Gun Violence Continued: Ritchie German with shotgun, handgun and handcuffs...

[Ultralight]

"Gun Violence".

So, the gun had volition. It had agency. It sprung out, and committed this crime?

Stove-top cooking.

[iris lilies]

As long as no fetuses were killed i don’t see a problem.

This made me snort.

[dado potato]

From Wikipedia's item on "Gun Violence":
Gun violence is violence committed with the use of a gun. The United States has the 11th highest rate of gun violence in the world, and by far the highest rate of any highly developed nation.

The linked gun violence archive includes a map of incidents of gun violence in the United States Year-to-Date July 19, 2019.
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org

[ToomuchStuff]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/955271...omebase-fight/

[AlaskanGuy]

I am not sure if it is a gun problem.. more like a heart problem. the hearts of people that do this sort of thing are the problem. through out history, some have felt that it is ok to kill thier fellow man. there is nothing new here.. the gun is just the tool of the day.. taking away the tool just invokes the search for another tool in my opinion. history is full of people with the tools of the day killing. most people are law abiding and interested in protecting life, not destroying life. taking away guns is not the answer... sensationalizing is a big part of the problem... if we learned to sensationalize somebody jumping off a 30story building, perhaps that would fix the problem??? give everybody that wants national attention 15 min of national celebrity to jump off a building, nobody else would be killed?

sorry if I offended some.. not intended.

AG

[catherine]

I am not sure if it is a gun problem.. more like a heart problem. the hearts of people that do this sort of thing are the problem. through out history, some have felt that it is ok to kill thier fellow man. there is nothing new here.. the gun is just the tool of the day.. taking away the tool just invokes the search for another tool in my opinion. history is full of people with the tools of the day killing. most people are law abiding and interested in protecting life, not destroying life. taking away guns is not the answer... sensationalizing is a big part of the problem... if we learned to sensationalize somebody jumping off a 30story building, perhaps that would fix the problem??? give everybody that wants national attention 15 min of national celebrity to jump off a building, nobody else would be killed?

sorry if I offended some.. not intended.

AG

No offense taken--I am a pretty progressive liberal, but I tend to side with people who say that "guns don't kill people... people kill people." While I truly feel that restrictions should be placed on assault rifles, I think the issue is definitely a "heart problem"and not a gun problem as you have laid out. No amount of legislation can change the fact that people feel isolated and angry and have lost connection with others in this country. It almost connects with the "Politics vs Religion" thread.

Maybe instead of outlawing guns we should figure out the causes of our disenfranchisement and outlaw that.

[dado potato]

I would be at a loss to provide a simple cause-and-effect explanation for the problem of gun violence in the US.

One factor is there are more guns ("the tool of the day") than there are people in the USA... Assuming derangement and homicidal urges affect a certain percentage of the population in any given year, their ability to gain access to semiautomatic rifles results in high lethality.

Do the stresses of maintaining a standard of living and keeping a family together and provided for contribute? The growing inequality of wealth, the so-called shrinking of the middle class arguably aggravate the stress. The term "going postal" came into use in 1993 after a series of incidents involving postal workers shooting co-workers (and themselves).

Another factor, not talked about as much, is violent (as opposed to Non-Violent Communications, as per Marshall Rosenberg's work) judgmental communications... I think violent communications for children result in violent brains as they develop.

Yet another factor, is the tendency in our society for young males to experience shaming. This was identified as a root cause of violence in James Gilligan, Preventing Violence (Prospects for Tomorrow).

I am sure other factors contribute to gun violence.

[jp1]

Since all our thinking and praying hasn't helped (shocker!) maybe bulletproof vests need to become the latest fashion statement.

[pinkytoe]

The problem as I see it is that so many people these days live inside their own minds with grievances they believe are real. They have either not been taught or are not capable of feeling empathy for others for various reasons. They do not know how to consider that their viewpoint has another side. Of course, guns don't shoot themselves but when your society doesn't even attempt to control the way this is playing out, then we are all in trouble. It is saying - fend for yourselves.

[iris lilies]

The problem as I see it is that so many people these days live inside their own minds with grievances they believe are real. They have either not been taught or are not capable of feeling empathy for others for various reasons. They do not know how to consider that their viewpoint has another side. Of course, guns don't shoot themselves but when your society doesn't even attempt to control the way this is playing out, then we are all in trouble. It is saying - fend for yourselves.

I like what you wrote in lines 1-3, but it is bogus to say our “society doesn't even attempt to control” gun violence because it most certainly does. Gun laws are all over my city yet it has one of the highest rates of gun violence around. How’s that control working for us? Not so good.