Here’s an interesting theory about the Christmas morning Nashville bombing and gun violence from a retired FBI expert.
Blockquote With all the potentially explosive material on the open market, it’s surprising to the bomb tech community that more bombings haven’t been attempted.
“We have hundreds, if not thousands of people in this country, who could easily build bombs and have a strong enough grudge, hatred or instability to actually carry out a crime, act of terror or revenge,” the former FBI agent says. “Quite frankly, I am surprised that we don’t have more acts of violence like this. I honestly believe that because guns are so readily available, they are the method of choice.
Explosives take work, effort and precision. Guns don’t, so we have mass shootings instead,” he adds. “And let’s face it, you can buy guns at Wal-Mart and flea markets and out of newspaper want-ads. There is no problem getting them.”
Right. Conversely if we sold grenades in Walmart, people would probably buy a lot of those.
I think most people are glad that they are illegal, though they would be a lot of fun I think.
Of course, people can make their own bombs, but they usually suck at it. It’s always kind of funny to read a story that goes: “So and so shot 40 people with his AR-15. Afterwards, we went to his home to find 3 pistols, a shotgun, and a bomb-making lab containing 50 duds.”
I see that and think “Yeah, if guns weren’t so available, fewer people would get killed. The work, effort, and precision required to make a bomb would result in more potential killers cooling off before they kill, or building duds that don’t explode, or making a mistake setting them up so they explode when the target isn’t within range.”
The self defense anecdotes are cute and all, but that’s not really a thing. Mostly, it’s about suicides.
Though they tend to get less attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. In 2017, six-in-ten gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (23,854), while 37% were murders (14,542), according to the CDC. The remainder were unintentional (486), involved law enforcement (553) or had undetermined circumstances (338).
Yeah, there’s some murders and some of those are sensational mass events. But it’s mostly suicides.
From your link it looks like most gun suicides are men over the age 65.
Are these gun suicides mostly guys with another terminal illness taking a short cut away from some pain and suffering since Jack Kervorkian isn’t around any more with an alternative path?
Hard to find good data, but everything I see put terminal illness at 5%-10%. But yeah old folks generally have less reason to believe their circumstances will improve and fewer people depending on them.
I agree that in some sense all suicides, even children, are a symptom and not a cause.
I wonder the same thing. My father’s father shot himself, as did one of my father’s uncles. I never met my grandfather, but I knew the great-uncle. From what I knew, he made a good decision in tough circumstances. I wish he could have gotten a prescription for secobarbital instead.
I assumed when I was younger that by the time I got to that point my state would have a decent death with dignity law. But, we’ve got an R trifecta, no hope for the foreseeable future.
I didn’t explicitly say “religious”, but you are correct. The R trifecta is the result of a certain type of religious people aligning with the Rs. And, elections matter, they get rewarded with the laws they want. I don’t agree with their laws.
I agree that polls say we’re becoming less (formally) religious. But, I have a sense that, as a result of that, religious people become more worried and become more active in trying to control the political system. (a wordy way of saying that Roe created a very committed backlash, and that Obergefell amplified that)
Yeah, it’ll be weird 40 years from now, when my kid grows up, inevitably becomes an atheist lawyer living in a state full of Americans who have never even considered God, and who all have atheist adult children of their own who have also never considered God… and yet she’ll have to read and understand and obey a still living ACB, who was picked to represent a minority of rural boomers, and who all died 20 years ago. Weird, though not the end of the world anyway.
Your estimated time frame is much different from mine, especially if we’re talking about people who self-identify as “atheist”.
Regarding ACB, I can easily imagine Biden being a one term president and getting zero SC nominations through the Senate. The next R president will have a number of appointees, they will all be graduates of Catholic high schools. So ACB will have company.
I’m exaggerating a bit because I come from a heathen liberal community, where we all get fancy liberal educations that make us more heathen and more liberal. The large majority of Boomers and Gen-Xers I know went to church as children and now self-identify as atheist. I realize that’s unusual.
Here’s a couple graphs, but note they are reflective of the whole country. My state is probably 10% to the left. I expect my kid’s generation will be another 10% to the left of millennials, and the whole graph will also shift little left over time, since people tend to lose faith instead of gain it.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, since my wife and I were vaguely thinking about raising our kid Catholic, just as her mom pretended to believe in God in order to raise her. But there’s really not much chance of that coming together even if we tried.
I could imagine that for cops, I don’t think I’d agree with the logic for self defense.
Especially when you think through the scenario, you’re at home in the middle of the night and hear what you believe to be an intruder. What if a handgun gave you a 40% chance to kill 60% chance to miss while a shotgun was a 60% chance to incapacitate and 40% chance to miss? What do you really care if the guy is dead or incapacitated as long as he’s not intruding? Not to mention the whole false positive risk and nice to not accidently kill your spouse as often happens.
Aren’t they? Pretty sure you can own a grenade launcher in Utah. You can own a Sherman tank in TX, although I’m not sure you’re allowed to have the turret be operational.
My BiL, who has tried and failed every possible treatment for depression just bought himself a short barreled shotgun, just in case. At this point, don’t think he’s very likely to do himself in, but this will definitely help. I know there’s a hundred different ways to kill yourself, but guns are especially quick, easy, painless, and effective-- so that they require less will-power than other methods.
FWIW, I’m not against suicide, in theory. I love the guy but I consider it his choice, etc. My wife and her family are certainly freaking out right now. In part because they have been fighting this his whole life, and in part because they are catholic.
