socaltownie said:
wifeisafurd said:
To the extent you believe there is more political violence today (which is very hard to statistically demonstrate), and to the extent you believe polls, there is now a new reality of many more Americans willing to undertake, support, or excuse political violence, and you need look no further than posts in this thread. The two main political parties and media in their move away from the middle have triggered a variety of social events and perspectives that purposefully ignite or rationalize violent partisan political behavior. And as aways is the case here, another discussion dominated byTrump.
There was another school shooting yesterday that was lost in the news regarding the Kirk shooting. As is always the case here, there seems to be a discussion about gun reform around these events, which remains just that, discussion. Especially on a national level. It is pretty clear than local bans in selling guns or ammunition due very little other than maybe drop the local suicide rates, and may not be constitutional. Moreover it is generally constitutional to transport firearms or ammunition across state or city lines (you must comply with each jurisdiction's law regarding possession such as storage regulations), which renders local laws impotent. I'm not an expert in the area, but it seems that any laws that would effectively impact assassins or school shooters basically runs afoul of how SCOTUS currently interprets the constitution, not to mention there is the Federal Firearms Owners' Protection Act, which prevents any local action. This doesn't even begin to look at why the US is such a violent society (okay, Bearister may want to stop toxic male behavior). That goes way, way beyond just gun culture. But it is easy to see how this is happening looking at this thread.
So....I would really recommend (if only because it is such a smartly designed natural experiment test). Jens Ludwig's Unforgiving Places that looks at Crime data from Chicago. It lays out a compelling empirical case for how much violence (not yesterday, not school shootings) is a function of Fast Thinking. Essentially 10 minute windows of people making bad choices in a time of high stress. The neat way they frame this is that these interactions happen at a near similar rate across the two neighborhoods but in one there are conditions that help deescalate more of them and in another those conditions are lacking.
Framed this way - and if the goal is really to decrease murder rates and reduce gun violence - gun "control" as framed may not be the right way. But trigger locks, liability for accidental shootings (thus incentiving gun lockers), eliminating open carry laws, etc. really WOULD be effective because the idea is to reduce chances that arguments and the presence of type 1 thinking escalate.
This is a nice short popular piece that might peak your interest.
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/reducing-gun-violence-requires-thinking-differently
Assassinations, political violence and mass school shooting generally are premeditated, as you appear to point out, which suggests in fact gun laws are not going to work to much on an individual who is committed to shooting someone.
The article you posted indicates that most gun violence is in fact not premeditated, but due to escalation where there is no de-escalation, and someone has a gun. In other words not economic situations or other reasons often given for gun crime. It is committed primarily by young people who make stupid quick decisions in difficult situations. I'm not sure how you measure this. I'm sure most folks convicted of a shooting crime want to tell themselves and others, that it was just a bad moment where things got out of hand, not that I'm that type of person. But assume you take the leap that 80% of so of gun violence is quick irrational and overreaction decisions primarily by teens and young adults. There is some science behind this: prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control and judgment, may not fully mature until age 25 or 26. This suggests that a higher minimum age could reduce impulsive, dangerous behavior. Moreover, young adults, particularly those aged 18 to 25, have a highest rate of both perpetrating and being victims of firearm violence. So then the remedy to this is what again? Eliminating carry laws, so that the shooters just have to conceal their weapons? I suppose it is not that simple, a showing of guns can is some cases result in shooting responses, but in most situations if some one is so angry they want to shoot you, is the conceal-ability of their weapon really going to stop them?
Isn't the obvious action something like raising the age limit for gun use to say 27? And somehow enforcing this age ban in various different manners I guess. We have civlii liability laws in some states already for parents and parents or others that gave guns to kids (or at least didn't secure their guns) are getting charged with felonies. Make schools require classes in deescalation? Does any of this make sense? Minimum age laws can be limited by how easily young people can get firearms from informal or black-market sources or for that matter the US constitution maybe is a barrier. There are after all an estimated 400 million firearms in the US. How hard would it be for a 25 years old to get a gun really? The analysis of that most crime is in essence the young and dumb acting to quickly may be correct, but I'm just not seeing that effective of a remedy to the problem being presented.
Note to lawyers, my use of the term "premeditation" is not the legal term that is simply a conscious decision, often involving some time to reflect and deliberate before the act occurred that may in legal terms be seconds. It is meant in the context of this article something like a plan to commit murder, not as the article points out a 10 minute escalation of events that leads to shootings.