Are we going to approach the issue of gun control with statistics and logic or just whatever makes us feel like we are doing something? I agree gun technology has changed, in the UK it is normal to have a suppressor attached, in the US that will be an extra $200 to Uncle Sam for the privilege. I believe it would benefit anyone who uses a gun or are we not ready to have that discussion and gun control is strictly a take away discussion?
I'm not advocating for take away, and I would advocate for statistics. But as you are just as aware as I, statistics without context are meaningless and most people don't bother with understanding the context, so the end result is just manipulated data to support whatever the user desires. But that attitude is kind of the problem. You can't go to the table to have a discussion armed with the attitude that "the only discussion about gun control you want to have is a "take away" discussion". What's wrong with going back to the form of governance where compromise exists? Does everything need to be a line in the sand?
Personally, I think the biggest statistic is simply the number of children that have been killed in recent years. The argument that sufficiently motivated law breakers will find a way to get their hands on the things they want to get their hands on holds merit I'd agree, but one would think there still might be room to allow people the right to own the weapons they want/need to own, while still preventing some of the needless gun violence. Asking teachers to ****ing carry a gun to school is like asking the open carry dork to defend a mall in the event of a shooting. No way that ends well. People need training to responsibly handle a firearm. Teachers don't get that training in a weekend class any more than a cop gets training on how to effectively handle someone having a mental health crisis because they took a 3 hour course on it. Even trained LEO often aren't willing to enter a building where a shooting is happening. I mean, they have training and still don't' want to go into that situation...let's just let the teachers figure it out. Oh, but also, let's not pay the teachers a decent wage either
I'd also say that this isn't entirely a problem with guns either. You can't just separate the mass shooting from the mental state of the shooter. I personally think our country has a growing mental health crisis, but I say this knowing it's going to piss people off (and I'm actively trying not to do that), but GENERALLY conservative governments aren't particularly high on increasing access to things like that. It's like their approach to birth control...if we just teach people not to shoot people, then the problem will go away. Man up and deal with it and you'll get through it. They don't want to restrict access to guns, but they also don't want to address access to those support services for people that might be approaching crisis. Even beginning a conversation about redirecting some funding from the police force to pay for people trained in mental health services to help address that element of their work is comically incendiary. Maybe a small tax on the sale of firearms or ammunition could go to support mental health services? Allow people to access help that might prevent some people from getting to that point, or help identify someone that maaayyyybeeee shouldn't get their hands on more firepower for awhile. Uggh, Biden wants to tax ma guns uhhh! Not everything has to be a closed door to discussion.
But there is such distrust in that system, that even if it did provide a way to eliminate 5-10-30-50% of those incidents and the firearms industry would be able to help, it's a non starter because distrust is big business. The us vs them of politics that the media feeds, private interest profits from, also turns citizens against each other. You guys like to point at "conspiracies'" but what if the big gun lobby knows that and wants to keep breeding this distrust because distrust sells more guns? No way right? Guns are a citizen's protected right, so those companies operate as nonprofits.
So no, I don't think the answer to gun violence is taking away guns. I thing the answer is to get everyone at the table to really address the root of the problem, and try out some new approaches to preventing people from getting to that point, and maybe preventing people on that path from getting access to those things. It's not going to solve it all, but maybe it helps some of it? Maybe even trying to get back to a country that can have different opinions but similar goals would be helpful. Maybe less hate and distrust is good for our mental health, and maybe that's good for people not killing each other?
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