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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37989 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Gun deaths in America are... well not what you think. Going purely off the numbers the most effective way to reduce gun deaths in America is keep them out of the hands of black male teens. Just not let them have guns. Period. But those aren't the gun deaths you hear about, and it would be "racist". Well, probably actually racist. No quotes needed. But still a good idea, were we willing to just be racist.

That being off the table, the second best thing you could do is keep guns out of the hands of people with suicidal ideations. But it's super important that medical records stay private, so that's off the table. Plus, it's not really suicides most people are upset about. It's threats to themselves. Despite that, red flag laws are only slowly becoming a thing... and many jurisdictions are enforcing them in such a way as to prove all the Cassandra's who cried about them right...

Let's say I am a very conceited and self-absorbed suburban mom, I don't care about Black male teens killing each other over turf, I don't care about older White males blowing their brains out over loans. But I am very worried about that miniscule chance of someone going postal in the local mall, local movie theater or worse of all, in the school my children go to. I am a single-issue voter, and I will vote for anyone who shows his measures will reduce this one-in-a-million chance to one-in-a-billion.

Right now I want to vote for Mr. Gun Control. He says gun licenses that require everyone to undergo psych evaluation every year will be struck down by the SCOTUS as being against something called 2A. However, he thinks a digitized federal gun registry that is integrated with health and social services is feasible. As soon as a worried social worker or a doctor has a sliver of suspicion that someone might be not exactly stable, they can press a button, and the police will come and take every gun away from that person's domicile until they undergo rigorous psychological evaluation, and giving your gun to someone who can't show a green checkmark in their federal gun registry app is a crime.

Can you formulate a counterproposal that will keep me and my children as safe from gun-toting crazies as this one?

I think you just make the process for acquiring a gun very onerous while technically not restrictive. You make people go, in person, to county clerks offices, different ones, multiple times over the course of several months, to fill out forms. It is impossible to fill out these forms in such a way as to deny you a gun, and at no point in the process can your application be denied. A high functioning and responsible adult on average can complete the process in three months. This is the only way that a person can buy a gun. I think this stops more 'school shootings' than red flag laws will, and without the negative side effects of red flag laws. I think in general people underestimate the power of trivial inconveniences/annoyance to shape human behavior. All the traffic fatality information in the world pales in effectiveness compared with an annoying beeping sound. All social engineering attempts that don't reduce down to annoying beeping sounds, should not be tried until annoying beeping sound solutions have been tried.

A fairly noble idea, but many places in America have already tried the "headache-inducing super-duper-annoying beeping sound" equivalent of gun laws, and the results aren't as inspiring as you suggest. If anything, one could argue the implementation only achieves the effect of annoying the shit out of gun owners and giving them splitting headaches instead of actually trying to reduce fatalities.

You would expect to see little to no reduction in fatalities from this kind of proposal, the point is to stop the Uvalde, "kid goes to a store, legally buys a gun, kills a bunch of children." Which is the most inflammatory possible news story that provides the most ammunition for gun-control advocates, even if it is a rounding error in terms of total gun deaths.

First of all, there are plenty of problems with Red Flag laws.

First of all, they’d actually make people much less likely to seek help. If you knew that you’d lose an important right if you told anyone that you thought you were mentally unwell, more than likely you’d hide it. You definitely wouldn’t seek out help no matter what happened. And mental illness like most illnesses are much easier to treat if caught early.

Secondly, this kind of law is very likely to be abused. Someone you don’t like? Maybe an ex you’re mad at? You can red-flag them easily. Just call in a “tip” and the guns go away. And it could easily be months before they could prove their sanity.

Third, a check in an app can quite easily be given for expanded reasons that aren’t in the original version of the law. Maybe it starts with direct threats to individuals. Or threats of actual terrorism. But suppose that definition expands. Maybe you belong to a group “associated with terrorism.” Maybe a particular political or social opinion is “associated with violence”. Now the government can simply turn off your rights and take your guns.

My best solution is to make those targets as hard to attack as possible. You shouldn’t be able to just walk into a school. And I think having guards around malls and theaters makes sense. I’d consider arming teachers as well.

I am Karen, I don't own a gun and I don't care that someone loses access to their guns. Guns are black and scary anyway.

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