Canada moving to ban all assault weapons

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in any case i will admit surprise that mass shootings were a thing [in the west] outside the USA [considering how strict other nations' gun laws were/are], with the last one in australia occuring in the 90s. if we could send a blinkin' man to the blinkin' moon, why can't we fix this somehow? is basic human nature in amuuurica that much worse than in other nations? to borrow from senator Jim Webb, "Either we are the most evil people on earth or we are doing something very wrong."

Your founding fathers never envisioned the firepower that present day morons would be able to yield when they wrote the 2nd amendment to the constitution.

So, unfortunately you’re left with the lowest common denominator in your country believing they have some sort of God given right to possess firearms instead of restricted access like Canada or zero access like Australia. Mind you, Canadians have more similar access to guns as Americans than Australians, just with more common sense restrictions, better background check screening, and no 2nd amendment fuelled guns as penis extensions culture.

One of my big takes from Bowling For Columbine all those years ago was that it's a bunch of factors interacting with each other and it's difficult to really pick one element by itself. It's been ages since I've seen it, but it still plays a role in shaping how I view this.

Race relations are relevant for a portion of shootings, but obviously not all. Historical trends in policing likely lead to some communities being more likely to be victims of gun crime, whether by other community members or by others. If the cops are less likely to care (or believed to be due to historic trends) and nobody is likely to cooperate with the investigation, it does make it easier to get away with those sorts of crimes.

Crimes driven by desperation might be more common due to the weaker social safety net, but that's only a small portion of them.

The glorification of violence in media might be relevant, but maybe not considering it's pretty common across cultures and time. Violent movies and video games and other forms of stories are one thing that unites humanity. Viewing violence in a positive or mixed manner is common, the 'roaring rampage of revenge' is an ancient trope.

At the time the movie came out American laws were stricter and some of the countries being compared against were laxer than they are now.

Laws are less relevant than availability, regions in the US with strict laws sometimes still have very high gun crime rates because if the demand exists, they'll be purchased from where they are available. Similarly around the world some countries with high gun crime rates have strict laws, but if they or their neighbours have loads of them available it won't matter how strict the laws get so long as they're failing to remove them from circulation.

Most other countries, even when they're no stricter than the US when it comes to ownership still tend to be much stricter about carrying. This almost certainly is a factor. The further away it is, the more time you have to think before using it.

Ideology in certain circles is almost certainly relevant. There's a reason why sovereign citizens, whether whites associated with far-right causes, whites affiliated with other causes or blacks affiliated with black separatist movements seem to be involved with shootouts with police semi-frequently, often with very trivial instigating circumstances, it's because they are. That ideology exists across the Anglosphere, but seems to be much more prevalent in the US. It exists on a spectrum, not every single one of them carries all the time and is prepared to use it over being pulled over (or similar) but in Canada or the UK those folks are less likely to be armed at the time the interaction occurs, even if they're just as nutty on an ideological level.

I believe it's a complicated matter and no one solution by itself will solve it. I don't believe Americans are uniquely violent or evil, I don't believe their culture is uniquely violent or evil. I believe as along as people are making money off of the problem, and as long as it will require enormous political will, it's going to be an ongoing issue.

You don’t believe Americans are uniquely violent?

Have you seen the rates at which they shoot each other compared to, say.. literally any other country on Earth?

There are only a few areas globally that can even hold a candle to the USA. Honduras, some African nations in decades long constant war - but besides war, America has gotta at least be in the top 3 countries for gun violence, if not top of the charts.

They’re pretty uniquely trigger happy.

You don't think we'd look much more similar if our laws resembled theirs (especially carry laws), and if we had the same rates of ownership of semi-auto guns with detachable, high-capacity box magazines? If we gutted our social programs to the same extent, and otherwise started to mirror the other factors I mentioned?

If I believed they intentionally created their current problem I'd be more open to the idea of them being uniquely violent or evil or whatever, but I believe it's largely a matter of unforeseen consequences and that while bad actors may have played a role in creating the situation, it wasn't entirely created by people acting with malicious intentions.


As a side note, I don't think things like bayonet lugs or flash suppressors matter, but in-line stocks and detachable box magazines are both more than cosmetic and make a gun more suitable as a weapon for combat.

I didn’t say there weren’t all kinds of factors contributing to them being uniquely violent, only that they are in Fact uniquely violent. There’s no other way to describe their rate of gun violence.

Well, okay, I suppose you could use a different adjective.. excessively violent? Exceptionally violent? Ridiculously? Absurdly? Obscenely? Doesn’t really matter which way you slice it; they are in fact uniquely violent with guns relative to most of the rest of the world.

Last edited by goldfish21 on 22 Apr 2020, 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

being that greed is one of the 7 deadly sins, and that we as a culture are uniquely greedy compared to nations with more of a humane social contract, i'd say that greed is the #1 driver of our various ills including violence.

Arms? Infantry weapons. So it was swords, the bows, the. Muskets now semi auto.
Does the marine infantry private cary a ICBM?

I believe most gun deaths in America are suicides.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

I don't think many nations aren't self-centred.

20,000 of the 30,000 are suicides and make up less then half of the total us suicides.
The rest include gangs shooting other gangs, police legally shooting criminals, people legally defending themselves.
More people kill themself without guns then with guns.

it's a matter of degree, alexis de tocqueville, in his book "les americains" said that we were uniquely mercenary, that everything had a price in our view, the most important part of our thinking was "what will this bring ME?" it is a combo of calvinistic baggage inherited from our ancestors and this rampantly individual greed that keeps us from adopting the more humane social contract long featured in the rest of the west.

Interesting how America has exactly 20,000 suicides by gun out of exactly 30,000 gunshot deaths.

Oh wait, the numbers don’t look real because they aren’t.

Here are some more accurate splits from Wikipedia:

“In 2017, over half of the nation's 47,173 suicides involved a firearm. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that about 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide. One study found that military veterans used firearms in about 67% of suicides in 2014.”

“About 1.4 million people have died from firearms in the U.S. between 1968 and 2011. This number includes all deaths resulting from a firearm, including suicides, homicides, and accidents. Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is 25 times higher.”

And from pewresearch.org:

“Aug. 16, 2019 · The 39,773 total gun deaths in 2017 were the most since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online data.”



So, approx 40,000 per year and at 60%, 24,000 of them are suicides, the rest homicides and accidents.

Not inherently, that was my point. Any society could be made just as violent.

So, you agree then. As the numbers prove, Americans are in fact uniquely violent when it comes to gunplay.

You're all alone with your fixation. As previously stated, I do not agree.