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[McTraveller]

Yeah basically I hate that we have to treat our entire nation like children, but that's what they are.  Time to take away the toys.  I don't know how to take them away without having a literally bloody tantrum though.

I do wonder, though, what would people like that do if they didn't have a firearm? Would they just quietly abuse their immediate family? Would they just drink/drug themselves to a stupor? Would they actually just cool off?

[EuchreJack]

If people didn't have guns to kill people, they'd use cars to kill people. If people didn't have cars to kill people, they'd use knives to kill people.

It ain't the guns that kill people. Now if you want to argue that guns make it easier for people to kill multiple people, I can't argue with that. But the guns are just the tools of those who want to commit mass murder.

[delphonso]

Yeah basically I hate that we have to treat our entire nation like children, but that's what they are.  Time to take away the toys.  I don't know how to take them away without having a literally bloody tantrum though.

I do wonder, though, what would people like that do if they didn't have a firearm? Would they just quietly abuse their immediate family? Would they just drink/drug themselves to a stupor? Would they actually just cool off?

Assuming this is a result of lack of prospects/hope about future, it'd probably be like how it is here in China. Every month or so, someone (exclusively middleaged male) commits suicide via police by taking a knife and stabbing some children outside an elementary or.kindergarten. it's horrific, and often has multiple casualties upwards of 4 or 5. Part of this is because schools are crammed traffic zones (especially when people abandon cars and run) and ambulances can't get in in those precious seconds to save lives.

If people didn't have guns to kill people, they'd use cars to kill people. If people didn't have cars to kill people, they'd use knives to kill people.

It ain't the guns that kill people. Now if you want to argue that guns make it easier for people to kill multiple people, I can't argue with that. But the guns are just the tools of those who want to commit mass murder.

Propose a solution, please.

Edit: don't mean to be curt but I'm interested in your perspective.

[EuchreJack]

If people didn't have guns to kill people, they'd use cars to kill people. If people didn't have cars to kill people, they'd use knives to kill people.

It ain't the guns that kill people. Now if you want to argue that guns make it easier for people to kill multiple people, I can't argue with that. But the guns are just the tools of those who want to commit mass murder.

Propose a solution, please.

Yearly mental health examinations, same as yearly physical health examinations.
How voluntary vs. mandatory depends on your culture.

[Vector]

mentally ill people are more likely to be victims, than perpetrators, of gun violence.

people don't do this because they're mentally ill. they do it because they want to do it.

[Frumple]

If people didn't have guns to kill people, they'd use cars to kill people. If people didn't have cars to kill people, they'd use knives to kill people.

In far fewer numbers with far lower lethality. Guns are uniquely deadly and easy to use (among methods of both homicide and suicide), unfortunately.

E: Any case, there's no solution until something can be done to break the back of the US conservative political sphere, in some way that (eventually) opens up the possibility of improvement on any front. As is, that's the driving force behind firearm proliferation and opposition or non-cooperation to any and all means of mitigation of its effects. Mental health proposals are a nonstarter -- they're actively opposed to those and will block or sabotage any efforts, and will not fund them. Hardening schools is a non-starter -- for all the current mouth noises, they will actively oppose and sabotage any efforts to actually do so, and will not fund them. Firearm regulation and enforcement is a nonstarter -- they're actively opposed to that and will block and sabotage any efforts, and will not fund them. Even further arming the population is a nonstarter, because even in cases where it's theoretically possible they will not fund and support people trying to do so. The list goes fucking on. They will oppose and sabotage any efforts by any level of government to improve the state of things, and will either do the same or just leave out in the cold any non-government efforts, too.

There is no solution while the state of US politics, and especially anything GOP aligned, is in the state it is. There'll be about a school shooting a week and a mass shooting every couple of days, and it will continue until that state changes.

[hector13]

The problem is that the people who do want to kill others (in America) can get their hands on guns quite easily because whenever a bad person does kill someone, nobody really does anything about it.

[None]

yearly physical health examinations

you guys do yearly physical health examinations, right?

you can all afford yearly physical health examinations?

no stubborn pride in not having seen a doctor in ten years?

we're all keenly aware how to navigate the snare of employer-provided health insurance?

i haven't seen a doctor since my intestines tried to have a three-way with my testacles close to a decade ago, maybe i'm actually cracked in the head?

[hector13]

I went for a physical once, then balked at the cost. wtf is the point in paying for insurance if I also have to pay the doctor? Like, seriously America, you have an example of universal healthcare on your doorstep but your like NO WE CANT HELP THE PLEBS I WONT SUBSIDISE THEIR HEALTHCARE (even though I’m doing that with insurance) ID RATHER LINE THE POCKETS OF AN INSURANCE EXECUTIVE OR DIE OF SCURVY IF I DONT HAVE INSURANCE.

[EuchreJack]

And also, it takes 3 months to see a doctor these days, and you never know if your surgery/test is gonna be cancelled at the last minute. The US health system is falling apart.

[Frumple]

It's been actively attacked by the GOP in particular (followed by insurance fuckers and their ilk, when they aren't one and the same) for at least as long as I've been alive. Falling apart isn't quite the right words for something buckling in the face of persistent and pervasive sabotage hitting the effects of a system wide plague like a barrel of shit thrown into a hurricane fan, y'know? Not that it isn't fairly literal for some of the more neglected hospitals, ha.

... that said, I actually haven't noticed much worse waits than what's been pretty usual most of my life? Like, it's definitely there and it's probably worse in some areas or specific specialties, but wait time has been weeks to months for most things as far back as I can remember. It's worse these days, but it's worse relative to a previous situation that was regularly pretty shit anyway, heh.

[MaxTheFox]

I don't support banning guns or anything, but there should be more thorough licensing. You want a gun? Make us believe you're not dangerously mentally ill. Mentally stable people don't shoot up schools. It just doesn't happen.

mentally ill people are more likely to be victims, than perpetrators, of gun violence.

people don't do this because they're mentally ill. they do it because they want to do it.

They don't seriously want do it if they don't have serious issues.

The far-right getting radicalized is also a factor in it, but an inevitable one. Crush 'em under the boot.

[Frumple]

That's not exactly the point vec's making, max. Plenty of folks (i.e. the wild majority) who are mentally ill don't shoot up schools, or even anything else. Something like a quarter of the US has an active mental illness diagnosis during any given year, and far all there's too goddamn many of them the number of school shootings is only about one a week (i.e. 50-55 out of something like 82 million, which is a percentage so low the calculator on this computer gives up and resorts to scientific notation).

Nevermind that the vast majority of gun violence happens outside of schools, quite a lot of it inflicted by people that would pass through a psyche screening like greased owl shit, disproportionately on people who wouldn't or haven't. Vec's 100% correct when they say someone mentally ill is more likely a victim than a perpetrator of gun violence.

Like, frankly, it's one of the complications with the intersection of mental health and gun violence -- while many folks committing the latter are mentally ill to some degree, the vast, vast majority of folks who are mentally ill are not even violent, much less murderously violent and willing to resort to shooting people. Much of what mental health services do aren't going to have anything to do with folks that are a shooting risk, because even if absolutely no one slipped through the (underfunded, hamstrung by conservative shitheels) cracks there's just not that many of them, and the way mental healthcare works just... isn't super good at identifying the ones that are.

It's one of several reasons why improved mental health services just wouldn't be a silver bullet, even if somehow conservatives stopped trying to sabotage it across the board and instead threw full throated support behind it in an effort to mitigate gun violence. It's just not very effective at identifying and preventing the problem in question. Good for a massive fuckton of other reasons, but... not that one.

... all that said, if you're looking for the most effective mental health service to provide to mitigate mass shootings in particular, well... studies have found (link to a vice report on one of them) that the single most pervasive commonality between shooters is that they're extremely likely (something like 70% or up, iirc) to be suicidal. So... suicide prevention would be the way to go, more than basically any and every thing else.

Coincidence that's one of the named and explicit targets of anti-school efforts by the GOP? One would hope it's just a coincidence, I guess...

[MaxTheFox]

Oh I know that most mentally ill people don't shoot up schools. I have borderline personality disorder myself.

But I'd say 99.9% of mass shooters are mentally ill. That was my point.

Better mental health is unlikely to happen in America any time soon, but so is gun control. Kind of a cop out to say that it's impractical when everything else is also impractical.

[hector13]

If you want a gun you need to show you can use it and store it safely. Regular safety courses should be a minimum requirement.