Guns don't cause the violence, they just make it easier.

[cbdo2007]

It is time we address American violence as a society and start looking at the real causes of *why* people want to harm each other, rather than the method they use.

Both sides of the gun debate only enrich and empower the fun industry. They win the more we fight about it and focus on it as evidenced by skyrocketing fun sales after incidents like this occur.

Instead we need to focus on how we are treating people and why we feel the need to harm strangers. Certainly the media obsession with violence and mass shootings doesn't help. Nor does the dissolution of families and everyone fighting about what they want, not what is best for society.

Easy access to guns should certainly be addressed but our focus on less guns hasn't helped and the Repubes focus on more guns hasn't helped, so we need to try something new.

Whether it is guns, mental health, etc...we need to make a challenge to our representatives that we don't care HOW they fix it, but that we will hold them responsible if this does not change. If they say guns are not the problem, then what do they say IS the problem and what are they going to do about it??? We need to demand answers and move past the squabbling.

[Fresh_Start]

1. guns make it more deadly and more severe when not deadly

I think the first thing should be to increase the price of health care for those who own guns

[proudp55]

2. Guns DO cause the violence

If I had a gun I would not be able to control myself if someone stole my parking spot or something. Most people except trained professionals (government, police, etc) do not know how to properly handle guns. We need to declare all semi-automatic guns illegal and make it a felony after a certain date to own them

Only exception if you are a police officer, a high profile individual such as a politician, or in the FBI, or a government agency. They should be the only ones allowed to own guns

[Lee-Lee]

4. If you couldnt control yourself and would shoot somebody over a parking place

And you actually see that in yourself than I would suggest you seek some serious professional help right now.

[cbdo2007]

14. You prove my point exactly...your mindset of wanting revenge

And thinking that violence is ok is the problem. Why not stab then or run them over?? There are plenty of ways to right your wrongs besides using a gun but the most logical way is for you to deal with your own issues that makes you want to do violence to someone.

[Delmette2.0]

16. I would also add the the police issued weapon.....

be locked up at the police station when the officer is off duty.

[sarisataka]

17. First,

Seek help for your anger management issues

Second, you have no issue with Trump having his NYC carry permit- an item about as common as a unicorn?(although he was able to get it prior to being a politician. It's amazing what money and some connections gets you, average folks just get stop and frisk)

[WestIndianArchie]

3. Guns

No more talk, No more legislation. Round up the militant radical racist/white supremacist groups wholesale. We have to smash the NRA into a million pieces. These people have to be treated like the criminals they are. It's time for the state to start busting heads. Take the goddamn gloves off.

[sarisataka]

19. Who exactly are "these people"

White supremacists? NRA members? Gun owners?

How long will they be imprisoned? Indefinitely or until heads are busted?

[Snackshack]

5. Guns do cause the violence.

There are many items that society has deemed illegal because of the damage they can do. Guns are no different.

[cbdo2007]

15. In other countries it is IEDs. Do the IEDs cause the violence there?

We need to come together and get people to respect each other and teach them how to resolve conflicts without violence. Whether they want to shoot a bunch or people or run their car into a crowd or use and IED we need to treat this as a terrorism issue and stop glorifying these things both positively and negatively.

[LanternWaste]

6. the strength of particular NRA- and industry-aligned PACs have prevented the research.

We could finally allow the CDC to engage in objective research of gun violence, its causes and its results as they do car crashes, accidental falls, suicides and many other non-health related fields of study.

There is also a lack of relevant data allowed to us (by design). While motor-vehicle deaths are tracked in minute detail in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, no such comparable database exists for gun deaths. Hence, basic questions like exactly how many households own guns cannot be definitively answered.

But the strength of particular NRA- and industry-aligned PACs have spent a lot of money to deny the research from being done.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Uh, maybe it's our gun culture? We glorify our military's killing

capability. Sharpshooters are heroes. Kid's see our police armed to the teeth. We have no concern for the destructive power of our weapons. We used to worship cowboys on TV and in the movies, now it's the adroit 'gamer' who can wipe out the most ?? playing violent video games.

There is something in the half mythical history of our young country that instilled an admiration of dominance by slaughter. That and our inexperience with being the victims of bombings and missile attacks have lead to a society accepting of violence and enamored with deadly weapons.

[PA Democrat]

8. +1

[logosoco]

13. this

The whole world sees it. We spend so much money on the military and then turn around and say we don't have money for feeding people or giving decent affordable health care. Those priorities are not good for a culture.

[NCTraveler]

9. Using the word we pretty loosely.

Guns are a problem that can be addressed as a single issue. Muddying the waters is what the NRA does and loves.

[inwiththenew]

10. We are a nation of extremes

Relative to other western democracies we have more problems not only with guns but: drugs/addiction, incarceration, income inequality, race relations, and police brutality.

[Lee-Lee]

11. You are halfway to seeing the other to best addressing the problem

Guns don’t cause violence, they are just a tool used in it.

In some cases they make the violence worse. It could be that some cases like truck attacks or bombings if a gun had been used it may have resulted in less injury, so we can’t say they always only make it worse.

So, from there you have to ask- is the best way to fight this to spend money and effort on simply attacking guns, where most of the effort will be spent on enforcement on people who would never be a problem anyway?

Or is the best path to focus on the prevention of violence in general? Efforts that aim at reducing the causes is societal violence (poverty, domestic abuse, etc) and focus on identifying the people who are in need of a mental health evaluation and make sure all the resources for that are in place.

Let’s say, for example, you were given a budget of $100,000 to reduce violent crime in your community. Would you spend it buying back as many guns as you could with that money, knowing that statistically you would maybe spend all that and at best get one or two guns that would ever be used in a crime off the street? Or would you look to see what kind of interventions have been shown to keep teens from going down into a life of crime, or focus on identifying and getting treatment for those who have shown they have mental health issues that show them to be a possible danger? Or would you work with school to identify students they can see are most at risk of going down the path of being violent criminals and intervening? Or work with programs that have been proven to reduce domestic violence?

I can tell you that evidence has long shown that all those other options aside from the gun buy back have been shown to be effective at reducing violence.

If you do the buy back, heck if you managed to do the impossible and get all guns gone, all those people who would have been violent with guns are still out there and still just as violent and will be violent just by other means.

But if you actually attack the root causes of violence and take actions that stop people from being violent to begin with or get people who you can’t stop from being violent off the street then you have actually attacked the problem and not a symptom of it. You haven’t just attacked a symptom while leaving the underlying disease untreated.

[Decoy of Fenris]

12. Good luck, mate.

I've been barking up that tree for years, and it's why I can't ever agree with the "Gun Control" side of the aisle. They refuse to accept that anything other than their homebrew babbadook, "Teh gunz", is the cause of all evil in the world. You could promise them with proof, -right here and now-, that you could end all violent deaths across the board without banning firearms and they'd still work themselves into a creamy lather and scream "But teh gunz!" The bodies and carnage are meaningless to them; only the implement matters.

Your cause is just, and one that many of us are fighting to address, just quietly and without the Gun Control side to drag us down. Get out there, volunteer to help at-risk people. What the majority of these potentially violent folk don't have is just someone to help them, someone to talk to and someone to share their pain with. Too many at-risk people feel as if they've been hurt, they're alone and they have no way out, so they're going to make their own way out and take everyone down with them. The best we can do for them (and ourselves) is be there, be understanding and to fill their lives with kindness and care. It won't always work, but it's a damned sight more effective than keyboard warriors spouting inane gibberish about "Repeal the 2nd" and accomplishing nothing while the body count rises.

As I said, good luck. It's hard enough to fight against the right wing loons, but we have people on our side of the aisle doing as much if not more damage than the gun-nut whackados on the right. It's an uphill battle on two fronts, but it's a battle we can win.

Gotta go hit up my second job. Take care. o7

[lagomorph777]

20. Nonsense. The numbers don't bear out this fantasy.

In a recent study of many nations, the one factor that correlates most strongly to mass murders is access to guns. Every nation has mentally ill people. Only one nation makes it easy for mentally ill people (and everybody else, including careless, sloppy, or just bad people) to get guns.

We are #1 in guns and #1 in mass murders. It's not a coincidence; it's not complicated.

[kcr]

21. So, explain why we should ignore them given your premise?

First of all, your premise that they don't cause violence is flawed. I'd argue that anything that leaves masses of bodies behind is its own violence. There is a huge difference between being punched in the face and getting blown to bits. A difference both in degree and kind and it is violence all on its own. A kind of violence that can't be ignored.

No one would argue that we should ignore other issues like mental health because it's a separate issue from gun violence. Gun advocates only want to use it as a scapegoat to deflect away from gun violence. No amount of policy regarding mental health will change a thing. As long as guns are easily available, gun violence will occur.

[LeftInTX]

22. When someone tells me, "Guns don't kill people"

I just say, "People with guns kill people".