Mental illness, mental healthcare and pharmaceutical treatments are a thing in Europe too. The US is not a special outlier when it comes to bullying and mental health.
But you don't see children being gunned down every other week in Europe.
No, the problem is guns in the possession of people who can't use them responsibly. Guns aren't magic. They don't take over a person's mind and make them shoot other people. The people who misuse guns would misuse any other weapon you gave them. Or even things that you might not think of as weapons.
But the vast majority of gun owners are not such people; they are responsible law-abiding citizens. So any policy about guns, at least in the US where we have the Second Amendment as part of our Constitution, has to be based on letting responsible, law-abiding citizens have guns. Otherwise you are punishing responsible, law-abiding citizens for the misdeeds of a very small number of people who are not responsible or law-abiding. That's not a good idea.
> No, the problem is guns in the possession of people who can't use them responsibly.
The problem is that guns are so readily available that even those that cannot use them responsibly can still get their hands on them. Three of the four guns used in Columbine weren't even purchased by the killers but by a fellow school mate who had turned 18 and could buy them for the killers. Similarly, with the Sandyhook shooting -- it wasn't even the shooter's gun that was used.
Your examples are not arguments for restricting gun ownership per se. They are arguments for holding people responsible for giving guns to irresponsible people.
In the Columbine case, was the school mate prosecuted for, at the very least, negligently contributing to homicide?
With the Sandy Hook shooting, was the owner of the gun prosecuted for allowing the shooter to have it?
I don't see how holding the third parties responsible would prevent the acts themselves. That's a retroactive measure. Reducing the availability of guns is proactive.
>With the Sandy Hook shooting, was the owner of the gun prosecuted for allowing the shooter to have it?
No, because she was the first person killed by the very weapon.
> I don't see how holding the third parties responsible would prevent the acts themselves.
You don't see how, if people know they are legally responsible for what guns they own are used for if they give them to someone else, they would be more careful about who they give them to?
Obviously prosecuting someone after the fact is retroactive for that particular act. But that in no way means it does not send a signal to other people to proactively change their behavior. That is how most law enforcement has its effect. And it has the advantage of putting the responsibility where it belongs; whereas if you take away everyone's guns because a few people can't use them responsibly, or can't be bothered to be careful about who they give them to, you are punishing the wrong people.
But the U.S. accepts other things that are regulated, a couple of examples:
Speed limits: Speed doesn't cause accidents just people who go faster than their ability to control the vehicle. Many people are sensible and wouldn't do this.
Drugs: Many people can take drugs and enjoy them and not descend into anti-social and criminal behavior.
> Dont care. Its a small punishment for a greater good.
This sort of attitude is a big reason why US politics is polarized around this issue. So let me try to adjust your "small punishment for a greater good" attitude a bit.
Guns are self-defense weapons. They are particularly useful as equalizers: a little old lady who can shoot can defend herself against a mugger much larger than her in a way she couldn't possibly do by any other means. So any government that proposes to take away people's guns "for a greater good" has an absolute obligation to extirpate any kind of violent crime that might cause a person to need a gun for self-defense. I mean "extirpate" literally: zero violent crime. Or at least so close to it as to be rounding error. But of course no government on Earth ever has or ever can achieve that level of control over violent crime, at least not in a free country. Perhaps China could do it, though even there I doubt it: China has criminal gangs.
So given that the government can't possibly make it truly unnecessary for any law-abiding citizen to need a gun, if the government still insists on taking away people's guns "for a greater good", the government is taking the attitude that, as long as the politicians who live in gated communities and have personal protective details can have their bodyguards have guns so they aren't victims of violent crime, they don't care that the people they're supposed to be representing are victims of violent crime and can't defend themselves. And that is not an acceptable attitude for the government of a free country.
>Guns are self-defense weapons. They are particularly useful as equalizers: a little old lady who can shoot can defend herself against a mugger much larger than her in a way she couldn't possibly do by any other means.
Ah yes, the classic example of little old ladies defending themselves. This is pretty much a "think of the children" trope.
Guns in a home actually lead to greater dangers especially for women. Most people are actually murdered by someone they know, quite often a close relative of friend. It may not feel that way but you are actually safer not owning a gun.
No, you are actually safer not having an irresponsible person in your home. If everyone in your home is a responsible person, you might well be safer owning a gun. At worst it will be neutral as far as your safety goes (if you live in an area that is safe anyway). The fact that irresponsible people will use guns to do irresponsible things is not a valid reason to blame the guns. The blame lies with the irresponsible people.
> Gun violence solved: Just don't have an irresponsible person in your home.
Doing that doesn't just "solve" gun violence. Focusing on the guns as though they're the root problem when irresponsible people are involved is like painting over the rust on your car and thinking it "solves" the problem.
> once responsible, always responsible
I made no such claim. Obviously the responsible/irresponsible judgment is not one you just make one time and then it never changes. Any reasonable person will understand that making such judgments is an ongoing process.
>Focusing on the guns as though they're the root problem when irresponsible people are involved is like painting over the rust on your car and thinking it "solves" the problem.
Guns aren't the root problem but their accessibility is an enabler -- a multiplying force for opportunistic carnage.
>Any reasonable person will understand that making such judgments is an ongoing process.
This goes against what we've seen with mass killers and the third parties involved: Average, every-day people convince themselves that their loved one / friend will get over whatever they're dealing with. We also know that many of these mass killers are sociopaths and have no difficulties in acting normal and hiding their motives.
> Guns aren't the root problem but their accessibility is an enabler -- a multiplying force for opportunistic carnage.
That still doesn't justify taking away guns from people who aren't going to commit opportunistic carnage. The root problem is the people, not the guns.
> Average, every-day people convince themselves that their loved one / friend will get over whatever they're dealing with.
I get that this happens. But the average, every-day people still have to understand that, if there is a gun in the house, "convincing yourself" is not enough. Unless you are sure, i.e., sure enough to bet your own life on it (because you are) that the person is not going to misuse the gun, you cannot allow them access to it. That is perfectly compatible with still believing that they will get over it in time.
> We also know that many of these mass killers are sociopaths and have no difficulties in acting normal and hiding their motives.
If you are not sure that someone is not a sociopath, then don't allow them access to your gun.
I simply don't see any of these things as valid reasons to take away guns from people who are responsible adults. If your definition of "responsible adult" actually does not include making judgments like the above, and being able to separate your emotional desire for a loved one to "heal" from your rational, practical need to not give them access to guns until you're sure they are healed, then your definition of "responsible adult" is wrong. And if our society has deteriorated to the point where the definition of "responsible adult" I am giving--which to a person of, say, my parents' generation would have seemed so obvious as to not even be worth stating--is something "average, every-day people" do not think they can live up to, then we have a much, much bigger problem with our society than gun violence. Our society has adult problems that require adult solutions. That requires adult citizens. If we don't have adult citizens, our society is doomed.
When you advocate for punishing law-abiding citizens for the misdeeds of criminals, you should question whether you are really acting for the greater good.
>When you advocate for punishing law-abiding citizens for the misdeeds of criminals
I don't think you're arguing in good-faith here. The Misdeeds of criminals? It's not like mass shootings are carried out by felons. They're carried out by mentally ill people that have access to guns they should not have access to. They're not criminals until they take action.
> I don't think you're arguing in good-faith here.
I could say the same about you, but I'll just leave it that I don't think you have thought through your position.
> They're not criminals until they take action.
And nobody calls for banning guns until they take action either. At which point, as you say, they are criminals. So the calls for banning guns every time there's a mass shooting are exactly what I said: calls to punish law-abiding citizens for the misdeeds of criminals.
You don't have to go all the way to Europe. Canada exists. Canada is culturally very similar to the USA, has a similar incidence of mental health, has similar usage of drugs to treat mental health.
However, Canada has stricter gun laws. While bolt-action hunting rifles are legal and unregistered in Canada, owning one involves getting PAL, which is similar to earning a driver's license. It involves lessons and tests.
And more... murder-y weapons like pistols and "assault-style"[1] rifles are either banned or restricted. Restricted means the gun is registered, you take extra certifications, and you fill out paperwork just to transport it from your home to the firing range, which is basically the only place you can legally fire the thing.
Shootings still happen. There was a tragedy in Quebec City a few years back where a "great replacement" nut shot up a mosque (which illustrates how we have the same cultural problems as Americans). But the number, per capita, is tiny compared to Americans.
It's hard to escape the obvious conclusion that the reason there are so many gun deaths in America is because guns are so poorly controlled.
Most of the street crime guns here are smuggled over the border (America is to guns as Escobar's Colombia was to cocaine), so the lax gun laws don't just impact the USA.
[1] yes I know it's a vague term but you also know what I mean don't @ me.
> yes I know it's a vague term but you also know what I mean don't @ me.
Our world is filled to the brim with vague constructed terms to solve for a problem, not for a clean categorization. The assault-style category is a desire to lump all the guns that multiply too much the assailant's power. It's not about a certain bullet type, or a specific barrel length. If it's too good at doing a mass shooting, it's assault-style.
Canada had a mass shooting in 2020 in Nova Scotia where 23 people were murdered by a guy well known to the police.
The Wikipedia article only covers the major ones, but Canada has a mass shoot pretty regularly too. And if shooting scale by population, you'd expect the US to have 10x as many - all else being equal.
1000x more firearm deaths, but only 8x more firearm homicides but then 3x more murders.
I would definitely agree the US has a worse murder problem than Canada, but making is purely a gun problem misses the point. Do guns play a role? Sure.
I see the comments in this thread being downvoted that point out that Europe (for example) have the same societal issues as the U.S. but don't have the same gun availability.
People seem to be trying to argue Europe and the US are very similar culture wise but I don’t think that’s true at all.
IMO the biggest problem with the US over Europe is lack of social cohesion, lack of familial cohesion that includes extended families, focus on individualism over community, and lack of social safety nets. These factors have a huge impact on mental well being.
The idea that Europe and the US are very similar other than access to guns just because both are developed western nations is very naive…
I think we'd need to be honest about it and compare individual European countries to individual US states. New York and California are NOT like Alabama, Texas and Florida.
California, Illinois and New York have different populations and different issues than Ohio, Texas, and Alabama for example.
So guns are what caused this tragedy? The mere existing of them in the US causes people to lose their minds and go on rampages? We need to get to the root of the problem because people will find another way to enact their evil. Look at Boston Marathon incident
The person you are replying to did not say guns caused the tragedy. Rather the availability of guns in the U.S. is why we see school shootings every week in the U.S. and not in Europe.
4000 people were killed due to the threat of box cutters... over 100 people were killed by a fertilizer bomb. People die due to knives, hammers and fists. It's a people problem.
> On March 23, 2010, Zheng Minsheng (郑民生)[7] 41, murdered eight children with a knife in an elementary school in Nanping,[8] Fujian province...
> An attacker named Wu Huanming (吴环明), 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver at a kindergarten in Hanzhong, Shaanxi on May 12, 2010...
> On 4 August 2010, 26-year-old Fang Jiantang (方建堂) slashed more than 20 children and staff with a 60 cm knife, killing three children and a teacher at a kindergarten in Zibo, Shandong province....
> The death toll has risen to nine in Friday's stabbing attack outside a middle school in northwestern China allegedly carried out by a former pupil seeking revenge for having been bullied....
> ...The state media has also been keeping news of these attacks quiet by deleting forum entries on the internet and releasing few facts on the incident for fear of copycat crimes and mass panic...
> Following the Chenpeng school attack, the Chinese government began posting security guards in schools throughout the country. It was planned that all schools have a security guard by 2013.
Again, Europe has mental illness. But Europe does not have weekly school shootings. It really is not that complicated. Guns enable anyone who becomes mentally ill to kill magnitudes more people.
I don't think the Boston bombers or people using trucks to run people over are geniuses. Even the Batman killer was building bombs in his apartment. It's not rocket science. You may reduce the casualties with a ban and confiscation but you still have handguns to deal with. Good luck banning those. And you also have not solved the underlying problem causing these violent ideations in the first place. So I consider that a bandaid, not a solved problem by any definition.
But you don't see children being gunned down every other week in Europe.
The problem is guns.