School shootings and widespread community gun violence are far greater in the United States than other nations. America cannot be great and realize its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if our children are not safe from gun violence.

Although security measures are important, a focus on simply preparing for shootings is insufficient. We need a change in mindset and policy from reaction to prevention. Prevention entails more than security measures and begins long before a gunman comes to school. We need a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence that is informed by scientific evidence and free from partisan politics.

A public health approach to protecting children as well as adults from gun violence involves three levels of prevention: (1) universal approaches promoting safety and well-being for everyone; (2) practices for reducing risk and promoting protective factors for persons experiencing difficulties; and (3) interventions for individuals where violence is present or appears imminent.

...

https://curry.virginia.edu/prevent-gun-violence

There is a huge list of professional organization endorsing this approach.

This is what it will take.

I wonder if there’s enough dead kids yet.

I'd support it.

The_Metatron wrote:

School shootings and widespread community gun violence are far greater in the United States than other nations. America cannot be great and realize its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if our children are not safe from gun violence.

Although security measures are important, a focus on simply preparing for shootings is insufficient. We need a change in mindset and policy from reaction to prevention. Prevention entails more than security measures and begins long before a gunman comes to school. We need a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence that is informed by scientific evidence and free from partisan politics.

A public health approach to protecting children as well as adults from gun violence involves three levels of prevention: (1) universal approaches promoting safety and well-being for everyone; (2) practices for reducing risk and promoting protective factors for persons experiencing difficulties; and (3) interventions for individuals where violence is present or appears imminent.

...

https://curry.virginia.edu/prevent-gun-violence

There is a huge list of professional organization endorsing this approach.

This is what it will take.

I wonder if there’s enough dead kids yet.

I sincerely wish them luck. They are battling people who apparently think the US Constitution is a holy scripture, in which God granted them the right to own lethal weapons. There are not many arguments that are going to penetrate that mental bunker.

Blackadder wrote:I sincerely wish them luck. They are battling people who apparently think the US Constitution is a holy scripture, in which God granted them the right to own lethal weapons. There are not many arguments that are going to penetrate that mental bunker.

That's great, Blackadder. Your good wishes and a pound of cheese will still weigh a pound. If you don't know how to penetrate the mental bunker, you're just thumbing your nose. You said there are not many arguments. Surely you know which those are. Be a big man and show us all.

One difference between US society and some other societies is that it is actually illegal in the latter to threaten someone else with violence or coercion. One big step the US can take is to make the same sorts of legal strictures against proposing violence. That would wrap up some of the people who keep on pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. It won't collect everyone, Stephen Paddock, for instance. Even societies that have outlawed this kind of bullying still experience occasional violence. But it really puts a damper on those who have feelings they think they can't control. However, it is a big step to change the US attitude about freedom of expression, including expression of malice. Freedom of expression is, for a lot of folks, including some here, Ariadne's thread leading out of the labyrinth.

Think about it. The US attitude is at least in part a resistance to the notion that only the state has the power to enforce. It's a deep divide on the individual vs. the state. Lots of local US police forces know there is not a basic respect for the law. You'd probably agree with them, because in the US the law is engineered by the wealthy. Oh, look. It's Scot Dutchy's magic roundabout.

Cito di Pense wrote:One difference between US society and some other societies is that it is actually illegal in the latter to threaten someone else with violence or coercion.

That's an interesting perspective. Care to give examples of what you mean? I'd be interested in what specific kinds of behaviour you're talking about, and examples of jurisdictions in which that behaviour would be treated differently. On a cursory inspection, I just picked out a US state (Oklahoma) and looked at their assault law, which strikes me as almost identical to my own jurisdiction (NSW, Australia), but Australia doesn't have a great record on assault rates either so perhaps there are places that are better than both with laws worth looking at.

Although, you know, there's a problem with the "it isn't the guns" argument if a country with high assault rates like Australia still manages to have minimal gun violence (and, as a corollary, a homicide rate around five times lower than that of the US).

The_Metatron wrote:

School shootings and widespread community gun violence are far greater in the United States than other nations. America cannot be great and realize its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if our children are not safe from gun violence.

Although security measures are important, a focus on simply preparing for shootings is insufficient. We need a change in mindset and policy from reaction to prevention. Prevention entails more than security measures and begins long before a gunman comes to school. We need a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence that is informed by scientific evidence and free from partisan politics.

A public health approach to protecting children as well as adults from gun violence involves three levels of prevention: (1) universal approaches promoting safety and well-being for everyone; (2) practices for reducing risk and promoting protective factors for persons experiencing difficulties; and (3) interventions for individuals where violence is present or appears imminent.

...

https://curry.virginia.edu/prevent-gun-violence

There is a huge list of professional organization endorsing this approach.

This is what it will take.

I wonder if there’s enough dead kids yet.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but this is NOT what it will take. Looking a gun violence as a public heath issue, borrowing methodology from epidemiology, is something that's been done to death for decades (here's an example from last century), and despite the good sense in doing so, has achieved little. If anything different is going to happen this time, then there will have to be some other new factor in the mix. The ability of the Parkland survivors to maintain their public rage may be that thing.

OlivierK wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:One difference between US society and some other societies is that it is actually illegal in the latter to threaten someone else with violence or coercion.

That's an interesting perspective. Care to give examples of what you mean? I'd be interested in what specific kinds of behaviour you're talking about, and examples of jurisdictions in which that behaviour would be treated differently. On a cursory inspection, I just picked out a US state (Oklahoma) and looked at their assault law, which strikes me as almost identical to my own jurisdiction (NSW, Australia), but Australia doesn't have a great record on assault rates either so perhaps there are places that are better than both with laws worth looking at.

Although, you know, there's a problem with the "it isn't the guns" argument if a country with high assault rates like Australia still manages to have minimal gun violence (and, as a corollary, a homicide rate around five times lower than that of the US).

I've sent you a PM with some details.

OlivierK wrote:

The_Metatron wrote:

School shootings and widespread community gun violence are far greater in the United States than other nations. America cannot be great and realize its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if our children are not safe from gun violence.

Although security measures are important, a focus on simply preparing for shootings is insufficient. We need a change in mindset and policy from reaction to prevention. Prevention entails more than security measures and begins long before a gunman comes to school. We need a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence that is informed by scientific evidence and free from partisan politics.

A public health approach to protecting children as well as adults from gun violence involves three levels of prevention: (1) universal approaches promoting safety and well-being for everyone; (2) practices for reducing risk and promoting protective factors for persons experiencing difficulties; and (3) interventions for individuals where violence is present or appears imminent.

...

https://curry.virginia.edu/prevent-gun-violence

There is a huge list of professional organization endorsing this approach.

This is what it will take.

I wonder if there’s enough dead kids yet.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but this is NOT what it will take. Looking a gun violence as a public heath issue, borrowing methodology from epidemiology, is something that's been done to death for decades (here's an example from last century), and despite the good sense in doing so, has achieved little. If anything different is going to happen this time, then there will have to be some other new factor in the mix. The ability of the Parkland survivors to maintain their public rage may be that thing.

I have read that the NRA has successfully prevented public money being spent on the statistical gathering of gun related deaths.

Does this negatively affect the analysis of gun crime being viewed as a public health issue?

Why USA or any single state cant go to referendum on that problem ?

I mean if the people who want gun control are higher in number and still they cant pass the laws they want, how can anyone call that a democracy ?

aliihsanasl wrote:Why USA or any single state cant go to referendum on that problem ?

I mean if the people who want gun control are higher in number and still they cant pass the laws they want, how can anyone call that a democracy ?

As already noted in other threads on gun violence and gun control, we can enact laws until the cows come home; we still have to implement all these fine laws.

Direct democracy, referendum, plebiscite are means of channeling public rage.

I'm quite interested in exploring the reliability of public rage as a force for positive social change. On the one hand, it ended the US involvement in Vietnam and ended legalized racial segregation in several societies without requiring a referendum. On the other, it led to the Brexit campaign and the election of Donald Trump. You may have your own examples available to analyze in Turkey, but you can see an erosion of sorts going on with the passage of time.

I guess public rage is smart when it achieves good and stupid when it achieves evil. Rage is just a means of showing how right you think you are, which is about what calling one's society a democracy is good for. What ended Soviet rule in Russia? Did whatever it was end living under authoritarian rule in Russian society at large?

Cito di Pense wrote:

aliihsanasl wrote:Why USA or any single state cant go to referendum on that problem ?

I mean if the people who want gun control are higher in number and still they cant pass the laws they want, how can anyone call that a democracy ?

As already noted in other threads on gun violence and gun control, we can enact laws until the cows come home; we still have to implement all these fine laws.

Direct democracy, referendum, plebiscite are means of channeling public rage.

I'm quite interested in exploring the reliability of public rage as a force for positive social change. On the one hand, it ended the US involvement in Vietnam and ended legalized racial segregation in several societies without requiring a referendum. On the other, it led to the Brexit campaign and the election of Donald Trump. You may have your own examples available to analyze in Turkey, but you can see an erosion of sorts going on with the passage of time.

I guess public rage is smart when it achieves good and stupid when it achieves evil. Rage is just a means of showing how right you think you are, which is about what calling one's society a democracy is good for. What ended Soviet rule in Russia? Did whatever it was end living under authoritarian rule in Russian society at large?

Public rage (Gezi park protests) caused Erdoğan to step back from giving the most expansive piece of land in İstanbul to his beloved contracter. On the leaked phone call contractor was saying "we'll screw all these people's mother when we get it"

aliihsanasl wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

aliihsanasl wrote:Why USA or any single state cant go to referendum on that problem ?

I mean if the people who want gun control are higher in number and still they cant pass the laws they want, how can anyone call that a democracy ?

As already noted in other threads on gun violence and gun control, we can enact laws until the cows come home; we still have to implement all these fine laws.

Direct democracy, referendum, plebiscite are means of channeling public rage.

I'm quite interested in exploring the reliability of public rage as a force for positive social change. On the one hand, it ended the US involvement in Vietnam and ended legalized racial segregation in several societies without requiring a referendum. On the other, it led to the Brexit campaign and the election of Donald Trump. You may have your own examples available to analyze in Turkey, but you can see an erosion of sorts going on with the passage of time.

I guess public rage is smart when it achieves good and stupid when it achieves evil. Rage is just a means of showing how right you think you are, which is about what calling one's society a democracy is good for. What ended Soviet rule in Russia? Did whatever it was end living under authoritarian rule in Russian society at large?

Public rage (Gezi park protests) caused Erdoğan to step back from giving the most expansive piece of land in İstanbul to his beloved contracter. On the leaked phone call contractor was saying "we'll screw all these people's mother when we get it"

Sorry, I was only responding to your question about why there isn't a referendum to change gun laws if that is the will of the people. Rehashing civic scandals over land use in Istanbul is not useful for solving the firearms crisis in the US. There is corruption in both cases, sure, but you can see how much easier it is to exercise damage-control in your chosen example, in which one politician and one businessman are simply sucking each other's cocks.

There's no constitutional mechanism for a referendum on a Federal level, so they'd need to organize one in each state. I imagine the results would be easily predictable. "Y'all want them Damn Yankee Federales a'rootin' through yer cabin and a'takin' yer guns?"

Remember it only requires 17 states to block a constitutional amendment.

We don’t need to create an amendment. We need the courts to cite that the 2nd is exclusively for a militia and is talking about a well regulated entity, not the rabble. Back in the day when states drew their militia from local communities and the population was sparse.

Unbeknownst to the drafters of the 2nd amendment the concept of a large standing army the size and scope of the current US military would have boggled their minds. It is an antiquated part of the constitution...but so is the 3/5th compromise.

It is rather ironic that the people who claim to be constitutionalits tend to be the most creative in trying to force their ideology into the intentions of the Founding Fathers.

Well, you might need that, but I certainly don't. I'm quite happy to keep and bear. Invalidating the 2nd for individuals would reverse over a century of SCOTUS rulings, which is not something they like to do, nor with the current composition of the court something they are likely to do. Regulate, yes. Ban "assault weapons", possibly. Deny individuals the right to keep and bear arms - not a snowball's chance in hell.

laklak wrote:Deny individuals the right to keep and bear arms - not a snowball's chance in hell.

It's one of those things that give "American exceptionalism" some of its bite, both as a source and as a consequence. And, if it's one of those reasons that police are sometimes inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, so be it. The US of A has much worse problems at the moment than disarming the general public. The downside is that a lot of pistol packin' papas don't give a fuck how the government runs (or doesn't) and just try to stay out of its way.

laklak wrote:Well, you might need that, but I certainly don't. I'm quite happy to keep and bear. Invalidating the 2nd for individuals would reverse over a century of SCOTUS rulings, which is not something they like to do, nor with the current composition of the court something they are likely to do. Regulate, yes. Ban "assault weapons", possibly. Deny individuals the right to keep and bear arms - not a snowball's chance in hell.

It doesn't though.

Bolt action firearms and the like are not cause for much concern as they are not used frequently for crime. No one is saying they cannot have a gun, but the nonsense that they need urban paramilitary firearms due to the 2nd is not true.

Everytime there is a mass shooting people throw the statistics that knives and clubs kill more than the AR-15 per year. Sure. That is statistically true, but the AR-15 is the gun of choice for these mass shooters. Why? Because it is simple to use, is impersonal, and can do a lot of devastation quickly.

Chemically made bombs are more often than not duds in the planning. Knife attacks can be lived through and are not quite as effective. If these other methods were so easy as well to the AR-15 why choose the expensive gun and ammo route?

Furthermore, it was not over a century of SCOTUS rulings that would be overturned but only several decades worth. Big difference.

willhud9 wrote:

laklak wrote:Well, you might need that, but I certainly don't. I'm quite happy to keep and bear. Invalidating the 2nd for individuals would reverse over a century of SCOTUS rulings, which is not something they like to do, nor with the current composition of the court something they are likely to do. Regulate, yes. Ban "assault weapons", possibly. Deny individuals the right to keep and bear arms - not a snowball's chance in hell.

It doesn't though.

Bolt action firearms and the like are not cause for much concern as they are not used frequently for crime. No one is saying they cannot have a gun, but the nonsense that they need urban paramilitary firearms due to the 2nd is not true.

Everytime there is a mass shooting people throw the statistics that knives and clubs kill more than the AR-15 per year. Sure. That is statistically true, but the AR-15 is the gun of choice for these mass shooters. Why? Because it is simple to use, is impersonal, and can do a lot of devastation quickly.

Chemically made bombs are more often than not duds in the planning. Knife attacks can be lived through and are not quite as effective. If these other methods were so easy as well to the AR-15 why choose the expensive gun and ammo route?

Furthermore, it was not over a century of SCOTUS rulings that would be overturned but only several decades worth. Big difference.

Wouldn't have been so easy to kill 17 schoolkids with a knife I'd imagine or the 58 in Vegas.

willhud9 wrote:We don’t need to create an amendment. We need the courts to cite that the 2nd is exclusively for a militia and is talking about a well regulated entity, not the rabble. Back in the day when states drew their militia from local communities and the population was sparse.

Unbeknownst to the drafters of the 2nd amendment the concept of a large standing army the size and scope of the current US military would have boggled their minds. It is an antiquated part of the constitution...but so is the 3/5th compromise.

It is rather ironic that the people who claim to be constitutionalits tend to be the most creative in trying to force their ideology into the intentions of the Founding Fathers.

I find it a bit amusing when people toss around phrases like "the founding fathers" and their intentions as if they were all wise and caring and all agreed on what was the best way to go about making a government almost from scratch.

A new government free to change the rules as it saw fit was a scary proposal to some, but a wet dream to others. The constitution of the United States of America is a severely flawed document. It restricted the vote and hence government to a selected few, allowed for slavery, established the apparatus for gerrymandering... We could throw out everything other than the preamble to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and have a just and fair government regardless of the details of that governance.

The Bill of Rights is a list of ten things that the federal government absolutely can't do and the preamble is why.

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

#1 The federal government can't tell you what to believe or say, where you can say it, who you can say it to, or how many.

#2 The federal government can't restrict gun ownership.

#3 The federal government can't make you house and or feed federal soldiers.

#4 The federal government can't go fishing for evidence of wrongdoing.

#5, 6, and 7 The federal government can't punish anyone before jumping through a shit load of hoops.

#8 The federal government can't torture anyone.

#9 The federal government can't claim you don't have a right just because it isn't in the constitution.

#10 The federal government can't make up new powers not included in the constitution.

Ever wonder why the 2nd amendment is the only one of the Bill of Rights that begins with a qualifier? I have. It's been treated as nearly meaningless from the beginning so why even have it at the beginning of the sentence? It's because, while he wanted a centralized government of a federation of states, James Madison also wanted not only the right for a state to throw off bonds of tyranny he wanted them to have the means. The means for a state to fight off it's own federal government generally and specifically a federal army.

Madison calculated that the largest standing army the federal government could support would be 30,000 widely dispersed soldiers with muskets and cannons. He then calculated that between the states there would be at least 500,000 able bodied men keeping similar arms living in communities keeping cannons.

If we followed the logic and intent of one of the most influential of "the founding fathers" full auto assault rifles would be legal. As would rocket propelled grenades, tanks, and fighter bombers. Madison would want the general population to be at least 15 times better armed than the military, and that includes the national guard.

Alan C wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

laklak wrote:Well, you might need that, but I certainly don't. I'm quite happy to keep and bear. Invalidating the 2nd for individuals would reverse over a century of SCOTUS rulings, which is not something they like to do, nor with the current composition of the court something they are likely to do. Regulate, yes. Ban "assault weapons", possibly. Deny individuals the right to keep and bear arms - not a snowball's chance in hell.

It doesn't though.

Bolt action firearms and the like are not cause for much concern as they are not used frequently for crime. No one is saying they cannot have a gun, but the nonsense that they need urban paramilitary firearms due to the 2nd is not true.

Everytime there is a mass shooting people throw the statistics that knives and clubs kill more than the AR-15 per year. Sure. That is statistically true, but the AR-15 is the gun of choice for these mass shooters. Why? Because it is simple to use, is impersonal, and can do a lot of devastation quickly.

Chemically made bombs are more often than not duds in the planning. Knife attacks can be lived through and are not quite as effective. If these other methods were so easy as well to the AR-15 why choose the expensive gun and ammo route?

Furthermore, it was not over a century of SCOTUS rulings that would be overturned but only several decades worth. Big difference.

Wouldn't have been so easy to kill 17 schoolkids with a knife I'd imagine or the 58 in Vegas.

Ted Bundy killed at least 30 people with clubs and knives. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 using gardening supplies.