...but isn't this addressing a symptom, as it were, and not the problem?
I know I'll probably get down-voted to hell, because this is primarily an American board, but if the issue is systemic to society, shouldn't society redress the cause[s]?
Inb4 the "homogenous" argument: Yes, American society is homogenous but so are other societies. Wouldn't something like, say, affordable (or free), easily accessible and not ostracised mental health tools be equally or even more effective?
I get that people are scared of mass shootings and that drives the reactionary responses we are seeing, such as this, but wouldn't be better to find ways to reprieve the causes?
After all, it wasn't that long ago that "going postal" was a common parlance in American English for such events but those particular events (postal workers "going postal") have diminished - considerably.
Edit: So, clearly, if the rates for postal workers "going postal" have considerably declined, then something can be done to prevent these events - but this would have to be on a societal scale; which is a daunting task, I'm fully aware.
Please don't include this sort of off-topic provocation in your comments. It's against the site guidelines to downvote-bait, and nationalistic assumptions in internet comments never help. As it happens, the HN audience is about 50% in the US.
This is... definitely not true compared to the vast majority of the world.
Whole point was neither should be impeded... Living in a society has risks. Overall it looks worse recently, but deaths from mass shooting are still well below just Chicago's murder rate:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-s...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/31/us/chicago-murders-drop-2018/...
Personally, I'm not at all afraid of gun violence (perhaps because I've used a gun). Bombs, poisons, etc. and the like are way scarier, as they can kill way more people. Honestly if the occasional mass shooting happens every few weeks, it's a pretty low price to pay (as callous as that sounds).
With scanners and what not there's such a high potential risk of abuse that it's not worth it. If someone randomly elected can decide to imprison million of people they don't like. We probably don't want them to have said technology already in place (and probably want guns).
Gun rights is the freedom that could be taken away (other countries have done it with great success) instead of installing body scanners, so that's why I brought it up here.
I also don't get where the Wikipedia snark is coming from. I know that Wikipedia pages are not perfect but It's still a pretty good reference for a lot of things. I often trust Wikipedia articles for any given subject as long as it is well-sourced and not political just like this one.
Do I stop them from riding with friends? No, because it's in their best interest. Freedom and growth comes with a necessary risk.
Instead of worrying about the weapon of choice, I'm more concerned about why people want to murder. Let's try to fix that.
I would get rid of the second amendment. There may have been good reasons to introduce it back in the day, but at some point it's time to move on. As I said civilized countries don't need this.
Not sure what you mean. Please elaborate your thoughts...
> and be unconstitutional
Guess what else is unconstitutional?
Surely you must realize that the practical way forward with gun control is to slowly increase restriction over time?
Jumping directly into an outright ban / constitutional amendment situation is a waste of effort.
Having said that, shouldn't these increasing gun restrictions seek to reduce gun deaths by their maximum ability? For instance, I would imagine you support restricting drunk people from driving as a sensible way to reduce car-related deaths? Therefore why would you be against targeting specific groups who produce a majority of the gun-related deaths?
One genocidal government killing 0.5% of the US population every 250 years is 8000 deaths per year if my math is correct. With how everyone seems to be complaining of the US's recent descent towards fascism, I find it rather disingenuous to argue that a genocidal government is less likely than that.
No, it's not.
Evidence: the parts of the world with no parallel to the Second Amendment, where mass shootings are far rarer than in the US; in the US, they are nearly a daily occurrence, depending on the precise threshold you set.
The safety, such as it was, provided by the Second Amendment was the disincentive the availability of a militia drawn from the armed populace placed on the reliance on large professional armed police and military forces, which reliance was the threat it was designed as a bulwark against. This completely fell apart a little bit into the 20th Century.
Conservative estimates of defense gun uses are on the order of hundreds of thousands per year, while unlawful homicides in the mere thousands, and most of these are gang-related. That's solid evidence the Second Amendment is working as intended - to guarantee the natural right to self-preservation for each individual. It has nothing to do with any organized militia now.
Yes, which is the opposite of your claim that an armed population prevents mass shootings.
An armed population enables mass shootings, which is why, in total, per capita, and heck, probably even per gun, the US has the most mass shootings outside of actual organized armed conflicts anywhere in the world.
Perhaps, but “better control of guns = less shootings” I'd an emninently well-demonstrated pragmatic consideration.
> an existing super-empowering technology can be used by individuals to decentralize and evenly distribute political power
The US has very nearly the least evenly distribution of political power as well as the easiest access to firearms in the developed West, so whatever the US actually has, ideological fantasies aside, isn't a pragmatic solution to that question, either.
> We are safer and more reliable when the State does not have a monopoly on force.
The State is by definition whatever entity or combination thereof possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.