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[Frumple]

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.

Going by the linked report, it's closer to 66% with a documented history, or about two thirds (which sounds higher than it is -- the base rate for the US population is around 50% for developing a history of it at some point in their life, so it's higher than the general population for the shooters in question, but not wildly so). Even if identification rates got better, I doubt it'd get much higher -- a lot of mass shootings are spur of the moment things, which don't take having lingering psyche troubles to occur. The issue they have is easy access to a particularly deadly weapon, full stop.

Extremely pointedly, though, the number of cases where it's directly linked to a symptom of mental illness (i.e. hallucination, delusion, etc.) is closer to a 6th or so -- only 16-ish percent. It's not mental illness causing this stuff. Correlating, but not causing.

... though so far as practicality goes, you'll note I already chimed in on that. There's nothing practical that can be done stateside, with the way things currently are. The precondition to any meaningful improvement on the gun violence front is to break the american right wing as a substantive political force, because without that you're not going to accomplish much of anything with them actively attacking every possible avenue of improvement, even the goddamn ones their own politicos are suggesting. Until their horseshit can be stopped, fuckall is going to occur on this front.

[MaxTheFox]

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.

That too.

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.

Going by the linked report, it's closer to 66% with a documented history, or about two thirds (which sounds higher than it is -- the base rate for the US population is around 50% for developing a history of it at some point in their life, so it's higher than the general population for the shooters in question, but not wildly so). Even if identification rates got better, I doubt it'd get much higher -- a lot of mass shootings are spur of the moment things, which don't take having lingering psyche troubles to occur. The issue they have is easy access to a particularly deadly weapon, full stop.

Extremely pointedly, though, the number of cases where it's directly linked to a symptom of mental illness (i.e. hallucination, delusion, etc.) is closer to a 6th or so -- only 16-ish percent. It's not mental illness causing this stuff. Correlating, but not causing.

... though so far as practicality goes, you'll note I already chimed in on that. There's nothing practical that can be done stateside, with the way things currently are. The precondition to any meaningful improvement on the gun violence front is to break the american right wing as a substantive political force, because without that you're not going to accomplish much of anything with them actively attacking every possible avenue of improvement, even the goddamn ones their own politicos are suggesting. Until their horseshit can be stopped, fuckall is going to occur on this front.

A person without issues simply does not go out and try to murder dozens of people. All this means is that we are bad at finding people prone to committing mass murder-suicide before they do it. Yes it's a spur of the moment thing, but I can tell you for sure there are underlying issues that cause it.

[hector13]

Humans are emotional beings. Emotions are inherently irrational. Irrational actions do not make someone inherently broken, regardless how much you’d like to think so.

[Vector]

I don't think there's any need to pressure Max. She's not even presently a member of the electorate, meaning convincing her to vote with you will do literally nothing!

I think I'm just frustrated with the idea of being screened for mental health every year. My mental health is garbage and having more people think I'm dangerous because of my mood swings and depression than they already due because of my gender just sounds ... sucky. "Sir or ma'am, your results suggest that you shouldn't have a gun and you should have those brain drugs that you got off of and you really can't afford." What are they expecting us to do with that?

(Also, Yes, I don't get yearly checkups and no one else in my family does either. It's not a thing).

[delphonso]

Also, as we saw with Black Panthers, if we did implement some screening, it would almost certainly just disarm minorities and keep guns in the hands of whites.

Even if it was a good idea, it would be horribly exploited without gun control laws across the board.

[MaxTheFox]

Humans are emotional beings. Emotions are inherently irrational. Irrational actions do not make someone inherently broken, regardless how much you’d like to think so.

There's simply irrational, and there's mass murder.

I guess I don't really see a better solution.

[Frumple]

Eh, a lot/most mass shootings are fairly small ones -- 4 or 5 folks shot, that sort of thing. Irrational and momentarily emotional is all that takes when you have a gun that can spit out two or three times that number of bullets in the span of a few seconds, any of which can easily kill someone, which is most guns that aren't single shot (and probably some that are).

Reducing access and proliferation is just... literally pretty much the only thing that will help on that front. Those sorts of shootings are caused by availability, just having an extremely deadly weapon sufficiently near someone that's pissed off or otherwise distressed, and stopped when it's no longer there. It's the difference between four dead to gunfire and one or two stabbed but stable in the hospital, basically.

It's also not something that's going to have anything done about stateside anytime soon, unfortunately. Stateside, there's a bunch of people stridently opposed to implementing any and all solutions proposed, and until that changes, welp.

[McTraveller]

You guys are also forgetting that 99.999% or whatever of gun-owners are not mass-murderers.  So that when you say "only madmen have guns" then that vast majority of people hears that you are calling them madmen... even if that is not what you mean.

Better gun control should be a goal - but we really do need to do it in a way that the vast majority of gun holders don't take personally.  Because that's what's happening now, and it's what causes most of the backlash.

[dragdeler]

Get over yourself, it's a single purpose tool, the purpose being hurting/killing. Sry 100% sounds like youngling hurt my feelings in debate so now I am team nazi.


It doesn't concern you? Fine go live your life instead of defending positions that are supposedly not yours.



Tell me one thing you can do with a gun that's constructive. And jfl at dissuasion, dissuade by threatening likely lethal violence? Legit. But if someone is so angry he's screaming he wants to break jaws, that's scandalous.

J
F
L

[dragdeler]

If there were something to "defend yourself from the king of england and other oppressors", the whole uvalde swat team would be 6ft under by now. Nope gunowners are just afraid pussies that are willing to risk a domestic accident because they drank the cool-aid.

[McTraveller]

You folks are proving my point.  You are attacking people's character, not addressing the issue.  Attacking people's character is almost guaranteed to hinder your efforts.

You don't get people to give up their guns by calling them scared weak people. You get people to give up their guns by making them feel safe (enough) without them.  Calling them scared and weak makes them feel less safe.

This is not difficult, is it?

[dragdeler]

Their position are inherently made such that they cannot be changed.

You're not arguing for debate, you want us to coddle them.

[dragdeler]

Those rational rational gunowners so endowed with reason they take every generalisation personnally, it's a joke a really lame ass joke.



Just increase safety by bringing in more murdertools. And make sure to coddle the poeple that make litterraly no sense at all.





As long as there was a single violent crime within 1500km radius the last decade, they have all the arguments they need to keep a gun. So let me put it in terms a dense gun nut might understand: as long as a single deer in the world was fed during winter I can reject the hunting and preservation argument they love... See two can play at this, doesn't feel fair minded and in good faith, does it?

[nenjin]

You guys are also forgetting that 99.999% or whatever of gun-owners are not mass-murderers.  So that when you say "only madmen have guns" then that vast majority of people hears that you are calling them madmen... even if that is not what you mean.

Better gun control should be a goal - but we really do need to do it in a way that the vast majority of gun holders don't take personally.  Because that's what's happening now, and it's what causes most of the backlash.

Only madmen would look at the situation in America today and argue the status quo is ok, or that we need even MORE guns.

[scriver]

You guys are also forgetting that 99.999% or whatever of gun-owners are not mass-murderers.  So that when you say "only madmen have guns" then that vast majority of people hears that you are calling them madmen... even if that is not what you mean.

Better gun control should be a goal - but we really do need to do it in a way that the vast majority of gun holders don't take personally.  Because that's what's happening now, and it's what causes most of the backlash.

Only madmen would look at the situation in America today and argue the status quo is ok, or that we need even MORE guns.

And you're saying that every gun owner in America argues that?