My European brain can’t comprehend the lengths of which Americans are willing to go in order to not actually fix the root cause for gun shootings being an issue at schools.
Strip away the propaganda and the fascists, and 99% of who’s left would support that change. Unfortunately we’ve let them reach critical mass and they’re not known for going away peacefully.
And not just the impracticality, but the cost. Apparently one state alone is looking to spend $15m on just this technology next year. Plus all the other security theatre like school security guards, magnetic scanners, etc. Imagine how much money their schools would have to spend on actually teaching students if they weren’t spending it all on failing to keep them safe from guns.
Consider whatever it is that you believe in most fervently, and then imagine someone asking you to violate it. That’s the American brain, and it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
I don’t think the culture here will change until someone manages to leak a video of kids being gunned down in a classroom. Americans will have to literally see what this culture produces to have their hearts changed.
It could happen, especially in the age of algorithmically-elevated content.
But looking at history, there was a distinct difference in national sentiment on civil rights before and after Emmett Till’s story and coffin photos were published, so I don’t think we can completely discount the possibility of change in this particular scenario.
Why would all of us innocent people give up our right to defense while criminals just hide them away when big brother comes knocking? Thats the equivalent of posting online your address, all your belongings, then saying youre going on a trip for a week and you left the door unlocked. Stupid.
The only thing we can do is improve mental health and teach gun safety. A lot of these tragedies happen because gun owners didnt keep them locked up properly. And purchasing them needs to be made more secure.
Exactly. This is a situation where you can’t just put the genie back in the bottle. We have no method of collecting all the guns out there from law abiding citizens, much less criminals. We have a military that would quite likely defect if told to use their force to collect the guns from citizens. And like I said, a ground war against the gun owning populace of the US would be absurd and effectively impossible.
People from outside the US keep going “well why don’t you have better laws?” like we have no gun control laws. We do. They’re dumb as hell, based largely on PR and appearance of the guns rather than anything concrete like how many rounds the weapons can sling per second, and are a constant cat and mouse game in our notoriously slow legistlative process as people enjoy finding workarounds for fun.
And as you bring up, so much of the gun violence incidents are caused by people with mental illness having access to firearms, usually through family members not storing them securely.
Better mental health care. Less negative repurcissions for being diagnosed with issues. Mandatory and better gun safety courses. And life changing fines and/or jail time for the gun owner when it is used in a crime (due to not being properly secured).
Yeah yeah, I know: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”
There are ways to prevent this, or to significantly reduce it, but this is a complex issue that’s been building for at least 250 years. It’s not something so simple that the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because people just aren’t trying hard enough.
This narrative that all these complex longstanding problems in the world exist because people are too stupid to see the obvious, simple solution or because they aren’t trying hard enough is childish as hell. If the world was even remotely that simple, we’d have a very different reality.
Regulation. Active attempts at reducing the gun load. Anything more than fucking “thoughts and prayers” when all y’all get another batch of children butchered in school.
Here’s a start: licensure. Freedom of movement is part of the American constitution as well, yet you license cars, have proof of insurance, etc. Driving without a license or insurance gets you into hot water.
Now try the same with guns. With commensurately higher penalties if caught owning and using without a license. This would be literally the minimum you could do … and you don’t do even that much.
But hey, congrats on the “thoughts and prayers”. I’m sure they’ll protect you from the next insane fuckwit in a school.
Guess what, literally 5 seconds with google can show you that many states have that already!
Yes, you’re getting the AI overview, because your answer didn’t involve any effort, so why should mine?
Go on and lecture me about thoughts and prayers some more. I’m definitely one of those folks, given all I’ve typed up about this, prick.
Edit: Additionally, there are legal battles and lobbying happening on both sides of this shit constantly in the US. This group pushing for more restrictions, for more gun safety course hours needed for a permit. That group pushing for background checks to ignore non-violent crime. Some other group pushing for no restrictions at all because of the whole “shall not be infringed” line of the second amendment to our constitution.
Again, I must insist that anyone who truly believes this is due to a lack of awareness or effort hasn’t been actually paying attention. So maybe if you don’t live in the US, and you don’t have exposure to all the absurd amount of politics and shit going on here from a federal level all the way down to local community level, just maybe you should hold up a second before making huge sweeping generalizations based off gut feeling and your limited insight on the reality of things here.
rather than anything concrete like how many rounds the weapons can sling per second
every time we try those, they get shot down under either making our weapons unable to stop our military (heh like our ar15s could do that anyways) or “shalL NoT bE INFringED”
It’d be great if we could be new Zealand and turn in every gun. But they have a WAY smaller area of land and people lol.
I am always wondering how much of it is a result of the negative social media and phone addiction in young people. I know people always say “this didnt happen when I was a kid” but i feel like its true sometimes. Too lazy to look up the stats.
It also means the ceos of gun companies wont be able to own guns. Which means guns will never be banned in the us so people need to think of different solutions. I already know of a few that would probably do some good damage to the guns in school problem, but non americans are too unintelligent to think of them
non americans are too unintelligent to think of them
American exceptionalism strikes again! “Non-Americans just aren’t smart enough to solve the problem they have already solved!”
You can always tell the smart ones by their ability to come up with solutions but not share then with anyone. Big “I definately understand, but explain it for the Non-Americans” energy.
We passed gun regulations in 1934, why can’t we do it again? The same reasoning that makes it illegal for a civilian to own a grenade launcher could apply to other weapons too.
The politics landscape has changed quite a lot. What changed is that gun companies lobbies lobbied the government and bought a bunch of politicians on both sides of the aisle and they continue to lobby to this day.
They also made a big push to convince the general population that guns are necessary for home defense, hunting, personal defense/security, and other recreation. And played up those factors to the part of the population that wants to gravy seal it up.
Further, there’s an increasing lack of bipartisan support for most legislation (not just gun law). A lot has changed.
In order to change an amendment you need to take a couple of steps.
One of these is getting either a 2/3 of states to call for a constitutional convention or for 2/3 of both house and Senate to agree to ratify the amendment. So I think if you look at the political landscape of today you can certainly understand why it hasn’t happened.
It’s not even the full story. Some of the other commenters are correct in that the gun problem in America isn’t just about the laws or ability to change amendments. It’s also about the American obsession with guns. We have the same obsession with guns recreationally that some war torn nations have with them who actually need them for defense.
The memes about like. Child soldiers in Sierra Leone or Iraq showing off gun stockpiles vs American family photos with 200 guns and 12 people in America isn’t a one off thing. Our society has kind of been poisoned by guns as some kind of weird ideology. This has a lot to do with fear mongering and the gun lobby. But also with all our other systemic problems like poverty, and racism, and class warfare, and lack of universal healthcare and significant failures in even implementing mental healthcare that’s accessible.
The idea that we can just throw some gun laws at the problem is crazy because all it’s ever been is a bandaid.
Damn straight, there are so many laws stating which weapons/accessories are legal AND it does not violate the 2nd amendment, nor does it require a constitutional change.
The 10-year ban was passed by the U.S. Congress on August 25, 1994, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994.[1] The ban applied only to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban’s enactment. It expired on September 13, 2004, following its sunset provision. Several constitutional challenges were filed against provisions of the ban, but all were rejected by the courts. There have been multiple attempts to renew the ban, but none have succeeded.
I find myself arguing with my coworkers about this all the time, but I like to sum it up like this.
If there are arms you cannot bare, then the second amendment is not limitless.
So, long guns are responsible for ~4% of gun deaths (including suicides), and “assault weapons” are a subset of that 4%. And your solution is to ban them? Fine. Shave a percentage point off.
But there’s an elephant in the room. Why are we not talking about pistols? Going to need an answer on that one.
Funny note: Any European child can walk in the store and buy a suppressor. Had a German guy tell me on reddit that his gun range requires such devices. Not trying to change the subject, but maybe American gun laws are a bit out of whack? Or, more to the point, racist as fuck.
The assault weapon ban was an example of banning an ‘arm’ legally without it infringing on second amendment rights. Or the example the person I responded to posted, grenade launchers.
I’m not suggesting an ‘assault weapon ban’.
I’m pointing out that just about any ‘arm’ can be made illegal. Hell, check out your local knife laws.
Any discussion of racist gun laws is a whole other discussion, but that discussion should include Governor Ronald Reagan.
My European brain can’t comprehend the lengths of which Americans are willing to go in order to not actually fix the root cause for gun shootings being an issue at schools.
Strip away the propaganda and the fascists, and 99% of who’s left would support that change. Unfortunately we’ve let them reach critical mass and they’re not known for going away peacefully.
And not just the impracticality, but the cost. Apparently one state alone is looking to spend $15m on just this technology next year. Plus all the other security theatre like school security guards, magnetic scanners, etc. Imagine how much money their schools would have to spend on actually teaching students if they weren’t spending it all on failing to keep them safe from guns.
It’s the American way unfortunately
Guns are a civic religion here.
Consider whatever it is that you believe in most fervently, and then imagine someone asking you to violate it. That’s the American brain, and it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
I don’t think the culture here will change until someone manages to leak a video of kids being gunned down in a classroom. Americans will have to literally see what this culture produces to have their hearts changed.
Nope, wouldn’t work. They’d blame poor security, unarmed teachers, bla bla.
They think more guns is the solution to the gun problem.
It could happen, especially in the age of algorithmically-elevated content.
But looking at history, there was a distinct difference in national sentiment on civil rights before and after Emmett Till’s story and coffin photos were published, so I don’t think we can completely discount the possibility of change in this particular scenario.
Haven’t such videos been leaked already with no result other than general regret gor the inevitability of such events?
No.
I don’t think a video of the literal killing of kids has ever been leaked.
I wonder how long it would take to round up all* the guns, theoretically speaking.
*ish
I wonder how the last guerilla ground war America was in went.
Now give the guerillas even more weaponry and an absurdly larger landmass to inhabit.
The answer is that it wouldn’t be possible.
I fucking love all you non-US folks who think it would be in any way easy.
It will never work.
Because criminals wont give up their guns.
Why would all of us innocent people give up our right to defense while criminals just hide them away when big brother comes knocking? Thats the equivalent of posting online your address, all your belongings, then saying youre going on a trip for a week and you left the door unlocked. Stupid.
The only thing we can do is improve mental health and teach gun safety. A lot of these tragedies happen because gun owners didnt keep them locked up properly. And purchasing them needs to be made more secure.
Exactly. This is a situation where you can’t just put the genie back in the bottle. We have no method of collecting all the guns out there from law abiding citizens, much less criminals. We have a military that would quite likely defect if told to use their force to collect the guns from citizens. And like I said, a ground war against the gun owning populace of the US would be absurd and effectively impossible.
People from outside the US keep going “well why don’t you have better laws?” like we have no gun control laws. We do. They’re dumb as hell, based largely on PR and appearance of the guns rather than anything concrete like how many rounds the weapons can sling per second, and are a constant cat and mouse game in our notoriously slow legistlative process as people enjoy finding workarounds for fun.
And as you bring up, so much of the gun violence incidents are caused by people with mental illness having access to firearms, usually through family members not storing them securely.
Better mental health care. Less negative repurcissions for being diagnosed with issues. Mandatory and better gun safety courses. And life changing fines and/or jail time for the gun owner when it is used in a crime (due to not being properly secured).
Yeah yeah, I know: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”
There are ways to prevent this, or to significantly reduce it, but this is a complex issue that’s been building for at least 250 years. It’s not something so simple that the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because people just aren’t trying hard enough.
This narrative that all these complex longstanding problems in the world exist because people are too stupid to see the obvious, simple solution or because they aren’t trying hard enough is childish as hell. If the world was even remotely that simple, we’d have a very different reality.
You’re right. It’s not because they’re not trying hard enough. It’s because they’re not trying to do anything serious about it at all.
If it’s easier for you to believe that, it says a lot more about you than them.
In your eyes, what would be “trying to do something serious about it” that isn’t happening?
Regulation. Active attempts at reducing the gun load. Anything more than fucking “thoughts and prayers” when all y’all get another batch of children butchered in school.
Here’s a start: licensure. Freedom of movement is part of the American constitution as well, yet you license cars, have proof of insurance, etc. Driving without a license or insurance gets you into hot water.
Now try the same with guns. With commensurately higher penalties if caught owning and using without a license. This would be literally the minimum you could do … and you don’t do even that much.
But hey, congrats on the “thoughts and prayers”. I’m sure they’ll protect you from the next insane fuckwit in a school.
Guess what, literally 5 seconds with google can show you that many states have that already!
Yes, you’re getting the AI overview, because your answer didn’t involve any effort, so why should mine?
Go on and lecture me about thoughts and prayers some more. I’m definitely one of those folks, given all I’ve typed up about this, prick.
Edit: Additionally, there are legal battles and lobbying happening on both sides of this shit constantly in the US. This group pushing for more restrictions, for more gun safety course hours needed for a permit. That group pushing for background checks to ignore non-violent crime. Some other group pushing for no restrictions at all because of the whole “shall not be infringed” line of the second amendment to our constitution.
Again, I must insist that anyone who truly believes this is due to a lack of awareness or effort hasn’t been actually paying attention. So maybe if you don’t live in the US, and you don’t have exposure to all the absurd amount of politics and shit going on here from a federal level all the way down to local community level, just maybe you should hold up a second before making huge sweeping generalizations based off gut feeling and your limited insight on the reality of things here.
every time we try those, they get shot down under either making our weapons unable to stop our military (heh like our ar15s could do that anyways) or “shalL NoT bE INFringED”
You nailed it.
It’d be great if we could be new Zealand and turn in every gun. But they have a WAY smaller area of land and people lol.
I am always wondering how much of it is a result of the negative social media and phone addiction in young people. I know people always say “this didnt happen when I was a kid” but i feel like its true sometimes. Too lazy to look up the stats.
it would take as long as the will of the population supports it. like anywhere else.
decades.
It also means the ceos of gun companies wont be able to own guns. Which means guns will never be banned in the us so people need to think of different solutions. I already know of a few that would probably do some good damage to the guns in school problem, but non americans are too unintelligent to think of them
American exceptionalism strikes again! “Non-Americans just aren’t smart enough to solve the problem they have already solved!”
You can always tell the smart ones by their ability to come up with solutions but not share then with anyone. Big “I definately understand, but explain it for the Non-Americans” energy.
Non-Americans, not being psychopathic ammosexuals, don’t have to think of them. Only the psychopathic ammosexuals of the USA have to worry about it.
And your solution? First consider these facts:
The 2nd amendment exists
The courts have always upheld it to mean the right to personal gun ownership
The Constitution is very hard to change.
Well?
We passed gun regulations in 1934, why can’t we do it again? The same reasoning that makes it illegal for a civilian to own a grenade launcher could apply to other weapons too.
The politics landscape has changed quite a lot. What changed is that gun companies
lobbieslobbied the government and bought a bunch of politicians on both sides of the aisle and they continue to lobby to this day.They also made a big push to convince the general population that guns are necessary for home defense, hunting, personal defense/security, and other recreation. And played up those factors to the part of the population that wants to gravy seal it up.
Further, there’s an increasing lack of bipartisan support for most legislation (not just gun law). A lot has changed.
In order to change an amendment you need to take a couple of steps.
One of these is getting either a 2/3 of states to call for a constitutional convention or for 2/3 of both house and Senate to agree to ratify the amendment. So I think if you look at the political landscape of today you can certainly understand why it hasn’t happened.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution
This is one of the most factual, and sane, takes I’ve ever seen regarding America and guns. Bravo.
It’s not even the full story. Some of the other commenters are correct in that the gun problem in America isn’t just about the laws or ability to change amendments. It’s also about the American obsession with guns. We have the same obsession with guns recreationally that some war torn nations have with them who actually need them for defense.
The memes about like. Child soldiers in Sierra Leone or Iraq showing off gun stockpiles vs American family photos with 200 guns and 12 people in America isn’t a one off thing. Our society has kind of been poisoned by guns as some kind of weird ideology. This has a lot to do with fear mongering and the gun lobby. But also with all our other systemic problems like poverty, and racism, and class warfare, and lack of universal healthcare and significant failures in even implementing mental healthcare that’s accessible.
The idea that we can just throw some gun laws at the problem is crazy because all it’s ever been is a bandaid.
Thank you. Been saying for years America doesn’t have a gun problem, we have a culture problem.
Damn straight, there are so many laws stating which weapons/accessories are legal AND it does not violate the 2nd amendment, nor does it require a constitutional change.
Example: Federal Assault Weapons Ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
I find myself arguing with my coworkers about this all the time, but I like to sum it up like this.
If there are arms you cannot bare, then the second amendment is not limitless.
So, long guns are responsible for ~4% of gun deaths (including suicides), and “assault weapons” are a subset of that 4%. And your solution is to ban them? Fine. Shave a percentage point off.
But there’s an elephant in the room. Why are we not talking about pistols? Going to need an answer on that one.
Funny note: Any European child can walk in the store and buy a suppressor. Had a German guy tell me on reddit that his gun range requires such devices. Not trying to change the subject, but maybe American gun laws are a bit out of whack? Or, more to the point, racist as fuck.
The assault weapon ban was an example of banning an ‘arm’ legally without it infringing on second amendment rights. Or the example the person I responded to posted, grenade launchers.
I’m not suggesting an ‘assault weapon ban’.
I’m pointing out that just about any ‘arm’ can be made illegal. Hell, check out your local knife laws.
Any discussion of racist gun laws is a whole other discussion, but that discussion should include Governor Ronald Reagan.
We have overall laxer gun regulations in Czechia than you do in the US and we have no school shootings. You seem to have misidentified the root cause.
Not at all! I’ve seen what’s for sale in Czechia, same as here. So, what’s the problem?
The United States is a sick country. We’re sick, literally and figuratively.
That was my point, which I didn’t really make.
About every other country has guns, so what’s our fucking problem?!
"It’s hard, wahhh, guess we’ll just deal with all the death and stupidity. "-America
You sound insane. All of you. Good luck. Thoughts and prayers.