Well, California leads the pack on mass school shootings with the toughest gun laws around, and it is the 28th lowest in rank in mental health ranking in 2022 per this reference which weighs 15 factors:
Interestingly, a small percentage of violent crime is directly attributed to mental health issues. Most self harm.
The definition of "mass shooting" leads to discrepancies like 20 vs. 600 for 2020 depending on which agencies definition is used. By number it looks bad for the US even if per capita compared to other countries. But more than half of all gun deaths in the US are suicides, and mass shootings are less than 0.5 or 0.2 percent of all homicides depending on which span of years you use.
I am a less of a gun control advocate than one for mental health access and prophylactic measures. Gun control is a red herring. The genie is out of the bottle. Bad people will procure guns or make them from parts or scratch. Not that hard really given the demand and money available to do it by drug cartels and other criminal organizations. Politicians keep saying "Guns are the number one killer of kids in the US". Based on a NEJM study that defines "kids" as 1 to 19 years of age. 18 and 19-year-olds are adults. Most deaths involving guns occur in the 17 to 19-year-old span are typically gang related. It also includes suicides ("In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC.") and citizens defending themselves with guns and being successful at it along with the police shootings in self defense.
Suicides still occur in relatively large numbers in countries with few guns in the hands of their citizens. They just use another method.
You underestimate the amount of guns that would be made to meet the demand once all free and legal means are shutdown. Have you ever heard of a zip gun? Kids were making these from door bolts decades ago when they couldn't get their hands on a gun.
I just can’t understand the US’ rationalisation of the current state of gun regulation being ok. So only 21,000 of the year’s gun deaths were murders… here in the UK where we cracked down on firearms after the first instance of a school shooting there 35 murders with a firearm in 2021.
And I just can't understand how people use one cause for an effect: London is in the top 10 surveilled cities in the world after China, and UK laws like Section 60 allows stop and search without suspicion. Yeah, it's gun control that lowered the murders in the UK, and I am sure you are good with the UK turning into a real version of Orwell's 1984.
Statistics need context. The term "mass shooting" is defined differently by different agencies/organizations in the US as well as all over the world.
England also has the highest rate of tornadoes per land area in the world, but nobody would think they were at risk for being harmed by a tornado in England vs. the US.
That the definition changes only affects arguments about the type of gun. Low-count definitions correlate assault-style rifles that California has tried to ban. High-count definitions correlate with handguns.
You started with school shootings, singling out California. Texas is by far more prone to mass shootings and I wager statistically equal to California per-capita.
Hawaii has nearly-as-strict gun laws as California but incomparably lower violence by any measure. It’s a better example of your argument. The linked mental health web site ranks it at 7.
On the other hand, the death toll in undisputed mass shootings has skyrocketed since the defeat of the assault weapons ban.
the Hawaii example imo just shows that gun laws work better when they are broadly implimented. to get a gun to Hawaii you need to fly somewhere to buy it. to get one to California, you can just drive to Nevada
More causes than an assault weapons ban. The harm of the COVID lockdowns, Zooming classes, social unrest and division over some real and some social media-induced idiocy, decline of the family, mental health issues, lax criminal prosecution, riots called 'peaceful demonstration', etc. I met a 24-year-old the other day and told them I was in Saudi Arabia and they asked me, "What's that? I never heard of that." I am raising a second set of children. My older children did great, even through some of this idiocy. I am very vigilent with my younger children. I have had a gun since I was eleven years old, and I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. I learned to shoot and handle firearms with respect and safety and shot competitively against the likes of West Point and other military schools and organizations. If you want strict gun control, highest camera surveillance, and police stop and search without suspicion, move to China or England (in the top 10 after China). I'll keep my right to bear arms. I don't keep a gun ready for home protection. I could get it ready in a relatively short time in case of societal upheaval or disorder, if needed, to protect my family. Better to have it than to not have it in those circumstances. 54% of all gun violence deaths are suicides. Another portion are police shooting criminals for self-defense or citizens protecting themselves against criminals. And most younger homicides occur in the 17 to 19-year-old age group due to gang violence. Mass shootings are horrific by their very nature, but not the norm. Stabbing deaths and injuries are more common in Europe than in the Americas[1]. And this is rising. China has no right to have firearms, but they do not share stabbings data. It is estimated to be high based on some news and data released, but cannot be verified.
> Well, California leads the pack on mass school shootings with the toughest gun laws around
If it's not a per-capita statistic, then it's basically just a population map as CA is the most populous state by far. A quick google search shows the top 3 states are CA, TX and FL - ie, the 3 most populous states in the US.
As an ex-Californian, I observed the state transition from high trust, high social cohesion to low trust low social cohesion. Myriad factors involved, over a long time frame.
I’m about as liberal and “woke” as can be, and I agree. If we somehow managed to remove most guns from the US, we would still kill ourselves and each other with bombs, knives, poison, and our enormous vehicles. Driving into crowds seems to be getting more popular, for instance.
Sure Americans would still kill each other without guns, but would they do so to the same degree? Even if the exact same intent exists, if things are harder to do, they won't get done as much. After all, many people have cars in Japan, England, and any other country with strict gun controls, and they don't see the same levels of violence.
If ice cream is 100 paces away from you, you're less likely to eat it than if it's right in front of you. It's basic psychology that the greater the friction to satisfy our impulses, the less likely we are driven by them. It's maddeningly obvious. Similarly if everyone else was eating ice cream. We're social creatures, we emulate what we see others do.
This is the frustrating thing about this topic: it's a discussion about harm reduction, but people don't treat it that way and just throw up their hands and say 'oh it'd be the same without' when the data and logic don't support that.
In decision making parlance, it's a classic perfect is the enemy of the good response. In HN parlance, this is a question of floats not ints. In gamer parlance, this is a question of DPS and AOE, and how much nerfing guns lowers it. I don't know how many more ways we can say it to get through to folks.
But the point is it wouldn't be as easy for an untrained person to kill as many people at once as it is now, and cops wouldn't be as terrified to go up against the killer as they are now when they know an AR is in play.
https://mhanational.org/issues/2022/ranking-states
Interestingly, a small percentage of violent crime is directly attributed to mental health issues. Most self harm.
The definition of "mass shooting" leads to discrepancies like 20 vs. 600 for 2020 depending on which agencies definition is used. By number it looks bad for the US even if per capita compared to other countries. But more than half of all gun deaths in the US are suicides, and mass shootings are less than 0.5 or 0.2 percent of all homicides depending on which span of years you use.
I am a less of a gun control advocate than one for mental health access and prophylactic measures. Gun control is a red herring. The genie is out of the bottle. Bad people will procure guns or make them from parts or scratch. Not that hard really given the demand and money available to do it by drug cartels and other criminal organizations. Politicians keep saying "Guns are the number one killer of kids in the US". Based on a NEJM study that defines "kids" as 1 to 19 years of age. 18 and 19-year-olds are adults. Most deaths involving guns occur in the 17 to 19-year-old span are typically gang related. It also includes suicides ("In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC.") and citizens defending themselves with guns and being successful at it along with the police shootings in self defense.
Suicides still occur in relatively large numbers in countries with few guns in the hands of their citizens. They just use another method.
As the PSA from the 70s stated, "Matches don't start forest fires. People do." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNEW4Ha040w)
And I would add "Guns don't kill people. People do."