Then we need to figure out which numbers are correct. That shouldn't be rocket science. But either way, hysteria still isn't the way forward...it never is.

I won't attempt to debate any of the points made in your article, as I'm not authority on the subject myself, but thanks for linking it.

However, you might find this article written by a former member of the FiveThirtyEight team interesting:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-...

Is there some minimal number of school shootings that's acceptable? My position is that we clearly have shown that this country cannot be trusted with personal possession of firearms, so let's all calmly proceed towards no longer having them around.

Less is always better, and so we should jump on board with efforts that will reduce them.

At the same time, it was laid out in the Federalist Papers (No. 46) that the intention of our Second Amendment is to protect against government tyranny. To summarize the American philosophy: School shootings and gun violence are awful, but the possibility of a genocide or enslavement is worse.

I'm not enough of an expert in any field to speculate which is objectively better, however I've always personally believed that the U.S. will be safer when viewed in a longer timescale compared to our neighbors.

Is there some minimal number of fatal auto accidents that's acceptable? My position is that we clearly have shown that this country cannot be trusted with personal possession of motor vehicles, so let's all calmly proceed towards no longer having them around.

But there ARE actions taken to prevent accidents. Anti-texting campaigns, DUI enforcement, street planning efforts, safer cars, signage and reflective material on roads. These things have undoubtedly saved some lives.

But when it comes to guns we just throw up ours hands and say whaddya gonna do.

There are actions taken to prevent mass shootings. Background checks, mandatory waiting periods, gun free zones, banning certain guns.

Stop acting like there are no laws about guns, as that's ridiculous. Funny how in Parkland and it seems even with the YouTube office the police were aware of threats these people posed and did nothing. Seems like there should be more scrutiny put on the police, instead of a push to rely on them to defend the public; something they aren't even legally obligated to do.

Now this I can get behind.

Car companies fought against seat belts.

hear, hear!

My position is governments can't be trusted with prohibiting citizens from owning firearms, so let's keep them around.

My question: How the hell are you going to use your hand gun against a lot of pretty well trained soldiers with much better guns?

Even in this very unlikely case your gun is going to be very useless. Maybe you could shoot yourself.

The down side of having guns in many (dumb/unstable) people's hands is pretty well discussed already.

This, and the "but the government has nukes" argument, assumes the only scenarios are "no resistance" or "all-out war". In reality there's likely a step function where even the possibility of some armed resistance would go a long way in dissuading a would-be tyrannical government, especially in this age where anyone can instantly broadcast video across the globe.

That assumes a large enough portion of the population that wants to resist owns guns. I wish more liberals (especially groups likely to be persecuted) owned guns for this reason.

That ignores the psychological factor and assumes those soldiers will just follow the order. I don't think that would be the case, particularly as they're the type of people that typically own multiple firearms personally.

Beyond that, it is like people have never heard of guerilla warfare. The United States is a vast area and lots of it is lightly inhabited. It would be very difficult to suppress an insurrection.

Wooolllvvveeerrrinnneesss!!!

The article you linked seems to make reference only to school shootings, while the article posted in response to you doesn’t limit itself in such a way.

Both numbers are correct- the person you replied to misread the original commenter's comment.

You're comparing two different numbers. The parent is referring to net firearm crimes while the data you cited is "mass shooting deaths".

If you check CDC data through 2016 (https://wonder.cdc.gov), the non-suicide firearm-related death rate is effectively flat for the date range they have data for, varying at most by about 0.1%.

If the rate is flat, then the quantity is increasing due to population growth.

We need the rate to go down proportional to population growth just to keep the number of shooting deaths constant.

It's unrealistic to expect the quantity to stay constant or go down with such growth, it's already a pretty low rate.

> the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down

His statement is absolutely correct. Your link shows that the number of school shootings is going up. Note that school shootings make up a small portion of all shootings. All shooting crimes are going down.

Why are you comparing trends in school/mass shootings to trends in all shooting crimes?