Stephen King on Mass Shootings: We're Out of Things to Say(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Stephen King on Mass Shootings: We're Out of Things to Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/stephen-king-maine-shootings.html
10 comments
The rest of the world seems to clearly see that it‘s mainly a gun problem.
As a non-American it‘s always strange to see the perversion gun-owning has become in the US.
IMO it's a combination of terrible social safety net (typical, and not specific to the US) and obsession with firearms (that other firearm-friendly countries don't have).
Owning a gun in the US is a political statement about the second amendment, which while laudable on paper is clearly a failure since none of the collective gun ownership actually does anything to keep the government/law enforcement honest (I'd argue it makes it worse as every cop is more on the edge that they would be otherwise).
This leads many people to obtain guns that otherwise have no time/desire to learn & practice responsible firearm ownership and enjoy their firearm safely without harming anyone. The firearm then mostly collects dust until it gets misused in a freak accident or falls into the wrong hands.
Owning a gun in the US is a political statement about the second amendment, which while laudable on paper is clearly a failure since none of the collective gun ownership actually does anything to keep the government/law enforcement honest (I'd argue it makes it worse as every cop is more on the edge that they would be otherwise).
This leads many people to obtain guns that otherwise have no time/desire to learn & practice responsible firearm ownership and enjoy their firearm safely without harming anyone. The firearm then mostly collects dust until it gets misused in a freak accident or falls into the wrong hands.
A political statement? My late mother-in-law had a couple of long guns in her bedroom closet. The statement they made was that somebody had left them to her, and that she hadn't bothered to give them away.
Finland would like to disagree - high legal guns per capita, relatively very high illegal guns per capita and zero (0) mass shootings per year. Yeah, we kill each other with knives, axes, shutguns etc, but it's pretty much always people killing people they know, not random mass shootings.
This comment made me curious so I looked up some data (sorry for the formatting, I don't know how to do it better):
Guns per 100 people - Finland 2017: 32.49 (total of 1.79 million) [1] - US 2017: 120.5 (total of 393 million) [2]
All gun deaths - Finland 2017: 138 [1] (~77.09 deaths per million guns) - US 2017: 39773 [2] (~101.2 deaths per million guns) <- A bit higher
Mean death rate per million in mass shootings, 2009-2015 [3] - Finland: 0.132 <- A bit higher - US: 0.089
[1] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/finland [2] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states [3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shoo...
The data seems to suggest that the number of deaths and mass shootings sort of tracks with the number of guns, and that Finland isn't particularly better off "per gun".
Guns per 100 people - Finland 2017: 32.49 (total of 1.79 million) [1] - US 2017: 120.5 (total of 393 million) [2]
All gun deaths - Finland 2017: 138 [1] (~77.09 deaths per million guns) - US 2017: 39773 [2] (~101.2 deaths per million guns) <- A bit higher
Mean death rate per million in mass shootings, 2009-2015 [3] - Finland: 0.132 <- A bit higher - US: 0.089
[1] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/finland [2] https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states [3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shoo...
The data seems to suggest that the number of deaths and mass shootings sort of tracks with the number of guns, and that Finland isn't particularly better off "per gun".
This.
In the US it’s a multi-faceted issue of mental health, lack of effective enforcement of existing laws, acceptance and promotion of gun and gang culture in music and movies, and the political utility of a continuing problem. Democrats in particular need ongoing crisis and a large dependent population to stay in power - this is why they so visibly pander to the social movement of the moment. They need the “gun issue” to stay present and emotional, they have zero solutions on iffer. Crying “Ban assault weapons!” and then being completely unwilling to define it or describe how they’d enforce it effectively just lays bare their cowardice and intellectual weakness.
In the US it’s a multi-faceted issue of mental health, lack of effective enforcement of existing laws, acceptance and promotion of gun and gang culture in music and movies, and the political utility of a continuing problem. Democrats in particular need ongoing crisis and a large dependent population to stay in power - this is why they so visibly pander to the social movement of the moment. They need the “gun issue” to stay present and emotional, they have zero solutions on iffer. Crying “Ban assault weapons!” and then being completely unwilling to define it or describe how they’d enforce it effectively just lays bare their cowardice and intellectual weakness.
What does Finland do in terms of mental health compared to America. IIRC doesn't Finland have high suicide rates compared ?
It doesn't have to be purely about reactive measures to mental health problems. It can also be that a better social safety net means less people need mental health support to begin with.
It’s very clearly a mental health and existing-law enforcement crisis, and not one that the political parties are interested in actually solving, because it’s useful to them.