Little Canyon Creek
Active member
There has been a lot of posts linking a lack of religion to this issue. It isn't surprising that this has been brought up so much as America is one of the most religious of the industrialized countries and it sounds like a good, common sense argument. However, I also don't think this argument holds water because these mass shootings don't happen with the same frequency in Europe, where people are less religious on average than Americans.
I am also skeptical that it we can just lay this blame on the media people digest. People in Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada and other places digest a lot of the same media that we do. They play the same video games and they watch the same movies, or at least movies with similar levels of violence. You could make some argument that there are cultural differences between Europe and Asia and the United States and that maybe there is some cultural tick that makes us more predisposed to committing mass shootings after consuming violent media. But Canada is right next door, and I have a hard time believing Canadians are so drastically different from Americans as to explain the gulf of mass shootings between our countries.
I think the argument that there has been a disruption of the family dynamic is important to this debate. I remember reading an article in the last year that stated that much of the growth of the economy since the 1970s was due to women entering the workforce in mass. My generation (those dang millenials) is going to be in for a bumpy ride unless things change relatively quickly. There are more women than men earning college degrees today and continuing to expect women to work the same jobs as men for less pay while also being the families primary caretaker just doesn't seem like a situation that can persist for much longer. Something needs to give. But at the same time, the rest of the industrialized world went through the same changes we did at roughly the same time and they haven't had the same problem of mass shootings like we have had. So either Europe has done a better job balancing a healthy family life with having women work than we have, or that isn't really the main cause of this problem.
There has been a lot of comments stating that criminals will find ways to commit crimes, so outlawing firearms will do nothing. I think this argument really rests on the idea of these crimes being premeditated with extensive commitment and planning. Some of these mass shootings do seem to fit this criteria. The Arvada theater shooting, Columbine, and the recent Las Vegas shooting all were premeditated, or at least have strong evidence of premeditation in the case of the Las Vegas shooting. But a lot of these school shootings don't seem to show extensive planning beforehand. Sandy Hook is the clearest example in my mind that didn't seem to show very extensive planning. The kid just seemed to have mental health issues and easy access to assault weapons. This seems to be exactly the kind of situation that by limiting access to assault weapons, we could have a real impact in curtailing these crimes. I really think the argument that criminals will find ways to access these weapons is trying to take the NRA's argument against gun control as relating to gang violence and forcing it onto these mass shootings. If this argument was true, I think that Canada would see a rate of mass shootings at least approaching that of the United States. We are just across the border and it wouldn't be too hard to smuggle an illegal assault weapon if the person wanted it. But that isn't born by the data (0.48 deaths per thousand versus 3.85 for the US).
The 2nd amendment is really outdated. It made more sense when the difference between the army of the worlds biggest super power and a rag tag group of colonials was some training and more reliable supplies. The idea that a militia of average citizens could stand up to the army of a nuclear power and expect to pull off the same feat that we did in 1776 is just unrealistic and has been so for a while. Instead, we are handcuffed by a special interest group (partly funded by Russians) screaming about protecting individual liberty which hampers our ability to find a solution to the issue, even if it is only a 80% or even 20% of a solution. At the end of the day 20% of a solution is better than 0% of a solution, which is where we currently sit.
I am also skeptical that it we can just lay this blame on the media people digest. People in Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada and other places digest a lot of the same media that we do. They play the same video games and they watch the same movies, or at least movies with similar levels of violence. You could make some argument that there are cultural differences between Europe and Asia and the United States and that maybe there is some cultural tick that makes us more predisposed to committing mass shootings after consuming violent media. But Canada is right next door, and I have a hard time believing Canadians are so drastically different from Americans as to explain the gulf of mass shootings between our countries.
I think the argument that there has been a disruption of the family dynamic is important to this debate. I remember reading an article in the last year that stated that much of the growth of the economy since the 1970s was due to women entering the workforce in mass. My generation (those dang millenials) is going to be in for a bumpy ride unless things change relatively quickly. There are more women than men earning college degrees today and continuing to expect women to work the same jobs as men for less pay while also being the families primary caretaker just doesn't seem like a situation that can persist for much longer. Something needs to give. But at the same time, the rest of the industrialized world went through the same changes we did at roughly the same time and they haven't had the same problem of mass shootings like we have had. So either Europe has done a better job balancing a healthy family life with having women work than we have, or that isn't really the main cause of this problem.
There has been a lot of comments stating that criminals will find ways to commit crimes, so outlawing firearms will do nothing. I think this argument really rests on the idea of these crimes being premeditated with extensive commitment and planning. Some of these mass shootings do seem to fit this criteria. The Arvada theater shooting, Columbine, and the recent Las Vegas shooting all were premeditated, or at least have strong evidence of premeditation in the case of the Las Vegas shooting. But a lot of these school shootings don't seem to show extensive planning beforehand. Sandy Hook is the clearest example in my mind that didn't seem to show very extensive planning. The kid just seemed to have mental health issues and easy access to assault weapons. This seems to be exactly the kind of situation that by limiting access to assault weapons, we could have a real impact in curtailing these crimes. I really think the argument that criminals will find ways to access these weapons is trying to take the NRA's argument against gun control as relating to gang violence and forcing it onto these mass shootings. If this argument was true, I think that Canada would see a rate of mass shootings at least approaching that of the United States. We are just across the border and it wouldn't be too hard to smuggle an illegal assault weapon if the person wanted it. But that isn't born by the data (0.48 deaths per thousand versus 3.85 for the US).
The 2nd amendment is really outdated. It made more sense when the difference between the army of the worlds biggest super power and a rag tag group of colonials was some training and more reliable supplies. The idea that a militia of average citizens could stand up to the army of a nuclear power and expect to pull off the same feat that we did in 1776 is just unrealistic and has been so for a while. Instead, we are handcuffed by a special interest group (partly funded by Russians) screaming about protecting individual liberty which hampers our ability to find a solution to the issue, even if it is only a 80% or even 20% of a solution. At the end of the day 20% of a solution is better than 0% of a solution, which is where we currently sit.
