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Originally Posted by Trayderjoe
IMO, the very loop that this thread has taken is why not enough progress has been made to help reduce these tragic events. Apples are not truly being compared to apples when we compare our past history with our current society, nor when we compare US against other countries. EVERYTHING is not equal and making basic comparisons ignores these differences. For example, how does the use of anti-depressants factor in? Here is a study from 2021 on "America's Epidemic Of Antidepressants" ( link). Were antidepressants as prevalent back then as they are now? What are the rates of anti-depressant use in other countries? What are the comparative suicide rates (US today versus the 1950's and US vs other countries)? When we were kids, we were exposed to violence as are kids of today, but WHAT IS DIFFERENT? One easy answer is that when we were kids, we socialized more (read: played) with other children whereas today a segment of the population playing violent video games are doing so online and by themselves.
Instead, how about taking the time understand how human life has become so devalued in our society? Is that too big of a challenge? Well then why don't we try to understand why CURRENT laws are not working and fix what is broken (for whatever reason) before we implement new laws? As an example from an earlier post in this thread: " But, not all somethings are useful. That is obvious, since there are lots of "somethings" being done, useless gun Carol laws that are not enforced and have too many loop holes for example." I asked: "I am curious as to which gun control laws are useless and not enforced and what the many loopholes are that make them useless." I still have not seen a response to this question, although the person who made the former statement has posted multiple times since then.
So if we are to solely focus on new "common sense" gun laws, please explain specifically what these laws would be and correlate how these new laws would have prevented these mass shootings. Given that at least twice in this thread, a statistic of "200 mass shootings have occurred this year" has been cited, I would ask that these proposed laws also be correlated to handgun usage and not just the use of a rifle. Note that I am not disputing the number since it would appear to include gangland style handgun shootings in major urban areas, but it would be helpful if the poster included a link to support the reported number and to provide context. I would also not be at all surprised if the data also shows that HANDGUNS are used more frequently than rifles in mass shooting events.
Oh, and I am looking as well for a definition of what an "assault rifle" actually is. I am not talking about the look or color of a rifle, I am talking about what function in the rifle makes it an "assault rifle". Hint: AR does NOT stand for assault rifle despite what the talking heads say, it stands for ArmaLite rifle after the company that originated the design in the 1950's. |
Excellent post and very informative. You even pointed out a few areas of investigation that could potentially help. You obviously are posting in the wrong forum
I heard an NPR interview this morning that asked many of your questions. And one answer was "common sense" gun regulation would be "in the eye of the beholder". I think that is accurate.
I push for opening a dialog on solutions. The country is obviously divided, and one side is NOT going to get what it wants - hence we do not much of anything.
And the obvious answer to your question "what is ASSAULT WEAPON", is pretty obvious. One thing one side is extremely good at is making stupid statements which the other side can then use as talking points against them. Two recent ones being defund the police and assault weapons. Both of which are coined phrases intended to elicit inflamed attitudes in the public. And neither of which accurate represent the actual situation they are addressing. If we could all stop using dog whistles, we might find there are many things we can agree on.
And once again, thank you for the excellent post that actually addressed some points in serious need of discussion.