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Most likely.
We have always been a nation of guns but random and mass shootings are a relatively new thing. When guns were easy to purchase we had less shootings. Now we have more restrictive gun laws and we have more shootings. A good chuck of the population is on some medication and/or self medicating.
I'm going with more mental illness, more violence in general as the cause of increased gun violence.
Really, you think we have more mental illness.
We have more guns per capita than any country in the world, more guns than anytime in our past and with more fire power. One gun for every person on average so I don't see anyone being prevented from owning a gun.
Most likely.
We have always been a nation of guns but random and mass shootings are a relatively new thing. When guns were easy to purchase we had less shootings. Now we have more restrictive gun laws and we have more shootings. A good chuck of the population is on some medication and/or self medicating.
I'm going with more mental illness, more violence in general as the cause of increased gun violence.
Do you by chance have any source material to back up your opinions or should we just take your word for it? I myself don't pretend to have any far reaching solution to the epidemic that seems to largely be an American situation. I do know there are mentally ill people all over the world and that, in fact, not all people who go on shooting rampages are, in fact, mentally ill. Some of just bad people. Some have serious anger issues not described as a mental illness. The mentally ill get blacmed for a lot of bad things in this country that they are not guilty of.
I found a quote by President Trump that I found interesting to say the least.
Quote:
Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun.
The interesting thing to me is that he also blamed hatred. I think he may have been onto something and not realized it. Hatred and anger, two look alike cousins, do cause a lot of people to go on shooting sprees. Neither of the two are mental illness. And neither are the sole reason for a shooting. For example, I am angry at that blown call in the Ohio State game the other hate and I freely admit that I hate President Trump. But I am not going to kill anyone because of it.
There are no easy answers to tis, but that's what some people want. Others would just rather blame the other political party which is why we have these posts where someone claims that "thirteen of the top ten murder capitals of the country are Demonrats or Rethugicans or what have you. There are no easy answers and before you think that only the mentally ill go on shooting sprees, you might want to look around the internet a bit more
We have more guns per capita than any country in the world, more guns than anytime in our past and with more fire power. One gun for every person on average so I don't see anyone being prevented from owning a gun.
Many people are already legally prevented from possessing firearms. Just a gentle reminder of that.
My brother is permanently barred from ever owning a firearm. Needless to say, before his last conviction, he was an avid gun collector, so when he was incarcerated my dad contacted a friend of his, who has actually led a pretty respectable life, and asked him if he would take these guns, and sell them, and give my brother the money. So this friend took the guns. Not sure about the legalities of any of that - I wasn't involved in this - My dad just told me where the guns were.
So when my dad died, I found correspondence between him and this person and my dad had told him that my brother was never legally able to ever own a gun again. THIS GUY HAD ANSWERED BACK THAT HE DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS CORRECT. In other words, pretty sure he was looking for a way to give my brother back his guns. In fact, he even implied that he WOULD give these guns back to my schizophrenic brother with a violent criminal record!!!!!
Pretty sure he was hoping that the information about the location of this cache would die with my dad. So I contacted him and said "I understand that you have my brother's guns. Thank you for agreeing with my dad to sell them and to give the money to my brother. I want to remind you that it is against federal law for you to allow my brother access to these guns. I understand that you have a wife and family and it seems to me that you are a law abiding citizen." I then provided links to Federal law as well as excerpts from Federal law stating clearly that it is against the law for my brother to be in possession of firearms.
I never heard a word back from him. And now I hear through the grapevine that my brother has guns again. What he and his buddy need to know is that I have the serial numbers of these guns and correspondence proving that this friend of his took possession of these guns, so if a crime is ever committed with any of these guns, I can - and will - provide evidence to the police regarding the chain of possession of these guns as well as the evidence that his buddy had already been told that it was against federal law for him to give my brother access to or possession of guns several times - along with copies of actual federal laws on the books.
We have more guns per capita than any country in the world, more guns than anytime in our past and with more fire power. One gun for every person on average so I don't see anyone being prevented from owning a gun.
Have we not always had more guns per capita than any country in the world. Actually according to all stats I could find gun ownership in the US has decreased over the past few decades.
Growing up in the 70's-80's (dont really remember much of the 60's) one could buy guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns and ammo at flea markets, from department stores without any type of background check or ID. People carried them around on gun racks in their trucks parked in the High School parking lot. Yet there was not near the level of random and mass shootings going on. I know that is anecdotal but statistics will back it up.
At the same time statistically, mental illness has increased as well as the number of people taking various medications including antidepressants has increased especially in children and young adults.
So yes IMO increased gun violence points to more mental illness/instability as opposed to more guns.
The cynic inside me thinks we are actually doing what the politicians want us to do. We are, as a nation, arguing amongst ourselves about what causes gun violence. This has in effect let politicians off the hook for actually doing anything about the problem. So they (and I mean they because the current president and the one before him have blamed mental illness) just have their talking points and nothing ever gets done about it.
I know no one will read this link, especially the ones who think we need to just arbitrarily look up the mentally ill, but here is an opinion piece on why blaming the mentally ill for all the mass shootings is just dumb (my words, not theres)
Study(psychiatryonline.org) after study(www.sciencedirect.com) has demonstrated that people with mental health issues commit only a miniscule percentage of mass shootings and account for less than 1% of annual gun homicides. According to a study based on Swedish data published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, only 3%-5% of violent crimes are perpetrated by someone with a mental illness.(ajp.psychiatryonline.org) In fact, people with serious mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of violence.(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) And the vast majority of gun deaths in America are from suicide, meaning those with mental illness are far more likely to harm themselves than others.
So yes IMO increased gun violence points to more mental illness/instability as opposed to more guns.
No, actualy. But At least you admit that you are just touting your own misinformed opinion.
Quote:
Study(psychiatryonline.org) after study(www.sciencedirect.com) has demonstrated that people with mental health issues commit only a miniscule percentage of mass shootings and account for less than 1% of annual gun homicides. According to a study based on Swedish data published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, only 3%-5% of violent crimes are perpetrated by someone with a mental illness.(ajp.psychiatryonline.org) In fact, people with serious mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of violence.(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) And the vast majority of gun deaths in America are from suicide, meaning those with mental illness are far more likely to harm themselves than others.
Folks can lament all day long what it says about the state of the country/world where we have to take such security measures, but such yapping doesn't change the fact that we do have to and that these measures save lives.
Many people are already legally prevented from possessing firearms. Just a gentle reminder of that.
My brother is permanently barred from ever owning a firearm. Needless to say, before his last conviction, he was an avid gun collector, so when he was incarcerated my dad contacted a friend of his, who has actually led a pretty respectable life, and asked him if he would take these guns, and sell them, and give my brother the money. So this friend took the guns. Not sure about the legalities of any of that - I wasn't involved in this - My dad just told me where the guns were.
So when my dad died, I found correspondence between him and this person and my dad had told him that my brother was never legally able to ever own a gun again. THIS GUY HAD ANSWERED BACK THAT HE DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS CORRECT. In other words, pretty sure he was looking for a way to give my brother back his guns. In fact, he even implied that he WOULD give these guns back to my schizophrenic brother with a violent criminal record!!!!!
Pretty sure he was hoping that the information about the location of this cache would die with my dad. So I contacted him and said "I understand that you have my brother's guns. Thank you for agreeing with my dad to sell them and to give the money to my brother. I want to remind you that it is against federal law for you to allow my brother access to these guns. I understand that you have a wife and family and it seems to me that you are a law abiding citizen." I then provided links to Federal law as well as excerpts from Federal law stating clearly that it is against the law for my brother to be in possession of firearms.
I never heard a word back from him. And now I hear through the grapevine that my brother has guns again. What he and his buddy need to know is that I have the serial numbers of these guns and correspondence proving that this friend of his took possession of these guns, so if a crime is ever committed with any of these guns, I can - and will - provide evidence to the police regarding the chain of possession of these guns as well as the evidence that his buddy had already been told that it was against federal law for him to give my brother access to or possession of guns several times - along
with copies of actual federal laws on the books.
Sounds crazy but many people are resistant to restrictions on private sales, they claim they know the person so why do they need to go through a check.
One of the issues is under reporting of mental issues because of the stigma, some states only report single digits and we now that cant be true. Then there is the inability of even family members to order removal of guns from at risk relatives.
I do know there are mentally ill people all over the world and that, in fact, not all people who go on shooting rampages are, in fact, mentally ill. Some of just bad people.
Does it really matter whether someone is mentally ill or just bad? Both are a danger to society and should be locked up, or at least not allowed to own guns. But good luck with that one; we are so awash with guns it is not possible to prevent people who should not have one from getting one somehow. Of course some of the people who advocate a very literal reading of 2A believe it does not restrict anyone, sane or not, from having a gun. The whole thing is a mess. The irony is, at this point we can't get rid of 2A for the very reason the pro-2A crowd says - only the law abiding people will surrender them.
Well, I think just about anyone who commits a mass shooting of innocent civilians has got to be mentally ill to begin with but there are TONS of mentally ill people among us who would never dream of doing something violent. Just throwing that out there.
Mentally ill people can also be jerks, or hot heads, or idiots, or even evil. Others can be kind, non violent, good natured, you name it. My point is that a jerk is a jerk and evil is evil regardless of mental health or the lack thereof.
I do think that psychotropic drugs can be very effective - but the recidivism rate of lapsing back into serious mental disorders is over 90 percent over time. There are various reasons for this: 1) people feel better and stop taking the meds that made them feel better. 2) People mix other substances with psychotropic drugs. 3) Dementia in seriously mentally ill people is 70 PERCENT and there is no cure for dementia - and once dementia begins, psychotropic drugs can be especially dangerous.
There are other reasons as well but those are very common reasons. My brother did very well and stabilized remarkably well when he was in a five year program and closely monitored. Now he is out of that program and has started mixing drugs and alcohol with his meds and from what I can tell, he is on another downward spiral. And now he has access to guns.
When he was visiting near me, and I KNEW he was doing drugs, and drinking, and had access to guns due to who he was staying with (another person with a criminal record and mental illness!), I actually printed information about him, and his buddy, and went to the police with this information and said, "I really think you need to be aware of this since these people are in your jurisdiction." I don't know if they followed up or not, but I do know they acted EXTREMELY bored with me, like I was creating work for them that they didn't want to do or whatever. Incredibly dismissive.
We have a big problem. Not sure of how to fix it. But lackadaisical law enforcement doesn't do anything to make me feel better about it.
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