Chicago mass shooting

[_EAllusion]

Are you suggesting that the decision for weapon comes before the decision to kill?

Yes, it turns out that people sometimes decide to use a firearm just because one is available when they wouldn't if one wasn't. This is the primary reason that gun owners have elevated suicide rates. They happen to have a gun around when they tip over the edge.

There is lots of reason to think this also happens with murders. Spree killers? That's less clear.

[_Markk]

Well. It depends on what you define as the root problem? If you're talking about human nature, the root problem will never be solved unless we start, I dunno, designing people at a genetic level to stop murdering one another. If you want to define the root problem as the one thing this one nation deviates from the other Anglosphere countries, then it's pretty apparent.

Are you suggesting we'd be killing ourselves at the same rates, either by suicide or homicide, along with the rates of injurious behavior, if guns were removed from the equation?

- Doc

No I am suggesting we address the root problem.

You wanted a conversation, it appears you have your mind made up.

There are far too many that do not want their rights of owning a gun taken away. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, our country would not allow it.

I believe we need to work on the root problem, which also is not going to happen anytime soon.

In Chicago, and cities like it, they need to have leadership that is willing to make tough choices, make a plan and stick to it. Stop and search, and following through with laws on the books, and making tougher laws and sticking to them is where I would start.

All that is happening now, because our politicians are weak, is they are talking about banning “military style assault weapons” which is only a stupid argument, that ignorant people buy, and will accomplish nothing.

[_Maksutov]

We need more research. Unleash the CDC. The NRA can sit down and STFU for a change. They've offered nothing but division, lies and Russian money. Time to science it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

No I am suggesting we address the root problem.

Is this a guessing game? What is the root problem since I'm unable to identify it.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

It would seem that lots of countries also have "root problems" of violence that don't have the US's problem with homicides. We're a massive outlier in this regard. It's probably because of the amount of easily accessible firearms floating in our society. Supporting gun-rights doesn't require you to deny reality. If it does, you've already lost the debate.

[_EAllusion]

Here's a paper that's making the rounds in the wake of these recent killings:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

tl;dr

Outside of a few exceptions, mental illness is not related to propensity towards gun violence. Access to guns, on the other hand, is strongly related to it and is the primary culprit. Secondarily, people who are hostile by nature, which is in of itself not a mental health condition, are more prone to gun violence. Hostile people owning guns = bad.

[_Xenophon]

We need more research. Unleash the CDC. The NRA can sit down and STFU for a change. They've offered nothing but division, lies and Russian money. Time to science it.

This would be a great first step. We've talked about it here before but I always point back to RAND's compilation of gun studies in times like these. It is telling how little research there really is to get into when it comes to discussing solutions. I know mass shootings are on our minds but it is important to remember that suicides are the biggest cause of gun deaths out there followed by homicides. Gun deaths is a pretty broad topic and I don't think any single solution can solve it (other than drastically restricting/removing guns, but I don't see that happening anytime soon).

That said, we already have enough evidence to suggest that expanding child access laws, background checks, and minimum age requirements will have positive impacts and could be at least a little easier to get through legislatures than something more restrictive. I think we can also make a fairly easy leap to the idea that things like 100 round magazines have no place outside of war.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

We need more research. Unleash the CDC. The NRA can sit down and STFU for a change. They've offered nothing but division, lies and Russian money. Time to science it.

You mean like the study I linked from the CDC a few posts above and directly quoted?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr ... 09-508.pdf

- Doc

[_Xenophon]

You mean like the study I linked from the CDC a few posts above and directly quoted?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr ... 09-508.pdf

- Doc

I mean having the numbers is one thing but nothing from the CDC addresses how to reduce gun deaths. I know some clarifying language was giving last year concerning the Dickey Amendment but my understanding is that it is still in place and serves as a pretty serious obstacle to the idea of the CDC making recommendations for ways to curtail the problem.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I mean having the numbers is one thing but nothing from the CDC addresses how to reduce gun deaths. I know some clarifying language was giving last year concerning the Dickey Amendment but my understanding is that it is still in place and serves as a pretty serious obstacle to the idea of the CDC making recommendations for ways to curtail the problem.

I agree that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention ought to provide some guidance regarding firearm-related deaths. That said, if you go back to the link and scroll down to table I-3 you can clearly see the total annual deaths from 1999 to 2018. The totals are growing every year. If I had to guess all those deaths and injuries have probably cost us around a trillion dollars. I can't see how it makes sense both economically and culturally to keep guns and rifles from getting in the hands of regular people.

- Doc