Shard

OMG. Have just the video of this. Point blank executions. If there's an argument against guns, this is it. Kind of in shock.

civilservant

If almost anyone can get access to gun, eventually someone mentally ill will get access to a gun.

Neither the political nor judicial will exists to limit 2A in any meaningful will.

Many people seem to think 'it's the cost of doing business' and has been factored in.

It's the reason I carry concealed anywhere where it's not illegal.

Lion in Winter

More than an argument against guns, as such, it's one more instance of showing the burning need we have to understand and solve why we have such a violent society here, and why people are so quick to consider violence and use weapons as a means to solve issues. I don't really buy the "mentally ill" thing in most cases. It's a sort of "no true Scotsman" argument in reverse, ie if you shoot someone due to an argument over snow you are mentally ill". Imo that's just a cop out for us all. Yes, disarming society would be an important element in reducing the violence, but what are the fundamental issues? Did the weaponry cause this outlook? If so, what is different about Switzerland or Canada, also developed, wealthy nations with a large number of weapons?

Here is an article on the PA shooting, and you can see that it contains within it links to other articles about people shooting people because of an argument. Why is that a thing?

https://abcnews.go.com/US/pennsylvan...ry?id=75666109

scrubbedexpat099

Complicated, this guy has an interesting level headed take

Hiro11

These are great questions that are critical to understand. I believe that the mere presence of guns doesn't necessarily mean more violence. You can see this in the US where many of the most heavily armed areas (rural areas, primarily) are also some of the safest areas. This makes me wonder what banning guns will actually accomplish. To me, a gun ban is worthless without addressing the underlying cultural reasons for gun violence. In that regard, you need to look at the cultural problems that drive most gun violence. If you look at gun violence statistics, this kind of random shooting is not representative at all of what's actually behind gun violence statistics in the US. Gang-related violence is the real problem.

civilservant

It all comes back to tolerance for those that disagree with us. Of which there is very little in todays world. Many threads in TIO exhibit this very fact.

If we have no tolerance, and are fed a diet of 'everyone that doesn't agree with you is looking to destroy you and/or are not worthy of consideration' then it's no wonder minor disagreements end in gunfire.

Hiro11

I don't think the kids shooting each other here in Chicago are debating the finer points of woke-ism vs. Trump-ism.

civilservant

Regardless of the reason why, it's fundamentally resorting to violence to resolve a dispute. That dispute would still exist, gun or no gun. Gang related knife crime in London is just as bad.

Shard

That is indeed the question. It's to do with power and rights, I think. The USA is obsessed with the right of the individual. It seems in this case, the shooter genuinely flipped at what was antagonism against him. Why did he shoot? I think the ongoing "Americans have the right to bear arms" mentality has something to do with it. That and the glorification of gun violence in films. It's a toxic mixture.

Agreed that this is not a simple de facto mental illness case. It was human rage, backed up by lethal firearms.

Did you see the original footage by any chance? Horrendous, but a visceral reminder of how easily something can spin out of control.

Lion in Winter

In the US, violence and guns have become integrated. It isn't really an either/or situation any more, if it ever was. Rural areas have less violence because there are fewer people and because there are not, as a result, huge areas of poverty and all the ills that brings. There is a lot of farmland. But they are certainly not violence-free. It's like saying that South East Portland is free from gun violence, despite the easy carry laws of Oregon - south east Portland is inhabited by well-off software engineers and young progressives, not noted as groups involved in violence much. So that doesn't in any way prove that "guns don't cause violence". It just means that other things do, and guns are just the means to execute it, no pun intended. Here, at least, guns are a symptom of society that accepts violence.

I would also make the argument that our willingness to support a society where so many young people are used in the drug trade to make money for a few at the top, with their own lives so often ending in prison or death, is itself a symptom of our acceptance of violence as a way of life. We have consigned vast numbers of people to the trash, where gangs are the only route apparent to them for financial opportunity and belonging - or they are simply pressured into it seeing nothing else at all ahead of them. Malcom X wrote about that back in the 60s. The only way to stop the drugs business is to make them all legal, just as with alcohol. But we aren't willing to do that as a country yet, although some inroads have been made. Even the bloody Shah of Iran knew this, and made them legal in that most conservative of countries (I know a former Iranian policeman - don't ask ). We aren't willing to properly address the problem after all the school shootings - not the leaders in gun deaths in terms of numbers, but not related to drug gangs either.

So why are we not willing?

Shard

In this particular case (and there are undoubtedly many like it) the mere presence of guns meant more violence. Death. Without the gun, it wouldn't end in a knifing or some other more risky/complicated attempt to murder. It may have ended up with a smasher car, a smashed house or even a smashed face, but not a married couple gunned down over an altercation.

A starting point is to reverse your assertion as say the presence of guns necessarily means more violence. This is a fact. Whether society wants to accept that higher level of violence is an entirely different issue. And, as you point out, the cultural issies behine gun violence are paramount to address.

Lion in Winter

Individualism gone bad is certainly part of what feeds into it I think.

I did watch the footage. It seems these people had been feuding for some time - and because guns were available three people are now dead. At what point did it seem to that man that the way to deal with an argument with a neighbour is to shoot them?

civilservant

And then apparently come to his senses, realize what he had done, and shoot himself - to either avoid justice, or because he regretted his actions.

Lion in Winter

But knife crime or any murder rate in the UK, as nasty as it is, doesn't approach the numbers of dead people in the US. Per capita of course.

Lion in Winter

And then we all accept it and move on.

It's not normal. Or it shouldn't be.