I don’t think this is exactly the case regarding the ‘explanation’. The acts of lone gunmen is something about the nature of US culture. The recent, apparent increase, in such strange events is not due to any singular reason - the US has a very different culture to Europe and even to Canada, from my understanding. I am not entirely sure why such abhorrent acts have become something that sticks out more in the US than anywhere else? I very much doubt it is due to any one particular reason and with or without guns I do wonder how/if such attitudes would manifest.

The US has always been something of a mixing pot so the extreme ends of society are maybe due to the freedom in the country which is also geographically and politically quite out on its own. The mantras of ‘making it in America’ or ‘the land of hopes and dreams’ perhaps plays into people feeling falls harder than they should and abandonment when they see such inclusivity preached?

I certainly don’t think the attitudes possessing some people in the US are an effect of owning guns; not that I am for the ownership of guns or feel it necessary for every citizen to own one.

Ah yes, why isn't anyone talking about America's long-standing disembowelment problem? To say nothing of its disporportate rate of beheadings!

See this is exactly what's I'm talking about. The responses here are so tortuously awful it's difficult to tell if this is just outright stupidity or sheer nihilism.

The mantras of ‘making it in America’ or ‘the land of hopes and dreams’ perhaps plays into people feeling falls harder than they should and abandonment when they see such inclusivity preached? — I like sushi

What you are attempting to describe here is more pointedly a mental healthcare issue, and as the Times article I linked to points out, mental health issues don't correlate as a factor.

Nope. The cultures are inherently different. Even if it is simply ‘mental health’ then we could perhaps say that such sick individuals merely represent an extreme form of the society they belong to in how they act - not to mention ‘mental health’ is certainly NOT equivalent to violent behavior (another stigma of societal conditioning toward that which people refuse to attend to out of fear or ignorance).

It could simply be that the shakers and movers of the 80’s are now what is being translated into the upper echelons of politics - those in positions of financial power back then have now grown into political attitudes.

Countries are necessarily driven on by the old guard - those holding attitudes related to the times they grew up in. People may joke and pass out scathing remarks to so-called ‘millennials’ but there is certainly some truth in how history shapes generational attitudes and the political compass.

The cultures are inherently different. — I like sushi

Yes, the America has a deeply ingrained gun culture, exactly.

You know I wasn’t necessarily referring to that . Don’t be cute with me ;)

MTV, Hollywood, hero worship, lack of a Monarchy (therefore the surrogate “President” royalty - Kennedy’s and such), not to mention the racial tensions due to the slavery of the past directly on your own soil. In the later respect racism is apparent enough in places like Australia due to the segregation of groups of people following massive slaughter (not exactly slavery as they were simply wiped out); the difference in the US being the wounds are still relatively fresh and constantly being prodded at for political gains.

The US is a strange concoction, but it has worked well enough up to now.

See this is exactly what's I'm talking about. The responses here are so tortuously awful it's difficult to tell if this is just outright stupidity or sheer nihilism. — Maw

So, do you disagree it's people that kill people?

To add ...

Germany has four times as many guns per 100 people than the UK (20+ compared to 5 per 100), yet homicide rats in the UK are 44% greater.

It ain’t simply about the guns. If you look at other countries like Finland or Canada it is clearly not about the numbers of guns compared to Uruguay. There is certainly a plethora of guns in the US which we could suggest is indicative of gnu deaths, but not necessarily so as it doesn’t play out in such a way when we compare the number of guns per person in other countries compared to homicides (it undoubtedly plays into the number of gun related homicides though).

Guns are just for killing people. — Pattern-chaser

Except they're not. They're for hunting wildlife and firearms displays and shooting competitions too. — Shamshir

Those are unusual uses of guns, and "firearms displays and shooting competitions" are just demonstrations of how they could be used to kill people. Such uses do not take away from the primary point: guns are for shooting people with. Empirical evidence shows conclusively that the most common use of guns - by far the most common use of guns - is to kill people.

Those are unusual uses of guns — Pattern-chaser

So hunting with a gun is unusual despite there being Hunting Rifles? Hmm.

firearms displays and shooting competitions" are just demonstrations of how they could be used to kill people. — Pattern-chaser

So competitive archery and javelin throwing are about killing people, right?

Because something gets militarised it's suddenly only for killing people, is that it?
And guns being predominantly militarised is your check, right?

Cigarettes' primary use is to harm people. But they're okay cause they're not as graphic.

the primary point: guns are for shooting — Pattern-chaser

Full stop.

Because something gets militarised it's suddenly only for killing people, is that it? — Shamshir

When the empirical evidence confirms that this is so, then yes. Guns are used by people to kill people. That is their primary function, as verified empirically.

When the empirical evidence confirms that this is so, then yes. Guns are used by people to kill people. That is their primary function, as verified empirically. — Pattern-chaser

You being from England, may have heard of Walter Arnold who got fined for driving at 8 mph.
This in modern day's time seems ludicrous, as it's about the speed of a leisurely bicycle ride.

And yet the speed limit has continuously increased and with it the amount of car fatalities.
So empirically, car deaths correlate to the speed limit - but it hasn't receded, has it?
No, authorities don't constitute it's due to high speed, but due to careless driving.

So how come shootings aren't due to careless wielding of firearms?

All I'm hearing are excuses on how guns hold all the responsibility and humans hold none.

Who is America? How will "he" stop? Yes, the gun laws seem to facilitate public terrorism in U.S. Ultimately, not to see it as a mental health issue at the individual level is the wrong understanding to start. Laws aren't facultative, will is. Only an individual can be good, only an individual can be evil; a country as an entity has no existence any more than corporate personhood. Here substitute "peaceful" for "good" and "violent" for "evil" if you like.

What causes an individual to become violent and act out? Hopefully not personality variables we entrust to AI and surveillance state- capitalism to sort out. Is it even possible to predict a public shooting? What are these people - shooters - made of? What can we say about them? Are they even angry? What does AI, as it sifts our data, assume to "know" about thinking animals that know and are instilled with noetic qualities?

There's always been murder with instruments of every kind, if you can't accept it, not sure what to say (the desire to kill doesn't originate in America). What scares me more than these senseless murders is the slightest intimation AI could predict public terrorism/shootings. Let's not be too over alarmed by it, eh. After all, a lot of people are killed by cars and other technics, if you want to look at that way. Blaming technics when they fail or do harm (in combination with agency) is failure to think on it in the round.

So how come shootings aren't due to careless wielding of firearms? — Shamshir

But they are. ... The ones that aren't deliberate, of course.

All I'm hearing are excuses on how guns hold all the responsibility and humans hold none. — Shamshir

Guns don't kill people, people kill people? It's a tired old cliche, true as far as it goes, but incomplete and dismissive of the real world. Humans kill other humans, even though we all say (and apparently believe) that we shouldn't. So we need to remove temptation from our paths. And that's guns. Yes, there are many other things that can be used to kill people, but to minimise the number of killings, we need to minimise the number of weapons available.

Those potential weapons that have no other use but as weapons: we should get rid of them straight away. That includes guns, for example. Other things, that have other uses, maybe the best we can do is to be careful of/with them. That includes cars, for example.

The responsibility for all the killings lies with us, the killers. And since we cannot control our deadly urges, but we want to, we do the next best thing, and remove temptation. That is the rationale behind banning guns, and it's what America must do if shootings are to be minimised. Or don't bother, if you're happy with the level of gun crime in your country?

No, authorities don't constitute it's due to high speed, but due to careless driving. — Shamshir

Driving at high speed when the road conditions don't permit it is careless driving. It's not one or the other; one is (sometimes) the other.

But they are. ... The ones that aren't deliberate, of course. — Pattern-chaser

Of course, not only those - but all of them, as shooters care less for the lives of those they intend to shoot, hence they are careless.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people? It's a tired old cliche, true as far as it goes, but incomplete and dismissive of the real world. — Pattern-chaser

Give your dog a gun and tell me the death toll.

Those potential weapons that have no other use but as weapons — Pattern-chaser

There is nothing that can't be anything but a weapon.
That's a very convoluted presumption which again you're trying to scapegoat in to avoiding responsibility.

And since we cannot control our deadly urges, but we want to — Pattern-chaser

See, I've never heard of someone wanting to not kill someone, but killing him anyway, much as I've never heard of someone who wanted pizza but got salad instead.
What you're voicing through this statement is a lack of commitment; it's like kids who want to work part time and earn a huge salary right off the bat.

That is the rationale behind banning guns, and it's what America must do if shootings are to be minimised. — Pattern-chaser

Sure, less guns equates to less shootings. But are the shootings the issue or the homicides?
Like I've explicitly told you, with or without guns, people will kill and not less.

Or don't bother, if you're happy with the level of gun crime in your country? — Pattern-chaser

My country has a low gun crime toll and yet is proportionally worse in every aspect of the justice department. When every house legally possessed firearms, crime was at an all time low.

Funnily, crime back then and now is not connected to guns, but to education.
Back when people had guns, people were far more disciplined.
Now they don't have guns, but kill each other on the daily, as they've degenerated.

Driving at high speed when the road conditions don't permit it is careless driving. It's not one or the other; one is (sometimes) the other. — Pattern-chaser

The road conditions never permit high speed, because it reduces reaction time and crashes happen at the last second.
Stopping distances is the first thing they teach you, when you take Driver's Ed.

Like I've explicitly told you, with or without guns, people will kill and not less. — Shamshir

And yet the statistics clearly show that countries where guns are controlled or forbidden have less gun crime (obvious? :wink: ). And the difference is not taken up in murders using other weapons. There are not appreciably more stabbings when there are no guns around. Guns make it easy and convenient to kill, quickly and efficiently, in anger, before one has the time for sober consideration.

My country has a low gun crime toll and yet is proportionally worse in every aspect of the justice department. — Shamshir

I thought you were American. :blush: Sorry for my mistake. What country do you come from?

The gun homicide rate in England and Wales is about one for every 1 million people, according to the Geneva Declaration of Armed Violence and Development, a multinational organization based in Switzerland.

In a population of 56 million, that adds up to about 50 to 60 gun killings annually. In the USA, by contrast, there are about 160 times as many gun homicides in a country that is roughly six times larger in population. There were 8,124 gun homicides in 2014, according to the latest FBI figures. — USA Today"

The US allows its citizens to possess and use guns; the UK does not. We have 1 gun-killing per million per year, and our neighbours across the Atlantic have about 22 per million per year. Taking just these two countries as examples, it would seem that the availability of guns leads to the use of guns (for killing each other with).

Overall, there are 8493 deaths per million (from all causes) in the USA (source: link), and 8887 deaths per million (from all causes) in the UK (source: link).

So our overall death rates are very similar, but the gun-killings are not.

P.S. Guns aren't banned in the UK, because to ban them, they must once have been allowed. I have no idea when or if guns have ever been generally available in the UK, but it has not been so in my lifetime (born 1955), and I don't think it was ever the case.... :chin: So guns were never banned in the UK; they've never been allowed. [There are exception for shotguns, used in the country by gamekeepers and the like.]

[ The so-called ban on handguns in 1997 in the UK actually refers to a law that tightened up exceptions to our existing gun controls. Handguns were already illegal, except for some carefully-controlled exceptions. After the Dunblane massacre, some of these exceptions were removed or tightened up. ]

One thing to note about gun deaths in the US is that by far the majority of such deaths are not caused by homicide, but suicide, which account for almost double the fatalities in comparison (source). And the ease of access to firearms is a likely to be a big contributing factor to those deaths, without which they would not take place (source).

OK, but would I be correct to observe that the number of gun-homicides per million per year is still much higher in the US than the UK? If 12 of the 22 deaths per million per year in the US was suicide, then that still leaves ten times the death rate of the UK. [And if my guess is wrong, and 17 of the 22 deaths were suicide, that's still FIVE times our rate.] More guns seem to result in more murders.

Yeah I agree, I was just trying to point out that the problem is even worse - quantifiably doubly so - once suicides are taken into account.

I just noticed from your source that "39,773 Americans were killed by guns in 2017". That's about 110 per million per year. Even if 100 of them are suicides (hard to believe?), that's still ten times the UK rate.

Germany has four times as many guns per 100 people than the UK (20+ compared to 5 per 100), yet homicide rats in the UK are 44% greater. — I like sushi

It's fairly deceitful to supply a percentage difference without simultaneously supplying the numbers you are comparing. The homicide rate is 0.81 in the UK and 1.17 in Germany, which is a difference of 44% but in real terms is hardly distinguishable. As you point out, Germany has many more guns than UK. There are nearly 20 civilian-owned guns per 100 people in Germany and nearly 5 civilian-owned guns per 100 people in England. But this is very much in line with gun deaths: in 2015 there were 269 homicides committed with a firearm vs. only 14 in England (19x more). Per 1 million people, there are 3.26 murders committed by a firearm in Germany vs. 0.236 in England (14x more). This is not surprising when there are four times as many guns per people in one country than another, there are much more gun-attributed deaths, which is precisely my point, not that there is some vague cultural aspect involced which no one can seem to actually articulate.

In America, there are 120 civilian firearms per 100 people, or 5 times more than Germany, so it's unsurprising the USA has 32 gun-attributed murders per one million people vs. Germany's 3.26 (10x more) and 9,369 murders in 2015 compared to Germany's 269 (35x times more). More guns more gun-related murders, and to @StreetlightX's point, none of this even takes suicide via firearm into account.

So, do you disagree it's people that kill people? — Shamshir

the problem has four elements. First, if you are to focus on killing alone, then it is very clear from FBI statistics that the majority of homicides in the USA are not from strangers involved in home invasion. Family and 'friends,' living in the same domicile kill each other far more frequently, by a factor of 2:1, and most frequently husbands shoot their wives. And this is not idle speculation, or drawn from anti-gun lobby group data. I put two years into analyzing all the reliable data I could find, here:

https://www.yofiel.com/guns/916-report

The second element is the ease with which people can kill each other when guns are available. The same report shows that death is far more likely if guns are available, and that guns are the preferred method of attack in the USA by an order of magnitude.

The third element is that 2nd amendment advocates have proliferated an enormous amount of propaganda purely aimed at increasing gun sales. It's been claimed that there are now more people selling guns in the USA than all the people who work in Mcdonalds, Starbucks, and all supermarkets combined, although I haven't seen ratification of it, it is not an unfair statement that too many people in the USA are very vocal about their vested self interest.

The reason I wrote the first report was after asking some gun owners if they would shoot children who broke into their back yard to steal apples off an apple tree. I was so astonished by the results, I asked 500 gun owners. 90% said they would. At the time no one believed me but now people rarely doubt it. that is to say, attitudes to guns have got markedly worse in the last decades to the extent where even Americans are starting to notice it. I wrote a report on that in 2018 which I sent to John Oliver, and he did a show on the NRA the following week, you can see it here:

https://www.yofiel.com/guns/nra

the fourth element is the sparcity of reliable data. The anti-gun lobby in the USA is almost as fanatical as the pro-gun lobby, frequently making wild emotive claims of the same order. If there were more sanity, similar data on violent gun injuries, which have been increasing at a far greater rate in the USA, would be available, but the NRA was successful in sponsoring a bill to stop further government research into firearm injuries.

As a result, there is not much data on the actual cost of gun violence. I attempted to calculate it, and it figured out to be about $400 per gun in the USA. So I proposed a per-firearm 'gun violence tax' which would reduce if gun violence went down, offset by a gun tax credit for all Americans equal to the amount of income from the gun violence tax. That would create a unified interest to reduce the cost of violence, and hence result in sensible legislature, rather than the piecemeal hodge podge now existent in the USA. Moreover, as most people who own guns own more than one, the tax credit is more than the cost of owning one gun, which would actually make it cheaper for someone who doesnt own a gun to buy one. That would incentivize the gun industry to stop selling assault weapons, which is now its man source of revenue here, and causing the problem in my opinion. Currenlty the firearm industry is trying to sell guns to people who already have one, so they are marketing more lethal ones. Instead they would try to make guns safer. Then with reduction in gun violence, everyone would benefit from the tax credit. A number of politicians contacted me about making a gun violence tax, but none were interested in returning its income to everyone as a tax credit, so I gave up on the gun tax solution.

I tried proposing a government buy-back program to convert assault weapons into low-velocity sports toys, but my proposal was not liked by the low-income neighborhood where I was living at the time. They shot my cat with an air gun, shot guns across my yard from a violent person's front yard to a tree on the other side, and tried to beat me up several times, to 'teach me how stupid I am.' the police couldnt do anything about it. So I moved out of that city and didn't tell anyone where I now live. My house is still there, but I am too frightened to go back to it, and probably they have ransacked it too by now.

So that's what happens if you try to stop gun violence in the USA.

Go ahead, remove the guns and watch people go back to swinging pipes and bats and knives; they'll die just as often. — Shamshir

No, they won't. The simple fact borne out by empirical evidence is that the more powerful the weapon the more enhanced the affects of aggression applied to it. Someone with a bat may expend all their aggression hitting you with it once, which may harm but not kill you, but the same level of aggression expressed through pressing the trigger of a gun much more easily will. That's why we don't allow people to buy grenades and rocket launchers. Because we know that they are too dangerous to be put in the hands of regular humans who are prone to sudden fits of pique. So, the principle is accepted everywhere, including in America, that people will die more the more dangerous weapons are available. It's just that in America, which is already awash with guns, people don't feel safe enough to give theirs up and don't fully appreciate the advantages in security of an environment where everyone has.

I agree. here are two statistics i drew from FBI and CDC data.



and

The first graph sums it up fairly well. The more dangerous the weapon, the more magnified the effect of the aggression involved. That's why 'dangerous' weapons like guns are so-called. I sometimes resent having to make these obvious points, but it seems they must be made.

Another problem is that accidents with guns, which are rising dramatically, such that involuntary homicide will be more frequent than murder in 2022.