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comment by OftenBen
OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How would you stop mass shootings?  ·  

As long as you have high levels of personal agency in a society you will have high potentials for violence. This whole debate is infuriating to me, because 'ban guns' is just playing whack a mole with the real issue which is 'How do you prevent individuals with antisocial tendencies from expressing them?'

Outlaw guns, we'll see a rise in the amount of bombings. And TONS of things can be made into pretty lethal explosive devices with very little know how.

Chlorine gas is toxic as hell and is made by infants on accident when they get into the cleaning supplies. We don't outlaw bleach, we keep it out of the hands of infants.





WanderingEng  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    the real issue which is 'How do you prevent individuals with antisocial tendencies from expressing them?'

One answer is 'you limit the ability of individuals to access dangerous items.'

    Outlaw guns, we'll see a rise in the amount of bombings.

I disagree. If the two were interchangeable, we'd see a nominal number of bombings in parallel with the gun violence we already see. That just isn't happening. Building a bomb takes a different commitment than shooting a gun. One requires time to research and construct the weapon. The other does not.

OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    One answer is 'you limit the ability of individuals to access dangerous items.''

Which is impossible. No seriously, without an authoritarian crackdown the likes of which our society will never survive, you can't do it. You cannot neuter the world enough, you cannot put enough bumpers on reality to keep dangerous predators in human shape from ever getting to significant materials/tools, and still have a functional civilization. The ability of a human being to cause the deaths of other human beings has been increasing since we started putting rocks in the heads of clubs. As technology becomes more advanced, high energy density materials become more available, and more easily understood and applied to cause death. As a species, we will either get to a point where basically everyone will have the ability to kill everybody else and choose not to, or we'll regularly suffer large, self-inflicted die offs.

    If the two were interchangeable

I'm ignoring the rest of the comment and focusing on this part not because the rest isn't valid, but because this is the part that I am most worried about. It's the fact that it's whack-a-mole. Cars kill shit loads of people every year on accident and would probably kill more if other forms of violence were more difficult.

briandmyers  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    No seriously, without an authoritarian crackdown the likes of which our society will never survive, you can't do it.

There's your problem right here. It's deeply ingrained that Americans need handguns for protection, and I don't see that changing, in spite of the fact that statistically, you are much more likely to be harmed than protected by your gun. I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that here in NZ, if you say you want to get a gun for self-defense or protection, you will be declined, because that's not seen as a valid reason to have one here.

OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not just talking about guns. I'm talking about substances and tools with high potentials for weaponization. If suddenly guys from /r9k/ were dropping chlorine bombs everywhere, we'd see bleach become a controlled substance.

GodOfAtheism  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Correct. Banning guns in the UK has lead to bats and knives being used to perpetrate violence instead. Britain has a higher, or at least on par, violent crime rate than the U.S.... though it has a far lower murder rate. What can we glean from that? I dunno.

WanderingEng  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    without an authoritarian crackdown the likes of which our society will never survive, you can't do it.

I don't follow. Are you suggesting places like England have failed societies? The suggestion is not to encase humanity in giant pillows.

    It's the fact that it's whack-a-mole.

But it isn't whack-a-mole. That's my entire point. There is no other form of deliberate violence that equals what a gun can do with the ease a gun can do it.

thundara  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    But it isn't whack-a-mole. That's my entire point. There is no other form of deliberate violence that equals what a gun can do with the ease a gun can do it.

Umm, to put examples to what OftenBen said... Happy Land fire, Boston Marthon bombing

WanderingEng  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If only we had just two cases of mass murder every 25 years. I think that would be hailed as a national success.

thundara  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There are plenty of examples of intentional bombings and fires over the years. Since you're being sassy, I'm not going to bother compiling a list of them for you.

WanderingEng  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was being sassy because you're ignoring the frequency of gun murders compared to bombings. I won't bother listing shootings for you. My point remains valid, even if you choose to ignore it.

thundara  ·  3094 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was only responding to your direct point about the damage non-gun killings can do. Neither of us can really confirm or deny OB's point because it's a prediction: If you add more barriers to guns, people will resort to other tactics for mass killings. It's slightly corroborated by evidence from other countries where strict gun laws are coupled to greater violence of other forms, but it's still basically impossible to confirm or deny without making changes to the law. Rather it's something to keep in mind when trying to design a way forward.

And for the record, I'm fine with background checks, but I think most gun legislation presented post-shootings is reactionary, poorly thought out, and usually ineffective. (See: magazine capacity limits)

WanderingEng  ·  3094 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't disagree that a non-gun killing can be similarly or more deadly compared to a gun killing. The point I take issue with is that they can be interchanged such that a person who would commit a gun killing would instead commit a non-gun killing with similar effectiveness.

I also agree when comparing US deaths to deaths in, say, England, it's inappropriate to suggest the sole difference is access to firearms. It is certainly a variable that can't be ignored, but it's one of many variables.

I'm cynical to the point of assuming any legislation, whether reactionary, related to firearms, or something else entirely, is poorly thought out and ineffective. My point, which may have been poorly stated throughout this thread, is that we could do better than we are doing. I don't have good suggestions for how to get there, unfortunately, and with politics and culture the way they are, doing better may be impossible.

OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I don't follow. Are you suggesting places like England have failed societies?

Pardon my lack of clarity. You can limit individuals access to guns, but not dangerous items.

    The suggestion is not to encase humanity in giant pillows.

That's going to be a suggestion eventually. Seriously, people joke about it but if we keep up the track we're on it will be bubble-wrap undies for everybody.

    There is no other form of deliberate violence that equals what a gun can do with the ease a gun can do it.

I'm glad we got to the meat of a sensible debate about firearm regulation. Which I am all for, in the same way that I am for the regulation of the operation of motor vehicles.

GodOfAtheism  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    One requires time to research and construct the weapon. The other does not.

Mass shooters are generally not going out on a whim and murdering, they are planning this stuff out. Dylan and Eric had bombs, and that was 1999, Breivik had a bomb too. Those are just the first two off the top of my head.

In the information age, finding out how to build a bomb is not difficult.

_refugee_  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ben, I quite enjoy you as a human being, but there's a point where I can't follow your feelings, and I'd like to express it here.

I feel like bombs and other home made weapons at least present a certain barrier to entry that guns don't. No toddler is going to accidentally build and detonate a C4 or similar explosive. No cavedwelling creton who lacks basic intelligence will be successful attempting to follow more complex construction or scientific steps that are a part of building weapons. I could download the Anarchist's cookbook and make whatever any time I want but I can't be arsed to.

Yes, for those who intend to commit mass killings, these factors won't stop them. But there are other pieces involved if we are talking about just gun deaths in America.

OftenBen  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not even against sensible gun policy. Mandatory background checks? I can dig that. Registrations? I can dig that too. I'm for the sensible regulation of any and all potentially hazardous materials and objects.

What I am against is un-nuanced positions like a complete prohibition on firearms. I firmly believe that over the long term, more lives will be saved by identifying those with violent antisocial potential and somehow addressing the threat that they pose. That process will take a long time, but I'm fairly certain that we have the technology and resources to do such a thing, if it were made a priority.

Here's an analogy that made a lot of sense to me. For a long time, big cats were a serious problem for Homo Sapiens. We couldn't see them coming most of the time and they would specifically target our young and unsuspecting members. Because this was a big enough problem, we started killing big cats. Now there are only big cats where we permit big cats to live. They kill some people, but it's a comparatively low number and nobody is particularly bothered by that fact.

War  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Outlaw guns, we'll see a rise in the amount of bombings. And TONS of things can be made into pretty lethal explosive devices with very little know how.

The idea of nearly outlawing guns is practiced in literally tons of democratic states across the planet with research that doesn't support the claim at all. Look at places like Australia that had extremely rapid policy change in terms of gun reform, and there hasn't been a statistical increase in bombings. Outlawing guns doesn't mean we are going to stop violence in it's entirety it means making it that much harder to commit an act of violence.

jleopold  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

In places like the UK though there have been increases in stabbings, which has lead to tightening of knife laws. That's unfortunate because knives are are extremely useful tools. I agree that there likely won't be an increase in bombings, but there will likely be an increase in stabbings. So, like you said we won't stop violence, it will just start looking different. Less deadly maybe, but knives inflict a different kind of damage that is still extremely traumatic. It is hard to commit mass murder with a knife though.

War  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The last bit you mentioned is very important. The thing about the UK is that in comparison betweens guns and knives they have still had a whole lot less violent crime. I haven't delve to deep into the statistics, but some reports had crime overall at a lower rate. Guns make it a hell of a lot easier to kill people, and in some cases easier to kill a lot of people.

OftenBen  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So does home depot.

War  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The premise of the question is how to stop mass shootings, not how to stop violence. There is literally evidence in every democratic state in the world that has very strict gun laws that they deter mass shootings.

briandmyers  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It is hard to commit mass murder with a knife though.

Very true, and it also takes a braver person to commit suicide with a knife vs with a gun. Handguns especially make it easy to do certain things that should be difficult to do.

OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    it also takes a braver person to commit suicide with a knife vs with a gun.

Not sure that matters.

saintcanice  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It does. The fact that more women than men survive suicide attempts is down to the fact that more men use guns in their suicide attempts (whereas women more often use drugs/poison, which are easier to survive).

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/sex-and-suicide-why-do-more-men-than-women-kill-themselves/

OftenBen  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's a how, not a why. And you're essentially calling people who commit suicide by firearm cowards, because they pick a method that is proven to be effective.

saintcanice  ·  3095 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Why what? Why do more men buy guns than women? Why do people commit suicide? What are you talking about? You didn't think the method of choice was relevant to the outcome, but it is.

I'm not calling anyone a coward, very far from it. That's your interpretation, not mine. Please don't put words in my mouth. ETA: I see - you though I was responding to the "braver person" part but I was responding to the easy/difficult part.

briandmyers  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I do - less access to guns --> fewer suicides, I suspect.

OftenBen  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Huh, it's almost like there is a slippery slope here.

And people will seek out alternative ways to hurt others.

Huh.