Thanks for the detailed response. I haven't had a chance to get to this yet, and it's looking like it might not be today, but just so you know I don't intend to ignore it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...gs-in-america/

https://www.news.com.au/world/middle...ca69c53d97c9c4

Well this guy certainly doesnt seem like he has a grudge against women

Ok so after reading this article from the post I see absolutely nothing that talks about or compares the number of mass shooting deaths per capita in the US compared to the rest of the world. I don't need an article to tell me the US has mass shootings, what I asked you was if the US has more mass shooting deaths per capita than any other country, and that info is certainly not provided in this article.


Actually had to dig a little to even find the source of the article. The original article you listed talks a lot about Yemen but nothing supporting the data about the US other than another article from the NYT linked inside of that article (yes the article's source was another news article). Inside the NYT article the entire thing is based on the 2015 study from Adam Lankford from the University of Alabama (the only study of its kind that got those results) and this is the study that every major news org uses that runs a story about the US and mass shootings. Lankford released this paper without identifying the cases he was citing (which at least the Post article tried to do for the US cases), nor their location. He didn't even give a complete description on how he put all the data together. He basically tried to say that he had "complete data" on all mass shooting cases (defined I believe as 4 deaths or more with a firearm) in the entire world, going all the way back to 1966. The idea that someone could have access to those statistics all the way to 1966 in all the remote parts of the world is laughable. He stated in the report there was only 202 mass shootings in the rest of the ENTIRE world (171 countries) from 1966-2012 and 90 in the US. That statement alone should be enough to see how inaccurate that report is. This is a pdf from a report that tried to make a list of known foreign mass shootings using the same ruleset as Lankford and found over 1400 mass shootings in less than half the time span and the cases are documented inside the report (the pdf is 451 pages).

https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content...1_20180823.pdf

Here is Lankford's original report:

https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content...s-Firearms.pdf

If you've got some actual data instead of news articles, I'd be interested in seeing that.

It does seem like the Lankford study that a lot of the oft quoted numbers are from is pretty awful and the US having ~30% of the world's mass shootings is not even close to accurate. I think what it would be fair to say though is that the US is the only (developed) country in the world that consistently has mass shootings year in, year out.

To be honest though, while mass shootings are what everyone hears about in the media they account for a tiny proportion of total gun deaths. The reality is that gun regulations aren't going to make much of an impact on the total deaths due to mass shootings, simply because the numbers aren't large relative to other gun deaths to begin with. What would be improved by stricter regulations is the total number of gun related deaths, most obviously suicides but also homicides.

Homicides and suicides involving guns are two areas where the US really is way out ahead of the rest of the developed world in terms of aggregate totals and per capita numbers. Due to the focus on mass shootings most of the talk about gun control tends to be about "assault weapons" and the like but the reality is that regulations on handguns would be much more useful in terms of reducing the number of deaths. The only real argument for civilians to own handguns is self-defence but it has been shown time and time again that having a gun in a house adds far more danger of injury/death than any protection it provides.

Personally I think the ideal outcome would be to eventually ban the sale of handguns without a specific license that could be requested by people for whom it would obviously be beneficial (e.g. self-defence vs animals for a park ranger). I realise that in practice that is probably never going to happen though and as far as more realistic options go a lot of Sandman's suggestions seem reasonable. One thing I would add though is that loopholes regarding background checks for guns sold at gun shows/private sales needs to be eliminated. Ideally guns should always be registered and a private sale of a gun should be similar to a private sale of a car, in that an authority needs to be notified of the new owner and as part of that process that authority could then perform the required background check.

About the second article, I wasn't 100 % sure of it's credibility to be honest. But what I found interesting is that, the article reinforces the idea that mass shootings and violence in general are directly connected to gun culture.

We could dig up endless reports but it will lead to nothing.
You obviously belong to the camp of dismissive and denial.
This is not an insult, it's simply fact. I guess you feel threatened, your culture, your idea of what this country should be, whatever. It's seems it's a struggle of some twisted survival.

Like Willd pointed out, we live in the only industrial nation that accepts this level of violence as normal.

This sort of reminds me of the Ohio representative that was an outspoken critic of gays. Then his son came out of the closet and all of a sudden he had a complete 180. Changed his mind. Gay people are great. They're people too.
You see, nobody ever died in a mass shooting that you know so where's the problem!!

Well, I got to get back to watching the wsop. I'm not at work anymore!

That's the term everyone uses, "developed country".
But what is that? Who decides what metric is used to define a developed country? Is Russia developed? Is Costa Rica? Is Colombia? If it's by GDP (which I think is a horrible metric, but ok) then Russia, Mexico, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Argentina, and South Africa are in the top 30, ahead of countries like Denmark, Ireland, and Finland. There's a large misconception from people who have never lived in other places in the world that try to define the rest of the world and it's just ignorant really. Most countries fall between "amazing" to "average" with a few outliers at either end in terms of standard of living, GDP, happiness, health and medical availability, and people just have a poor understanding of how those countries are actually doing on a global scale. A lot of the times, the "developed" countries that are chosen to use on a gun control graph have no other deciding factor other than they make the US look bad in comparison even though they have very little to do with the US by almost every metric including population, demographics, system of government, history and culture.


This is definitely true, any regulation that doesn't address handguns is going to do basically nothing to the overall gun homicide rate. The issue is finding regulation that is proven to work, is cost effective, and is actually doable from a logistics standpoint.

Let's say I grant you that there is an increased danger to having a gun over not having one. That still going to be a general statistic that doesn't address individual situations. As a former Marine combat instructor and former police officer who's never been arrested and has no criminal involvement of any kind, I can easily argue that MY house is safer with a gun in it. The stats about being in more danger owning or carrying a gun include EVERYONE and when you include everyone, there's going to be some idiots that end up in the mix. At the end of the day, for decently trained people, a gun WILL make you safer than not. The issue is people not falling into the category of decently trained. But because there's dumb people out there doesn't mean that you get to remove MY choice which happens to be a good one in my situation. Hence why I think that increasing training requirements to own and carry is a good thing that I would be in favor for. Suicides fall back into the mental health category and while you could have a temporary reduction in suicides, I don't think you should be able to affect other people's choice of self defense based on the choices of people who commit suicide, the same way you don't take away alcohol as a whole just because people drink themselves to death or drive drunk.

The "gun show loophole" is really not a thing that matters. Most vendors who sell at gun shows are actual commercial sellers and as such go through all the requirements required to sell you the firearm you are trying to purchase, including the background check. The only place that is really unchecked is private sales between 2 individuals as a non commercial transaction. The legal side will always be that the Constitution does not give the federal government the power to regulate non-commercial, intrastate transfers of legal firearms between private citizens. On the practical side, a study from awhile back showed that fewer than 2% of convicted criminals bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show. About 12% purchased their firearm from a retail store or pawnshop, and 80% bought from family, friends, or an illegal source.
https://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf
That being said there are 13 states the currently require a background check by a FFL for a private sale, and if it became a national thing, I really wouldn't care.

An article that's based on bad sources isn't an article I put faith in whatever message it's trying to deliver. You made a blanket statement, I asked you to provide some data behind it and you scoffed at me, acting like what you were saying is just common knowledge and it is in fact completely wrong. And FWIW, even though I knew it to be false, I didn't say "you're wrong bucko", I actually gave you a chance to post some data or some sources on the off chance that maybe there was some info out there that I hadn't already seen, that I could research more in depth. We can't "dig up endless reports" because there is literally one report claiming what you said and it's the one I linked to you from the news article and as actual scientific research goes, it's bogus.
As far as being in denial, I'm actually here having a conversation, listening to different view points and addressing points that people that disagree have. I don't use emotion as an argument, I try to use unbiased sources as much as possible. Making the statement that my points are invalid because you don't want to take the time to do the research to address them or that you want to just throw me in the blanket category of "DONT TAKE MUH GUNS" people, it seems like the person that's more in denial is YOU.

Knowing now that you're a military man, maybe I rushed to judge.
You also are obviously open minded.
thanks for taking the time.

I have many times stated that I believe that the 2nd Amendment should be upheld. But at the same time I've also argued that regulations on gun control are constitutional. It seems that many people's fear is that any form of gun control will lead to the eventual taking away of their 2nd amendment rights completely. Although I can sympathize with their concerns, I just don't see that happening.
I firmly believe that the level of gun violence overall in this country is intolerable and something should be done.
I will leave it at that for now. Not because I'm being dismissive. To the contrary. We can all look up endless reports of various biased groups.
Throwing endless studies out there would simply mean I'm sticking to my guns, pardon the pun, and am totally unwilling to bend from my fixed views.
So, let's meet somewhere in the middle. But not now. It's late
Goodnight

Fair enough, I appreciate that

FWIW I agree with you on the fact that you can have regulations regarding the 2nd amendment, especially since we already do. There's tons of regulations regarding firearms already. And I also see the slippery slope argument that hardcore gun advocates are afraid of happening, and I also think it's unlikely. My issue is a lot of people want more legislation based on nothing more than emotion, they want to legislate away a problem that they know nothing about and don't care to look into real solutions. I want the laws we have to do what they are designed for, and not add new ones that will cost time and money and will be just as ineffective as the ones we already have. Also I try not to get into the stats too much, because it's so hard to see what the data actually tells us, I would rather have common sense discussions on "does this work, yes or no and why" rather that trot stats out back and forth that may or may not be manipulated or biased (sometimes they are necessary though, lol).

Goodnight

I can't argue with anything you said. Now I'll get chastised once again by the "passionate" left. Hard left is such a hard word! Oh well. This isn't about me


This thread is about mass shootings, not gun violence in general, but this is an issue that I think needs to be looked at. Proper firearms training.
Some of the mass shooters used their parents guns. Like the Sandy hook shooting and the Parkland shootings.
We also hear in the news far too often about firearms just being left unsecured and getting in the hands of children so end up tragically causing injury or fatality to themselves.

I lived several years in Germany and knew a few friends who owned guns.
I know this is not Germany and we don't want it to be, But here is how they go about the process of purchasing a firearms in that country.
I didn't purchase a gun myself so I hope I'm not mistaken in some of the process.

First you have to join a gun club to get your license
Second, the gun you purchase has to stay on the gun club premises.
You are required to train for a year, only then can you take your firearm with you.
Once your training is done, you get your license and then only can you take your gun home with you.
At home, you are required by law to have a safety box.
The gun must be securely stored and locked in the safety box when not in use.

I know these measures would be too extreme for Americans but some sort of compromise towards these measures I think would be helpful.
We could at least avoid some of these tragic accidents that far too often happen in this country.

https://www.thelocal.de/20160616/fiv...n-control-laws

This is an informative article I think.
I especially like the idea of needing a separate license for each firearm one wishes to purchase. I didn't know that was the case.

I'm reminded,on this matter, of the YouTube video I saw on Bilzerian.
How he had multiple firearms lying about in his apartment and just how ridiculous that is.

Ps. An aside. I was in Germany when the Wennenden shooting happened.
What the linked article doesn't mention is that the teenager took his fathers unsecured gun. His father after was questioned by authorities but I don't remember if he was held liable or the matter was dropped.

Looking back, I mostly agreed with what you said and then I sort of contradicted myself by introducing German gun laws.
Wasn't on purpose.
You know American gun laws better than me. If you feel we can make meaningful progress by just improving and property upholding existing gun laws, than I'm all for it.

I think you're right that some of the issues we have tie in to inadequate institutional support for mental health issues, and I would support this suggestion.







We could avoid the problem you're mentioning by using something like GDP per capita? There's probably better/more complex metrics. Although I think you're right that there's diminishing returns to looking at some of this data, particularly in the rather shallow way that I've presented some of it. Of course it's also my fault for starting that thread of conversation, which probably hasn't been very useful.

It seems like the other problem is Heller, potentially? That is one reason why I ended up gravitating towards a more maximalist position. If it takes a constitutional amendment to do anything significant than I might as well?

I find your approach very refreshing, and also quite persuasive. So thank you for that. In fact, I'd say part of the reason my attitude on this topic has hardened over the last few years is just that it seems so impossible to do any of the more measured regulatory changes that you propose. So at some point I just kind of started shrugging and reacting to people complaining about "gun grabbers" by saying yeah, I'd like to get rid of the guns. I don't think they have enough value to justify the apparent costs. If the options are the status quo or grabbing the guns, I'd do the latter.

But, I would love to see some of your proposals become actual, and if they had a positive effect on some of these issues that would likely be enough for me.

Well well named, if being agreeable means the death of the conversation,
Well done bocko. It's all your fault!

yeah seems totally stable and well put together. only people that hate women think domestic violence isn't a thing.

i prosecuted solely domestic violence cases for a year, maybe 75 or so cases a week. in a year the amount of "fake" cases he is talking about i could count on my hands.

also as evidence by the florida case where the women got arrested for turning in the guns of the offender, cops rarely ever "come confiscate the guns". its the duty of the offender to turn them in with very little follow up.

I would like to address the attached article to the German gun link, that some of you may have read, briefly.


Not an academic but having lived in Germany for some years, because of my ex, if some of you are wondering, I can voice an opinion to some of the topics touched upon with confidence I believe.

So, the professor mentions he thinks "America is a sick society" .
That was a very strong statement that even took me aback.
But, unfortunately many Euopeans, not only Germans, do see America in this light. I don't think Americans realise what a bad image our gun violence gives us. It's especially troubling when you hear so many arguments from Americans downplaying the problem.
But, I would like to emphasize that at the same time, Europeans, and especially Germans, admire and look up to America.
Germans in particular seem to feel connected to America knowing that many Americans have German descent.

Ok, on the subject of spanking your kids. And that subsequently leading to violence. I was not aware of those statistics, but I don't think anyone can deny that enough studies have shown that a troubled childhood leads to a more likely troubled adulthood as well.

As far as the professor trying to portray German society and parenting as somehow so much superior to America, I will say this.
In Europe, Germans are notorious for being non children friendly.
What exactly do I mean? Maybe they don't spank their kids, but they don't treat them with much affection either. You'll rarely catch a German hugging or cuddling their kids. They discourage their children from being overactive and too playful. There is nothing more important to a German than his "Ruhe" . His peace and quiet. It's not unusual for neighbors to shout and disparage overactive children. "Ruhe" (roo'e), quiet, is one of the favorite words in the German vocabulary.
To give a more concrete example, if you want to host a party at your home or apartment past 10pm, you have to get permission from your neighbors.
This is maybe why Germans were known for decades as a people who show little emotion.
So be honest professor, Germany isn't perfect either.

If a person is or is prone to having suicidal thoughts, then they absolutely should not have any access to a gun at all.

Wow, I missed that. So somigosaden is concerned that a poor suicidal sap won't be able to get his guns back. That's a good one.
The question that has always perplexed me is, when certain segments of this country argue that the good guys need guns to protect themselves against the bad guys. Who are the bad guys, people of color?
Suicidal people are the good guys, as long as they're white?
The Las Vegas shooter, by all definitions, until that act, would have fallen into the good guy category, right?
He was white. No criminal record. Had money. Am I right?
So, someone please finally make it Crystal clear to me who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Confused poker wannabe.

Ok. I got a little emotional and subsequently a little irrational.
Of course people have the constitutional right to have a gun to protect themselves.
But, just like in many instances, convicted fellons have their gun rights taken away from them, is it unconstitutional if a person is deemed mentally unstable, and possibly dangerous to themselves and others, to also take their gun rights away?

No. Maybe you've spent too much time here and you're falling into the tendency to assume whoever isn't in total agreement with you is a moron made of straw. My post started with, "The problem with..."; that doesn't mean I see no problems with the alternative or that I hold all the stereotypical views of those you think oppose you. So no, I'm not against domestic violence offenders losing gun rights (although I think it should be only temporary, maybe until their parole ends).

For the same reason it isn't extended to complete strangers. Extending gun-dispossession powers to people who are on their second date would make plaintiffs much less credible on the whole—many have gone on a date with a psycho; few have decided to marry or live with one. It also opens the legal confusion of trying to determine who qualifies and then proving that the plaintiff and defendant are actually a couple and not just acquaintances. Drawing the line at cohabitants and parents makes adjudication much easier and therefore fairer.

My whole point about the red flag laws is that the protection orders are a travesty of justice. One of the main issues people bring up is that they are issued ex parte—meaning there is no court appearance. The judge issues it without the defendant being there or often even knowing it's being adjudicated on. I think you're being fairly naive about a lot of this. Think about what an ex parte adjudication looks like: Woman files a complaint of abuse. Judge reviews her complaint without any statement from the defendant. Judge has the perverse incentive of not wanting to look bad should the woman be telling the truth and the defendant goes and shoots her. Judge signs off on protection order to confiscate the defendant's guns. There's no trial nor conviction here. You can't have an ex parte trial. Many people have been dispossessed through this well-intentioned legal protocol. You seem reasonable in your other posts, so I'm surprised you would be in favor of these red flag laws. A genuine domestic violence conviction is an altogether different entity.

Again, the bolded is strawmanning. I'm not saying suicidal people who are seeking out a therapist because they're suicidal are fearing their guns being taken. I'm saying people who are going to a therapist because they're anxious at home, or they have a gambling addiction, or their life is just in general disarray are going to therapists. Then when they get there, they can't speak freely about any suicidal or vengeful thoughts they have. Everyone has these thoughts. I don't believe there's any adult on this planet who hasn't thought about what suicide for themselves would look like. It's just that for 99% of people, they decide they don't want to commit suicide. Same for homicide. Everyone has thought about killing someone. It's just that we decide not to do it. If you go to a therapist and they ask, "Have you had any suicidal thoughts?" And you say, "Sure. I'm not at that point yet, but if life continues like this, or if it turns out my wife is in fact leaving me and I do get fired, maybe I would be better off not existing." That can be all it takes. Why would the therapist risk letting this patient have guns? That's what I'm talking about. I also think you're being naive about the competency of government in returning someone's guns who's ever been labeled mentally unfit. You think politicians are going to support people with a mental health history to ever buy guns? And there will be some reliable system for someone who got their rights rescinded to find a therapist or bureaucrat who will then reinstate them?

What makes this a difficult problem is that there are edge cases, and cops and judges and politicians with their own incentives and agendas.

I realize I haven't answered everything you brought up, but I just don't have forever to spend on this.

Yes, how dare I consider the rights of people with mental health issues.

I think you've got it. Everyone who disagrees with you about gun laws is a racist and misogynist. Just like with all the other issues. I wish this forum had more people like you contributing to this discussion.

Ok. I was and I am genuinely not sure what exactly to make of statements by people when they say stuff like, " good guys need guns to defend themselves against bad guys ".
I'm admittedly not the most informed on this subject.
My bold blanket statements I admit sometimes go too far.
Are people racist? Of course. Everyone is to some extent.
Or more accurately, most people are biased towards their own kind.
Bill Belichick didn't hide the fact that he liked that Rob Ninkovic was also a fellow Croatian descendent. That doesn't make Belichick a racist.
Maybe I was away from the country too long.
Maybe it doesn't help that I've otherwise only lived in Massachusetts all my life.
I think I've contributed all I have to contribute to this subject I guess.

It takes a big man to admit he's wrong

Some interesting arguments in this article: How to dramatically reduce gun violence in American cities.

It's a review of a book: Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets