I would agree with you here. But if our goal is truly to do our best to eliminate gun deaths in the country, wouldn't an easier target be handguns, which kill the vast majority of people. I think there can be attempts to better control rifle ownership, but it seems that handguns are left in the wind and all of the focus is on "assault weapons."honorentheos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:48 pmAnother related trend line here is how gun sales and mass shooting deaths spiked in the spring of 2020 and have stayed high just as folks have been "picking up" on a negative vibe. It seems access to firearms is making it worse not better.
I also would agree with you here. Data does show a clear drop in mass shootings. But data shows that overall gun deaths didn't really decline.honorentheos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:48 pmAlso, mass shootings clearly dropped then spiked with the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban. It's not a mystery that limiting access to paramilitary weapons has an effect. The 1934 ban on automatic weapons had a dramatic effect as well.
I guess what I and others feel is that while adding better gun controls to weapons like AR-15's and AK-47's would certainly have an impact on mass shootings, it would have relatively little effect on over gun death. Mass shootings rarely breach 500 deaths a year whereas handgun deaths are in the thousands. As mentioned earlier, the fetishization of gun ownership is just as egregious as the fetishization of taking away "assault rifes." I am all in favor of making it harder and more inconvenient to buy and own any type of gun in this country. I just don't think either side really wants to solve the issue.
Yes, I do agree there is a huge cultural issue surrounding gun ownership. I think we can thank the NRA for that. I would be interested in what you think might be a solution for that. How do we "deprogram" people from their very emotionally charged views when it comes to guns.honorentheos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:48 pmWhile I believe the solution space for addressing shooting deaths in the US largely lies in asserting responsible ownership and use over unobstructed rights to access, it is not the case that access is a non-factor in our national problem. Fetishizing firearms is, in my opinion, the biggest hurdle and likely the cultural change that explains why the historic trends are as they are. People who view them as tools that involved passing on generational knowledge and safety culture aren't the majority of the problem here.