Gun control in the US

[Fraudornot]

With the assassination of Charlie Kirk looking like it’s been carried out by someone probably suffering from mental health issues with access to guns, why are Americans so unwilling to address gun control. I would love to hear from Americans to know why there is the reluctance.

Salami tactics, one slice at a time. Start by tightening regulation on sales of both arms and ammunition. Introduce legislation on safe storage (like California has) and rely on reactive enforcement (so dealing with negligent owners after an incident) rather than proactively sending the police from door-to-door which would provoke a reaction in the current climate.

Right, so what are they going to do about it?

Up to them. What people say in a poll, and what they do/how they vote. Is an entirely different thing. Obviously.

Only, the Americans get to decide on guns in America. If enough of them want to do something about it. They will. Clearly, not enough, do want to.

The 58% obviously isn't enough, or they don't feel strongly enough to actually get things changed.

What are YOU suggesting? Real actual concrete action, now. Not wishy washy nonsense about how things should be.

I agree with what you said about the devotion to the Constitution but I think there is something else at play now. MAGAs seem to have a very selective devotion to the Constitution and more and more amendments get trampled on without a whimper...

I'd also like to point out that various states and cities tried passing gun control laws and the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. It's not so simple as passing a law, and amending the constitution is fiendishly difficult. You need the legislatures of 3/4 of the states to ratify it.

“Probably suffering from mental health issues.”

That’s a strange assumption. The shot was clean, deliberate, and professional. Doesn’t really scream “mental illness.”

What I don’t get is why this guy was given so much airtime in the first place. In his own words: “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

Well, Charlie Kirk got exactly what Charlie Kirk defended. Careful what you wish for.

Here’s a man who made millions rationalising school shootings as an acceptable tradeoff for “gun liberty.” Now he’s dead—shot at a university—while on the very same day, children were being shot at a school in Colorado. And we’re supposed to shed a tear?

Someone once said, “The First Amendment is first for a reason. The Second Amendment is just in case the first one doesn’t work.” Looks like he found out what that really means.

That’s not how it works.

I think it is.

It’s definitely not. As most murderers would be deemed criminally insane. And yet that is not the case.

I know. Not insane, perhaps. But it’s my contention that if you think killing someone will solve your problem, you’re mentally unwell.

I don’t think this assassin thought of Kirk as a problem to be solved, more as an enemy to be got rid of.

Also an American, have lived in the US for my entire life. I completely agree with you. I think a huge part of it is that the NRA donates to, and therefore controls, a lot of US politicians, who then propagate the need to support 2A to their constituents. A lot of fear mongering mixed in there, as well.

American in the US and the gun culture is wild but I think what might get lost sometimes is that it is incredibly regionalized. Gun laws don't just vary by state, they vary by city. I grew up in Massachusetts, where cities and towns have some of the strictest gun laws in the country and not coincidentally, the amongst the lowest rates of gun violence in the US (Chicago often gets pointed out as a counter to strict gun laws preventing gun violence, but the Iron Pipeline is robust in the Midwest). Gun culture in the Northeast, where I live, is completely different than in other parts of the country and buying a gun for a child is viewed as an absolutely bonkers idea. There are other regions where this is totally normal; a family friend moved to West Virginia and told us that it was not unusual for kindergarteners (5 and 6 year olds) to get their first children's rifle. Our huge challenge is implementing federal gun laws and restrictions, and the results are continuously heartbreaking.

So every murderer has mental health problems?
What about every rapist? thief?

I think you are removing personal responsibility here.

Where has motive been ascertained?

I’m going by the messages engraved on the shell casings, which had references to gamer culture.

Most wars begin with someone deciding that killing others will solve their problems. This has been the case for centuries, soldiers included. By your definition, “it’s my contention that if you think killing someone will solve your problem, you’re mentally unwell”, would that not mean many leaders and soldiers fall into this category?

After Sandy Hook I no longer have any hope that this will change in the US. It has to be said that there are other countries with a high level of gun ownership (Canada, Switzerland) and nothing like the amount of death.

I do think that repealing the second amendment is the best route. But very unlikely. Slightly more hope that there might be ammunition controls.

Even those who are pro-gun control will always say ‘nobody wants to take all your guns away’.

When my American relatives visited Britain they were scared by the lack of guns here. They have a very different culture over there.

I think that war is a kind of collective madness, yes. Sometimes we justify it after the event.

We do it at an individual level too. When we acquit an abused wife who killed her husband, we say that the balance of her mind was understandably disturbed.

I just dont know how gun control in the US would be implemented, so it seems like a moot point to me.
The only people who would hand them in would be the responsible owners.
The "bad guys" wouldnt.

America has hundreds of millions of guns. I feel like a rowback is impossible.

I'm American and I will say I honestly have no idea. Brainwashing by the NRA and the politicians funded by the NRA, I guess, although a majority of Americans do want what they call 'common sense' gun law reform, which will never go far enough, imo.

The way to put a stop to it - probably the only way - is to make it legal to sue the gun and ammunition manufacturers so they're liable for the death and destruction caused by their products. It worked with tobacco companies, it can work in this instance too.

Yes, I'm from the northeast as well and people here in the UK are always shocked (and I think slightly disbelieving) when I tell them that I didn't grow up around guns, or even, for the most part, people who had guns.

i live in Maine and I never see guns except on the police, and I hardly ever see a policeman.

It is absolutely fascinating when you look at state by state maps. New England has almost European rates of crime and gun violence. You will absolutely find gun owners but they are much more likely to be rural hunter types in Maine and Vermont. The Mid-Atlantic has higher crime but is also more densely populated with bigger cities. I lived in Pennsylvania for a few years and that has more of a gun culture, especially rurally, but that’s relative: plenty of people don’t.

the South is by far the highest crime region.

Reagan has a lot to answer for in that respect. We are reaping what he sowed in the 80s. He danced with the devil, leaning on the Christian ultra right and the NRA...