<story><title>Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>librish</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. Yes, if everyone was responsible perhaps it would be OK for all of us to own firearms. But so many people are utterly irresponsible, and guns make that irresponsibility lethal.&lt;p&gt;People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don&amp;#x27;t and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child.&lt;p&gt;People shouldn&amp;#x27;t point a gun at someone unless their life is in danger and they&amp;#x27;re prepared to take a life, but they do and people get shot by accident, or road rage turns deadly.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention the suicides. If you own a gun ideation can turn into action in less than 30 seconds and it can seem like a painless, easy way to go.&lt;p&gt;And when everyone is armed everyone wants to be armed. Cops pull their guns quickly out of fear of armed criminals. Regular people want to own a gun because they feel like everyone else does, and they&amp;#x27;re now less safe unless they also get one.&lt;p&gt;Growing up outside the US I never saw any guns. I don&amp;#x27;t know of anyone who had a gun. I don&amp;#x27;t know of anyone who knew anyone who had a gun. I remember seeing military members in parades carrying guns because it was one of the few times I&amp;#x27;d actually seen one. Cops didn&amp;#x27;t walk around armed. There are other ways to kill people but guns are an especially effective, intuitive, and easy way to do so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bko</author><text>&amp;gt; empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals&lt;p&gt;The problem with a lot of anti-gun measures is that the proponents readily admit that they would not have stopped any particular shooter. For instance, people talk about background checks, but this shooter and many others did not have a history and were not known to police. They would have passes a background check.&lt;p&gt;Often times the person acquiring the gun already broke a number of gun laws. Either straw purchase, borrowed someones gun, carrying across state lines, etc. So throwing more laws at it won&amp;#x27;t necessarily help. Enforcement of existing laws could help but is obviously difficult. Not to mention that gun violence is much higher in cities&amp;#x2F;counties&amp;#x2F;states with the most gun control measures. You can say that they just get the guns from elsewhere and national restrictions need to be imposed, but we should see SOME effect. Wyoming should have a higher murder rate than Michigan.&lt;p&gt;So the conversation from anti-gun people basically amounts to less guns everywhere, but that genie might be out of the bottle already. There are already hundreds of millions of guns in the US and it would be impractical to seize even a tiny percent of them.&lt;p&gt;But note that there were always guns in America. In fact, guns were often brought to high schools. In 1969, most public high schools in NYC had a shooting club. And yet there were no school shootings.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nypost.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;when-toting-guns-in-high-school-was-cool&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nypost.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;when-toting-guns-in-high-schoo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>librish</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. Yes, if everyone was responsible perhaps it would be OK for all of us to own firearms. But so many people are utterly irresponsible, and guns make that irresponsibility lethal.&lt;p&gt;People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don&amp;#x27;t and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child.&lt;p&gt;People shouldn&amp;#x27;t point a gun at someone unless their life is in danger and they&amp;#x27;re prepared to take a life, but they do and people get shot by accident, or road rage turns deadly.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention the suicides. If you own a gun ideation can turn into action in less than 30 seconds and it can seem like a painless, easy way to go.&lt;p&gt;And when everyone is armed everyone wants to be armed. Cops pull their guns quickly out of fear of armed criminals. Regular people want to own a gun because they feel like everyone else does, and they&amp;#x27;re now less safe unless they also get one.&lt;p&gt;Growing up outside the US I never saw any guns. I don&amp;#x27;t know of anyone who had a gun. I don&amp;#x27;t know of anyone who knew anyone who had a gun. I remember seeing military members in parades carrying guns because it was one of the few times I&amp;#x27;d actually seen one. Cops didn&amp;#x27;t walk around armed. There are other ways to kill people but guns are an especially effective, intuitive, and easy way to do so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>karmelapple</author><text>Here’s a roadmap for policymakers that I think is steeped in evidence: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scholar.harvard.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;claireboine&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;policy.brief_.summary.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scholar.harvard.edu&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;claireboine&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;policy.b...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are 3 recommended policy changes in there.</text></comment>