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comment by goobster

Really glad to see programs like this getting traction, successes, and publicity. That's excellent.

Gun ownership. Gun control. Reducing gun violence. Giving sad white men different outlets for their frustration.

All of these are related - but separate - issues.

Cars are highly regulated tools that require a license to operate, insurance, etc. But they can be just as deadly in a crowd, when operated by an angry white man.

Reducing gun violence by giving people a wider view of the world, is a great program, and is definitely going to have benefits for the onesy-twosy violence of drive by killings, etc. It's not going to stop Dylan Klebold, or any other middle-class white male loser with access to guns.





FirebrandRoaring  ·  2270 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    the onesy-twosy violence of drive by killings

You seem to be right: the stats I was able to look up around the web (LAPD Gang Criminal Activity Summary, June 2009, the latest available online, and National Gang Center statistics per year down the page) say that gang crime is relatively small compared to all violent crime per year (FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, US data, 2016).

I think the program is more about life improvement for gang members than anything else. I'd rather people didn't kill each other, whatever the circumstance, and if the program helps reduce those hundreds of murders per year, I would support it.

goobster  ·  2269 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Good spotting on those statistics. They actually make me feel better about crime overall!

If anybody wanted to be intellectually rigorous about reducing gun deaths, they would start with suicide. The number of people who kill themselves with guns is an order of magnitude bigger than all other gun deaths in the USA.

... which leads us into the healthcare and mental health quagmire, and we slowly sink into the tar pits of for-profit healthcare ...

b_b  ·  2269 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    If anybody wanted to be intellectually rigorous about reducing gun deaths, they would start with suicide. The number of people who kill themselves with guns is an order of magnitude bigger than all other gun deaths in the USA.

Sure, but the other question is whether suicide rates are substrate-independent. There certainly is no correlation between gun ownership and suicide rates. Nor is there any connection between suicide rates and the method of health care delivery (e.g. government vs. private, or for-profit vs. non-profit):

So the question becomes whether fewer people would kill themselves if they lacked access to firearms? It seems unlikely (save for accidental self-killings), although it probably takes more effort to kill oneself by other means.

Edit: Looking over the data quickly, it looks like one of the strongest predictors is how cold the country is. That doesn't appear to hold on a state-by-state basis in the US:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/figures/m6345qsf.gif

goobster  ·  2268 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You have uncovered my devious plan to improve ALL mental healthcare in the US, under the guise of reducing suicide deaths by gun. (Seriously.)

FirebrandRoaring  ·  2269 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Looking over the data quickly, it looks like one of the strongest predictors is how cold the country is.

I just want to point out India, South Korea, China and Sri Lanka being in top 10.

Could it be that those hotter countries at the bottom are also economically weaker and/or have less industry?

b_b  ·  2269 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's very difficult to pull any real trend out of the data, isn't it? For every parameter you can think of, there appears to be a counter example country on the low end of the spectrum, too.

FirebrandRoaring  ·  2269 days ago  ·  link  ·  

True: especially for those of us with no real education in data mining and pattern recognition.

OftenBen  ·  2270 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    loser

Must this word be added?

user-inactivated  ·  2270 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd go further in another direction: I don't think this is limited to white people in terms of 'frustrations' - however those manifest.

Also, inb4 I see "something something damned socialism" from the Right in the news...

OftenBen  ·  2270 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think both the racial and social point are relevant.

I think there are solutions-oriented ways of framing these issues.