I’m frustrated by his solution being “we need to bolster security”. Set aside the bad wording of it being a “fact of life”, which is a callous way to put it.
As school shootings become more and more common and schools are necessarily increasingly built with curving hallways and other preventative measures, yet school shootings exceed school days and are on the rise, the best solution is…
More security. Armed teachers. Armed police. Metal detectors. ID badges. Bulletproof, clear backpacks. Will that do the trick? Nevermind the studies indicating that armed police on campus often hurt more than they help, how much security do we need?
Are we putting these in all stadiums, malls, festivals, libraries? Kids gather in many places and get shot there too.
Increased security is a band-aid and some amount may be necessary while this flood of guns and shootings continues to get worse. Effective and ineffective security measures are a great thing to study and discuss how we can address symptoms while we also actually work on the issue.
I might challenge the idea a bit that it’s sort of hopeless to move the dial on this. There is a pretty clear correlation between gun deaths per capita by state and existing gun laws where blue states are closer to half that of the red states than just marginally better.
Now that’s a pretty simple view for sure and we can debate a dozen reasons why it is, but i think we can probably do a lot more with sensible laws than you might think.
The trap is usually “that law would not have prevented x”.
I mean, why bother with seatbelts, car seats, or helmets? They won’t prevent all deaths. Might as well get rid of all laws. People are going what they’re going to do.
Uh, I made several suggestions for things that would reduce (but not eliminate) the frequency that we should try. So you “reject” what I said and then basically just repeated it.
Because of all the bolded words. Every concession that changes could help seems like it is paired with a reduced expectation or caveat.
I am not challenging that you believe those changes are worth pursuing. I am saying we could make changes and see results in years, not decades, or generations, or lifetimes, that the statistics we see between red and blue states verifies this, and giving JD Vance room on his statement is a disservice to anyone pursuing a less violent America.
Accepting that it is an inevitable situation guarantees that it is. I appreciate that the US is exceptional in its circumstances but it is disheartening to totally give up on this and any other situation just because change is difficult.
It is disheartening to hear. Now how much does JD really believe there is a problem at all or how much does he spout off this kind of thing because he prefers to expand gun rights?
I don’t think JD Vance has any interest in a new law that would limit gun rights. He uses this language to acknowledge the outcome of guns in America without committing to making any change. @twig93 - I 100% understand you agree new restrictions make sense and aren’t fully aligned to Vance’s view, but I think this point about language is important to consider.
Beto O’Rourke offered a lot of people hope on this topic and tried to show that change is both possible and meaningful, but I think he went too far left and scared people off. It is difficult to balance pushing out to a more extreme position in order to get a reasonable compromise and didn’t get that part right.
But for anyone in the center that wants sensible restrictions without banning certain types of guns - we have to get better with language and not get sucked into these traps set by the gun lobby, all they do is create space to kick the can down the road.
The usual voices on the right have decided that the cause of the school shooting wasn’t guns, but rather was trans people. In particular, the shooter had strong feelings about trans rights, leading to things like:
I posted, and then deleted, an exchange I encountered online where the 14 year-old shooter was “transvestigated” with the implication that being trans was the cause of the tragedy.
I deleted it because it was disgusting, and I assume the “transvestigator” was just an idiot social media rando.
It’s super easy to buy/sell long guns. No registration or anything required. Then they made it a requirement to see the purchasers gun license. Now they expect that we view their license, then call the RCMP to confirm the license is valid.
I’m not sure what they’re actually preventing but it’s not actually burdensome so nbd.
In Connecticut, when buying a firearm, the seller is supposed to call (or query online) a state police database with the buyer’s contact and permit information.
The reason that they add the state police step is to confirm the permit is good (as opposed to being a fake), and to confirm whether the buyer is still eligible to buy firearms.
Regarding that latter point – it recognizes the possibility that a permit holder could have since had a protective order placed against them, been subject to a red flag determination, been indicted or convicted of a felony, been committed to a mental health facility, etc…and they might not have surrendered the physical permit card.
In theory, the state police update their database as they get information that a permit holder is now ineligible…so contacting the state police functions as a (theoretically instant) proxy for a background check.
(“Theoretically instant” = I don’t know the particulars, but the online tool seems rather finicky, and may require a phone call to the state police. If it’s outside business hours, or the calling queue is full…there will be a delay. My wife and I both have to have our permits called in, I assume because the online tool complains about the similarity of our names, and wants a human to review.)
It’s not clear how many guns are currently in circulation in the US, but it seems reasonable to think that it is about 4 times higher today than 60 years ago (on the order of 400 million vs on the order of 100 million). How Many Guns Are in the U.S.?
You will never convince me that 4 times as many firearms are needed today as 60 years ago.
