United States Corrupt Twattery

[Aoami]

How can I provide evidence that something will work when it's never been done?

Off the top of my head. Take a look at smoking, it's much harder to buy cigarettes these days, because of age and price. Smoking rates continue to drop - Adult smoking habits in the UK - Office for National Statistics.

Cigarettes are still easily accessible for young people whose parents smoke for instance, if they want a cigarette just nick one. However, narrative around smoking has changed over a couple of generations because of the negativity around it, so less young people are doing it, even though they could still get cigarettes if they really wanted to.

 

[Wij]

More proof than you've got that "banning buying guns" will make any sort of difference - you just say "it will" but don't have an argument to back it up.

I posted a link from one of the formost experts who said mass shootings, especially in adults, are linked strongly to "financial distress".
The big three mental and societal issues being - psychopathic personality disorder, people suffering psychosis or schizotypal disorders and people who've suffered horrendous trauma and abuse.

You think happy, well adjusted people do this do you @Wij? - so how about changing society so people with mental disorders get proper treatment and care, people who suffer trauma and abuse are helped and catered for? - We know trauma and abuse is linked to financial distress - so why not restructure our society so financial struggle is lessened - instead of having single individuals worth more than whole countries and huge swathes of the population living below the breadline?

It's a fucking no-brainer Wij.

So. Where's your proof? Considering mass shooters who legally can't buy guns still commit mass shootings. (Cute fact: they're under financial distress and suffer mental disorders)

Ah yes, because the US is famously the only country in the world with mental health issues and financial inequality.

The US is an absolute outlier in civilian shootings. Massively. No other country is with a couple of orders of magnitude.

It is also an absolute outlier in terms of civilian gun, and assault rifle, ownership. No other country is close.

Other countries have wealth inequality. Look at Russia. Much worse than the US. Civilian shootings are few and far between. They have strict gun control laws (despite advocating for no gun control laws in the US for some strange reason).

What if the stated distress of the shooters is too many black faces? Or not getting any fanny? What's your solution there?

 

[Raven]

 

[Scouse]

What if the stated distress of the shooters is too many black faces? Or not getting any fanny? What's your solution there?

Oh dear m8.

Edit: As for the rest of it - all I can say is what I said to Gaff: If we're doing the whole lot then I'm in - including attempting gun controls. But only if we're moving on all fronts. I've stated several times I don't think we make it as a species - so if we can demonstrate movement on all fronts I'll enthusiastically engage. But if we refuse to make substantive transformative change across societies -if we are nothing more than single-issue monkeys - then I don't care what happens - because long term we're fucked anyway.

 

[Aoami]

One thing about it outside of gun laws fit for anytime after about 1850 - if people who are seen as role models, such as superstar athletes, actors etc. could use their platform for something worthwhile rather than sending out prayers and saying that if you trust in god hopefully you won't end up in one of the roughly 700 mass shootings per year - that would possibly be helpful

 

[Scouse]

You've little hope really. One in 20 million people is the risk. And the Yanks couldn't be bothered with something that was 200 times worse - Covid.

Then again, if we had a fairer society, better access to healthcare and education etc - then we'd have saved more lives from covid than we'd have lost to mass shootings.

In fact, if they'd knocked just 10% off their covid rate they'd have saved many times more lives than all the people killed in mass shootings in the US for all time put together.

 

[Aoami]

One in 20 million people is the risk.

What do you mean by this?

 

[Scouse]

What do you think given the context of the whole post?

 

[Aoami]

It can't be the only thing that comes to mind because it's so wildly far of the mark

 

[Scouse]

It can't be the only thing that comes to mind because it's so wildly far of the mark

Come on. Take a risk. Actually answer - and if you think it's shit or I'm wrong, pony something up to correct me.

It's how argument is supposed to work - and I've a lot of form on this forum for putting my hands up in the face of evidence. (It's just not many people bother to provide it).

 

[Scouse]

Tell you what @Aoami (and anyone else who cares to look at actual data):

Here's the list of school shootings since 2013. The addresses of the schools that the shootings happened at - and the total numbers of deaths / injured / not injured.

I've put it in a nice spreadsheet for you. And I've created a pivot table which shows total deaths in school shootings per year - and provided a bit of context - % of population and risk per million based on US population data asof 2020.

 

[Raven]

Where is the boggle reaction? How on earth do you find the time?

 

[Scouse]

Where is the boggle reaction? How on earth do you find the time?

Two minutes work m8.

The thing is - why do people bother talking about a subject if they can't be arsed to do any simple basic fact checking in the first place? And not only that - keep arguing whilst pretending they've even bothered looking into the subject.

All this shit above is just "think of the children" emotional reaction bullshit.

We've got a global climate emergency going on, it's killing people now, it's going to kill millions more in the future. It's going to cause wars because of mass migration because huge swathes of the planet are going to become unliveable in - and people are getting all emo because little johnny got shot in the face.

We don't make it as a species.

 

[Aoami]

Tell you what @Aoami (and anyone else who cares to look at actual data):

Here's the list of school shootings since 2013. The addresses of the schools that the shootings happened at - and the total numbers of deaths / injured / not injured.

I've put it in a nice spreadsheet for you. And I've created a pivot table which shows total deaths in school shootings per year - and provided a bit of context - % of population and risk per million based on US population data asof 2020.

But in my post I mentioned 700 mass shootings per year. Not just school shootings.

Even if it was just about school shootings, your calculations assume that every person in the USA still goes to school...

 

[Gwadien]

We should decriminalize murder, as it's always society that's at fault not the individual.

 

[Scouse]

What we should definitely do is not solve any of our huge existential problems - and only look at stuff that makes us feel emotions.

 

[Gwadien]

What we should definitely do is not solve any of our huge existential problems - and only look at stuff that makes us feel emotions.

Yeah, but your argument is - 'we need to solve our huge existential problems, but we won't, because we're humans, so let's not do anything.'

 

[Wij]

But in my post I mentioned 700 mass shootings per year. Not just school shootings.

Even if it was just about school shootings, your calculations assume that every person in the USA still goes to school...

Exactly. We are worried about mass shootings, and gun deaths more generally. If you limit the data to only school shootings and then average the risk out across the whole population, the majority of which are excluded by definition, then you aren't doing statistics. You are just mathsing.

 

[Wij]

Past Summary Ledgers | Gun Violence Archive

www.gunviolencearchive.org

 

[Scouse]

Fine. Lets redefine it to "mass shootings":

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

www.pewresearch.org

How many people are killed in mass shootings in the U.S. every year?

This is a difficult question to answer because there is no single, agreed-upon definition of the term “mass shooting.”

The FBI collects data on “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 38 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2020.

The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of gun violence incidents in the U.S., defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, even if no one was killed (again excluding the shooters). Using this definition, 513 people died in these incidents in 2020.

So, lets use the worst one - @Wij's Gun Violence Archive:

Oh look. It's still bugger all in the big scheme of things. How about we instead focus on 60% of total gun deaths in the US (not just "mass shootings") - suicide?

Better, nicer world for all anyone?

 

[Aoami]

OK let's focus on that. It would probably be harder for these people to get hold of guns to kill themselves if there were stricter gun laws, wouldn't it?

 

[Scouse]

OK let's focus on that. It would probably be harder for these people to get hold of guns to kill themselves if there were stricter gun laws, wouldn't it?

Jeezuz. Again, I've already addressed in this thread:

1) No, clearly not.
2) Rather blow their face off than slit their wrists, or worse still - down a boatload of paracetamol and die in excruciating pain?

They're not not going to kill themselves just because they've not got a gun now are they? Do suicides not happen in the rest of the world? Wow!

Either way - the way to help with the 60% of gun deaths in the United States? Create a better, fairer, kinder world.

 

[Gwadien]

Jeezuz. Again, I've already addressed in this thread:

1) No, clearly not.
2) Rather blow their face off than slit their wrists, or worse still - down a boatload of paracetamol and die in excruciating pain?

They're not not going to kill themselves just because they've not got a gun now are they? Do suicides not happen in the rest of the world? Wow!

Either way - the way to help with the 60% of gun deaths in the United States? Create a better, fairer, kinder world.

I mean, yeah I'd rather some kid slit his own wrists than go and shoot a bunch of other kids that have 0 role in the shit that the kid has gone through.

100%

 

[Scouse]

The gun law "issue" in the US between the republicans and the democrats is nothing more than divide-and-conquer bullshit.

It plays well with voters - voters who (clearly) can't quantify actual risk - republicans pick up votes from the nuts, dems pick up votes from the emo wankers.

NEITHER sets of votes actually look at stuff that *really* matters. And neither sets of politicans have to do anything about it because of that.

So we have the status quo, that's fucking our planet and undermining our continued existence.


-@Gwadien - yes, in the context of the above - do fuck all. Better than getting all worried about pointless shit that won't really help anyone in the long run anyway.

 

[Aoami]

So you've just completely changed the topic from talking about mass shootings to people committing suicide, irrelevant of the method?

 

[Scouse]

I mean, yeah I'd rather some kid slit his own wrists than go and shoot a bunch of other kids that have 0 role in the shit that the kid has gone through.

The "fuck all" kids who get shot a year aren't getting shot by suicidal wankers - because the suicidal blow their own faces off.

You're more emo than batman.

 

[Scouse]

So you've just completely changed the topic from talking about mass shootings to people committing suicide

You said it was OK to talk about suicide - and 60% of gun deaths are suicides.

OK let's focus on that.

irrelevant of the method?

Not at all. We're talking about gun deaths.

I'm saying there's no point in trying to stop suicide by gun - it's actually a better way to go than paracetamol. What we have to do is stop people committing suicide - irrelevant of method - because that's the only thing that will help.

Banning guns won't stop suicides.

Kapish?

 

[Aoami]

Yes because you changed the subject lol.

It's just impossible to win an argument with you because whenever you're called out on anything you just completely shift the goalposts.

Ah well.

 

[Aoami]

It's really boring because in every thread you seem to find a hill to die on, get into a row with someone about it and then just keep going and going googling facts, or in this case even putting a bullshit excel together and end up completely dominating the thread. I tried putting you on ignore but then every thread just didn't make any sense.

 

[Scouse]

It's just impossible to win an argument with you because whenever you're called out on anything you pull out the data, you put it in a spreadsheet and you blow my argument out of the water

FTFY.

All you do is twist and turn when faced with the facts. We went from school shootings to "mass shootings" - I didn't do that - but I went along, got the data, showed it to you.


I would dearly love anyone, anyone, to make an argument against mine - creating a better fairer world improving the lives for everyone - reducing gun deaths, increasing access to healthcare, better educational outcomes, environmental outcomes etc. Instead, wanky wanky gun control shittery.