Do the pro and anti gun side want the root cause of violence to be tackled?

They do not want the “root cause” tackled. They say they do, but they lie.
poverty: tackled by increasing workers’ rights, affordable higher education, minimum wage, public assistance programmes. rejected because “socialism”.
“mental health”: tackled by affordable universal healthcare, rejected because “socialism”.
extremism: tackled by education, strong response by the legal system, rejected because they are “fine people”, and instead they want to declare antifa as “terrorists”, even though most terrorist acts in the country are perpetrated by right wing extremists.
Not to mention that they routinely declare issues as root causes, that have routinely been shown in studies to have not even correlation to gun violence, like violent video games, movies or raunchy music.
Even if gun violence is just a symptom, any serious treatment of an illness always treats the symptoms alongside the causes.

Just to add to @ragingloli‘s excellent answer, there are going to be some percent of the population that flip out. That “root cause” can’t really be fixed unless we could figure out a gene or something biological that would identify who was prone to this and abort them as fetuses and/or incarcerate them from birth for crimes they haven’t committed.

I think that you first have to decide what the “root cause” is, and that’s an argument itself.

Sure we do. Dems will never admit their drama and negativity for the last few years is egging it on, like El Paso.

The root cause is that if you make it easy for maladjusted people to kill others, there will always be more people than you can count ready to take on the challenge, There is absolutely no way of predicting who is going to be pissed off or delusional enough to shoot up a crowd, and if you live in a land where there are 4 guns for every refrigerator or 10 times the number of guns as fire extinguishers, just what should you expect?

I am pro-gun and I would love for the root causes to be determined. Because it isn’t just guns that cause deaths. As we have seen in Nice France, London England, NYC and others…a van can be used very effectively to kill lots and lots of people. And if we get to the reasons for the violence, we might be able to find some way to identify it before the violence happens. Stopping the source of the violence before it happens is the REAL answer to the needless deaths.

@knowitall No, the Democrats are not to blame. There has never been a president as drama mongering as trump.

@chyna So El Paso has nothing to do with immigration?

Just as guns have nothing to do with shootings.

Yes but people that use firearms safely and responsibly had nothing to do with these horrible crimes so why punish them?
There has to be a solution to these horrific crimes without punishing the law abiding firearm owner,or am I wrong, have I missed the point that so many tell me I do?

Serious question y’all. Let’s say I want to really kill you. And we are put on a street 10 feet from each other. You get to pick if I can have a gun, knife, car, or bomb (assume I made the bomb myself from tutorials on the internet). Which do you want me to have?

The car, obviously.

That would be ideal, were it possible. But, as we all know, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

@SQUEEKY2
Every criminal was law-abiding before.
Also, you can apply the “why punish the good guys” pretend-argument to any other type of regulation.

@johnpowell A section of steel pipe or baseball bat.

@johnpowell why 10 feet away? Why not 50 or 100 feet. It’s easy, convenient, deadly and cheap How come? Why is an American 50–60 -70 times more likely to be shot than an Englishman, Frenchman or even a Russian?

@ragingloli I know I am going to get that well firearms were designed to kill BS.
But by what you’re saying wouldn’t that apply to vehicles and alcohol as well.
Since a few use them to hurt others no one should have them, or does that only apply to firearms,let the carnage continue with the others.

Up here there are age restrictions for firearm ownership, you should see the hoops we have to jump through to own a handgun.
Now remember I drive for a living and your so called training to drive a vehicle is frightening most people drive so distracted I wonder how the population keeps going up.

Shooting people is illegal to, don’t forget that.

I get it.
Murder is illegal, but some still do it, so clearly we should get rid of the no-murder laws entirely, because they are completely useless.

So why bother with the hoops? Once there are enough of them, why put up with the hassle, when 100 bucks at the gun show will do the trick, gives you an unregistered gun that the government doesn’t know about and therefore cannot confiscate?

The problem is money, Hollywood has made gun violence look cool and entertaining, video games make killing on screen, fun.

Young people want to turn to violence to solve just about any problem they have to face these days.
Most people have lost the ability for anything face to face, with all the texting,then when faced with a problem they can’t text out of they turn to violence.
Should there be stricter gun laws absolutely more intense back ground checks, mandatory safe storage ,meaning they have to be in tamper proof gun safes or lockers.
Up here you have to take a firearms safety course just to own and keep your firearms ,think thugs are lining up to do that?

Compair populations.
We have had a rash of shooting in Toronto this year and we have very strict gun laws.

@SQUEEKY2 GA, love honesty.

I don’t own a gun currently, but I am not anti ownership.

When I drove a cab nights, people would find subtle, and not so subtle ways of asking me if I had a gun. I always told the truth. If I kill someone, I would have to be angry enough I would want to do it with my bare hands, so I could feel the llfe leave their body. It scared the crap out of some of them. Others felt safer riding with someone they felt was gritty enough to keep them safe.

So that’s me. I believe other measures are what is needed to reduce gun violence. Maybe don’t call people snowflakes, or morons.
My god, what happened to live in peace, and harmony?
Democrats and all their lip action is boosting sales in guns, ammo, and fertilizer.
Timothy McVeigh didn’t use a gun, and that son of a bitch killed babies.

Guns and bombs for exterminating people is just plain chicken shit, but guns are not the monster size part of the issue. The big part is, why does anybody want to kill groups of miscellaneous people? Solve that, and then you can prevent the problem before a gun gets loaded.

@SQUEEKY2 :: What are the strict gun laws? Laws about buying are pretty irrelevant if you ask me. At least for the people doing the mass shooting shit. But helpful for stuff like crimes of passion and suicide. But yeah, if you are planning on shooting up a Jewish center strict gun laws about buying won’t stop you as long as Mississippi and cars exist.

Now, if Toronto locked you the fuck up for 20 years for possession of a firearm I would consider that a strict gun law. And if you were searched entering the city for a firearm we could consider that strict. But just making it slightly more difficult to get one isn’t strict.

What you are describing is just a firearm ban,not a law.
A strict law would be you could face jail time and confiscation if caught in possession of a firearm without the required permits.
What anti gunners fail to realize that firearms are more to enthusiasts than just a firearm,and some have increased in value like you wouldn’t believe.
I bought one of mine legally in 1992 for $600 today that gun is worth $4000 so yeah they are an investment as well, but anti gun people couldn’t care less.
They just want them all banned because a few might use them to hurt people.
Would you happily surrender something worth a lot of money if the Government suddenly said you can’t have it any more?

@ragingloli “Murder is illegal, but some still do it, so clearly we should get rid of the no-murder laws entirely, because they are completely useless.” No…I think we need to keep making more and more laws to try stopping murder! After all, if we make it more illegal then people will stop murdering, right?

Biggest problem I have is the people who want to make laws restricting firearms don’t know the first thing about them. As if the laws are not wacky, nonsensical and completely ineffective enough already.

They don’t seem to care about the root of the problem. Gun tech has not changed much in over half a century. They were just as readily available fifty years ago as they are now. You can never get them to even entertain the idea that guns are a constant and not the variable that’s changing.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I keep seeing a meme from my gun friends, “Cain killed Abel with a rock. It’s not a gun problem, it’s a heart problem.”

Essentially that’s what many people are trying to get across, we need to address that ‘heart’ problem, mental health, whatever you want to call it.

It’s been predominantly Republican congressmen who have prevented research into factors related to/causing gun violence, so it’s hard to believe that Republicans really want to “tackle the root causes”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment

@knowitall Thus the reason a thorough background check needs to be done on those purchasing guns. Including a mental health check. Trump offered this up after each mass shooting and then backs off as soon as the NRA contacts him. And, IMO, no one other than military or police need assault rifles. My 18 year old nephew just bought one. Just because.
No background check.

If you bought one from a retailer there was a criminal background check done. Private party sales is a different matter. Define “assault rifle.” When you say only military or police should have “assault” rifles you are really saying “only military or police should have rifles”

@ARE_you_kidding_me A semi-automatic military gun and a .22 rifle or 30–30 are two different things. If you are that bad a hunter that you have to use a semi-automatic military gun. Go to McDonald’s for you meaty things.

What defining features make it “military style” most handguns and .22 rifles are semi automatic. A 30–30 cartridge is more powerful by orders of magnitude than the most common round chambered in these so called assault weapons. Many AR platform rifles shoot .22 and operate exactly the same as the 22 many of us grew up with.

@chyna We aren’t even required to register them in many states, my own included. To me, that’s a more common sense solution, to get each state started on a registry. I don’t like it, but I see it as a possible necessity at this point.

How would that stop anything?

@ARE_you_kidding_me Are you talking to me?

Yes. What good would registration do?

@ARE_you_kidding_me You can’t flag someone if there’s no system to flag them on. To me, it’s a logical first step, like PDMP’s.

Like all the felons who aren’t supposed to have guns, yet many do, there is no perfect system, but if we had a system, they could be entered and flagged for LEO’s.

What flags a person? Where do you draw the line? You’re talking about flagging people not registering guns now. What is stopping someone who is “flagged” from stealing one or buying one on the black market or from Bubba down the street?

@ARE_you_kidding_me There’s literally nothing anyone could do to stop a private or illegal purchase imo. Unless all guns are required to be registered, that is. And who’s coming to my house to check? We can’t even police or enforce welfare, let alone guns.

Like I said, felons are automatically flagged as they aren’t to have one. So if they are stopped for any reason and are carrying, they get jailed. If they want to trade with Bubba, not much you can do.

Perhaps a mental health diagnosis or even a psychosis diagnosis, or meds for that, like Zoloft. Could be flagged on a database, which is what made me consider the PDMP’s.

PS Don’t get upset at me, for thinking of solutions to help. I’m a responsible owner with no kids, not bothering anyone.
Imagine you and your family at Walmart when a mass shooter walks in, or your kids at a concert, or your wife in Macy’s. What’s your solution? Everybody going to pack heat and defend themselves or ? Kids are dying, it’s not okay, doesn’t hurt to consider possible solutions.

Not upset just poking holes in what people propose. There is a lot of chatter on this subject and no real, well thought out solutions.

People who are proposing gun legislation clearly don’t know jack about them.

I have a very long winded answer that I don’t have time to type right now. Later tonight perhaps.

@ARE_you_kidding_me No rush.

I’m honestly not sure anything can be done at this point. I talked to my ex-Marine uncle the other day, as he lives in Japan, and we were talking about crime and things there compared to here (he just came back for a reunion a few weeks ago.)

He says basically after the war, they lost their taste for violence, as a country. I’m just not convinced America ever will.

The way people around my area buy, trade and sell, their is no way to regulate it, you’re right. No one would listen anyway.

The suggestions on gun control are, invariably, useless. @ARE_you_kidding_me and @KNOWITALL have just discussed registration. Mental health screenings are (a) useless and (b) rife to be abused. Useless because it assumes that a person’s mental health never changes. Someone could be fine today and not tomorrow. Rife for abuse because we have seen the Dems under Obama attempt to make conservative opinions to be a sign of mental illness. I have heard (and have opined) that liberalism is a mental illness. So depending on who is in office, you could suddenly use a created definition for what constitutes a mental illness and voila! You can start grabbing guns. I have heard of things like demanding special insurance if you want to own a gun. That is silly as well since if I decide I’m going out in a blaze of glory and want to take as many with me as possible, do I care if I have insurance or not? Not to mention, it would require a huge effort to find and track all guns.
I’m really surprised the Dems are actually screaming about how racist all these ideas are as well. For every thing you put into play that costs money, you are targeting poor people and trying to deny their rights. At least that is the excuse for not wanting voter ID laws.

@seawulf575 “Mental health screenings are (a) useless… because it assumes that a person’s mental health never changes. Someone could be fine today and not tomorrow.”

So your definition of “useless” is that it needs to be 100% accurate 100% of the time? Why bother with vision tests for renewing drivers licenses, since vision can deteriorate between renewals (useless!)? Why bother running background checks on our teachers because they can become perverts once they become teachers (useless!)? Why test drinking water for lead and other harmful substances at the plant since it’s possible for those substances to be introduced further “downstream” the network of plumbing (useless!)?

I would instead say that while these measures aren’t perfect, a >90% improvement is a rather USEFUL thing.

Firearm saturation in this country has reached the point that it no longer makes sense to legally purchase a gun. Filling out forms, waiting for approval, and paying for the privilege of a permit or license—why bother with any of it, if you are considering a gun in your house for self protection? Inner city gun deaths have merely been the reflection of this saturation as law enforcement authorities in those cities effected have told us for decades. As guns migrate into cities from places with lax or non existent gun restrictions, the problem was effectively dismissed as one of the propensity for the ethnic poor to shoot one another. Everyone wants to know why, to which the starkly obvious answer is “Because they can and it’s easy and EFFECTIVE.” This has been the story primarily of handguns—pistols and revolvers. The narrative missed in this concentration of firepower in the inner cities is in the implications for what must be happening in the places from which these “illegal” firearms are imported. Every one of these weapons was almost certainly legally manufactured and initially sold in the places supplying the illicit weaponry to Baltimore and Chicago. We MUST admit that attempts to thwart the inner city shooting spree through ever more severe legal penalties driven by ever climbing casualties—has failed. It is amazing to me that no one understood and STILL doesn’t recognize that just as with music, entertainment, drugs any fad or trend, developments in our cities are coming to YOUR town or for that matter—your country, it’s only a matter of when PROVIDED the weapons are cranked out nonstop as they certainly are. The arrival of weapons, easily modified to combat specifications are now on that same saturation path formerly dominated by handguns at the same time as gun violence along with hip hop migrates to the suburbs. Meanwhile, the refusal to recognize the interplay between gun numbers and gun deaths guarantees the casket and gravestone industries as premium investment opportunities.

Liberalism as mental illness. And conservatism as outright stupidity— both notions are ridiculous on their face. But let me give you my take on the stupidities involved if we are to assume pro gun positions conservative by definition. Obama is elected. Gun sales skyrocket in anticipation of the liberal’s assured illegalization and confiscation of handguns. That was stupid. Instead, the liberal recognizes the truth but makes the mistake of declaring it out loud—“they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to emigrants or people who aren’t like them….”. Now you might try to deny that take on flyover conservatism as a form of mental illness. It was one of the few actual things Obama said aloud that people found out of place and controversial. Now compare that guns and bible comment to the utterings of the fool, then tell me which of the 2 would you adjudge both stupid AND mentally ill.

I haven’t finished reading the answers, but in case someone hasn’t already mentioned it:
https://tinyurl.com/y4wwzbwo (Google/ how to secure home and people without guns)

@stanley So lets say neither party is mentally ill, as that indermines real mental illnesses just now becoming less stigmatized.

We are two groups (for the sake of argument, not literal) who have different beliefs about many issues. Some people may even cross party lines on some issue. Isnt this what we wanted America to be? Dont yhey argue voraciously in the House of Lords? Sure they do! We arent that special so lets not reinvent the wheel.

We have to decide who we want to be and what kind of world we are leaving.

I can willingly not own anything other than pistols, .22’s or other long gun if it makes the world a better place. The Independent in me abhors trading any freedom for safety BUT ya’ll are worth it, hopefully.

But @seawulf or myself, none of us are your mass shooters.

So is funding thru the CDC vital? FBI cant produce a profile?

How about prohibiting the CDC from compiling statistics on all shootings? Would you call that a smart move? What would be the purpose of such a law?

@gorillapaws As to the mental health screenings: Have we figured out a way to predict when someone will have a breakdown? No. Do we fully understand what brings on mental health problems? No. To be honest, do we have a set test that everyone agrees on? No. Are any of the tests actually conclusive most of the time? No. So at best, you would use a test that not even professionals agree on, that doesn’t give conclusive results, to take a snap shot…a moment in time of a person. As I said, people can and do change and sometimes it is very quickly. Bipolar disorder is a classic example. You could be up for a long, long time and then crash and be down. Yet while you are up, it is very difficult to diagnose. At best you are selling a false sense of security by suggesting this is a potential solution. And I would fully question your >90% claim.

@stanley No, I think thats ignorant not to learn about a threat.

That said, why that agency? Why not FBI? I’m not familiar enough with the branches but CDC for mental illness does seem oddly threatening.

So what can be done?
Anti -gunners want them banned.Yeah people will line up to surrender them I can see that(NOT)!
More screening,back ground checks ,making certain guns highly restrictive need a permit to buy it, transport it, just simply own it.
They say that won’t work.
So what is it going to take to get these shootings to stop?
Besides just arming everyone,that way EVERYONE can shoot back,that might just work.

@SQUEEKY Guess the Dems can move to Canada a few years and let us clear it out old west style. Deal?
Thing is, if we seperated by ideology, the neanderthal types probably would crawl back into their caves.

I still say the issue is not the gun…it is the behavior. People use other tools to kill. Knives kill more people than rifles, yet we go nuts about rifles. Vans/trucks have been used to kill hundreds in mass killing attacks. There is something that makes someone feel it is okay to kill others indiscriminately. You can regulate the hell out of one tool and another will be used. The root cause has nothing to do with the tool used.

@SQUEEKY2 we tried it when weapons were both far less sophisticated and considerably more expensive than today. We still call the experiment “the wild west” even though we’ve clearly forgotten its lessons.

ya know @seawulf575 even though I agree with none of your political ideas I do see and agree with you on this.

Not so quick Squeek. Once again there’s some slippage in wulfie’s argument. Like that quote about knives killing more people than guns. Here’s the deal. That’s true world wide & only true because in most of the world you can’t get the guns (yet). Now any fool can see that IT IS NOT TRUE in the United States. And compare those hundreds of folks killed in mass attacks world wide with trucks snd vans to our totals in mass shootings to understand how fatuous our friend’s argument is. I mean, do you truly believe that in other first world nations, the total murder rate is as high as ours in the states from firearms alone?The notion that if guns were eliminated, we would still make up the 40,000 gun deaths with knives and trucks— that’s a pile of bullshit ! Face it Squeek, collectively our carnage is unavoidable and the necessary price. We collectively can’t be trusted with the things if only a smattering of the population in every society is inclined to hunt and kill us. When THAT is the case, the only thing limiting the carnage in a rapid fire world is the availability of the “tools”. And as I’ve said our overflow will bring the show to you as surely as our episodes of America’s got Talent.

@KNOWITALL why the CDC? Primarily because shootings have such a striking similarity in behavior to the spread of contagious diseases, as do the pathologies of auto deaths. In fact the great success of the CDC in collating the data generated drove the gun lobby to lean heavily on the Congress to outlaw the practice, a clear and undeniable act in blatant defiance of what any sane individual would recognize as the public interest. As with others here, they would rather not be forced to accept the truth.

@SQUEEKY Hows the violence there? You have guns, do you carry?
Is this just the price we’re choosing to pay in the name of freedom?

@seawulf What do you think is the solution? How do we identify mass shooters, see something say something?

You are not allowed to just carry here.
And yes the big cities have their share of violence with shootings as well.
Private ownership of handguns here have been reduced to target practice at approved gun ranges and competition shooting at approved gun ranges,using a handgun for ANYTHING else is not legal here.
To legally transport a handgun you have to be a member or been invited to the range you are going to,the gun must be in a locked case with a trigger lock on the gun,and ammo must be in a separate case.

@SQUEEKY Yikes, so….defenseless. Thats some bs right there. Hold on Mr Killer, I have to unlock everything and load.

That doesnt upset you? You live in the city?

What about on your private land and hunting?

They sorta turn a blind eye to private land use but it’s still not legal.
In all my life I have never thought of needing one of my firearms to protect myself or Mrs Squeeky.
I live in a small town, and as for the larger cities I stay out of the bad areas.
As to defend myself against what?
Now I do stand corrected I did have a firearm once to protect myself, was a teenager hunting grouse (which is a type of pheasant and came face to face with a cougar, guess the cat was hunting that day to we watched each other for about twenty minutes and I slowly backed away and left, I was no more than say fifteen feet from that cat,I didn’t hurt the cat and it didn’t hurt me but I was sure glad to have a loaded 12 gauge in my hands.

As I said Squeek, the contagion will spread here first, but it’s coming for you. The bulging numbers here guarantee it. If you’re lucky, you & Mrs squeeky might live to ripe old age to witness the scourge in Toronto or Halifax with relative peace where you live til the end of your days, but it’s coming! My worry for the future here is not so much about the shooting gallery this country will become. It won’t be pretty, but we will
Adjust. After all, there are people living near normal lives in the free fire zones of Baltimore and Chicago. I’m mire concerned about technology and development of devices granting a single individual the capability to wipe out a neighborhood for a few bucks. The gun problem is merely an extrapolation of the dilemma around nuclear proliferation. Try to make the argument that the number of nukes floating around is irrelevant to the probability of catastrophe. The analogy is exactly the same as with the assault rifles and both we and everyone involved recognizes that the more of the things loose in the world, the greater the certainty of them falling into the wrong hands.

So what is the answer @stanleybmanly ?

The answer is be prepared. The reaction when things are getting out of hand is nearly aways brutal authoritarianism. Scapegoats will be found, and they will be by coincidence those warning that the country is moving toward dictatorship. No matter what people think they believe, they will ALWAYS settle for strongarm order over chaotic freedom. An idiot like the fool will promise to solve the unsolvable problem and the people in their frustrated “wisdom” will gobble it up.

@stanleybmanly Once again you misquote me so you can say I’m wrong. I said knives kill more people than rifles. You said that I said knives kill more people than guns. There is a huge difference. Until you can actually read what I wrote and respond, you will always sound foolish.

@KNOWITALL I think first you need to look at places that “do it right”. Take a look at Switzerland for example. High private ownership, limited gun laws, yet low gun violence. Figure out what they are doing right. Look at places that “do it wrong”. Take a look at Honduras for example. LOTS of gun murders, yet strict gun laws. I’m not suggesting that gun laws are the key…I’m just pointing out that it isn’t the gun laws that are necessarily the solution. When you look at these places, look at things like economy, education, family structure, lifestyles, entertainment, etc. but also at other crimes. Look at domestic violence, robbery, etc. Look at the information they are bombarded with in the form of news and other public announcements. Look at other laws…are they oppressive and intrusive into people’s lives. What is the public corruption like? What are population densities like? And don’t limit your search to just guns…look at all murders.
I suggest we look at other countries first because we can be impartial in our look. It isn’t threatening. Once we gather data see if there are any variables that stick out. Once you have done that, compare that with what we have going on in this country.
The problem is that people and their attitudes are variables. They react differently to situations. Culturally they are different. But we might be able to find something that seems to stick out across the world that would also apply here.
That would be how I started. And I agree with you…this isn’t the CDC doing this.

@SQUEEKY2. You dont have drugs or rapists? Good for you. Thats not the case here. I hope you and your wife stay safe. I hope no one ever breaks in on your wife while you’re gone. Thats not a chance I’m willing to take.

Of course we have those as well, but they are mostly big city problems.
And even in our small town just use common sense keep things locked, and don’t hang out in the bad parts of any town or city at night.
The scariest thing we ever had was a cop banging on the door at 1am looking for my wife,because she hadn’t shown up for work,and a brain dead coworker phoned them, if she had looked she would have seen my wife phoned in sick that night, boy was Mrs Squeeky ever mad at that co worker for that.

@seawulf575 Are you saying even if other things are examined (your last post) that there is no need to reduce the number of guns anyway?

…Not just @seawulf575, but everyone else with similar posts.

Let me butt in (again). Makes no difference where you live. Every one of us personally knows people who have no business with a weapon. What will happen when weapons are common as dirt? What about the 2nd amendment rights of the mentally disabled?

https://www.debate.org/opinions/should-there-be-universal-background-checks-for-gun-purchases
How is there a debate about background check when it comes to lethal weapons?

@stanleybmanly I think that statement needs quotation marks “What about the 2nd amendment rights of the mentally disabled?”?, since that would not be from the anti-gun side.