What does it take?

[tom b]

Hey, this thread is about my disgust with mass shootings in America and how Americans can't/won't do anything about them. Hence the title, "What does it take?"

There has been a proliferation of mass shootings in America recently. This thread is about preventing mass shootings.

One of the nice things about starting a thread is that I can also end it. From the conversations so far is it really that hopeless? Is Australia such a strange anomaly?

Please keep on topic or I'll close the thread.

ONCE AGAIN I DON"T CARE ABOUT LEFT/RIGHT POLITICS.

I would love to hear how Americans would stop mass shootings!

Cheers,

[pegelli]

Tom, I've given you my opinion on "what does it take" in posts 217 and 338. I'm not an American but I worked for an American company my whole career and have lived with the whole family in Texas for 3 years. So while you may not agree with what I wrote it's at least different from "more guns" and written with some first hand experience of living in the American society

By all means close the thread if you don't want to discuss Left/Right politics, but since the whole debate about gun control is tangled up in Left/Right politics it's in my mind not as far Off Topic as you think and could lead to some insights on what it takes to reinstate a serene debate on gun control and preventing mass shootings. I think both sides on this debate are too extreme, and trying to convince with populistic sound bites. Just my opinion, no more, no less.

[Zorki5]

WOW, Tom, that's quite a post...

So unless people give you a concrete recipe, an action plan with a deadline, you won't be satisfied?

And discussing anything, however closely connected with the subject, if it's not literally the subject itself, then it's a no-no?

You should probably close this thread right away. And never start a new one on this topic, as I for the life of me can't see what good can ever come out of it if you're doing it with this attitude.

Also, shouting at people isn't very nice. I understand that in Australia you lost all deterrents to doing that, but in places where those people still have guns, it can be even dangerous, you know...

Hey, this thread is about my disgust with mass shootings in America and how Americans can't/won't do anything about them. Hence the title, "What does it take?"

There has been a proliferation of mass shootings in America recently. This thread is about preventing mass shootings.

One of the nice things about starting a thread is that I can also end it. From the conversations so far is it really that hopeless? Is Australia such a strange anomaly?

Please keep on topic or I'll close the thread.

ONCE AGAIN I DON"T CARE ABOUT LEFT/RIGHT POLITICS.

I would love to hear how Americans would stop mass shootings!

Cheers,

[Otto Phocus]

Hey, this thread is about my disgust with mass shootings in America and how Americans can't/won't do anything about them.

We are working on this.  We have been working this for decades.  The fact that murders have decreased is partially due to our efforts.

There is no one thing that can (poof) make mass killings vanish.  I wish there were.

Our press is not making the job easier with the way they are reporting it.  But then, at least in the US, the press is a for-profit business no longer a service so stories that make money (improve reader/viewership) results in larger advertising investments and therefore more profit for the news media. "If it bleeds, it leads" is the mantra for US press.

We may not be doing what, in your opinion, needs to be done.  That's a fair observation.
We may not be doing things as fast as your opinion would like.  That's a fair observation.

But to claim that we are not doing anything or worse don't want to do anything is an unfair observation and doing a disservice to those who are and have been working this issue for decades.

We are a big country with an often adversarial relationship between our federal government, our state governments and the individual.  That is just how the USA runs.  We do not have a king, nor do we have a federal legislative body with absolute control over the entire country. We have individual rights, state rights, and even federal rights.  Some of them are in conflict and many have disagreements between them. In some cases, this can be a disadvantage, but, in my opinion, our system works pretty well pretty much of the time for pretty much all the issues. 

But please be assured that there are very very few people in the US who are in favour of mass killings. We are concerned, and we do desire the problem to go away.  We are working the problem.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Do you actually believe that? Are you unable to see the flaw in your reasoning?

It doesn't matter if I believe that or not. If you bothered to read the whole thread, you'd see that I provided studies and statistics showing that only between 3% and 11% of all gun crimes are committed with legal guns.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...I would love to hear how Americans would stop mass shootings!

Easy... We are just waiting for you to start  a few more threads like this one. Please spread it beyond LuLa, so that more Americans become aware of your concerns for our well being. We are compassionate people, and would ultimately take heed of your wise words.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It doesn't matter if I believe that or not. If you bothered to read the whole thread, you'd see that I provided studies and statistics showing that only between 3% and 11% of all gun crimes are committed with legal guns.

'Gun crime' is a bit vague, and what about accidental deaths and non-lethal injuries? In the United States, the latest annual number of non-fatal firearm injuries in 2013 is 84,258 (= 2.51x the total number of deaths resulting from firearms. (source)


Here are some more numbers to chew on (same source as above).
In the United States, annual deaths resulting from firearms total
2014: 33,599

In the United States, annual firearm homicides total
2014: 10,945 (= 69% out of 15,809 total homicides by any means, and 33% of all firearms deaths)

In the United States, annual firearm suicides total
2014: 21,334 (= 50% out of 42,773 total suicides by any method, and 63% of all firearms deaths)

In the United States, annual unintentional shooting deaths total
2014: 586 (= 2% of all firearms deaths)

In the United States, annual shooting deaths in which the cause remains undecided total
2014: 270 (= 1% of all firearms deaths)

In the United States, annual legal-intervention gun homicides total
2013: 681 (= 2% of all firearms deaths)


So roughly 1/3rd of all firearms deaths is caused by homicide, and almost 2/3rd by suicide. But there are also 2.5x as many non-fatal firearm injuries as there are deaths.

It would be interesting to see what is done to reduce those numbers (corrected for population numbers). Part of a possible decline is caused by a general decline in suicides, but the gun related percentage of all suicides is stable.

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Bart, Holland and the U.S. have practically the same suicide rates. Many other European nations have it even higher than us. You do not use guns for that. So, what has been done to reduce the number of suicides in Europe?

[tom b]

Hey, as I said, I just keep on hearing about mass shootings in America. Nothing seems to be done about it and nobody cares.

Look Americans, you can shoot each other up as much as you want with all your legal/illegal guns, its no skin off my back. Obviously nobody can ask you WTF you are doing, you are Masters of the Universe (or so Hollywood keeps telling me).

The simple answer I have received from my inquiry is that political dogma is much more important than public safety in America, sad but true.

Cheers,