Dillah810
Flat Girther
I was going to post this in the Uvalde shooting thread in TLR at first, but since the article is so long I decided it should go here instead.
America has been shaken — once again — by mass shootings. On May 14, a gunman killed 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo. On Tuesday, at least 19 children and two adults were killed in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.
This essay originally ran in 2017, after a shooter killed 26 people in a Texas church. But the issue is still tragically relevant, and will remain so until America tightens its gun safety policies.
Guns per 100 people
Among developed countries, the United States has by far the highest rate of firearms ownership.
120.5
UNITED STATES
34.7
CANADA
27.6
SWITZERLAND
23.1
SWEDEN
19.6
FRANCE
19.6
GERMANY
14.5
AUSTRALIA
14.4
ITALY
7.5
SPAIN
4.6
ENGLAND, WALES
0.3
JAPAN
Gun murders per 100,000 people
America’s private arsenal is five times as lethal as Canada’s, and 30 times worse than Australia’s.
3.4
UNITED STATES
0.6
CANADA
0.4
FRANCE
0.4
SWEDEN
0.3
ITALY
0.2
SWITZERLAND
0.1
AUSTRALIA
0.1
GERMANY
0.1
SPAIN
0
ENGLAND, WALES
0
JAPAN
Sources: Small Arms Survey, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.·Ownership rates are for 2017. Murder rates for the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and Spain are from 2016; otherwise, the latest available rates are used.
We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them — and limit access to them — so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful, reducing the death rate per 100 million miles driven to less than one-seventh of what it was in 1946.
The liberal approach is ineffective.
Frankly, liberal opposition to guns has often been ineffective, and sometimes counterproductive. The 10-year ban on assault weapons accomplished little, partly because definitions were about cosmetic features like bayonet mounts (and partly because even before the ban, such guns were used in only 2 percent of crimes).
The left sometimes focuses on “gun control,” which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales. A better framing is “gun safety” or “reducing gun violence,” and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.
What would a public health approach look like for guns if it were modeled after cars? It would include:
Background checks
22 percent of guns are obtained without one.
Protection orders
Keep men who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns.
Ban under-21s
A ban on people under 21 purchasing firearms (this is already the case in many states).
Safe storage
These include trigger locks as well as guns and ammunition stored separately, especially when children are in the house.
Straw purchases
Tighter enforcement of laws on straw purchases of weapons, and some limits on how many guns can be purchased in a month.
Ammunition checks
Experimentation with a one-time background check for anybody buying ammunition.
End immunity
End immunity for firearm companies. That’s a subsidy to a particular industry.
Ban bump stocks
A ban on bump stocks of the kind used in Las Vegas to mimic automatic weapon fire.
Research ‘smart guns’
“Smart guns” fire only after a fingerprint or PIN is entered, or if used near a particular bracelet.
If someone steals my iPhone, it’s useless, and the same should be true of guns. Gun manufacturers made child-proof guns back in the 19th century (before dropping them), and it’s time to advance that technology today. Some combination of smart guns and safe storage would also reduce the number of firearms stolen in the U.S. each year, now about 200,000, and available to criminals.
We also need to figure out whether gun buybacks, often conducted by police departments, are cost-effective and help reduce violence. And we can experiment more with anti-gang initiatives, such as Cure Violence, that have a good record in reducing shootings.
Lax laws too often make it easy not only for good guys to get guns, but also for bad guys to get guns. The evidence is overwhelming that overall more guns and more relaxed gun laws lead to more violent deaths and injuries. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a gun in the house was associated with an increased risk of a gun death, particularly by suicide but also apparently by homicide.
In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tweeted that he was “embarrassed” that his state was ranked second (behind California) in requests to buy new guns, albeit still with one million requests. “Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” he wrote.
Abbott apparently believes, along with the N.R.A., that more guns make a society more safe, but statistics dispute that. Abbott should look at those charts.
That’s true, and there’s no magic wand available. Yet remember that although it is mass shootings that get our attention, they are not the main cause of loss of life. Much more typical is a friend who shoots another, a husband who kills his wife — or, most common of all, a man who kills himself. Skeptics will say that if people want to kill themselves, there’s nothing we can do. In fact, it turns out that if you make suicide a bit more difficult, suicide rates drop.
Here are the figures showing that mass shootings are a modest share of the total, and the same is true of self-defense — despite what the N.R.A. might have you believe.
The upshot? After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.
How to Reduce Shootings
America has been shaken — once again — by mass shootings. On May 14, a gunman killed 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo. On Tuesday, at least 19 children and two adults were killed in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.
This essay originally ran in 2017, after a shooter killed 26 people in a Texas church. But the issue is still tragically relevant, and will remain so until America tightens its gun safety policies.
America has more guns than any other country
The first step is to understand the scale of the challenge America faces: The U.S. has more than 300 million guns — roughly one for every citizen — and stands out as well for its gun death rates. At the other extreme, Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, and typically fewer than 10 gun deaths a year in the entire country.Guns per 100 people
Among developed countries, the United States has by far the highest rate of firearms ownership.
120.5
UNITED STATES
34.7
CANADA
27.6
SWITZERLAND
23.1
SWEDEN
19.6
FRANCE
19.6
GERMANY
14.5
AUSTRALIA
14.4
ITALY
7.5
SPAIN
4.6
ENGLAND, WALES
0.3
JAPAN
Gun murders per 100,000 people
America’s private arsenal is five times as lethal as Canada’s, and 30 times worse than Australia’s.
3.4
UNITED STATES
0.6
CANADA
0.4
FRANCE
0.4
SWEDEN
0.3
ITALY
0.2
SWITZERLAND
0.1
AUSTRALIA
0.1
GERMANY
0.1
SPAIN
0
ENGLAND, WALES
0
JAPAN
Sources: Small Arms Survey, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.·Ownership rates are for 2017. Murder rates for the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and Spain are from 2016; otherwise, the latest available rates are used.
We have a model for regulating guns: automobiles
Gun enthusiasts often protest: Cars kill about as many people as guns, and we don’t ban them! No, but automobiles are actually a model for the public health approach I’m suggesting.We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them — and limit access to them — so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful, reducing the death rate per 100 million miles driven to less than one-seventh of what it was in 1946.
The liberal approach is ineffective.
Use a public health approach instead.
Frankly, liberal opposition to guns has often been ineffective, and sometimes counterproductive. The 10-year ban on assault weapons accomplished little, partly because definitions were about cosmetic features like bayonet mounts (and partly because even before the ban, such guns were used in only 2 percent of crimes).The left sometimes focuses on “gun control,” which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales. A better framing is “gun safety” or “reducing gun violence,” and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.
What would a public health approach look like for guns if it were modeled after cars? It would include:
Background checks
22 percent of guns are obtained without one.
Protection orders
Keep men who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns.
Ban under-21s
A ban on people under 21 purchasing firearms (this is already the case in many states).
Safe storage
These include trigger locks as well as guns and ammunition stored separately, especially when children are in the house.
Straw purchases
Tighter enforcement of laws on straw purchases of weapons, and some limits on how many guns can be purchased in a month.
Ammunition checks
Experimentation with a one-time background check for anybody buying ammunition.
End immunity
End immunity for firearm companies. That’s a subsidy to a particular industry.
Ban bump stocks
A ban on bump stocks of the kind used in Las Vegas to mimic automatic weapon fire.
Research ‘smart guns’
“Smart guns” fire only after a fingerprint or PIN is entered, or if used near a particular bracelet.
If someone steals my iPhone, it’s useless, and the same should be true of guns. Gun manufacturers made child-proof guns back in the 19th century (before dropping them), and it’s time to advance that technology today. Some combination of smart guns and safe storage would also reduce the number of firearms stolen in the U.S. each year, now about 200,000, and available to criminals.
We also need to figure out whether gun buybacks, often conducted by police departments, are cost-effective and help reduce violence. And we can experiment more with anti-gang initiatives, such as Cure Violence, that have a good record in reducing shootings.
Fewer guns = fewer deaths
It is true that guns are occasionally used to stop violence. But contrary to what the National Rifle Association suggests, this is rare. One study by the Violence Policy Center found that in 2012 there were 259 justifiable homicides by a private citizen using a firearm.Lax laws too often make it easy not only for good guys to get guns, but also for bad guys to get guns. The evidence is overwhelming that overall more guns and more relaxed gun laws lead to more violent deaths and injuries. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a gun in the house was associated with an increased risk of a gun death, particularly by suicide but also apparently by homicide.
In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tweeted that he was “embarrassed” that his state was ranked second (behind California) in requests to buy new guns, albeit still with one million requests. “Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” he wrote.
Abbott apparently believes, along with the N.R.A., that more guns make a society more safe, but statistics dispute that. Abbott should look at those charts.
Mass shootings are not the main cause of loss of life
Critics will say that the kind of measures I cite wouldn’t prevent many shootings. The 2017 shooting in Las Vegas, for example, might not have been prevented by any of the suggestions I make.That’s true, and there’s no magic wand available. Yet remember that although it is mass shootings that get our attention, they are not the main cause of loss of life. Much more typical is a friend who shoots another, a husband who kills his wife — or, most common of all, a man who kills himself. Skeptics will say that if people want to kill themselves, there’s nothing we can do. In fact, it turns out that if you make suicide a bit more difficult, suicide rates drop.
Here are the figures showing that mass shootings are a modest share of the total, and the same is true of self-defense — despite what the N.R.A. might have you believe.
Tightening gun laws lowered firearm homicide rates
For skeptics who think that gun laws don’t make a difference, consider what happened in two states, Missouri and Connecticut. In 1995, Connecticut tightened licensing laws, while in 2007 Missouri eased gun laws.The upshot? After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.
