The four gun-problems, on two levels.

[Dr. Zaus]

"If I had 1hour to save the earth, I would spend 59min specifying the problem and 1 min solving it" - some smart person

Right now I see four distinct manifestations of gun ownership.

I also see this working on two levels of loss: Respect and Love (Ethos and Pathos).

1) Guns used in gang violence
-Need to gain or maintain respect
-Lack of love for the 'other' gang

2) Guns used for mass shootings
-Loss of love form others
-Desire for respect for one's world-view

3) Guns used for domestic violence
- Disrespect for the feelings of another
- Loss of love for the person to be harmed

4) Guns used for suicide
- Loss of love for self
- Loss of respect for others impacted

Thoughts?



I thought of this in response to this post in another thread:

The very smart people in the world don't know how to "solve" gun control. What makes you think the average person would have an opinion worth considering?

I mean, just look at our current gun control laws. 99% do nothing to prevent the gun violence today. You could apply almost any law on the books to recent mass murders and those laws would not prevent the act.

I'm all for reasonable gun laws that don't artificially restrict the right to keep and bear arms that would prevent previous cases. I just haven't seen such legislation. I'm also not sure gun control is the way to address these issues because they aren't entirely gun issues in my mind, they are more mental health issues.

 

[sandorski]

Those Personal situations happen in every Nation on Earth. Those are Human problems.

IMO, the Gun Problem within the US is a warped sense of what a Gun is and/or what it is useful for. Too many people have made Guns merely an extension of themselves. Someone Offends you, hurts you, threatens you in some way, your Gun becomes your Speech, your Ego, and your Equalizer.

 

[Phoenix86]

Couple thoughts regarding gun control laws; solving the problem through legislation of gun rights. Not specifically addressing the ethos/pathos issues (certainly worthwhile views), mostly focusing on effective legislation.

Like any problem you can't correct it unless you realize the underlying cause.

1) Guns used in gang violence

Guns obtained illegally will not be solved through gun control. They are already breaking the law, thus adding additional laws will not prevent these crimes. Not only are the acts committed illegal already, typically the method of ownership is too.

What is the cause of these crimes? Lack of respect for the law. New laws won't fix that.

If anything, additional enforcement of existing laws should reduce these. I'd also suggest these are cultural issues, so restricting legal access to guns won't address the cultural problems.

2) Guns used for mass shootings

By large we find these guns are obtained legally. The current system allows them to obtain guns while enables them to commit these crimes. Generally these are law abiding people, until they commit the act in question. However they are often previously identified as being "troubled" or "unstable", which of course is the underlying cause. There are warning signs, sometimes major ones, which are often identified by someone near that person. An employer, colleague, friend or family sees the problem well before the violent action happens.

Take the case of the reporter who shot his colleagues, his previous employer knew there were problems and fired him because of it. His current employer saw the same issues.

In the not so distant past these people would have been committed to a mental institution. Sent to the psych ward and undergone treatment. Sure, in the past some of that treatment wasn't helpful (over used shock therapy, lobotomy, etc.), however at least these people were being treated, away from society.

A gun control law I would support would be to deny guns to people found mentally unstable. As it happens, this already exists, but isn't effectively used because identifying mentally unstable people isn't on our radar anymore. Why? Mental hospitals don't really exist today. Not the way they used to. We traded mental hospitals for PRISONS.

Guess what prisons do? Contain people after the fact. Is it any surprise mentally unstable people are allowed to commit crimes, then we react? We aren't setup to prevent the crime in the first place.

#3/4 are significantly harder to correct. Especially suicide, because guns simply aren't the only way to do it. If you manage to deny a gun to someone who is suicidal, they will use another means. However, again, very good mental health evaluations could go a LONG way to help here. The cause of both of these is also mental health issues.

TLDR: If you want to reduce violence you address mental health, and tack on gun control laws to mental health, not magazine capacity, # of attachments, bans on certain weapons, etc. The people trying these methods simply aren't for any guns at all and any limit to any guns are a win to them. They don't want to solve the problem, just limit guns.

 

[smackababy]

I think the real problem with solving gun control is people don't understand the problem. If we add all the deaths from these suburban, upper middle class mass shootings (including school shootings) since Columbine, it is less than 1% of the total gun homicides that will occur just THIS year. While, gun violence in such areas IS a problem, it is far from the biggest problem we need to tackle.

As Phoenix stated, a lot of these events are related to mental health. However, the way to address it isn't to limit people who have committed no offense from something that a basic right of being a citizen. Should we also limit people like Stephen King? He has written some pretty disturbing things. A young adult displaying such imagination would clearly be a "risk". This isn't 1984. We don't need thought police enforcing laws that don't deter anything. Illegally obtaining guns is generally easier than legal methods, especially with the internet (and dark net) getting more and more popular. Would the majority of these types of attacks be stopped if we didn't limit the legal ability for these people to get guns? Because, making things illegal hasn't stopped anything else people want to do.

If we want to actually limit gun violence, we need to address what causes violence in general. The tools used are not the issue. If we address things like rampant poverty, black markets being easier to 'make it' in than legal employment and the violence that comes with that, organized crime, etc. The war on drugs is contributing far more to gun violence than mental health is.

Now, I get that when a few people die each day in south Chicago it has much less impact than when a couple dozen die in a school shooting, but we need to be realistic.

 

[Whiskey16]

IMO, the Gun Problem within the US is a warped sense of what a Gun is and/or what it is useful for.

Unresolvable until a massive cultural shift.

Far too much of an imbalance to individual and narcissistic power to that of respect for community and society.

A sore destruction of US society and peace is of firearms having become culturally endemic to the equation of attaining and maintaining perceived power. Democratically unreasonable and extreme.

Love of guns. Stockpiling and hording to an extreme. The easy, quick, and flinching ability to do so with an extreme need to attain the unreasonable. Dangers escalate. The extreme in violence is at the cocked and ready and more often practiced.

The practiced balance is of shame rather than responsible pride. Stubbornly, too few recognise nor care of that reality.

No resolution without a massive cultural shift and societal growth. It's the regressive and conservative USA -- sadly, I don't see a turning point to maturing any time soon.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

#3/4 are significantly harder to correct. Especially suicide, because guns simply aren't the only way to do it. If you manage to deny a gun to someone who is suicidal, they will use another means. However, again, very good mental health evaluations could go a LONG way to help here. The cause of both of these is also mental health issues.
.

I'd like to point out that out of every 10 people who were stopped from jumping off the golden gate bridge 9 lived on and never tried to commit suicide again. Same with the reduction in suicides when brittany got rid of coal-gass fired ovens... now you could no longer just 'stick your head in the oven' and die: permanent large scale reduction in suicide.

http://www.cracked.com/article_20396_5-mind-blowing-facts-nobody-told-you-about-guns_p3.html

Perhaps a gun that 1) required biometrics to fire, like an iphone-level thumb print reader; and 2) which can't be fired at less than 3.5 ft away.

I figure people who have to stop to build rube Goldberg Devices will snap out of their sducidal mindset.

 

[smackababy]

I'd like to point out that out of every 10 people who were stopped from jumping off the golden gate bridge 9 lived on and never tried to commit suicide again. Same with the reduction in suicides when brittany got rid of coal-gass fired ovens... now you could no longer just 'stick your head in the oven' and die: permanent large scale reduction in suicide.

http://www.cracked.com/article_20396_5-mind-blowing-facts-nobody-told-you-about-guns_p3.html

Perhaps a gun that 1) required biometrics to fire, like an iphone-level thumb print reader; and 2) which can't be fired at less than 3.5 ft away.

I figure people who have to stop to build rube Goldberg Devices will snap out of their sducidal mindset.

Did the people who survived their suicide attempt get help after? Perhaps, that sparked the help which led them to not trying again, and not the failed attempt itself? That is something pretty hard to prove.

Also, the problem with biometrics (or any kind of ridiculous mechanism) is it has to work extremely reliably. In the event I need to use my gun, I don't want to have to worry the thumbprint scanner isn't going to recognize me, because in that failed attempt, I am in trouble.

And, that doesn't address there are 300+ million guns "in the wild" already. Without rounding all those up, any new tech is simply going to not be effective for a hundred years. That still doesn't address the second hand and black market, or the ability to modify (likely illegally) the gun to simply not use the safeguards.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Did the people who survived their suicide attempt get help after? Perhaps, that sparked the help which led them to not trying again, and not the failed attempt itself? That is something pretty hard to prove.

The long-term decrease of suicides after removing coal-gass form ovens adds another strong data point.

Also, the problem with biometrics (or any kind of ridiculous mechanism) is it has to work extremely reliably. In the event I need to use my gun, I don't want to have to worry the thumbprint scanner isn't going to recognize me, because in that failed attempt, I am in trouble.

If you are shooting form the hip and don't have time for a thumb print scanner perhaps you really don't need to shoot? I've gone to the range, and hand guns are bullshit without significant aiming.

And, that doesn't address there are 300+ million guns "in the wild" already. Without rounding all those up, any new tech is simply going to not be effective for a hundred years. That still doesn't address the second hand and black market, or the ability to modify (likely illegally) the gun to simply not use the safeguards.

We grandfather them in, of course (lest we have bloody revolution). But over time the price of those guns will go up as they start to degrade; eventually they will be as rare and expensive as automatic weapons (which you can still buy legally; if they are grandfathered in).

 

[smackababy]

The long-term decrease of suicides after removing coal-gass form ovens adds another strong data point.

I don't have the numbers, so I will ask: has the suicide rate actually gone down, or has simply death by oven suicide rate gone down? And, could any other factors actually have contributed more meaningfully (like mental health services for things like suicide getting increased funding / popularity).

If you are shooting form the hip and don't have time for a thumb print scanner perhaps you really don't need to shoot? I've gone to the range, and hand guns are bullshit without significant aiming.

I'm not talking about the time it takes to do it once, I'm talking about the time it takes to "reset" when it fails. In the event I need to use a gun, the last thing I need is another incredibly garbage point of failure. If we can get the technology that works 99.9% of the time, I would be fine with it, but I still wouldn't trust me life to it. I'd keep a regular gun as long as I possibly could. And, I'm just a regular dude. There is no way law enforcement and the military (one of the biggest purchasers of firearms) will go along with this.

We grandfather them in, of course (lest we have bloody revolution). But over time the price of those guns will go up as they start to degrade; eventually they will be as rare and expensive as automatic weapons (which you can still buy legally; if they are grandfathered in).

While that is true, the last estimation was we have nearly 1 gun for every person in the US. That is a lot of guns in the wild and they aren't going away any time soon. The entire "gun violence" issue isn't something people want a long term, slow gain solution for. It is something people want a quick fix because like 500 people have been killed in the last 15 years that weren't the wrong color.

I don't think it is a bad idea, I just don't think it can be addressed as a "gun" problem. The real problem is American's penchant for violence. That is a far more nuanced problem and something that nobody wants to actually tackle. Fix the issue of people wanting to kill other people in such large numbers, and gun violence becomes a much smaller problem.

 

[MongGrel]

"If I had 1hour to save the earth, I would spend 59min specifying the problem and 1 min solving it" - some smart person

Right now I see four distinct manifestations of gun ownership.

I also see this working on two levels of loss: Respect and Love (Ethos and Pathos).

1) Guns used in gang violence
-Need to gain or maintain respect
-Lack of love for the 'other' gang

2) Guns used for mass shootings
-Loss of love form others
-Desire for respect for one's world-view

3) Guns used for domestic violence
- Disrespect for the feelings of another
- Loss of love for the person to be harmed

4) Guns used for suicide
- Loss of love for self
- Loss of respect for others impacted

Thoughts?



I thought of this in response to this post in another thread:

I guess recreational use, IE target shooting, and hunting isn't on your list, and what the vast majority of people use them for.

I moved to FL 25 years ago and went to the police station asking if I needed to register my guns, I was told "nah, don't worry about it" and went home.

 

[Greenman]

My view is a great deal more simplistic than that. I see gun issues as stupidity or mental illness. Gangs are stupidity manifest. Stupid violent people doing stupid violent things. Guns make them feel more dangerous, more powerful, they feel superior.
Mental illness is almost self explanatory, a badly warped world view will result in badly warped decisions.

 

[Phoenix86]

I guess recreational use, IE target shooting, and hunting isn't on your list, and what the vast majority of people use them for.

I moved to FL 25 years ago and went to the police station asking if I needed to register my guns, I was told "nah, don't worry about it" and went home.

The discussion was for the illegal use, hence "gun problems". Hunting isn't listed either, because, it's legal.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I don't have the numbers, so I will ask: has the suicide rate actually gone down, or has simply death by oven suicide rate gone down? And, could any other factors actually have contributed more meaningfully (like mental health services for things like suicide getting increased funding / popularity).

According to this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06suicide-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&

There was a permanent reduction in suicide rates. Immediately following this change over.

This NIH report confirms the link between gun ownership and suicide:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1586136/

There is no way law enforcement and the military (one of the biggest purchasers of firearms) will go along with this.

I would expect people on-duty to not have such limitations on their weapons. And while the tech might not be there quite yet, it's getting there in short time horizon; and could be there quicker if we made it worth the money to implement (i.e. ban the sale of guns that don't implement it, and companies will throw engineers at a solution)

We implement passive safety in terms of air-bags in cars; but if we didn't require them we wouldn't have them on many cars today.

we have nearly 1 gun for every person in the US. That is a lot of guns in the wild and they aren't going away any time soon. The entire "gun violence" issue isn't something people want a long term, slow gain solution for. It is something people want a quick fix because like 500 people have been killed in the last 15 years that weren't the wrong color.

While I agree; an implementable long-term solution seems really good. And perhaps we can make a difference, since this forum is frequented by people who make 1%er money ;-)

Also, while there are 280million guns in the US, only 1 in 3 households owns a gun. I doubt that increasing the price of those guns is going to lead to more households owning guns; gun access, not raw number, is what really matters.

Further, as they go up in value collectors will start to stockpile them more than they already have; seeing them as a strong investment while shifty conscious folks (most people) will want to buy the new, safer, guns. Which they will likely be able to do while turning a profit once the collectors get into the game.... of course that's a lot of assumptions...

I don't think it is a bad idea, I just don't think it can be addressed as a "gun" problem. The real problem is American's penchant for violence. That is a far more nuanced problem and something that nobody wants to actually tackle. Fix the issue of people wanting to kill other people in such large numbers, and gun violence becomes a much smaller problem.

That's a really reasonable conclusion. However, as I see it , the "mental illness - enforcement" side of the debate also believes in not fundament free mental care and defunding gun law enforcement. So the right answer is being given by the people who won't implement it, and the people who would implement the right answer are the people who want to implement wrong answers.

I guess recreational use, IE target shooting, and hunting isn't on your list, and what the vast majority of people use them for.

Right, the vast majority of guns don't kill people... if they did we'd all be dead right now. As such, the vast majority of gun-owners are not the problem. Excepting that depression is randomly distributed and as such killing one's self with a gun is a problem.

I moved to FL 25 years ago and went to the police station asking if I needed to register my guns, I was told "nah, don't worry about it" and went home.

Right; And in NM I was told that while they no longer recognized Utah concealed carry, they had not certification needed for open cary.

 

[Phoenix86]

If you are shooting form the hip and don't have time for a thumb print scanner perhaps you really don't need to shoot? I've gone to the range, and hand guns are bullshit without significant aiming.

Assumptions like that show a lot of ignorance and stifle the conversation. I'd recommend you ask more questions rather than making statements in this regard.

We grandfather them in, of course (lest we have bloody revolution). But over time the price of those guns will go up as they start to degrade; eventually they will be as rare and expensive as automatic weapons (which you can still buy legally; if they are grandfathered in).

So, wouldn't the criminals just use those weapons, while legal people gain... what exactly?

 

[MongGrel]

The discussion was for the illegal use, hence "gun problems". Hunting isn't listed either, because, it's legal.

I saw nothing anywhere about illegal use, I still do not.

Show me how illegal use was ever an issue in the thread from the start.

"gun problems" does not equal "illegal".

 

[Phoenix86]

I saw nothing anywhere about illegal use, I still do not.

Show me how illegal use was ever an issue in the thread from the start.

"gun problems" does not equal "illegal".

The thread title says gun problems. Do you view target shooting as a gun problem? Also, its not all legal/illegal. Suicide isn't illegal, but it's a problem.

So, just like the title says. Gun problems.

 

[MongGrel]

The thread title says gun problems. Do you view target shooting as a gun problem? Also, its not all legal/illegal. Suicide isn't illegal, but it's a problem.

So, just like the title says. Gun problems.

You still haven't explained how gun problems means illegal.

For all I would know it means someone screwed up a firing pin or something.

Suicide isn't illegal, but it's a problem.

Yes it is.

 

[Phoenix86]

You still haven't explained how gun problems means illegal.

For all I would know it means someone screwed up a firing pin or something.





Yes it is.

1-3 are illegal. I didn't think suicide is illegal, but fine if it is, then all 4 issues in the OP are illegal. The issue is basically illegal gun use and the problems that causes society.

No, this thread isn't about mechanical failures.

What exactly is your point here? Because it seems like your being intentionally obtuse nitpicking "gun problems" definitions when the OP stated exactly the 4 issues.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Assumptions like that show a lot of ignorance and stifle the conversation. I'd recommend you ask more questions rather than making statements in this regard.

Thanks for the correction. Since I don't know what questions to ask in this regard would you mind directing me?

So, wouldn't the criminals just use those weapons, while legal people gain... what exactly?

Legal people gain safer guns and collectors gain an increased value for the guns they've collected. A 720+ FICO score and a well paying job doesn't tend to correlate with either mass shootings or gang shootings. So I expect the gang violence and mass shootings would take a nose dive; particularly if there's an excise tax on new guns: and no matter if they are 'illegal' guns or 'legal' guns supply = demand at a market clearing price.

I'm basing this on my knowledge that making automatic weapons illegal to sell new has done a great job of limiting the number of people who have them.


Not sure what Mongrel is on-about... sorry Mongrel, i'm trying to understand what you're getting at here.

 

[Phoenix86]

Thanks for the correction. Since I don't know what questions to ask in this regard would you mind directing me?

Sure, your opening assumption that it would only matter when shooting from the hip is terribly misplaced. The only people training for shooting from the hip are trick shot types. It's not really a recommended self defense tactic, although yes, someone who's very skilled and practices frequently could shoot from the hip effectively.

Nor would that be necessary. Simply drawing and firing happens extremely quickly. Whatever system was in place would have to be extremely reliable, possibly well beyond what's capable (within reason). It's more plumbing in the works to either fail, or reduce a reaction time to a point it would cost more lives than it would save.

People who rely on a gun in a life or death situation need their weapon to be reliable. If there is such a system that can ID the shooter FASTER than what it takes to draw and shoot (just over 1 second from draw to shoot), and doesn't increase that time, ok. Does such a system exist?

Legal people gain safer guns and collectors gain an increased value for the guns they've collected. A 700 FICO score and a well paying job doesn't tend to correlate with either mass shootings or gang shootings.

Safer how exactly? Your comment about a "good" citizen getting an "enhanced" gun wouldn't be the type to do a mass/gang shooting only diminishes your point. It means the people who need it less are the ones most likely to get it. An ID system will no prevent someone from killing someone else.

Let's not even get into your minimum range... OK, so you have an enahnced gun with minimum range. I don't. I'm the bad guy. So I just rush you before you know there's a problem and draw. Now you can't shoot, but I can. Or any fist fight that escalates. They draw a knife, you draw your gun. Oops, too close too shoot, get stabbed. This would be far more likely for LEO than civilians admittedly.

 

[smackababy]

Dixy, your implementations for gun safety sound a lot like software DRM. While it is well intentioned, it only ends up negatively effecting people who do the right thing (buy software). The problem of gun violence needs to be addressed outside of the gun issue. A gun is just s tool for violence; not the reason it is rampant. Canada has a lot of guns, but their murder rate is far lower than the US. We have a culture that idolized violence and tends to go towards it to solve problems, especially those outside the law. Making find safer only punishes those who choose to obey the law.

 

[Phoenix86]

Dixy, your implementations for gun safety sound a lot like software DRM. While it is well intentioned, it only ends up negatively effecting people who do the right thing (buy software). The problem of gun violence needs to be addressed outside of the gun issue. A gun is just s tool for violence; not the reason it is rampant. Canada has a lot of guns, but their murder rate is far lower than the US. We have a culture that idolized violence and tends to go towards it to solve problems, especially those outside the law. Making find safer only punishes those who choose to obey the law.

Not entirely. I'm sure there are reasonable ways to limit gun purchases that wouldn't kill the 2nd. One thing I can think of is purchasing a bunch of guns in a short period of time. Sure, it's done legally and no problems occur from these sales, but it's a flag that might need to be looked at (more?).

Finding a better way to limit gun purchases by people with mental illnesses. Yes the mental illness needs to be identified, and no I'm not suggesting this should be done at the time of purchase, but something should probably change here.

All that being said about mental health, most gun crimes aren't committed by people with severe mental issues. So, how do we address those?

 

[smackababy]

Not entirely. I'm sure there are reasonable ways to limit gun purchases that wouldn't kill the 2nd. One thing I can think of is purchasing a bunch of guns in a short period of time. Sure, it's done legally and no problems occur from these sales, but it's a flag that might need to be looked at (more?).

Finding a better way to limit gun purchases by people with mental illnesses. Yes the mental illness needs to be identified, and no I'm not suggesting this should be done at the time of purchase, but something should probably change here.

I think the limiting of people with "mental health problems" is a bit far. We can't arrest people who fit the profile of someone likely to commit a crime until they do commit it. I am very against disenfranchising the rights of a certain set of people because they MIGHT, on a very, very low rate, do something like a mass shooting.

All that being said about mental health, most gun crimes aren't committed by people with severe mental issues. So, how do we address those?

Well, that's the million dollar question isn't it? We have to address the reasons people are committing those crimes. I think poverty and lack of chance to advance far in life without organized crime is a big part of it. I mean, even if we eliminate the war on drugs completely, we don't eliminate other illicit ways to make money and those will continue to have violence. We have to also eliminate the need to escalate violence to that level in other aspects of life. Caught your wife cheating? A valid response ISN'T to shoot her and the other guy. But, how can we stop people from going straight to that option?

 

[Phoenix86]

I think the limiting of people with "mental health problems" is a bit far. We can't arrest people who fit the profile of someone likely to commit a crime until they do commit it. I am very against disenfranchising the rights of a certain set of people because they MIGHT, on a very, very low rate, do something like a mass shooting.

In a vacuum I'd completely agree, but we're not dealing with a spherical cow scenario. Some of the recent shooters have had clear mental heath issues that, in the past, would have landed them in a mental health institution where they would have been denied quite a number of constitutional rights, like freedom of speech. Take the case of the reporter who shot his colleagues. It was pretty clearly identified he had issues by more than one employer. So much he lost his job. Wouldn't it be OK to question his rights to gun ownership?

Is that a bad thing?

Well, that's the million dollar question isn't it? We have to address the reasons people are committing those crimes. I think poverty and lack of chance to advance far in life without organized crime is a big part of it. I mean, even if we eliminate the war on drugs completely, we don't eliminate other illicit ways to make money and those will continue to have violence. We have to also eliminate the need to escalate violence to that level in other aspects of life. Caught your wife cheating? A valid response ISN'T to shoot her and the other guy. But, how can we stop people from going straight to that option?

This is a much larger can of worms than mental health. More like 5000 shades of grey.

 

[NetGuySC]

What is the desired end result of gun control or even the complete ban of firearms? If the desired result is to to lower the amount of deaths and injuries in America aren't there other options to will save many more lives without infringing on anyone's constitutional rights or requiring a constitutional amendment?