Quora: Should gun owners limit hobby to save a child's life?

[kevm14]

I could easily put this in a new thread but it is germane. This answer is bigger than the gun issue in the thread but as it was central to this person's epiphany about how stupid us vs them politics are, here it is:

Confession time.

The two weeks since the Parkland shooting have been an eye-opening experience for me. You see, I identified as a liberal. It was a core part of my identity. I knew who my tribe was. I followed their pages. I liked their posts, sometimes without much thought. My "friends" and "following" lists were well over 95% liberal, and I was cool with that, because deep down, I had bought into the idea that conservatives were mostly a bunch of crazies anyway. I may have said a lot of nice theoretical things about how I respected the idea of conservatism and all that, but for real? I didn't demonstrate respect for conservatives any more than any other highly polarized liberal. I was still using the term "Trump supporter" as a slur.

Then Parkland happened, and as usual, it immediately became political. There was an outpouring of all of the typical liberal sentiments around gun control: calling for bans on semi-automatic weapons, total gun bans, bans on gun modifications, shaky statistics supposedly “proving” the effectiveness of oppressive gun control, and of course, all of the vitriol directed at "conservative gun-owners" who, by their description, are all a bunch of douchebags in MAGA hats with machine guns who don't pay attention to scientific research and don’t give a shit about dying schoolchildren. This is what my whole Facebook news feed looked like for several days.

The thing is, when you're living in a political bubble created by social media, it's easy to believe that you can be as insulting as you want and not check your facts because chances are, everyone who sees it is just going to agree with you anyway. The liberals in my feed conflated “gun owners” with “conservatives,” and perhaps didn't realize that I, the petite and kind of quiet blonde girl with the goofy profile picture who holds a ton of liberal views and loves to hug everyone, was also a gun owner and second amendment supporter. They weren't concerned with real people anyway; they were concerned with the mythical, hypothetical gun owner that existed only in their minds, holding deer heads as trophies and getting drunk and shooting off handguns. The liberals' platonic form of a gun owner is easy to hate, and it can pretty much be assumed that he doesn't care about facts or statistics or studies and just wants to keep his toys. So the second I would say "hey, maybe there's a perspective on this gun issue that you're missing?" I'd get berated, insulted, and assumed to be willfully and happily ignorant of the facts of the matter because if I'm not with them, then I must be another idiot holding a trophy deer head in one hand, beer in the other.

I decided to keep quiet for a few days until the heat died down. For days, I watched my "friends" talk about gun owners like they were another species, cold-hearted and indifferent to the gravity of gun violence, who cared more about keeping loud, fun toys around than preventing the deaths of children. Honest to God, I was heartbroken. I couldn't sleep. I felt physically ill. I couldn't explain to them why I thought they were wrong either, because they wouldn't listen to me; I was now the enemy, as if the whole of my personhood and my reason and my moral compass had been sucked into the platonic beer-drinking gun nut with the trophy deer head.

If I feel this horrible in response to having my views on one issue openly berated, how do conservatives feel when we openly berate them on literally every issue? I can't really blame them for tuning us out, making fun of us, and voting against every proposal we put forth. That's what any healthy human being would do to someone who speaks abusively toward them. If they didn’t do that and allowed themselves to be vulnerable to us, then they’d feel the way I do right now all the time.

Then, I put something together that gave my entire body chills and made me feel like sinking into the floor and disappearing forever: this is exactly how I've been talking about conservatives. I've happily joined in with this kind of vitriol in the past when it came to things I even vaguely agreed with. Generally, I didn't question my tribe; I'd often find my cursor hovering over the "repost" button before I'd even finished reading the smug meme or the article disparaging the other side, so long as the source was a liberal one. I cared a lot less about empathy and facts when I felt sure I'd be validated by my tribe. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just didn’t think about it.

That's about the time I realized that partisan politics is dangerous, dehumanizing, anti-intellectual, and immoral, especially in the age of social media when all of our biases tend to get echoed and amplified. I no longer call myself a liberal. I call myself nothing; I am not a label, because no one is a label. Liberals are human beings who want to come home to their families, have food on their tables, go to work in the morning, and live long and healthy lives. Conservatives are human beings who want to come home to their families, have food on their tables, go to work in the morning, and live long and healthy lives. Pretending that we're fundamentally different forces an ideological war where there doesn't have to be. It guarantees that we'll never find peace or come to compromise or create the incredible free country that we're capable of creating together. We'll certainly never learn from each other as long as we pretend that anyone who is in the "wrong" group, or who disagrees with us, is inhuman or stupid.

Despite how painful this experience was, I hope everyone has the chance to have it. The sooner we abandon our polarizing news sources and eliminate demand for them, start evaluating every politician and every issue on a case-by-case basis instead of leaning on impassioned groupthink, and stop demonizing and insulting the "other side" (whatever it is), the sooner we can pursue unity, peace, and productive discussion.

The first step toward that, in my opinion, is to either drop our "liberal" and "conservative" labels altogether, or to at least stop making them so central to our identities. It's amazing what can happen when you stop thinking of an impossibly large group as "the opponent" and start thinking of them primarily as people.

So that's what I'm doing first: getting political parties the hell away from my core identity and my relationships with other people. The best I can do is be the change I want to see, and hope to God that others join me.

My feeling is this is happening all over the country. When people realize that "I agree with those people about these things and THESE people about those things," maybe they also realize that trying to fit neatly into some label (perhaps blindly) is stupid. The binary system we seem to have (combined with social media) has created this problem I think. If there were at least three systems, it logically must be more than us vs them because it's more like us vs them vs them which is sort of a less comfortable position for people to take without thinking about it. I think you would be more likely to reconsider your position and also be less susceptible to groupthink and identities.

I enjoyed reading this answer. Oh, the question was:

What have you done personally to better understand those with opposing political views, or to increase civility and reduce rancor in American political debate?

https://www.quora.com/What-have-you-don ... cal-debate

[dochielomn]

Funny, because I'm posting in this thread about an article I saw on FB yesterday and then googled and came across a few different articles. What I initially saw was about a teacher who accidentally fired a gun in school and injured some students. Now, this teacher is a reserve officer in a police department and so you figure has had training on gun safety and yet this happened (and yes, I fully understand that even the best of us have accidents or mess up every now and then).

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/14/te ... jured.html

(and yes, I deliberately picked the fox news website but easily could have picked different ones)

Here's the other 2 links that I found contained in the article.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/13/re ... s-say.html

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/13/sh ... -room.html

So, these are examples of why I don't think I'd prefer to have more guns inside a school. Because, here we have 3 people who are trained having accidents and lastly someone basically losing their gun. That's why I just can't support putting more guns in school, even in the hands of competent trained professionals.

Now, as for Kevin's last post, I'd say that's a huge problem in this country, particularly politics. Rather than it becoming a "you have your opinion, I have mine and we can respectfully disagree", it's become a "I have my opinion and if you don't agree then you're totally wrong and I don't even want to hear your side of the argument". And that's a HUGE problem. People don't want to respect that other people may have varying opinions. Kevin and I seem to disagree on this guns in schools thing, but I can respect his side (even though he's entirely wrong, ) and recognize that I don't have all of the right answers and need someone with a different point of view to give me a better clarity on things.

Lastly, while I totally get the school protests that happen yesterday, the part of me that is skeptical really wonders what the kids got out of it yesterday. Did they really think about why they walking out of school? Or did they just think "cool, we get to walk out on class for at least 17 minutes". Hopefully, either before, or even better after, the walkout happened, the teachers engaged the students to discuss the reasons about why they felt they needed to walk out and what they learned from it and what they plan on doing in the future. Kids should feel safe at school. I don't think anyone thinks differently about this. But do people really think that our politicians don't already recognize this? If you want to make a statement, then wait until the next elections come around and get rid of the people currently in charge if you feel that they're not doing enough or elect someone who you feel will actually make a change (although, this is going down a different rabbit hole about how the system actually works and how even the best well meaning person that runs for a political office can ultimately get sucked into the system and not really achieve any of their real goals either because they spend all of their time just trying to keep their power and not piss people off in hopes of getting re-elected or because they run into people who don't want to get stuff down and just stall and block other agendas).

That's enough from me.

[kevm14]

To anyone who strongly supports the NRA and the largely unrestricted right to bear arms, are you not concerned about school shootings? What would be your solution to reduce that?

https://www.quora.com/To-anyone-who-str ... educe-that

The answers are just consistently great. Here are some. A common thread is the need to use facts and logic not appeals to emotion. Not because some rednecks need to keep their guns, but because making the wrong laws or ineffective laws is just plain stupid.

Another point is that it is dumb when people think we just don't have enough gun laws on the books. The first post covers that in detail.

Well, first off, this “are you not concerned about school shootings?” is an appeal to emotion and thus, a logical fallacy.

Second, this “the largely unrestricted right to bear arms” is patently false.

So let’s start with the patently false. The current estimate is that there are somewhere between 20000 and 30000 gun laws on the books in the United States. There are ten major federal gun laws alone and in their entirety, they fill a 400-page book—in small writing—and equal 88000 words. That is longer than most novels on bookstore shelves.

Here are a few of the federal laws with a brief overview of their restrictions, courtesy of wikipedia:

- National Firearms Act ("NFA") (1934): Taxes the manufacture and transfer of, and mandates the registration of Title II weapons such as machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, heavy weapons, explosive ordnance, silencers, and disguised or improvised firearms.

- Federal Firearms Act of 1938 ("FFA"): Requires that gun manufacturers, importers, and persons in the business of selling firearms have a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Prohibits the transfer of firearms to certain classes of persons, such as convicted felons.

- Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (1968): Prohibited interstate trade in handguns, increased the minimum age to 21 for buying handguns.

- Gun Control Act of 1968 ("GCA"): Focuses primarily on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers.

- Firearm Owners Protection Act ("FOPA") (1986): Revised and partially repealed the Gun Control Act of 1968. Prohibited the sale to civilians of automatic firearms manufactured after the date of the law's passage. Required ATF approval of transfers of automatic firearms.

- Undetectable Firearms Act (1988): Effectively criminalizes, with a few exceptions, the manufacture, importation, sale, shipment, delivery, possession, transfer, or receipt of firearms with less than 3.7 oz of metal content.

- Gun-Free School Zones Act (1990): Prohibits unauthorized individuals from knowingly possessing a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.

- Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993): Requires background checks on most firearm purchasers, depending on seller and venue.
- Federal Assault Weapons Ban (1994–2004): Banned semiautomatics that looked like assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices. The law expired in 2004.

- Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005): Prevent firearms manufacturers and licensed dealers from being held liable for negligence when crimes have been committed with their products.

Now, if you look at just the federal restrictions on firearms (and if you actually read the federal laws), the requests that the gun-control folks are asking for as “sensible gun-control measures” already exist (including background checks and waiting periods—there is no “gun show loophole.” The only “loophole” is in private face-to-face sales between individuals…and those don’t often occur at gun shows, but between relatives and friends). The problem is enforcement. The issue is not with making stricter laws, it is with getting authorities to do their jobs—like following up on 40 reports over a short period, following up on tips to the FBI that a kid has made credible threats, following up on reports that a kid under the legal age limit has an arsenal, following up on reports from CPS workers and school administrators that the kid is not mentally sound.

In recent cases that I know of, there is not one 2nd Amendment supporter—whether they support the NRA or not—that would have allowed those folks anywhere near a firearm. In fact, the 2nd Amendment supporters are the ones yelling the loudest about how these people even got firearms in the first place and why the places that sold them the firearms are still open, why the cops and FBI agents and CPS workers and school administrators still have jobs. Why the doctor in Colorado that treated the Aurora shooter isn’t in jail for failure to report—these are clear and obvious issues that have nothing to do with 100 million legal gun owners who have never committed a crime.

What gun-control advocates seem to be saying is the same argument as “hundreds of thousands of people drive drunk every year and injure or kill people, so we need to ban cars.”

Next, let’s deal with the appeal to emotion—the logical fallacy. Calling people monsters who don’t care about dead children or dead and wounded innocents at a music festival or in a movie theater is the lowest of low tactics. Not only is it a personal attack (and a cruel one at that), but in many cases, to do so is attacking the victims of these shooting attacks themselves. Kyle Kashuv, for instance, was a victim of the Parkland shooting and he is a staunch defender of the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Many of the victims of the Vegas shooting are Second Amendment supporters.

At a mall shooting in Washington State a decade or more ago, at least one of the victims was armed (he was injured while returning fire at the shooter) and several more were and are Second Amendment supporters.

Make your argument with facts after educating yourself regarding the facts. Calling people names and assuming they are uncaring monsters dehumanizes them, it dehumanizes you, and it makes you come across as the uncaring individual with an irrelevant, uninformed point of view who only wishes to have total control over others at any cost.

Next.

“To anyone who strongly supports the NRA and the largely unrestricted right to bear arms…?

Well, that’s me — except that the ‘right to bear arms’ has been restricted quite a lot since I bought my first gun at age 12 from Sears. (School shootings were essentially unheard of back then also — imagine that.)

“…are you not concerned about school shootings?”

Why, yes I am. I am also concerned about 1000 year floods (we actually had one in Colorado in 2013). The comparison is apt, as the likelihood that a given school will suffer a shooting incident is about once every 1700 years. I get this information from the data compiled by the pro gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety:

- 290 ‘incidents’ at schools since the beginning of 2013 = 58/year.

- 98,817 public schools in the us at the last census.

- 98,817/58 = 1703 years, on average, between incidents at any particular school.

(So, what do you do to prepare for the possibility of a 1000 year flood? If you are like the vast majority of people, the answer is ‘nothing’.)

The NRA’s solution (yes, they have proposed one: Analysis | The NRA's solution for school shootings: Making schools battle-ready) is essentially what Israel did in the 1970’s when their schools were being targeted by Palestinian terrorists:

1. Arm the teachers willing to be trained.

2. Harden the entrances to the schools.

3. Fence the perimeter of the schools to allow only one entry point.

However, I don’t think that items 2 and 3 are cost effective for most of the US. (Israel had a much more serious problem — trained terrorists were targeting schools with the intent of killing as many children as possible, whereas many of Everytown’s ‘incidents’ are something like “somebody fired a gun at a school’. Israel also has many fewer schools.)

Item 1, however (arming the willing teachers) is virtually cost free and has been quite effective at bringing potential school shootings to an abrupt end. At least 12 states have already started implementing it and others are looking into it or waiting to see what the results are.

In Colorado, teacher training is provided free by shooting organizations and sporting goods companies, and most teachers interested in the training already own their own guns, so the cost to the taxpayers is nil.

Interest in this proven solution (it worked in Israel and Thailand) is growing.

From my 70 year perspective, this “new” solution is just going back to the situation when I was growing up, when there were no restrictions on anyone bringing a gun to school — student, teachers, administrators, janitors, etc. No one tried to shoot up a school back then — probably at least partly due to the extreme likelihood of the shooter being shot before they got well under way.

main-qimg-7eb1ebac436c60887c917589039971d3.jpg

Next. This one is long and I don't have time to format it right now. There are also graphics that aren't here.

I want to save lives. You want to save lives. Thankfully, the vast majority of all people, conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, even NRA members, want to save lives. This is a good start.
The problem is that the debate is between two sides who consider only one tool and the trade off between banning that tool (guns) or virtually no limitations. This focus on a tool rather than available data and how to save lives is irresponsible. While the emotional response to gun control — both for and against — may be entirely understandable and a solution focused solely on guns would seem self-evident, it is imperative that we remain objective, focussed on SAVING LIVES, and focused on facts.
Surprisingly, and here I need to emphasize surprisingly…to save lives and reduce or eliminate mass killing events, whatever our our position on gun regulation, whatever other actions we support or disagree with, we must understand what the available data and research make clear. The single most important thing we can do to reduce mass shootings is to ban publicity for perpetrators and the second most important thing we can do is to initiate programs in schools that ensure everyone feels a sense of belonging and purpose. In the case of a goal to save the largest number of overall lives, the order would be reversed and the focus on belonging and purpose instilled by community programs. A solution focused on guns may seem self-evident, but experience both in the U.S. and in Australia, the UK, and elsewhere does NOT support this conclusion.
I ask, whatever else you support or pursue, please demand these two solutions be actioned by your elected officials.
In short, the data and research support the conclusion that we are motivated by belonging and status above all else. Until the notoriety and status conferred by these events is eliminated…they are likely to continue and get worse irrespective of any change to gun regulation. So please read on and, whatever else you do, demand a ban on the publication of perpetrators names or likenesses in any media.
Some of the data in relation to gun regulation and saving lives
Australia and UK are often cited as examples supporting the prohibition of firearms. Neither, however, supports the conclusion that gun legislation saves lives.
In Australia, suicides were higher in 1997 the year following the gun buyback (in both absolute and per capita terms). More homicides occurred in 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2002 than in 1996. In 1999, a full 3 years after the legislation was enacted, homicides were nearly 10% higher. Importantly, higher in both absolute terms and on a per capita basis (see Australia Government Statistics http://www.crimestats.aic.gov.au...and Fact Check — https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/gun-c ... a-updated/).


The UK data shows a similar disconnection between gun-related legislation (1996/7) and murder, suicide, and mass killing events. Even after corrections and a consideration of anomalous events in the UK homicide statistics, an upward trend is recorded in UK homicide rates in the years following its gun legislation through to a per capita peak from 2002 to 2005 (Did the UK homicide rate go up after handgun ownership was banned?) (Did the UK homicide rate go up after handgun ownership was banned?).

While sustained downward trends in both per capita homicides and suicides have been observed in the UK and Australia over the last 20 years, in Australia these trends began prior to the gun legislation and are mirrored by similar declines in multiple other countries that had no change in gun-related legislation. In the UK and Australia (as well as the USA), these downward trends are most significant after a period of higher relative rates of murder and suicide that occurred in the early 2000s compared to the rates recorded immediately prior to legislation being enacted. As such, these reductions can only be attributable to factors other than the gun legislation.
Finally, there have been multiple mass-killing events in both the UK and Australia since the gun legislation was put in place. While those in the UK might be discounted as terrorist activities, in Australia there have been two mass murder or mass murder attempts in just the last year, both involving cars (2017). While to my knowledge there were none at schools before or after the legislation in Australia, there have continued to be shootings and mass killings (including a terrible incident where a woman killed 8 children with a knife). In China, which arguably has the most restrictive gun laws, there have been a long series of mass stabbing events.
The data makes clear that gun-related legislation in isolation has little or no effect in reducing murders, suicides, or mass killing events. Perpetrators simply use different methods.
Tragically, and dangerously, the downward trends for both suicide and murder since 2002 along with the reduction in the number of deaths attributed to the use of a gun are cited frequently without any consideration of scientific veracity.
Stopping the Events from Occurring and Addressing The Root Cause
Most reject the idea of arming teachers. At best, by enabling the perpetrator to be stopped more quickly, it might reduce the severity of the incidents that occur. Research on the perpetrators of mass murder shows that the vast majority are methodically planned and prepared for suggesting that “hardening the target” will not substantially reduce the occurrence only alter the target or execution. These are not impromptu actions. As such, it is unlikely to serve as the desired deterrent. Arming teachers also introduces new risks. Most importantly, it does not address the root cause and thus reduce or prevent the events from occurring in the first place.
Legislation to restrict access to guns, at first glance, might appear more logical. Again, the data shows this is not the case. In the vast majority of cases involving perpetrators who prepare and methodically plan a crime, restrictions on one set of tools simply motivates the use of others. Most importantly, as with arming teachers, any such legislation would fail to address the root cause of these actions and thus simply ensure those root causes finds expression in some other form or using other tools (such as the Oklahoma City bombing, Unabomber, the use of trucks to drive through crowds, or mass stabbings in China).
What is imperative is that we address the root cause. In this case, these actions are predominantly pursued by individuals and groups seeking status through notoriety and news coverage. They would rather have infamy than anonymity. (Reference below.)
The human drive for status is well documented and known to prompt a broad variety of self-destructive or “maladaptive” behaviors from binge drinking and participation in extreme pranks to suicide bombing. A review of the collective evidence on mass murder events and the behaviors motivated by our drives for relative status and belonging make it clear that the combination of an unmet need for belonging and a perception of futility in regards ever obtaining positive status are the primary causes for many mass killings and especially those involving schools. (Reference below.)
The Solution
Mass shootings are a plague upon us. Inaction equates to complicity. But gun legislation will not work in isolation. Research, including my own, suggests quite strongly that gun regulations would not only be ineffective, it would likely make such events worse. (Reference below.)
The science does, however, point to a pragmatic solution. I would respectfully request that, along with any other position you support, that you demand the following of your elected officials:
Make it illegal to publicise the names and images of the perpetrators of mass shootings and other crimes pursued for notoriety in any media (news, social, other). Note, this is not a restriction on news coverage of any event or political speech of any kind. It is a proposal only for the prohibition of use or a perpetrator’s name, image, or likeness. For example, report events exactly as they are now but use John or Jane Doe in lieu of the perpetrators actual name.
Request the department of education and all schools create programs specifically designed to build a sense of belonging and encourage students to find their sense of purpose…..And, if you are so inclined:
Specifically fund further research. While the facts may not be appealing for consumption by the new media, they should be the basis of our decisions and policies.
Make illegal the easy stuff such as Bump Stocks and 11+ round magazines. Bump stocks are a transparent and blatant attempt to circumvent existing regulations associated with fully automatic firearms. Magazines or clips with a capacity greater than 10 serve no purpose in the absence of fully automatic rates of fire. Notes (1) many states already have regulations in place limiting the number of rounds a firearm can have when used for hunting. (2) Any firearm that currently functions or comes with a larger magazine as standard can function just as well with a 10 round magazine. (3) While grandfathering existing magazines would seem to weaken this inclusion, most “mass shooters” are sourcing weapons in such a way that reducing their availability in new weapons would have the desired effect. (4) This prohibition should have a sunset clause such that after 5 or 7 years and the observation of a reduction or elimination in “mass shootings” the prohibition on magazines would expire.
Require all firearms to be sold with a safety device installed such as a locking trigger guard (or gun safe). (Note, there is some research to suggest that secure storage equipment actually increases crime rates. So this inclusion may be withdrawn given further review of data and research).
Prohibit the sale of firearms to persons with a history of domestic violence (misdemeanour or felony) as well as any with a history of mental illness.
Demand that when the legislation is put forward, that no riders or addendums can be attached. Politicians must either vote for saving lives or against. They can continue to debate and argue other possibilities separately. They can barter with their vote to gain or receive support for unrelated issues on other bills-not this one.
Everyone should demand these actions for the following reasons:
Most importantly, academic and scientific RESEARCH supports the conclusion that these actions would have an immediate and substantial effect. They will save lives! Available research (including my own) shows that the first two of these actions would likely do more to reduce or eliminate the occurrence of school-related mass killings and mass shootings in general than any other legislation (including any changes to or enforcement of gun laws). The second would also have a discernible impact on rates of depression and likely a measurable impact on suicide rates.
LAW Enforcement agencies agree with these actions (including the FBI, International Police Association, the organisation of Major City Chiefs, and International Association of Police Chiefs).
They have no substantive negative impact on an group or population. They have no discernible or substantial downsides.
They can be actioned now and are pragmatic. Specifically, they give politicians from each side a tangible win to claim to their constituents. They are not inhibited by a further need to debate other substantial issues (e.g. cost, other rights, etc). As such, they have a decent chance of actually being made into law. They currently have the widest possible base of support and fewest number of people who would object to any element in isolation. 80% of individuals from BOTH SIDES of the gun legislation debate AGREE or do not object to these actions. They would be very low in cost and do not infringe on anyone’s personal liberties. They also avoid any reluctance to support the solution based on the slippery slope argument.
These actions do not trigger a constitutional or personal liberties issue. Legal precedent already provides for a prohibition against the publication of a minor’s name in a variety of situations as well as for speech that is likely to cause violence. Prohibiting the use of the perpetrators’ name or likeness does not inhibit any or all other reporting or the expression of ideas. It does not deny the liberties of any minority group. Providing and enabling notoriety, on the other hand, incites further acts of violence.
The six together will produce the greatest immediate and long-term benefits. I ask anyone who really wants to reduce gun deaths and save lives to focus on these pragmatic actions…so that we can make a difference now.
Some research defining the root cause of such behaviors (sample of):
A Deeper Truth: The New Science of Innovation, Human Choice and Societal Scale Behavior. by Tim Stroh et al. Amazon Link: http://a.co/57hruuo
“Dominance, status, and social hierarchies” by Denise Cummins. (https://www.researchgate.net/pro...)
Articles worth reading touching on the need for purpose and belonging
Questions For Nicholas – The Reality War
If I Could’ve Gotten a Gun, I Would Have Been a School Shooter
Sample of research on banning the publication of perpetrators names and likenesses as well as engendering a sense of belonging having the most significant impact on such events:
A Deeper Truth: The New Science of Innovation, Human Choice and Societal Scale Behavior. by Tim Stroh et al. Amazon Link: http://a.co/57hruuo
Here’s the disturbing new evidence on how the media inspires mass shooters by Mark Follman in Mother Jones (Here’s the disturbing new evidence on how the media inspires mass shooters)
How Not To Cover Mass Shootings by Ari Shulman in the Wall Street Journal (How Not to Cover Mass Shootings)
“Ban Guns? Research suggests that would make things worse!” by Tim (Ban Guns? Research suggests that would make things worse!)
Groups set up by victims families and law enforcement, including the FBI, advocating these solutions:
No Notoriety: www.nonotoriety.com
Don’t Name Them: www.dontnamethem.org

A shorter one.

Yes, and I believe all gun owners and NRA members are concerned about school shootings.

MY concern is that shallow, unthinking, liberal politicians, in an effort to be seen as “doing something” have made the ridiculous mistake of making schools “gun free zones”. Because surely seeing that sign will make every murderous whack job decide to heed that particular law and leave his gun at home while on his way to become famous by murdering his classmates.

A “gun free zone” is a welcome sign to every unbalanced angst-filled teenager and madman with a gun. It says “Welcome! We have gathered all of our precious children here in this building, defenseless, for you to slaughter at your leisure. Don’t worry! We won’t allow anyone here to have the means to stop you. Come on in. Slaughter away! We’ll leave the light on for you.”

My solution to stop school shootings? Do away with the hideous “gun free zone” policy, and allow teachers and staff who would like, to carry concealed on campus. Send the message that schools are no longer a place a madman can go to find defenseless children to kill. Instead a school is a place where you will likely be shot dead before you can do much harm.

Gunsite Academy in Arizona is offering free defensive handgun training to any school administrator who desires it and they’re teaching active shooter defense to any teacher interested. I think this is a fine idea. I do realize that many teachers are uncomfortable carrying a firearm. But many are not. I’d be happy to contribute to arming and training any school employee that wants to be armed and trained. And I’d contribute to putting armed security personnel in schools. But first we need to eliminate the wrongheaded “gun free zone” laws.

[kevm14]

Just to add onto this. I think the gun control conversations are basically all the same, so I don't feel the need to create another thread.

This post and the subsequent pastings provide a very strong argument as to why you do not govern or legislate based on emotions. Because, as Ben Shapiro always says, facts do NOT care about your feelings. You can have the best intentions and still make bad decisions.

This is the best Quora yet, due to the way the question was framed.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-pro-g ... rastically

Why do some "pro gun" Americans think "when a criminal strikes I might not have time to wait for the police" is a reasonable argument against gun control and not just another issue that needs addressing drastically?

Every answer is more or less the same, some with some very compelling anecdotes and others with varying arguments and logic, but all are pretty good.

But before I paste some answers, let me mention that Obama called for a CDC analysis on the public health hazard of firearms. Or as Steven Crowder said:

the CDC to research the health effects of firearm ownership. With the obvious intention of having guns declared a public health hazard. Because the children.

Yeah, pretty much. However.

Gun rights advocates have long defended their right to bear arms out of a need for self-defense. And now they have a new report from the Centers for Disease Control that says they make a darn good point. The $10 million study commissioned by President Barack Obama as part of 23 executive orders he signed in January says “self-defense can be an important crime deterrent.”

…let’s pause here to reflect on that statement reached, funded via a commission of our “best and brightest.” “Self-defense can be an important crime deterrent.” In other news, if a football team wants to make the Super Bowl, it needs to win the playoff games. Also, to prevent dehydration drink water. If your legs are tired from standing, find a chair. Sit in it.

lol

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study revealed.

And an actual quote from the study:

Estimates of gun use for self-defense vary widely, in part due to definitional differences for self-defensive gun use; different data sources; and questions about accuracy of data, particularly when self-reported. The NCVS has estimated 60,000 to 120,000 defensive uses of guns per year. On the basis of data from 1992 and 1994, the NCVS found 116,000 incidents (McDowall et al., 1998). Another body of research estimated annual gun use for self-defense to be much higher, up to 2.5 million incidents, suggesting that self-defense can be an important crime deterrent (Kleck and Gertz, 1995). Some studies on the association between self-defensive gun use and injury or loss to the victim have found less loss and injury when a firearm is used (Kleck, 2001b).

So, with that introduction, and it is extremely germane, here are some quotes of great answers to the aforementioned Quora question, which provide very solid backing to validate the CDC study numbers that hundreds of thousands to millions of successful defensive uses of guns per year occur:

[kevm14]

Let me turn this around and ask what the solution would be? How long do you think the response time is for police? How would you shorten that to keep violent crimes from being committed? It can take less than a minute for you to go from unarmed person calling 911 to violent crime statistic. The nationwide average for police to respond to an active shooter event is 18 minutes, according to http://www.sherrif.org. Why so long? This graphic from the same site should help explain:

main-qimg-6a1e5241ea7bbf48af5f6147cede791a.png

Good localities have used better technology to shorten that time to 8 minutes, which was the lowest I saw (though I am sure there are lower).
All that assumes you can get to the phone. An article from the American Military University's “In Public Safety” journal noted that 75 percent of all dispatch calls are discovery calls, meaning the crime had already happened.

Then there's the fact that America is such a geographically diverse country. For many cities, a 58 minute wait time, such as they had in Detroit in 2013, would be intolerable, but may be the expected norm in some rural areas where one or two officers service an entire county (or more).

Want to lower response time to less than the time it takes to become a statistic? You would need police on every block at all times. Imagine the ridiculous cost such a program would entail—possibly bankrupting many or most localities and states or driving tax rates through the roof. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of new officers would need to be hired and trained. Then there's the benefits, salaries, and pensions required to pay them, not to mention the patrol cars, weapons, ammo, and stations that would need funding. You are looking at a program that would dwarf the cost of all our entitlement programs combined!

Then there's the cost to our economy of taking hundreds of thousands or millions of otherwise employable people out of the private sector and putting them into jobs that produce nothing. That's not a knock against police or government employees— we need an appropriate number to perform vital functions—but taking such a large chunk of the employable population away from software development, auto repair, manufacturing, etc., would require a boost to police salaries commensurate with what these people might have made elsewhere AND prevents these people from using their talents in otherwise productive industries.

Then there's the simple answer: do any of us want to live in a police state? I don't. But having millions of police patrolling the streets in order to make us feel safer is pretty close to the textbook definition of “police state.”

Usually, those calling for an end to guns and suggesting we let the police protect us all, are the same people out demonstrating against police brutality. Does no one else see the irony in that?

If you are concerned about police abusing their power now, what will happen when you have millions more on the street watering down supervision even further? Would we have fewer or more abuses of power? Obviously more, if for no other reason than statistically speaking we are going to exponentially raise the overall number of bad apples who get hired in the first place! What happens if we take away the guns from law abiding citizens and make sure only police have firearms? Would having a populace that the police know is unarmed likely give rise to more police brutality put less?

Thanks, but I'll stick with the Second Amendment and be a responsible citizen. To those that prefer living under the thumb of a police state, I hear North Korea is nice this time of year.

[kevm14]

I'm gonna tell you about my night, February 8th 2018. I woke up about midnight because my leg was cramping. Got up, made a banana and Nutella sandwich. Watched about 3/4ths of an episode of the Curse of Oak Island. I had some water, went to use the men’s room. It was about 1 am when I came out.

I’m greeted by the words “Stay away from me. I know you’re one of them. You’re one of the CIA lizard hybrids placed to spy on me.”

Shocked, I hit my phones emergency 911 call button. There is a 6 foot 2 man in my living room at 1 am armed with a butcher knife 15 feet from me. This guy starts talking to people who aren't there. He starts coming toward me. I can hear the 911 operator asking for my location. I asked the guy if he knew where he was, and I gave out the location of my state, town, street, and number. He gets pissed. “Stop asking me questions hybrid. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to read my mind so you can control me. It’s not going to work.”

He turns around screaming and walking towards someone that only he can see and screams at them, “I know, I'm going to kill him, but I need to know how much he knows about how much I know about them.”

That's the moment I seized my hidden KRISS Vector Gen 2 in 9mm in my kitchen. I have a gun in every room in my place.

I told him so 911 could hear that I'm armed and he needs to leave. He shoots me a look and almost in a guttural growl. This look sent chills through me, that shivery chill that makes you involuntarily twitch and all the hairs on the back of your neck and arms stand on end. This look made me dehumanize him. I was no longer holding a gun on a person. I was holding a gun on a t-shirt. I was going to shoot bullets into this brown coffee stain in the middle of this butter cup yellow shirt.

He says, “I knew it. I was beginning to think I was wrong but it proves that I was right. It teleported matter with its mind.” He then put the knife down and muttering in some gibberish walked away, crawling out my living room window that he crawled in through.

When the officers had arrived. 10 minutes had gone by but it felt like a lifetime. They arrested him outside a 24 hour 7/11 two blocks away, where he was destroying stuff inside the store looking for microchip speakers because people were following him.

He was in the middle of a paranoid schizo affective bipolar episode. He had bath salts in his blood stream. He's been institutionalized repeatedly for violent behaviour. He had been a resident of the state’s former Ladd school. This is where my state sent the most dangerous and psychotic individuals. He, unfortunately, was transferred by the state to the mental health and drug dependent group home about 3/4ths of a mile from where I'm living. The knife he had was stolen from the group home’s kitchen, which was what he had used to cut his way into my place.

When he was arrested, he told the officers that had I not teleported the gun to me he would have killed me while I was defenceless.
This is a KRISS Gen 2.

Mine is semi automatic, not fully automatic. It is also classified as a pistol not a short barreled rifle due to a brace instead of a stock.
The individual hell-bent on my death is now in a facility where they cannot leave the ward.

Had a gun ban or gun control been in effect and if I had been disarmed, I believe my tombstone would have read February 8th, 2018. Under it would have been my timber rattlesnake, with the union flag in tatters, the 2nd amendment, est 1776, and the molon labe memory coin laid into my stone.

I'm alive because I had a gun when the system failed to live up to leftist utopian dreams.

[kevm14]

Nearly 45 years ago, I was in a self-defense situation. I was the oldest of 5 children being raised by a single mother. Mom was an RN and at the time was working the evening shift, 3–11 pm. I was around 12 so I was the one who took care of my siblings when mom was at work. (It took a couple more years for her to get the day shift).

Behind our house was a park and some older teens, around 18, started selling drugs in the park. They were intimidating the younger kids and telling them to get lost. At this time, parents let their kids go to the park alone to play on the equipment. These drug dealers were attempting to take over the play area because it was at the back corner and far from the street. it was hidden from the street view by trees so the police driving by would not see them.

We had a 2-story house and my mother could look out and see the play are and keep an eye out on us kids. So when the drug dealers moved in she did what she always did, she called the police. Mom never backed down. She also went over and confronted them. She told them to get lost. She brought other moms with her a few times to tell them to get lost, they were not going to allow them to sell drugs in the neighborhood park.

They tried to sell at night and mom would call the police at night. She took pictures. She walked our dogs at the park and when they tried to attack her the dogs bite two of them. They tried to say my mom had the dogs attack them but the police did not buy that, they were arrested for drug possession.
One night mom was working and I was home with my siblings. As was common at the time, many homes had a loaded gun readily available for self-defense. Kids were taught early on to not touch the gun. My mom had bought the gun for me a few years early so I could go hunting with my step-father.

My mom was now single because he had died. The gun stayed loaded in my closet because it was closest to the front door. Mom wanted it there because I had easy access to it and she could get to it if needed. Her bedroom was upstairs and my was downstairs so she figured I would have the best chance of using it for defense if it ever came to that.

The four drug dealers started banging on the front door and made it clear, they were there to send a message to my mom, they were going to teach her a lesson for calling the police on them, organizing the other mothers to harass them, and to get back at her for the dogs bitting them. They were going to kill us 5 kids. They had guns. I had my sister call the police. I got my gun and extra ammo. I was positioned so I could start firing as soon as they came through the doorway. I sent the other kids upstairs.

The dispatcher said the police were coming. She told my sister that we should hid upstairs and that I was to put my gun away because I would get hurt. My response was no way, I am staying right here. I told my sister that when I gave the word she was to run upstairs and lock herself in the bedroom with the others. Once there, they were to move whatever they could in front of the door to block it. From their, they could crawl out the window onto the roof to escape if necessary.

The door was about to break off of its hinges. The dispatcher said the police were two minutes away and said again I needed to put my gun down because I would get hurt. I told my sister to put the phone down and go upstairs and blockade the door. She did.

The door broke down, a bullet was fired well over my head because the thug firing it was not aiming when he pulled the trigger, he had no idea that I was kneeling behind a wall. I fired off 3 rounds in quick succession and it was over. I really do not know how long it took the first officer to arrive. Time felt like it slowed down. It has been over 4 decades and I can still see the scene in my head like it just happened.

I put the gun down with the lever open so the round in the chamber was ejected and just sat there. There were 3 thugs on the ground and 4 guns around them. The 4th realized he all of a sudden had somewhere else to be and was long gone.

Because of my age, and the time, as well as the call to the police and the evidence at the scene, I did not have to answer many questions. Really the first question asked was are you okay and then the second was where are your brothers and sisters?

After everything was cleaned up, the officer that was in charge in the investigation came over and said I was brave and probably saved my siblings. I was still in shock. When my mom got home he spoke with her. She hugged me and said I did the right thing. She gave me a couple of choices.

I could learn the fate of the three that I shot, did they live or did they die? We talked about this for a few days and I decided it was better to not know. I figured they forced me into a position to shoot to save my life and those of my siblings. I was told that any that survived had already agreed to a plea deal and plead guilty and would be in prison for a very long time. This was to avoid my having to testify.

The second thing I had to decide was if I wanted the gun back. That was easy, I did. It was a tool that I used to save the lives of my siblings and myself. I felt a connection to it. I ended up never using it for hunting. I am not against hunting. I would just rather take pictures of wildlife rather than shoot them. I have eaten venison and other wildlife that was hunted by family and friends.

I do enjoy taking that rifle to the gun range. It no longer serves a role for self-defense. I have guns that are much better tools for that. It still could be used for self-defense under the right circumstances.

I still live in the same city as this incident happened in. About 10 years ago, 30 years after my self-defense incident, someone in a local movie theater fired off several shots from a handgun. Luckily nobody was hurt. The theater was cleared and the police were called. The police finally showed up over 24 hours later and only after the theater owner had contacted the local news media.

The police official statement was nobody was hurt and they were too busy with other calls so they were not planning to respond even though the gun was left behind in the theater. The manager waited several hours then retrieved the gun using latex gloves to preserve any evidence, placed it in a plastic bag and locked it away. The police did collect it after the news media report but refused to even run the serial number to see who it was registered to. They said since an officer had not collected it, it could not be used for evidence so they had it destroyed and did no investigation.

This is the same city that went bankrupt and has such an understaffed police force that the average response time to a reported shooting is over 4 hours. Call and tell the dispatcher on a Friday or Saturday night that you are experiencing a home invasion and there are 3 armed invaders that have shot 2 people and are threatening to shoot 2 more and you will be told the police will be there in 4 to 6 hours. Call back to say the invaders are long gone, and the medical service people will not help the people who have been shot because the police are not available to clear the scene. If you want the wounded to have a chance to survive you have to drive them to the ER yourself. The police stationed at the ER will be more than happy to take the report there.
I am a teacher and my students have experienced this first hand. I have spoken with many patrol officers and their advice is to arm yourself because they cannot be relied upon to protect the community. Right now the best they can do is show up hours too late to do anything and until our city quits funding all the nice but unnecessary stuff and realize that the majority of the homeless do not want to live in the city provided shelters because they are drug addicts and refuse to follow the no drugs allowed (that is why the several million spent on them has been wasted and they are mostly unused) we will have a major crime problem that continues to increase. We are currently ranked 8th in the nation for major crime, just behind Oakland.

It is true, when you need the police right now because the bad guy has a gun to your head, they are just minutes or sometimes hours away. That is why when I am at home, I have a gun on my hip, just like the police do. I want the same chance to defend myself that they do. It saved my life once and added 45 years to my lifespan. It was worth it. My son and wife I am sure would agree if the need ever arose again, pulling the trigger would be worth the added years to my life.

[kevm14]

This is actually one of my favorite answers.

Clearly, the pro-gun people are just making up excuses to justify their fetish for war machines. The best option is clearly to decrease police response times.

But how do we do that? Well, short of inventing teleportation, we would just need to station police closer to the people they are protecting. Since 90 seconds seems to be the justified necessary response time, we would need police stationed at least every 3 city blocks, more or less depending on population density.

An average medium sized city in the US is about 150 sq miles, to cover the area with a 90 second response time would require about 1500 more officers each working an 8 hour shift. A city this size has maybe 1000 uniformed officers so we are looking at only a 150% increase. To pay, train and equip these additional officers would cost only about $160 million for each city.

Now of course this money would have to come from somewhere, so there would be a necessary significant increase in taxes.

To mitigate that, perhaps we don’t hire full time officers, and utilize trained community volunteers.

Since many gun owners already have training and already have weapons, they would be a logical choice.

Of course we couldn't just have anybody doing this, so we would need to have background checks and ensure that they are fit for the job.
However, it would be unfair to ask these volunteers to protect their neighbors without compensation, perhaps we allow them to patrol only their own property instead.

Since they only need to defend their property when people are at home, they could work regular jobs and protect their families after work and school.
Since, non-criminal Americans already have the inalienable right to bear arms codified by the US Constitution, there would be no additional legal hurdles to overcome.

Obviously, some people might object to having armed individuals walking around the house, especially in a home with untrained persons or small children, as someone might get hurt. So we should allow the volunteers to lock their weapons in a secure safe until there is a need to use them.

Sounds like a plan! What do you think?

[kevm14]

Perhaps because we live in the real world rather than in some fantasy land where “police response” can just be “addressed”. Allow me to explain since I doubt you have ever thought about it. First, the US is a very large area with its population spread throughout much of it. Second, to improve response times would require that there be a law enforcement officer fairly close by at all times. Third, whatever geographic area those officers had to patrol, it has to be covered for 168 hours a week with overlap… so call it 5 or more officers per week per relatively small/smaller patrol area.

Now, lets just look at the county I live in, almost the size of Malta (nearly 400 square miles). Lets say you want a 5 minute or under response time. You need a patrol area for each officer that is likely about 10 - 15 square miles so that no matter where they are, they can respond in roughly 5 minutes.

That means needing about 30 - 45 officers on duty at all times, and if you don’t want heavy overtime needing about 5x that figure for the week. That means my county would need something like 150 - 220 officers. It has 22; furthermore, the population of my county is 26,000, of which about 20,000 do not live within any city limits. If those officers are paid $30,000 each(excluding the cost of benefits), the tax burden just to hire them, not to equip them, would be between $4.5M and $6.6M. Once the county is required to pay them, give them benefits, arm them, equip them with Kevlar vests, radios, annual training, patrol vehicles, fuel for the vehicles, training costs, etc… the tax burden per individual resident is likely up as much as $1,000 - $2,500 (since the pay without benefits is in the range of $225 - 330 per resident). Since many of the residents would be school children and thus not tax payers… the tax burden per county resident is untenable.

So, realistically the fiscal burden of having enough officers to maintain a 5 minute or less response time is impractical… you can cry all you want about “why do pro gun Americans think”, but the reality is, we live in the real world and know that no one is ever signing off on the expense of creating a police force that is instantly available; whereas, our firearm is never on another call 20 minutes away, it is within reach.

One final thought for you, if you think that keeping law abiding citizens from getting guns would curtail the availability of firearms to criminals… how is it that heroin and crack are available on the streets today despite being illegal. Moreover, since rape, murder, and assault are illegal activities and thus “banned” why would you believe that someone who is already participating in a banned activity would draw the line at some other additional banned thing or activity such as smuggling firearms or owning them? In short… we think it because it reflects reality whereas your notion does not.

[kevm14]

I remember one week night about 4 years ago my wife (at the time gf) & I were up just kind of hanging out (we were in college so late nights were common) & we heard a commotion in the street. We lived on the second story overlooking the street. We saw a circle of a dozen people beating the living shit out of a guy. Well I called the cops. They showed up 20min later & simply arrested the guy lying in the street bleeding. 20 minutes. On a week night. In a medium sized town. For a group assault.

Another night we audibly heard a gunshot & saw the muzzle flash. Pretty sure it was the same people. Called 911. No one showed up. No one even called me back.

Fast forward a year. We made arrangements via Craigslist to buy a used dishwasher. We went to this lady's house, paid, loaded it in my truck. Then a van pulls across the driveway & blocks us. The driver says he's her landlord & we're trespassing. I explain to him what's going on, he still won't let us leave. I dial 911 & as I'm attempting to give a) my exact location, b) a description of us & our vehicle, & c) a description of him & his vehicle, the dispatcher keeps putting me on hold. She didn't even know the situation before putting me on hold the first time or my location. At one point the man is standing right outside my window & reaches behind his back. My instinct: he's going for a weapon. Luckily he wasn't. If he had been we were screwed & 911 didn't even care.

My grandfather lived in Rattan, OK. Kind of a map dot. One night he caught 3 armed men stealing his tools from his shed. He called 911. Twice. The first time to report it. The second time 15 minutes later to query why no one had responded. He was told no cars were available at the time. He told the dispatcher he'd just go kill them himself. Within 5 minutes 3 cruisers were at his place.

I dated a woman who was raped, twice, in publc. Once walking to work, once walking home from work. Both times she called the police immediately. Both times they told her to go home & they'd meet her there. The first time took an hour. The second time they didn't even show up. Neither time did they respond to the scene or try & catch the perp.

That's why. Cops can't be everywhere & my children's safety shouldn't depend upon a) me having the chance to pull out my phone & make a call, & b) an officer to be available & close enough to respond BEFORE the harm is done. Do the math. How many cops per capita are there? You'd need 1 per person to prevent or stop SOME crime. Maybe MAYBE half. That's being generous.