal background checks. But 41% of Americans thought (wrongly) that universal background checks were already in place."

On Mental Health

Spoiler: spoiler

My last point concerns mental health. Often it's said that we need to have higher mental health to reduce mass shootings. I will use this data momentarily: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/data-behavioral-health.aspx

I'm gonna be honest, this notion plain confuses me. Look, mass shooters are exceedingly rare, in the sense that if you take a random American off the street they are not mass shooter. To be quantitive-ish, we’ve had about one mass shooting per year in America (if you’re pro-gun control and arguing it’s less than that, you’re hurting your mental health argument so just roll with me). That puts mass shooters in a given year at about 1 per million of the American population. According to APA (that link I gave in previous paragraph) about 4% of patients who felt they needed health services forwent said service within the past year. 4 out of 100 sounds large, but it’s gigantic compared to 1 out of a million. You’re asking to find that 1 person in 40,000—at that point, we need to seriously consider if you’re asking for a witch hunt. And yes, we can debate the specific numbers, but unless we’re talking an order of 1:2 I don’t see the point changing.
And I suppose I should point out politicians wanting to extend mental health insurance, e.g. through government-funded service, are seldom the politicians who want gun control.

It gets worse. Bringing in actual empirical evidence suggests most gun violence isn’t related to mental illness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4211925/ ; we might be looking the wrong place. Note, however, firearm related suicides and mental illness has significant correlation.

While I can certainly get behind extending mental health services in general for its own sake, I can’t agree that such an expansion will appreciably affect our mass shooting crisis in America.

Amenities:

Spoiler: spoiler

Lastly, there’s a handful of other solutions to consider. Each of these is gun control of some form, but not an outright gun ban. I’ll leave this opinion piece here but the solutions are: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/mass-shooting-vegas.html
1.) Universal Background Checks
2.) Minimum age limit (21 or over)
3.) Domestic violence perpetrators cannot have gun permit
4.) Limit rate of gun purchase, e.g. one or two every (other) month
5.) For gun crimes, use technology to allow law enforcement to trace which bullets come from which guns (e.g. by microstamping)
6.) Invest in smart guns—e.g. you need to have a fob or pin to fire a gun fob so youth cannot use them.
7.) Require safe storage
8.) Invest in Research

I’m not saying each of these solutions have evidence saying they work—maybe they do maybe they don’t; mostly posting as food for thought. And I suppose, given the earlier point about propaganda, it’s worth mentioning none of this is required in America at the federal level.

So what’s my opinion on this?
First and foremost, the dickey amendment should go. If we’re unable to appropriate legislation because we know too little about the effect proposed solutions should have, we absolutely should research solutions. That said, given where all evidence currently points, I have very little doubt the conclusion we will arrive at is that increased gun control will deter homicide violence in general. It’s a sort “if there’s smoke, there’s fire.” We see the smoke, so we shouldn’t be surprised if there’s fire. One weak spot, for example, is geographical variation. In rural areas where police might take an hour to respond, is having a way to defend yourself actually a deterrent? Who knows.

The specific policy solution will almost certainly depend on what that research reveals. If people in rural areas really do need guns for safety, then only some of the proposed solutions are amenable. But even in that case, any of the proposed solutions above don’t seem like they’d compromise that type of concern, so given the situation I feel we should adopt the above measures as an interim solution at least.

 

[bobjr]

I always thought the mental health services were more to stop the suicide part more than anything, with the added benefit of having a secondary effect on helping what could have been a future mass shooter.

 

[1rkhachatryan]

I hate the argument that gun legislation won't stop criminals from getting guns, like no ****ing ****, since when are laws just about criminals?? Should we get rid of any law that criminals break regardless?? Ya, let's just make it a free for all and let people do whatever they want.

And I for one am not for banning guns outright, however there needs to be much stricter regulations and a stricter process to obtain one. They literally test us for EVERYTHING else yet every yahoo can go and get a gun for shits and giggles, also if you have that much of a problem with reworking gun control laws, you're probably one of the people who doesn't need to have one.

 

[PrinceOfFacade]

For those who may not know, the 2nd Amendment was set in place for civilians to protect themselves against a tyrannical government or any similar body.

This is something I do agree with, which is why I am not entirely on board with banning certain firearms. However, I strongly support making people undergo training for the gun they wish to purchase. If they want a hunting rifle, they must train for it. If they want a handgun, they must train for it. If they want an assault rifle, they have to train for it. Once training is complete, they will be certified and they can use that certification to purchase the relative weapon.

Sure, there will be shady activity within that system, but every system has shady activity. We just have to actually deal with it.

 

[bobjr]

I kinda disagree with the second amendment in spirit, just because of societal and technological advances. Would the Founding Fathers be okay with guns if they knew what modern guns were like? It's too different to give a definitive answer.

 

[lemoncatpower]

I hate the argument that gun legislation won't stop criminals from getting guns, like no ****ing ****, since when are laws just about criminals?? Should we get rid of any law that criminals break regardless?? Ya, let's just make it a free for all and let people do whatever they want.

And I for one am not for banning guns outright, however there needs to be much stricter regulations and a stricter process to obtain one. They literally test us for EVERYTHING else yet every yahoo can go and get a gun for shits and giggles, also if you have that much of a problem with reworking gun control laws, you're probably one of the people who doesn't need to have one.

the funny part is if you say anything about gun laws, people automatically think they'll never be able to own or see a gun again except for the police... Other places have guns too, just not crazy assault rifles and grenades and **** like that.

 

[Baba Yaga]

For those who may not know, the 2nd Amendment was set in place for civilians to protect themselves
against a tyrannical government or any similar body.

This is something I do agree with, which is why I am not entirely on board with banning certain firearms. However, I strongly support making people undergo training for the gun they wish to purchase. If they want a hunting rifle, they must train for it. If they want a handgun, they must train for it. If they want an assault rifle, they have to train for it. Once training is complete, they with be certified and they can use that certification to purchase the relative weapon.

Sure, there will be shady activity within that system, but every system has shady activity. We just have to actually deal with it.

I agree with this sentiment. If you're not willing to undergo proper training to handle a firearm, you don't really care about the second amendment that much. I think there's a balance to be struck. We clearly need better gun control legislation, but I would be opposed to what Australia had done, where they actually confiscated and destroyed firearms. It's all about what kind of cost people are willing to pay. 10,000 deaths a year is a bit much for the freedom to play with guns. If we lowered that number to say, 100, then we could actually make an argument that swimming pools, or taking selfies on top of high buildings is more dangerous, or whatever.

There's some misinformation going around, too. There was a recent story saying that the Trump administration reversed an Obama era regulation preventing mentally ill persons from aquiring a firearm, but looking into it, it was mentally disabled persons that were prevented. It's a subtle distinction but an important one. A mentally disabled person could still be competent to own a firearm.

 

[The Admiral]

Brief reminder for all the "if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns" and "the illegal guns are obtained through a black market" morons: the "black market" is actually just a (mostly disorganized) series of private persons who purchase and then resell guns. Repeatedly.

Also guns are very difficult to track due to the fact that the closest there is to a "database" or "registry" or anything like that is a warehouse full of microfilm. They are legally not permitted to use computers for this.

 

[Mordent99]

Brief reminder for all the "if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns" and "the illegal guns are obtained through a black market" morons: the "black market" is actually just a (mostly disorganized) series of private persons who purchase and then resell guns. Repeatedly.

And they do so for astronomically inflated prices, claiming "hazard pay" for selling "hot" goods. It's not like fencing or pawning, two activities that are often synonymous.

You don't really think cocaine and heroin have high street values because of labor and production cost, do you?

 

[Bolt the Cat]

For those who may not know, the 2nd Amendment was set in place for civilians to protect themselves
against a tyrannical government or any similar body.

I mean, what are guns going to do against a government that knows where you are at pretty much any time and can fire a missile at your location? And how often does tyranny take the form of physical violence nowadays as opposed to political and economic dominance? That might've made sense back in 1787 but it doesn't make as much sense now, we need a new set of rights to protect ourselves from tyranny now.

 

[Gamzee Makara]

I mean, what are guns going to do against a government that knows where you are at pretty much any time and can fire a missile at your location? And how often does tyranny take the form of physical violence nowadays as opposed to political and economic dominance? That might've made sense back in 1787 but it doesn't make as much sense now, we need a new set of rights to protect ourselves from tyranny now.

To everyone who keeps saying we should "rewrite/write a new Constitution"... Baby. Bathwater. If you throw it all out, you risk losing the underappreciated rights, such as immunity to Double Jeopardy, trial by jury and police warrants being needed to search and seize in it.

Do you trust Congress of ANY era to write a new system w/o lobbyists, religion, money, dark charisma and hatred creating a major bias from ANY party? Are YOU un/minimally biased to the point you could write it? Who do you trust to write it w/o conflicts of interest getting in the way?

No one can write a better system because no one has the money, power, god-tier purity of mind and soul and minimal bias(simultaneously)needed to do so. Better to amend the existing system than to throw a tantrum and trust another person than yourself to write a new one.

 

[U.N. Owen]

I find it funny that we as Americans only give our two cents with mental health when it comes to gun control. I perfectly know why we do it: it is the perfect "counter" for gun control. I find it absurd and insulting to the people with actual illnesses who actually need help, love, and care.

 

[Gamzee Makara]

I find it funny that we as Americans only give our two cents with mental health when it comes to gun control. I perfectly know why we do it: it is the perfect "counter" for gun control. I find it absurd and insulting to the people with actual illnesses who actually need help, love, and care.

Why not both? Mental health care AND gun control? Oh yeah, Big Pharma and the NRA.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

To everyone who keeps saying we should "rewrite/write a new Constitution"... Baby. Bathwater. If you throw it all out, you risk losing the underappreciated rights, such as immunity to Double Jeopardy, trial by jury and police warrants being needed to search and seize in it.

Do you trust Congress of ANY era to write a new system w/o lobbyists, religion, money, dark charisma and hatred creating a major bias from ANY party? Are YOU un/minimally biased to the point you could write it? Who do you trust to write it w/o conflicts of interest getting in the way?

No one can write a better system because no one has the money, power, god-tier purity of mind and soul and minimal bias(simultaneously)needed to do so. Better to amend the existing system than to throw a tantrum and trust another person than yourself to write a new one.

I never said rewrite the entire Constitution. There's a lot in the Constitution that still works today. But there definitely need to be more Amendments. Amendments limiting the power of large scale corporations (most notably, a reversal of the Citizens United ruling), Amendments to the election process (the popular vote needs to play more of a role in determining the president than it does), and other Amendments that give the common people checks and balances against the government and private sector (maybe some way for the common person to have a larger influence in legislation?).

More on the topic of gun control and the 2nd amendment, I don't think the 2nd amendment needs to be repealed or changed, I think we need Amendments that limit the NRA's power more than anything else.

 

[U.N. Owen]

In all seriousness, the Second Amendment was dedicated to rebellion in cause the U.S. government became like King George. Back then, the right to bear arms was a gun that took forever to load and a cannon. If we translate that to today, we would end up getting tanks and attack drones.