Sandy Hook Elementary School Victims Relief Fund

Driving with an accessible usable gun here requires a special license, including criminal background check. (My state hasn't and won't adopt permit-less concealed carry, a practice I oppose.)

A driver's license doesn't include an equivalent background check.

Alcohol needs nothing more than proof of age.

21 to buy alcohol everywhere, or to consume away from home. (18-19 was abolished in the Reagan era.) Most states have since dropped the age limit for drinking at home with parents.

Hunting licenses are available at younger ages, with proof of hunter safety training. (Or as you say, training in how to kill each other.) Actually, most states now require hunter safety training for all ages. There is no equivalent drinker safety training requirement.

The only less regulated portion is that ages 18-20 cannot buy alcohol at all, but have a legal path to buy some guns, but not the types most commonly used for crime.

Over age 21, alcohol is much easier to legally buy and use than are guns. Tens of millions of people who cannot legally buy or possess guns, can legally buy alcohol simply by proving age. There is no background check or record keeping to block or identify the folks under court orders to avoid alcohol.

For unregulated "alcohol fairs", just check any downtown street corner. Frequently the same areas you get coke, crack, heroin, and now fentanyl.

Or go shoplift from any grocery store or corner convenience store, nearly all have beer and wine out in the open and unprotected. For liability reasons, most stores don't interfere with ordinary shoplifters. Police generally won't even respond for a measly 6-pack or case, as prosecutors generally aren't interested.

 

Yes, I remember. You discarded the "carefully selected" qualifier on the "comparable countries" comparison studies that cherry-picked out all the wealthy countries that didn't fit the intended narrative.

Then you were being very terribly simplistic, throwing away all the research into the many issues and complexities involved, and denying all portions that contradicted your narrative. And posting pictures of cherries. There is no point repeating those as you'll reflexively disparage and shit all over them again.

Now you even cherry-pick out all but two of the countries used for your murder comparison.

So 14.5 is 50% higher than 11.3? Now I better understand your math. Maybe it is another example of "truthful hyperbole"?

Can you say "substitution of means"? I know you can. Research has found many examples covering the full gamut from 0% to 100%, sometimes with delays. For just one example, a past Seattle-Vancouver comparison (while I actually lived in Seattle) found that with less access to guns, Vancouverites produced the same total suicide rate as Seattlites via more hanging, jumping, and drowning.

About 50% here now use guns. But when I started looking, it was 60%. Since then (and after a temporary lull that ended at the Great Recession), the gun suicide rate is now up 4%, but the non-gun rate is up a whooping 44%.

Back then, a majority of all age groups chose guns. Now, all age groups under 60 have shifted to majority non-guns.

Something substantially reduced our gun suicide rate back through the 1990s. At the turn of this century, the usual comparison countries you cherry-picked out -- and Australia too -- mostly had higher suicide rates than us despite their low gun access. They have since mostly reduced theirs. But it seems that focusing suicide prevention efforts here primarily on gun access has been accompanied by a sharp increase in people choosing other means, pushing our total rate higher than ever.

So better urban access to suicide prevention and support services is not a factor in your country? It clearly is over here.

And you?

 

pffffft.

I waited for the bouquet of knowledge to be brought down to the little people, but you didn't deliver.

maybe condescending tone and name dropping works in your circles, but not here.

 

another nut:
story

 

Oh.....I gotta get in on this while there's still time!!
I sense another LGB style meme is inbound......
My only problem is that most of my firearms are handguns, and they don't look nearly scary enough, and I'm not influentially or geographically suited to cause much in the way of pearl clutching by posing in a Christmas picture with a *gasp!!* "firearm!"

Maybe I could come up with something with our 'elf-on-a-shelf'.......

Also....driving licenses are generally accepted in all 52 states and even in some of the commonwealths that most people do not know that we still have....(I got a ticket once in Guam for having 5 people in a 4-pax vehicle for example.)
Marriage licenses also are 52-state accepted.
Even IF you pay the considerable fees, get fingerprinted and approved by LEOs, and pass both a NICS and NCIC check, and wait for the special photo license to arrive.....out CCPs are NOT accepted in all 52 states.

They practically force-feed you alcohol on airline flights.
In the US you have to expend a little more effort to legally bring a firearm anywhere near an aircraft.

I actually spent a little time rooting around in AU's media trying to divine @hkmb 's special hatred for firearms.

Educated persons acting stupidly is nothing new in the world, but there is nothing particularly stupid about being anti-gun.
Sometimes, for no reason at all other than....you don't like guns.
This seems to be especially true if you live in a society (Japan, for example) where there is a passionate hatred for firearms AND a corresponding intolerance for violent crime.
I get that.
Trying to get most people who hail from the UK to understand our love for firearms is like trying to teach a Ferengi about all of the virtues of communism.

I'm not pompous enough to ascribe loathsome motivations to people who think differently than I do.
Really....

Despite all of the contrary evidence and what I'm told at church, I try to believe that most humans try to be more or less good and decent, so it's nettlesome to me that somebody IN AUSTRALIA would burn so many lumens of brain energy fighting against laws in a nation that he does not even frequently visit.

I spent about an hour perusing AU's media, which is difficult since most of their media makes CNN look like OANN.
I did not detect any particular "Free Australia!!" movement WRT guns, although there ARE freedom loving people in all corners of the globe, and there IS something of a "drain the billabong" movement down in Oz.

I've read enough from this individual to understand why his boundless love for humanity is kinda selective when it comes to certain OTHER nations, and I get that.
Glass houses are not a good place to change your clothing......

But GUNS???

WHY joust THOSE wind-energy devices???

 

It’s been long understood that ambient lead levels during youth directly correlate to murder and suicide rates which had peaks in the 70’s and 80’s

murder rate and suicide rates were going down until recently, see if we have a spike as fundamentalists take over again

It’s called being a hack
She is using her peoples form of virtue signaling to her base.

My view of all forms of “showing off” is very negative and view her as one of the many useful Idiots playing a game with adult consequences.

The most unfortunate consequence of the last 30 years is that guns have been transformed from an unimportant device for hunting that literally everyone knew how to respect, treat & use responsibly that required rare and minimal discussion even amongst enthusiasts
to a must have part of the family treated like a gold watch that is cool like a gangsta and beloved like the family dog, that gets pointed around like a squirt gun because morons who can’t walk and chew gum get them because it’s socially fashionable.
Idolism at its worst that leads to dilusions of grandeur and mental illness and lack of respect of how dangerous a gun can be in their own uneducated hands.

For every responsible owner there are two that behave exactly as I have described that view guns as cartoon toys used as a social object to virtue signal, they camp on forums talking only about guns 24/7.

As opposed to a tool.

Yes I am a gun owner, yes I have encountered individuals I had to intercept/ correct because they were behaving in public as described.

people lack any common sense and now days my shotguns stay in the case.
I am embarrassed of what I have seen in the last 5-10 years.

 

The best way to er.....'disarm' 'hacks" is to ignore them.

You may want to set the hands on your watch back a little further than 30 years to describe guns as being "an unimportant device for hunting that required rare and minimal discussion even amongst enthusiasts...." because I myself applied for and received my first carry permit closer to forty years ago, and you may rest very well assured that there were very devout pro AND anti gun folks around back then....

BUT.... you are correct about two things:

1. BANNING a class of weapons that were so unpopular (ugly, expensive, unreliable, not suited for hunting) that their original inventors and manufacturers went bankrupt, actually MADE THEM the most popular and widely sold rifle in the world - bar none.
As an added unintended consequence, guns of ALL type are getting MORE reliable, MORE effective, and one HECK of lot LESS expensive. Even in (or perhaps BECUASE of) these interesting times.
My last pistol was purchased for less than 300$ out the door, and came with three high capacity mags (17) a carry holster, lockable hard case, and TRITIUM night sights.
That capacity, capability, and price point would have been science fiction 30 years ago.

The AR platform, especially the 300AAC (300 "blackout") variant has undergone similarly shocking upgrades in portability, reliability, capability, and affordability....so much so that the BATF is running 7-8 months behind in paperwork for the relatively small numbers of these that are being outfitted as either short-barreled rifle (SBR) or suppressed variants.

2. Despite trends in in gun ownership going UP AND violent crime and suicide rates in the US going DOWN since the 90's there HAS been a sharp up-tick in BOTH in the last two years.
I know.
I HAS to be the fundamentalists...
WHICH is a term that people generally use as a pejorative in describing folks who think a little differently than they do.

Interesting, huh?
For every demonstration, there has to be a COUNTER demonstration.....
DEESPITE (or because??) of the fact ......these REWARD the initial behavior.


FWIW, I too wish congress Critters like Boebert and her mirrors (AOC, for example) would be replaced by more moderate members.....but that's how we "do it" in the US.
But then.....like a VERY FEW others, I also acknowledge the need for, and wish that we could actually HAVE common sense laws for firearms ownership (and abortion.... )

When an "honorable" opposition with GUN SAFETY in their mission statement wigs out on social media at an inner city school that's trying to TEACH GUN SAFETY to kids.......we have gone off the rails somewhat, eh?

 

I’m not sure if the real rate of gun ownership is up, this may be regional , but if it is it aligns with lead levels falling alongside murder and suicide. Or it might simply be the recent trend of more tournaments compared to hunting.

But thinking back to my childhood I don’t know of anyone who didn’t have a rifle or shotgun . When I was young Very few people who had a gun bought it, they were handed down and not sure if they were “represented “ as gun owners. As compared to the recent trend of a household having 50 guns instead of one or two.
Not sure I would show up as a gun owner either (never been asked) all inherited.

My father had a pellet air pistol for self defense given he didn’t want to kill a burglar (just scare and mame long enough to intercept) and figured it was safer if I stumbled upon it and got it unlocked.

In so far as past the last 30 years my father was more familiar with the NRA history 1950-2015, There have always been pro/anti but it was much less a thing for the average person to fixate much time on them, I grew up around pro gun and people never talked about it, certainly not day to day. You discussed what you bagged while hunting and your gun only came up if it was a problem.
My father once belonged to the NRA but found already in the late 60’s that their values didn’t align with his own. He never viewed the legitimate efforts to regulate guns negatively and viewed those who wanted total bans as being few in number, weak and a distraction similar to those who figure everyone needs a tank at home. In terms of rictor scale I think the everybody gets a tank group is still in control of things and total ban comments come from the right as a threat rather than from the far left who also are armed.

My view has always been muted from either direction but it is very unfortunate we don’t have more moderates and less distractions.
I would argue fundamentalists fall far from moderates
direction doesn’t matter unless their past behavior is known.

 

There certainly were, I'm remembering a lot of such political controversy back then. The top gun control group was the National Coalition to Ban Handguns. A bit later, Handgun Control Inc. took over top spot. (Both still exist, under new names.)

It was 40 years ago next month that Chicago, which already required handgun registration, banned further sales and registrations (existing registrations grandfathered). A ban they vigorously defended until SCOTUS overturned it in 2010.

Almost 40 years ago, spearheaded by the then-mayor, San Fransisco also banned handguns, with no grandfather clause. Though it was overturned in court. That mayor continues her other gun ban efforts now as a senior U.S. Senator. SF banned handguns again in 2005, also overturned in court.

45 years ago, Washington DC, also previously requiring handgun registration, banned further registrations. This was yet another step in an incremental path from an earlier NRA-agreed 14 day waiting period, to a 30 day waiting period, to much longer waits for pre-approval and registration, culminating in this effective ban. A certain faction within the NRA then mutinied at its next annual convention, kicked out the old 'compromise' leadership that went along with the first step of that regulation chain, and essentially created the NRA that exists today. The DC ban remained in place, vigorously defended by many of DC's Congressional overseers, right up until SCOTUS overturned it on 2008.

My dad was also a member. The NRA went along with a significant amount of gun control until that 1976-77 DC handgun ban, which also included long gun storage requirements that precluded home self defense. That lead to the "Revolt in Cincinnati" in May 1977, effectively creating the current NRA. Followed by the group's first-ever Presidential endorsement in 1980. That is when my dad first quit.

Gallup has been polling public sentiment on guns and gun control since about 1960. Support for more controls and bans were highest then. Very many controls have been adopted since, and support for additional controls has dropped considerably.

 

I'm sure that there are statisticians that "track" things like firearms purchases, but I'm ALSO pretty sure of two things:
1. Firearms purchases are waaaaaay up judging by what I'm seeing in some of the brick and mortar and on-line outlets, and the prices are dropping very quickly down to where they are pretty close to pre-pandemic/protest/riots levels. Indicating that supplies are continuing the pre-pandemic trend of staggering growth.
I'm an unashamed firearms enthusiast and I cannot keep track of the dizzying number of new firearms that are being introduced.

2. "Collectors" are not the only people buying firearms.
I only know of two people off the top of my head who might have more than 50 firearms and they are collectors.
Most people (like myself) have something like 10-20, split up among family members.

If this sounds like a crazy number, consider that families are not getting bigger, and firearms are "somewhat" durable, meaning that smaller families are inheriting the same number of guns WHILE something is ALSO driving the utter explosion in AR platforms, and what I call Tupperware-guns, or double-stack, subcompact, polymer pistols.
People tend not to "collect" those but rather use them for different purposes such as night stand pistols, concealed carry guns, etc.

The largest demographic gun buying group for the last 5 years has been urban females of color.

I recently helped get a pistol for a dear friend who, like me, is suffering from arthritis, and will soon be marginal for being able to control a .38 revolver, or cycle the slide on an automatic pistol.

The weapon I went with was a .32 caliber Beretta (100-percent legally and documented purchase.)
This particular 'old-school' gun has a 'tip-up' barrel and is about the softest shooting firearm that might be considered to be adequate for self-defense.

The .32ACP is an interesting cartridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.32_ACP
It USED to be THE most widely used centerfire cartridge in the world, issued to and used by most police departments.
Nothing else came close until they were overtaken by larger handgun cartridges like the 9mm.
Afterwards.....and perhaps "propelled" by crime waves in the 60's and again in the 90's it became quite hard TO EVEN FIND pistols manufactured and chambered in .32
Up until recently.....

NOW small "mouse guns" are making a BIG comeback, and NOT because of gun nuts...who still prefer 9mm (or larger) guns with 17-round (or larger) mags.
.380 ACP has also seen nothing less than an...er...'explosive' growth in popularity, and this is NOT a caliber that is usually loved by gun nuts and collectors AT ALL.

There's a REASON for this.
Beretta is a 500-year-old company.
They do NOT do stupid stuff, generally speaking.
They STOPPED making .32acp guns a while ago, and "for some reason" they re-introduced this gun in probably 4 different flavors and now they cannot keep up with demand.
AND....good luck trying to find AMMO in .32ACP.

Oh....and JUST to keep statisticians scratching their heads, factory threaded barrels are an option....

GO SCOTUS!!

I've never been a member.
In fact, I'd rather they were not around, since they tend to represent the manufacturers these days instead of the owners.
I once even turned down a chance to get a free certification as a firearms instructor because (at the time) it required the trainee to BE an NRA member.

These days, I'm quite content NOT be on the list of those thusly certified.

 

Yes, you've talked me round.

What I'm saying is that either alcohol and guns are both luxuries, or they're both necessities. They certainly fall into the same camp of being unnecessary things that cause death but which some people just like.

As I've said, I'm happy to admit that I am willing to pay the price for the luxury/necessity/whatever of alcohol, and I would urge you to do the same for guns. It would involve far less moral gymnastics.

 

The difference is that the gun fairs are legal.

Yes, or you could do an armed robbery of a liquor store with one of the guns that are widely available. Again, not really an easy option elsewhere.

 

When I've said "comparable countries", I've used comparisons between the US and other wealthy developed nations. That's not cherry-picking; that's taking out wild inconsistencies. It would be ridiculous to compare the US with Somalia or Honduras.

For convenience. I could have chosen any wealthy developed nation and come up with similar results.

That was a mistake. You are right to expect better of me.

We've been through this so many times it is not worth going into in any depth. Again, it would be helpful for you to be logical and honest, as you are on all other issues that I've seen you discuss. Whether you're killing yourself or someone else, guns make it a lot easier, and murder and suicide rates reflect this.

Christ, I wish. Several friends and family members are in desperate need of mental health care.

The government in general here is not overly concerned with mental health. However, because there is a specific rural political party, there was pressure for improved mental health care and suicide prevention for farmers. Farming and other rural friends who've needed mental health help have generally been able to see a specialist within a week of asking.

Here in the big city, the waiting list to see a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist ranges from six months to a year. Nine months is about average. It is a disaster.

Our government has many, many failings. This is one of the biggest.

 

I disagree with you on this. I'm sure that where you are it is possible to have high gun prevalence and low violent crime rates. However, it's clear from looking at the rest of the world that this is the exception rather than the rule.

However, thank you for this post. It was clear, and it explained your position in a way that I understand. I don't agree with it, of course, but I do understand it.

 

Some adjustment is in order, that Aussie figure was from wikipedia. But the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a preliminary 'age-adjusted' figure for 2019 of 12.9 (/100k). The U.S. CDC WISQARS equivalent figure is 13.93. So the U.S. suicide rate was not the 50% higher claim that I was challenging, or even the 28% I wrote above, but just 8% higher. So much for a huge total difference because of differing gun access.

(I'm speculating that differing shifts from age-adjustment might be a reflection of different age distributions. )

I take your challenge. How about choosing Japan and South Korea?

From a Washington Post item I picked up about half way through my decades on this issue:



Somehow Australia is missing, but the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a figure of 10.4 that year, which lands 3 lines above the U.S. position.


OK, some disclaimers are in order. Different sources show somewhat different figures, likely produced by different agencies. I'm not confident that all have the same age-adjustment status. Comparing this to the wikipedia tabulation, it seems some figures might be a year or two older than claimed, but otherwise are 'sorta' consistent. Not that wikipedia is a definitive source, so other comparisons could easily produce a different ordering.

And more disclaimers. National rates vary considerably over time, and often not in synchrony. Most of the countries above the U.S. here generally declined from 2005 to 2019. In contrast, the U.S. and Australia had significant declines in the prior decade, then rose after, pushing the U.S. much closer to the top and slightly above Australia. During the 2020 pandemic, both the U.S. and Australia declined, while Japan's rate rose for the first time in a very long while.

So an updated chart today would like quite different from this copy. But I'm not aware of major gun access changes over that time, so people using these international comparisons shouldn't depend on any particular comparison year, because other years will show a very different story for reasons unrelated to gun availability.

And note that the only way (so far) to get the U.S. to the top of this list, is by cherry picking away numerous countries that don't fit the intended narrative.

 

For you, guns are a very limited luxury. That is your sovereign choice.

For us, they are an enumerated civil right (unlike abortion, with is an implied / discovered / invented civil right, depending on who is asked). That is our sovereign choice. Many people disagree with this choice, but remain quite unable to gather the quorum required to cancel it. Alcohol isn't a civil right or a necessity here, so can very reasonably be held to more restrictive standards as a luxury. Not that we are actually doing so.

I'm not trying to push our sovereign choice onto other sovereignties that made different choices.

You have seen many claims from hard core partisans that guns make you safer, with their own research attempting to it back up. Notice that I'm not repeating those same claims, and am not pulling in the great bulk of their "studies", because I feel they are loaded with misleading and distorted and inconclusive junk. Similar to their hard core opponents. I'm pushing mostly different materials that tear down hard core partisan claims (admittedly more against one side, it seems the other has been better covered elsewhere) without much to build up the opposing hard core. The actual truth is quite complex, vague, inconclusive, and not adequate to either over-restrict or cancel a civil right, or to eliminate most existing restrictions.

 

Yes, but..... I'm not sure how I let you squirrel me into suicides.

When I've talked in the past about "comparable countries", I've been talking about murder rates. I assume you'd prefer to focus on suicide rates because it makes your position somewhat easier.

 

This is something that I genuinely do not get. The whole "We must have them because it's in one of the early amendments to a Constitution from a couple of centuries ago" thing is weird. Other countries change laws if those laws prove to be impractical, unfair, dangerous or outdated. The US does too, in all but that one specific area.

So:

• Is it really a "civil right"? By what definition?
  
• Whether it is or not - putting aside the rights and wrongs of the issue - why does its position as an early amendment to the constitution mean it cannot be changed?

 

I've long noticed that what nations are allowed to be considered as "comparable countries" varies considerably with subject matter and speaker. For many economic and health comparisons, the lists are usually reasonably wide. But when the gun control lobby starts making its murder comparisons, the list instantly gets narrower, excluding any examples with comparable poverty and income inequality rates. And the entire Western Hemisphere south of the Rio Grande disappears, not just the several specific countries you keep declaring to be incomparable. They are all gone.

Numerous experts point out that the U.S. violence issue is inseparable from income inequality and poverty, and from our continuing pattern of institutional racism. But the gun control lobbyists always trim out (cherry pick) countries with comparable poverty and income inequality from their comparisons, then shout "whataboutery" at every non-gun factor that gets mentioned. As pointed out in the ProPublica article I mentioned several years ago, the gun control lobby has no interest in non-gun-control interventions, just as the gun lobby has no interest in anything but lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key. Other violence prevention programs demonstrated to be successful, don't attract a sufficient receptive audience to be expanded beyond their original local testbed.

Asked and answered and asked and answered and asked ... Are we at the sealioning stage?

Position within that document is irrelevant. A squirrel!!

It can be changed. We have several defined processed to do it, just as we do for removing our unwanted heads of state without resorting to the violence you insisted upon. These processes have been successfully applied to other matters repeatedly. But one needs the required quorum, and your side has been quite unable to assemble it.

 

It's an interesting point. We think of only Western Europe, North-East Asia (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and HK) and Australasia as containing "comparable countries", because overall levels of wealth are broadly similar. But we do forget that poor people in the US are far poorer than poor people in those other regions. It's kind of sad that we would consider comparing a country as wealthy as the US as "comparable" for these purposes to South and Central America, but perhaps it is valid.

I think it raises some interesting questions - ones to which I don't know the answer.

• Are gun ownership, income inequality and healthcare inequality symptoms of the same cultural issues? An individualism and a rejection of working toward a common good? Not trusting your government and not trusting neighbours or being willing to either look after them or rely on them would be a reason behind both inequalities, but also a reason that one might feel the need for a gun for self-defence.
  
• Could gun ownership be a factor behind income inequality? You've referred yourself to high gun violence rates in poor areas. Of course crime is likely to be higher in a poorer area. But is the area being kept poor because of the high levels of gun violence? Would upward mobility be more possible if there were less gun violence, which scares away investors and drives the best and brightest in these areas to leave as soon as they can? I don't know - parts of London and Sydney would suggest yes, but parts of Paris and Marseilles would suggest no.

No, it really hasn't been answered. So often I hear that guns must be allowed because it's a constitutional right. (You said "civil right", but I'm assuming that was a typo.) And it just doesn't make sense.

....even though the majority is in favour of tighter restrictions. It's almost like the cards are stacked against them.....