At the risk of upsetting gun owners, Have everyone noticed that we are having multiple murders almost daily? Yesterday it was Louisiana's turn with five folks slaughtered. The killer hasn't been caught yet so it's difficult to determine his motivation or motivations. However, two killed were his parents and another had been in a short relationship with him. For me killing anyone, except in a war, but especially relatives is a good indicator of mental illness. In the days before Saturday, it was Georgia and Florida who experienced this more commonly happening experience. Those people are dead, but how many other people had their lives shattered, probably forever? Your neighborhood isn't exempt ... it could happen anywhere in the U.S.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I always want to understand WHY a person wants to own and carry a gun. My parents have never owned guns. They live in a gated community. My parents and their next-door neighbors frequent all the same general areas. And yet, the neighbors have an entire room in their home for storing an arsenal of weapons. The wife carries one gun at all times while the husband carries two---even to walk their dog in their gated community or to run out to the neighborhood grocery store. Why?
I live in a 55-story tower with a 24-hour front desk and video security and key fob entry on all public areas including residential hallways. A security staff constantly patrols the building. Since the building opened in 1972, the only crimes have been committed by people that residents brought in. After Obama's first election, I heard a woman ranting in the laundry room that if he "comes for my gun, my blood will be on his hands when someone breaks into my unit." Why?
Many times, gun owners have told me they carry weapons because they believe they could be in danger at any time, anywhere. To that I always ask if they could feel safe, would they stop carrying a weapon and do they wish they could feel safe enough to stop carrying. No one's ever told me yes.
DeStijl
Level 6
Jan 27, 2019
1
This is Murica. There's no problem here that can't be solved by shooting it.
Sgt_Spanky
Level 8
Jan 27, 2019
2
What an ignorant statement.
@Grayghost Oh, you took it seriously. How ignorant you are.
@Sgt_Spanky Being unable to speak with you or see your face, I had to take your statement at face value. I suspected you were being tongue-in-cheek about it but was not certain. I'm neither pro nor anti-gun and have some weapons of my own. My statement was, and is, there are way too many people being murdered in the U.S by guns. I'm old and grew up in another time. Multiple murders did happen but were rare events. It seems that too many people need Psychiatric help and don't get it. Sometimes it may not be available and sometimes the fear of being made fun of prevents people from getting the help they desperately need. I think, and it is just my opinion, the stress in our society is a primary culprit.
@Grayghost The general lunacy of the thinking behind it as well as the sarcastic tone should've tipped you off but, regardless, nuance can be lost when posting to the internet. No harm, no foul.
My grandmother had a handgun. It fell out of her purse in the grocery store, but didn't go off. She used to laugh about it all the time. After she passed away, my dad brought it home. He's a Vietnam Veteran, 100% disabled mostly due to PTSD. Mom was diagnosed with Parkinsons a few years ago, so I often take care of them both.
A few years ago, dad had some heart failure problems and some confusion, so decided he was going to stop his lithium. He started seeing zombies, aliens, dead bodies, and a snake-like creatures with tentacles to suck your blood. One of these last he saw attach a tentacle to our little dog...and another he saw attached to my mom's leg while she slept in her living room chair. He started throwing his numerous pill bottles at her leg to scare it away.
By this point, I had already gotten rid of grandma's gun (he kept it in his bedroom drawer--and it took me a while to find it as he had hidden it years before), as well as the shotgun he kept in the house. And at this point, he started looking for the weapons. One night coyotes starting making a commotion, probably going after a neighbor's pet. Dad went to get his shotgun, and could not find it. He was pissed.
Suffice it to say, we went to emergency three times for the mental health issues alone. (He actually told them that those creatures better watch out because he has weapons. I told the emergency people I had gotten rid of those weapons.) His family doctor had been prescribing the lithium for 20 years, taking over from the VA who originally prescribed it. But since he was having issues (because he stopped it), they told him they wouldn't prescribe it anymore and to go to a psychiatrist. He wouldn't go--not to the VA, not to a private psychiatrist. But we got a month of lithium from emergency, a month from his cardiologist, and another month from emergency to give us time to convince him. Once he was back on it, he started seeing babies and angels and cowboys and dancing girls...having no desire to shoot any of them. He ultimately refused to go to any psychiatrist, had more negative hallucinations for a few weeks, and then regressed to just being angry most of the time they way he was decades ago.
greyeyed123
Level 7
Jan 27, 2019
0
Gun ownership is so endemic that anyone with a grievance automatically reaches for a gun, On a visit to Northern Idaho last year I spent an afternoon with a really nice hospitable family. The conversation got round to guns and the man of the house told me he had several loaded guns in the house.in case they were attacked by a homicidal maniac. Some years ago some deranged guy had come to the town and raped and murdered two girls so he was taking no chances. Sounded totally paranoid to me.
Moravian
Level 8
Jan 27, 2019
0
It's an epidemic, and you have to stick your head in the sand to avoid noticing it. I'm personally a gun owner, but I'm strongly in favor of studies on how to make guns and gun ownership less deadly in this country. There are millions of dollars going into stopping it from happening. We can't even conduct studies into what actions cause or can stop gun deaths. There are also millions going into misinformation about the causes. I don't understand it at all.
Eazyduzzit
Level 7
Jan 27, 2019
0
so why do you own a gun then ?
@Moravian A pedestrian question...actually a stupid question. There are as many reasons for owning a gun as there are people owning them. Hunting, target shooting (in all its forms, trap, skeet, bench rest, service rifle competitions, etc.), olympic competition, vermin control, collecting, hobby, Constitutional related reasons, militia, self-protection, etc., etc.
@dahermit How about letting @Eazyduzzit respond
@dahermit There was no reason to say @Moravian's question was "stupid" especially if you did not give a shit anyway. I remain interested in @Eazyduzzit's answer and hope he will respond.
@DeStijl Would "Ignorant question" have been more accurate? Anyone who is not oblivious of the American culture would know that there are multiple reasons gun owners would give for owning guns. However it should be noted that the Constitution gives them the right to say, "it is none of your business...it is a basic right, just as is voting ."
"but I'm strongly in favor of studies on how to make guns and gun ownership less deadly in this country. There are millions of dollars going into stopping it from happening. We can't even conduct studies into what actions cause or can stop gun deaths." The anti-gun forces are not interestested in any such study...they frequently state their CONCLUSION (without any "study" ), that what is "needed" are "common sense" gun laws. No anti-gun entity has ever expressed an interest in studying the effect of relative poverty in non-white areas and its effect on gang membership and thus shootings, nor how homogeneous population like Iceland's where they have almost no gun violence despite a high per capita rate of gun ownership. No anti-gun entity has sought to study the correlation between bullying in the instance of school shootings...they have already concluded that the problem is guns. No anti-gun entity has ever sought to study why, years ago (when I was in school), guns were as common as today and even were brought into schools, and yet school shootings were unheard of, suggesting a possible shift in the culture.
@dahermit My partner is from Connecticut and I spend a few weeks over there each year. None of her family or friends are gun owners apart from some in Idaho who own sporting rifles.I'm not sure what a "pedestrian" question is but is it ignorant or stupid to ask someone who is puzzled by gun crime why he owns a gun ?. Lots of US culture is a puzzle to outsiders and this strange love of guns is one which probably promoted Jon Sopel to write his book "If only they didn't speak English". Most people in the UK thinks because you speak English we are just the same which is far from the truth.
@DeStijl I have a shotgun that was given to me years ago. I don't feel like the government is trying to take it away, and I keep it because my house has been broken into a couple of times. If I were to be home and someone broke in, I would hope pointing a gun at them might convince them to leave. I doubt I would ever need it, but just in case.
Just because I do own a gun, it doesn't bother me in the least that the government might make laws to protect people from irresponsible gun ownership.
@Eazyduzzit Thank you for responding. I blocked dahermit guy. As I posted above, I am always interested in WHY people own guns. I think some of their reasons are extremely unreasonable. The people who respond with some Second Amendment slash it's-my-god-given-right kind of reason always seem irrationally filled with fear to me. Some people WANT to own guns. They don't really NEED to own guns.
How does the number of gun deaths compare with other causes of death? 250,000 to medical mistakes, 70,000 per year for drug overdoses. How many people have had their lives shattered, probably forever, from those causes, yet you do hear any mention of them in the media. Do think that the lack of publicity for medical mistakes and drug overdoses has skewed your perception of what constitutes the relevant dangers to life that exist in our society? [jpfo.org]
dahermit
Level 7
Jan 27, 2019
0
This can be misleading because medical mistakes can be broken up into 2 groups: Preventable and unpreventable. When you are dealing with diagnosis and human beings it is never black or white. If a doctor "misdiagnosed" someone, it might be the unfortunate statistical error. Meaning they had a manifestation of the disease that was outside the parameters of normality. Some idiotic mistakes are legit because they are preventable, the others will improves as they have continued to over the last 100's of years. Drug overdoses on the other hand I agree with you are mostly preventable as many other countries do not have the issues. I look at it differently. I look at where is the US different from the rest of the modern world. Guns is #1.
The slight of hand in this debate is pretending we have good statistics...because why wouldn't we?
"How the NRA Worked to Stifle Gun Violence Research"
[npr.org]
"How the NRA Suppressed Gun Violence Research"
[ucsusa.org]
"The Government Won't Fund Research on Gun Violence Because of NRA Lobbying"
[newsweek.com]
"Gun Violence Research Has Been Shut Down for 20 Years"
[washingtonpost.com]
@Gooniesnvrdie I wouldn't say we are doing NOTHING to curb heart disease, diabetes, unhealthy eating, etc. I also do not think anyone thinks we should do nothing about childhood obesity, the explosion of childhood diabetes, etc.
@AlexRam "I look at where is the US different from the rest of the modern world. Guns is #1." That statement and its variations, "other industrialized countries", etc. is disingenuous. What they really are saying, but cannot come right out and say it because of political correctness, is that the U.S.A. has way more gun deaths than other predominantly caucasian countries. However, when one looks that the stats for the "industrialized" and "modern" South American countries (all of which have more restrictive gun laws than the U.S.), they have way more gun deaths per capita that does the U.S. But, when an anti-gun person hears only the anti-gun rhetoric of other anti-gun people they have a tendency to pass on what they have heard as fact, without critical analysis. What Denmark, Norway, etc., do not have, are areas of relative poverty inhabited by disadvantage minorities that join violent gangs in desperation, like we do here in the U.S.
@greyeyed123 Despite the evil NRA, there is a lot of research going on in regard to US gun deaths.
[en.wikipedia.org]
[theguardian.com]
[bbc.com]
[thehill.com]
etc., etc., etc.
So it appears that the NRA suppressing research is but a distraction (Red Herring), relative to the gun debate.
@Gooniesnvrdie I would not say that "nobody is trying to shut down fast food"...my wife is trying to shut down my access to it...and donuts as well. 
@dahermit So why is the NRA lobby continuing to block the gathering of statistics? And how are these private sources gathering data if the data isn't being comprehensively gathered by law?
Again, it's not a Red Herring when the gathering of the statistics is indeed being blocked. What we have available is not all the data we need.
@dahermit You may have missed this in the very link you sent me:
@greyeyed123" @dahermit So why is the NRA lobby continuing to block the gathering of statistics? And how are these private sources gathering data if the data isn't being comprehensively gathered by law?" I do not know...ask them. Those private sources do not state that their data is WRONG (due to NRA interference), on the contrary, they imply that their data is accurate.
"Again, it's not a Red Herring when the gathering of the statistics is indeed being blocked. What we have available is not all the data we need."
It is a red herring in that the gathering of statistics has naught to do with effecting the number of gun deaths in the U.S. Furthermore, what data is collected, is distorted: [jpfo.org]
Note: when the suicides (a suicide problem, not a "gun" problem), gang related shootings (a gang problem, not a "gun" problem), are subtracted from the promoted numbers, it leaves a couple of thousand shootings. Then subtract the number of police gun death shootings, about 1093 per annum, and shootings become an insignificant concern relative to likely causes of death.
@dahermit So you are saying the statistics are distorted except on the "Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership" website? How do they have magical powers to collect data that isn't being collected by anyone?
@greyeyed123 Ask them. They took data from other entities that collect it and accepted it at face value. Their point was not that the numbers are not correct, but that certain categories are not legitimate inclusions...something you seem to be not able to understand.
@dahermit Your source is biased, and the data is incomplete. If you disagree, fine.
@OwlInASack "If I choose to eat shit food, I did it to myself." I'm not sure that is entirely the case either, lol. Children generally eat whatever their parents eat (ever see the family portrait of the Huckabee family?), and have no control over eating anything different (or even having basic nutrition knowledge; I think I was an adult before I even thought about protein, carbs, fat, sugar, calories, vitamins, etc). Food that is terrible for us is marketed directly to us constantly. Often, unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food, and in many cases there are poor areas where healthy food is not even available.
@OwlInASack "...but the US is reported to have much higher levels of gun death than others,..." Not so. Some South American and Central American countries as well as Some on the African Continent have far more than we do, but they are not included in the rhetoric because it would be politically incorrect to associate a non-white race with gun violence.
@OwlInASack "That's just not true - and the suggestion that there is a 'political correctness' driver to the focus on the US gun death problem smacks of evasion. The high rates in those other countries are routinely reported. But they aren't comparable to the US, or shouldn't be, given the much higher levels of poverty there. But countries with similar levels of wealth and education make better comparators and I understand that there is a genuine lack of knowledge as to why the US rates of gun crime are so much higher."
If you acknowledge that the rate of shootings has a correlation with poverty in other countries, how are you ignoring the fact that the majority of shootings (other than suicides), in the U.S. are gang related and thus occur in areas of high poverty.
@OwlInASack "I'm confident that part of the answer in the US is to really try to address the issue of poverty. I'm equally convinced there is no political will to do so."
I agree with you on that. As long as the Republicans are in power they will maintain the poverty of the masses as per the preference of their wealthy oligarchs. It may get worse in that Republicans have used nefarious means to weaken political opposition. No one knows what the future will bring...our Democracy may well be in an unstoppable state of decline via Republicanism...that is one reason I will keep my guns and resist any attempt to subvert further the "...shall not be infringed." element of the pertinent amendment. Most of the Left underestimates the Right, and are not preparing as to what can and may happen. It was such in Italy and Germany.
@Gooniesnvrdie And, the answer to that is obvious...such deaths are not as dramatic/precipitate emotional response as does those caused by "evil" firerams.
In a different time the mindless psychopath was king (quite literally). He could rape and pillage his way through life, taking what he wanted and demanding respect off 'lesser' men. That was our model of an alpha male. Served by women and honoured by all. That is basis of toxic masculinity. This became the go to model for arbitration. The idea of discussing areas of conflict were (are) considered 'soft'. Men particularly who are not able to fight their way through conflict are disrespected. A man (or child) with a gun, is always respected. Add to that an imbalanced mind or explosive anger and it is a recipe for mass killings. As a Brit the personal ownership of guns seems bonkers, however I appreciate I do not have a voice in the matter...except I have two American sons. The fear of school shootings was one reason we came back to UK. We need to honour learned gentle men and allow them to feel.
Amisja
Level 8
Jan 27, 2019
0
On one hand, I can’t blame you one bit. You probably gave up a lot of money to move back to the UK for the piece of mind of having your children safe and providing better education than you can get here in the US.
These gun happy folks grew up with this stuff and perceive this fear as normal. We’ve had three lock downs at my sons high school this year. This is an affluent suburb... not the ghetto or downtown Houston. It scares me to death. This stuff doesn’t happen in Canada. Don’t ever say it’s the gun, not the people. There’s lots of guns in Canada but we have strict laws like other Nordic countries with lots of guns. It’s the gun culture in America!
"The fear of school shootings was one reason we came back to UK. " School shootings are a very emotional topic. The supposed remedy are more "common sense gun laws". However, when one looks at facts relative to school shootings, it is apparent that many "common sense gun laws" already in force, were violated in each instance. With a population of 315,00,000 (likely even more) guns in the U.S. as it is, no ill-conceived (I can give examples), additional law will stop school shootings, short of a complete ban...which is not considered by even the most vehement anti-gun person to be a possibility.
Murder rates have been falling steadily since the 1980's. The media is distorting the severity of gun violence in an attempt to circumvent the 2nd Amendment.
BD66
Level 8
Jan 27, 2019
1
thats bullshit.
BD66:
@kauva You don't believe murder rates are falling? Are all of these sources lying?
@BD66 I don't believe the big conspiracy theory about the media having it in for you and your guns. first of all your view of the 2nd amendment is jaded and misinformed. but even moreso the media has more to gain by guns being out and about than restricting ownership. saying they're working against gun rights is silly. now that may be an eventual EFFECT to gun rights ... but declaring that as the motive is misinformed also.
BD66:
@kauva
I don't have guns, but I can spot a scam or a conspiracy when I see one.
- The incident rate of violent crime is going down rapidly.
- The coverage of violent crime in the media is going up rapidly.
@BD66 well I do have guns and I think you're wrong for the reasons stated above.
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