I understand the calls for gun control, especially after horrific shootings like Uvalde when emotions are running high. I think it is absurd that it's easier to get a gun than a driver's license so common sense laws like an extensive training requirement and background checks would be welcome.
However, consider the following:
1. More people are killed by stabbing than by shooting.
2. More mass shootings (4 or more people are killed) are carried out with handguns than assault rifles.
3. School shootings are a fairly recent phenomenon.
Given the above, I think most of the legislative proposals are missing the point. When a killer reaches the point where they want to kill innocent children, it's too late.
The question becomes: what is unique about American society that produces this homicidal pathology with increasingly frequency in its young men?
I would propose the following in no particular order: the disintegration of the nuclear family (no male role models), societal atomization, glorification of sex and violence, gun culture, Big Pharma prescribing pills like candy, growing economic inequality and decreasing social/economic mobility resulting in young people feeling hopeless/anger, etc. Gun control does nothing to address these underlying issues.
People will counter that other countries have the same issues, the only difference is easy access to guns. I would counter that school shootings/stabbings and mass shootings happen elsewhere, just to a lesser degree (see: Denmark mall shooting this week, Sweden school stabbing in May, etc.), and that the US is unique amongst developed countries in reporting declining life expectancy due to diseases of despair, opioid/obesity epidemics, etc. I suspect the economic, societal, psychological, and spiritual factors that contribute to the uniquely American rise in deaths of despair overlap with the factors that contribute to American mass shootings.
However, consider the following:
1. More people are killed by stabbing than by shooting.
2. More mass shootings (4 or more people are killed) are carried out with handguns than assault rifles.
3. School shootings are a fairly recent phenomenon.
Given the above, I think most of the legislative proposals are missing the point. When a killer reaches the point where they want to kill innocent children, it's too late.
The question becomes: what is unique about American society that produces this homicidal pathology with increasingly frequency in its young men?
I would propose the following in no particular order: the disintegration of the nuclear family (no male role models), societal atomization, glorification of sex and violence, gun culture, Big Pharma prescribing pills like candy, growing economic inequality and decreasing social/economic mobility resulting in young people feeling hopeless/anger, etc. Gun control does nothing to address these underlying issues.
People will counter that other countries have the same issues, the only difference is easy access to guns. I would counter that school shootings/stabbings and mass shootings happen elsewhere, just to a lesser degree (see: Denmark mall shooting this week, Sweden school stabbing in May, etc.), and that the US is unique amongst developed countries in reporting declining life expectancy due to diseases of despair, opioid/obesity epidemics, etc. I suspect the economic, societal, psychological, and spiritual factors that contribute to the uniquely American rise in deaths of despair overlap with the factors that contribute to American mass shootings.