Ah yes, get 2/3 of the states to agree to amend the constitution, so simple. I was just thinking how we could solve climate change by banning all cars and making everyone vegetarian, so simple!

Edit: Okay I realize my comment was a bit flippant. It is a pet peeve of mine when solutions are proffered like this that don't take into account the many obvious difficulties in actually making it work (political, social economic etc.) as if nobody has thought of this. Sure, many people would love to ban and confiscate all the guns, but due to politics there is a 0% chance of that happening in the US, so it is not "simple".

You mean 3/4 of the states.

>If it's such a "complicated issue", why did the frequency of mass shootings in Australia drop to negligible levels after they took the simple step of enacting a comprehensive gun ban?

It appears largely because the gun ban simply changed the method by which massacres occurred. Using the list from here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia), using the Port Arthur shootings as the pivot point for a 25 year look back and forward, we find before Port Arthur ('71 to '96) there were 123 people killed in some form of multi death incident and a total of 22 incidents. After ('96 to april '21) there were 146 people killed in 37 incidents.

There are some issues I take with that list as a whole, for example for this discussion familicide probably doesn't really enter into it, or a number of the incidents include the perpetrator (which I have tried to filter from the numbers above). If I try to cut the values down to just non-familicide incidents, it looks like 88 deaths in 16 incidents prior and 89 deaths in 23 incidents after.

Admittedly yes the raw number of shootings did go down. But at least to me, that would be a cold comfort to know a dead relative or friend was burned to death rather than shot. If the end goal is to stop people dying by firearm, then fair enough, Australia's laws appear to have done that. If the goal however is to stop people from being killed or attacked in senseless acts of violence, then I think these numbers make the argument that killers will kill with whatever tools they can get their hands on and the issue is indeed more "complicated" than just making one such tool illegal.

My take away from those numbers is the drop in deaths per incident: from about 5.5 to 3.9. A 30% drop in deaths per incident seems like a big win to me.

Sure there were more incidents, but the population also grew considerably from an average of 15.6m over the first period, to 22.1m over the second - a 41% increase. Applying that increase to the 16 incidents gives us 22.5, almost exactly the actual number (23). So even though the number of incidents per capita didn't drop, the deaths per incident fell 30%.

>So even though the number of incidents per capita didn't drop, the deaths per incident fell 30%.

Honestly, to me that number isn't nearly as impressive enough to justify surrendering one of your only practical defenses against a tyrannical regime.

This takes your chances of dying from a terrorist attack from 0.0000001% to 0.000000066% ?

How many of these "tyrannical regime"s have you had to defend yourself against in your lifetime?

The US just went through 4 years during which it should have been quite clear to everyone that the stability and norms of our government and civilization are very fragile things. Imagine for a moment Jan 6 actually was a successful coup, especially given the supposed coziness of the various police forces to said coup initiators. There are quite a few groups of people who might have benefited from having a strong civilian ownership and knowledge of firearms in that event.

Likewise, there's an entire country currently undergoing an invasion being fought not only by their regular army but by civilian volunteers too. And sure, such an event happening in the US is unlikely given our particular neighbors, but then again even up to the day of the invasion various analysts were sure it would never happen so predicting the future can be a bit difficult.

We don't live in a post conflict world, and our country isn't immune to bad actors.

Zero. Do you truly believe we are past the need to defend against tyrannical regimes?

Yes, in most countries I think we are well past that point. What makes you think it is still a prominent threat that should be defended against?

>What makes you think it is still a prominent threat that should be defended against?

The fact that many, many people have thought exactly as you do. That they had reached the pinnacle of governance to the point that they would never collapse or need to defend themselves. A significant portion of the population figured WW1 was the "war to end all wars" merely on the premise that the war was so great, like nothing they had ever seen before. We are seeing unprecedented peace but I see no reason to think that historical peace == future peace.

If you want a more "objective" answer... Conflicts arise far too often to suggest one of them won't turn into a scenario that allows for occupation or tyranny. How many people seriously predicted Ukraine would be invaded?

If you truly think "most countries are past that point" - which countries are you referring to and how long do you think they will last/remain stable? How would one come to this estimate?

> If the end goal is to stop people dying by firearm, then fair enough

we are not talking about 1 or 2 people dying here, these are dozens of helpless lives gone in a matter of minutes!!

Those maniacs (first Sandy hook and now Rob elementary) wouldn't be able to kill dozens of innocent kids so easily if they didn't have access to firearm.

>wouldn't be able to kill dozens of innocent kids so easily if they didn't have access to firearm

There are much more destructive and arguably easier ways to kill _more_ people. Someone that is more than willing to march into an elementary school and take the lives of innocent children wouldn't just stop their plan to do such a thing because they can't get access to a gun. They'll go down to their local uhaul or start a fire.

Neither of those would stand much chance of being more effective than a firearm.

>Neither of those would stand much chance of being more effective than a firearm

One guy with a truck managed to kill more people than even the deadliest shooting in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack

The deadliest arson attack on a nightclub in the US killed nearly 2x as many people vs the deadliest shooting at a nightclub. And again, more people than the deadliest shooting in the US _ever_.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub_shooting

No idea how you can claim these methods are not as effective.

Yet most of these killers choose guns. The fact that this 18 year old kid was able to order so much ammunition online is so ridiculous

>Yet most of these killers choose guns.

Because most of these killers aren't trying to kill as many people as possible. They're trying to get attention and "revenge" on society. I'm convinced Columbine literally started this whole thing, due to the way society views it.

>The fact that this 18 year old kid was able to order so much ammunition online is so ridiculous

Sure... but I still don't believe this 18 year old kid would have just given up on his plan to seek revenge. What would stop him from ordering or acquiring a machete and doing essentially the same thing?

There was a knife attack in Japan that left and equal amount of people dead. https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/world/japan-knife-attack-deat...

I honestly believe that tighter gun laws would reduce gun deaths... but I think its disingenuous to suggest they would prevent these mass killings or even meaningfully reduce the amount of deaths. Shown in my other comment, other and arguably even easier methods have proven to kill more people.

They are trying to kill as many people as possible. For the reasons you mentioned. "attention and revenge".

More kills, more attention and revenge.

An. But I agree with you that there may be some kind of media/ copy cat component. But what doesn't make since with that theory is that in today's global communications, why is it so much more in the US.

> but I still don't believe this 18 year old kid would have just given up on his plan to seek revenge. What would stop him from ordering or acquiring a machete and doing essentially the same thing?

Nothing stopped him from acquiring any of that but still he waited for his 18th birthday so that he could legally buy guns. If it was made difficult for him to buy guns then probably he would have just dreamt about it and over time given up on it. Most 18 year olds are technically adults but still very very stupid and have no control over their emotions.

> Because most of these killers aren't trying to kill as many people as possible.

I don’t understand, this kid just killed 21 4th grade kids!!

I agree that there are other affective methods of mass killing but then why don’t we see them happening more often all over the world. You keep pointing at these one off incidents.

Arson is historically a more effective mass murder device and used extensively. As well as bombs, cars, poison and many other things.

none of that was used in brutally killing dozens of elementary school kids. Where as guns were used, not once but twice.

If we give up a right every time someone commits a crime using this right, soon we'll be left without rights. The next obvious target is speech: it's often used to incite violence at scale, and strict speech control would prevent that. But I'd rather live in a free country and accept the risks.

Sacrificing other people's children at the altar of "freedom" isn't "accepting the risks." What risk have you taken?

but you can argue 'for the children' in order to take away any freedom. Politicians do it so often it has become a meme. They are doing it right now to try and ban encryption for example..

I also support freedom of thought. Does it mean I'm responsible for all nefarious crimes thought out in advance? If so, should I get credit for all discoveries made by others?

There are plenty of free countries without a First Amendment -- and saying something even vaguely Nazi-like in some of those countries risks criminal penalty. Furthermore, the absolutist interpretation of free speech we commonly associate with the First Amendment (virtually all speech protected, barring speech that causes immediate or imminent harm like threats, fighting words, and CSAM) has only really prevailed since 1969. I mean, immediately after the Bill of Rights was Ratified, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Anyway, I don't believe that owning a firearm without a license and strict government oversight is a right.

> There are plenty of free countries without a First Amendment -- and saying something even vaguely Nazi-like in some of those countries risks criminal penalty.

This sounds like an extreme exaggeration, do you have a source to back that up? I've heard similar said about Canada, for example, but I've familiarized myself with the legislation and some case law and there is a very high bar to getting somebody a slap on the wrist.

you have full right to live your life dangerously but you have no right to put others lives in danger.

Unfortunately while that's an easy and vague statement to say, getting into the detailed implementations of what you're trying to say becomes difficult.

> The next obvious target is speech

In context this is supplemental to violent suppression of minorities.

>the simple step of enacting a comprehensive gun ban?

Except that's not what they did. Meanwhile New Zealand went much longer than Australia without a mass shooting without restricting people's rights. Unfortunately, they cracked down after Christchurch, but you get the point.

It’s sad that so many have no comprehension of history. We should ban people who want to ban guns. It’s that simple.