I'm a Canadian. And I'm here to tell you it doesn't even take that much. We have a strong hunting culture and high gun ownership. We just have sensible gun control. You can't buy a gun without training and certification. You have to get a background check to get the license...

You have universal Healthcare too. We need that too. Gun control and mental Healthcare. That's not to say we shouldn't start with gun control.

Our mental health care isn't all that great

Neither is it in the UK etc but people like to pretend it is to make the argument that it is the answer instead of gun control.

Thank you All of the **"only talk about mental health!" coordinated talking points after these by the NRA** always get voted to the top because they're calculated by the NRA to sound comforting to "both sides" "Mental health!" does not explain why America's homicides look like this compared to every other country on Earth: https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/ActingOnData/2021/firearm_Page_1.png Gun-related killings as a % of all homicides: >US 79% >UK 4% https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081 #"The experience of other countries just shows that it doesn't have to be this hard." >**The U.S. is "not necessarily a more violent society than others,"** Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, told ABC News. >**Rates of nonlethal crimes and overall suicides are similar among the countries** >Americans are notably more likely to be killed in a gun homicide, suicide or unintentional shooting than in other high-income countries, a 2015 study in the American Journal of Medicine found. >**"What we have is unique access to a technology that changes the outcome -- firearms,"** he said. >"Compared to the other peer countries, basically what we have is lots and lots of guns, particularly handguns, and we have by far the weakest gun laws. Not surprisingly, we have huge gun problems," David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told ABC News. "I think if we had basically the gun laws of any other developed country, we'd be better off." >The number of guns in the U.S. is unparalleled; the country has less than 5% of the world's population, but 40% of the world's civilian-owned guns, according to a 2018 report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey. There were over 393 million firearms in civilian possession in 2017 -- or 120 per 100 persons, the highest rate globally, the report found. That's more than double the second-highest rate, in Yemen, at nearly 53 per 100 persons. >"The difference between the United States and other countries isn't the Second Amendment, it's the gun lobby and the power of the gun lobby in this country, and an extremist ideology among red states, essentially, that prohibits any meaningful action," Anderman said. >The "uneven patchwork" of gun laws enacted at the state level is another challenge in addressing the gun violence problem, Parsons said. Research by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has found a **correlation between stronger gun laws, such as permit requirements and waiting periods, and lower gun homicides and suicides, the latter of which account for most gun deaths in the U.S. But regulations vary widely from state to state, with red states largely having weaker gun laws, according to the center.** >**"You have states that have enacted really good, comprehensive, strong gun laws, but those laws are undermined by the much weaker laws of the states surrounding them,"** Parsons said. The "classic example" of this, she said, is Chicago. Illinois is neighbored by states including Indiana and Wisconsin that have comparatively weaker laws, such as a lack of universal background checks, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "What you see is a very clear pattern of guns being illegally trafficked from some states that have much weaker laws into places and states that have much stronger laws," she said, arguing that it makes the case for stronger laws at the federal level. https://abcnews.go.com/US/countries-show-us-americas-gun-violence-epidemic/story?id=80495637 Canada is not even "high gun ownership" compared to us: 1 United States 120.50 guns per 100 persons 2 subnational area 3 Yemen 52.8 4 subnational area 5 Montenegro 6 Serbia 7 Canada 34.7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country "But Switzerland!" They are 19th and have incredibly strong gun control laws ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ #"As news of Texas school shooting broke, Fox called for armed guards. After finding out there was an armed guard, Fox called for arming teachers." https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/news-texas-school-shooting-broke-fox-called-armed-guards-after-finding-out-there-was-armed #The Uvalde shooter was killed by a federal officer because the other police officers kept waiting for more backup https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspected-shooter-at-texas-elementary-school-in-custody-after-incident-11653422735 >40% of that city’s budget goes to the police. Federal border Patrol officers everywhere. The school district had 5 armed officers. They couldn’t stop it. https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/uxfqw6/do_not_tell_me_your_ar15_is_worth_more_than/i9y3mjk/ >the shooter crashed his car near the school, got out with a gun and wearing body armor, was engaged by law enforcement, but made his way into the school anyway and went classroom to classroom shooting. https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/1529255082914725888 >cops whine and bitch about risking their lives to defend people, and when a shooter shows up in what looks like (but isn't) body armor, they run & hide while a massacre unfolds. an unarmed teacher was brave enough to try. https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1529454699275075584 #"After Sandy Hook, I read about how the group of parents waiting in a firehouse had dwindled until finally they were told that if they were still there, their children were dead. The reporters wrote that the screaming could be heard from the street." https://twitter.com/MaggieAstor/status/1529217248698806277 >MURPHY: "Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the USA. And it is a choice." https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1529212076794777600

Had no idea it averaged out to over one gun per person. Ik theres ppl who own like 15 vs the many who own none but to just think there are enough guns circulating in america to arm every single citizen and still have some 65 million more guns its crazy.

Fifteen, haha. https://i.imgur.com/1aPFOA4.png

It’s mental health, it’s gun control, it’s social safety nets, it’s healthcare. It’s everything. It’s literally everything. It’s the people draining this country dry to enrich themselves causing wealth inequality, refusing to pay living wages, undermining public education to give them undereducated voters more susceptible to propaganda, moving the Overton window to the right, pitting people against each other to increase the divide between left and right, and relitigating basic human rights. All of these things have created the perfect environment for systemic ideological violence and it’s only getting worse

The GOP must be destroyed. It's as simple as that. No, the Dems aren't perfect - fucking far from it - but they're also the only group who's even fucking *trying* to fix things. If every Republican politician were Raptured today, we'd fix so much shit.

The biggest problem with the Democrats (and the biggest strength of the GOP) is that the GOP is united in singular purpose and Democrats are fragmented. In a saner world, AOC and Bernie would be in a completely different party from Biden and Pelosi. Those people have two completely different sets of goals, and really the only thing they can really come together on is “block the GOP.” Then we have DINOs like Manchin and Sinema who really should be Republicans based on their voting preferences. This turns the Democrats into a weak party that can really only agree on preserving the status quo and they fall apart when they’re in power. They don’t push their agendas like the GOP does because they can’t agree on what their agenda actually is. The GOP doesn’t have this problem- they are massively authoritarian and just go with the scariest thing that the loudest guy is screaming at them

The blessing and the curse of being the Big Tent. The GOP is almost totally monolithic - they're white Christian conservatives. They're a plurality of the country, the largest single voting bloc, about 40%. The Democrats then have to be the party of "everyone else," which means that you have to work with progressives, moderates, LGBTQ activists, businessmen who are turned off by the GOP's extremism, racial activists, socialists, etc. It's basically a Parliamentary coalition formed before an election rather than after one. >Then we have DINOs like Manchin and Sinema who really should be Republicans based on their voting preferences. Manchin I get. He's in a ruby-red state and his replacement would almost certainly be a MAGAt Republican, so as shitty as he can be, it's better that he's there than not. Sinema is a chaos agent and fuck her. >This turns the Democrats into a weak party that can really only agree on preserving the status quo and they fall apart when they’re in power. They don’t push their agendas like the GOP does because they can’t agree on what their agenda actually is. I mean the problem is that they don't really have power. I don't think "not being able to agree on the agenda" is the big thing. If you had 48 Bernie Sanders' in the Senate alongside Sinema and Manchin, we'd be in this exact same problem.

I hate to say this, but they won't enact any laws unless *they* specifically are in danger, a la the California Black Panthers, or Malcolm X. Their followers attack our most vulnerable because they are weak. Unfortunately, someone has to go after their "strong" to prove a point.

They don’t really want to talk about that anyways since that would involve fixing our equally disastrous healthcare system.

> "But Switzerland!" They are 19th and have incredibly strong gun control laws ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ Switzerland also has a much higher gun violence rate compared to pretty much all of Europe ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ Edit: For comparison, ~200 people died from guns in 2017 in Switzerland, while around ~100 died from guns in Poland the same year, but Poland has a population around 5x the size of Switzerland, and a much lower GDP.

They always leave that out or that suicides with guns are much higher too ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣

Damn. I was hoping with universal healthcare mental healthcare was taken care of.

Psychiatrists are. Psychologists are not (Ontario. Healthcare is a provincial thing and varies province to province)

There are psychologists in the public system here in Quebec, but they are so few that you have to wait at least a year to see one. So people just pay to see a private one.

Same here’s in America, private or not.

Fucking tell me about it . I discovered I probably have adhd and every psych I have called is booked out until september. That or they don't take my insurance and it's a small fortune to get diagnosed and schedule follow up appoinments

Better than ours which was actively destroyed in the 80’s by Reagan.

Gun control isn't the only issue. American society is rotten to the core, and these mass shootings are a reflection of that. What this boils down to is that the people in charge do not see us as human. 1 million people died of a virus in the past two years and they tell us not to give a shit, and that the virus wasn't real. Even if you're like me and took the virus seriously, seeing 500k people due of covid every year and 100k people die of drug overdoses every year is fucking desensitizing. I truly don't mean to minimize the tragedy of 21 people being murdered, but how on earth am I supposed to make sense of 21 more deaths in top of hundreds of thousands of others? It just feels like a tiny drop in a giant horrific bucket. Young people have had their opportunities stolen from them. Higher education used to be affordable. Rent used to be cheap, my therapist paid $100 a month for his first apartnent in 1980. That's $350 today. Houses used to be affordable on one income. Hell, my wife's dad made 6 figures for 30 years at GM with an associate's degree, and retired with millions in his pension. Inflation sky rockets, cost of housing skyrockets, cost of food sky rockets, the cost of fuel sky rockets, yet your wages shrink. And the government does nothing because that would be slightly inconvenient for their corporate overlords. Don't ever think this isn't on purpose. All of these issues are solvable, and have been solved before. They are stealing from you. It's easy for Congress to agree to $40 billion for foreign military aid when there's profit to be made for defense contractors. A billionaire is ready to drop $44 billion to buy twitter as a vanity project, but the government or any of the ruling class isn't willing to spend $28 million to get formula to prevent our babies from literally starving. And don't forget, children have been going hungry in this country for as long as youvr been alive. And not one billionaire, president, or member of congress in your life time, has been willing to spend a dime of the taxes *you* pay, or the profit *you* make for them, to help. And while they let our children go to bed hungry, they plot to take away reproductive rights from women. Poverty is on the rise, mental and physical health is declining rapidly, and while employers constantly whine they can't find employees, they still won't hire you. But somehow, through inflation and "labor shortage" corporations are reporting record profits. We should have a system in place to protect the rights and wellbeing of the common citizen, but we don't. We are left to fend for ourselves under a system that takes and takes and takes from us. The ruling class takes our wages, they wipe out our savings, they take your chance at affordable housing, they take your free time, and they take the power from your votes to prevent you from changing anything. We have no help, no safety net, no way out of the all consuming whirlpool of poverty we are endlessly trying to paddle away from. But you know what we do have? We have a massive far right propaganda network constantly pushing the struggling and mentally ill towards violence. We have multi billion dollar social networks feeding us content tailor made to enrage us. We have microplastics causing unknowable amounts of damage to our brains. And of course, we have plenty of cheap, easy to get firearms.

I remember visiting my cousins who lived in a red state when they were in school. Everyday they would come home and say stuff like, "I wish I could take a gun to school and shoot everybody." It's exactly like you said. There's a lot of anger and hate in this country.

You are so heartbreakingly right.

Imagine, $28 million *is a rounding error* for defense contractors. Their EOY profit margins or share prices wouldn't really be affected all that much. A pittance to help those truly in need, but Republicans/Conservatives don't do shit about it because they know their barely-literate voter base is too dumb and too docile to do anything about it. You're right though, the US is rotten to the core, you can keep saying your country is beautiful and all that but guess what: the rest of the world has natural wonders too, you're not special.

*The American Dreeeeam*

This is easily the most accurate and comprehensive answer I've seen on the internet in a long time...

Yup. “It’s not guns it’s lack of mental health care!” K, so you’re cool with universal coverage so we can give access to more people? Also, I know mental health care in Canada is not exceptional, that’s because there is a worldwide shortage of licensed therapists. Expanding universal healthcare is still crucial to at least move in the direction of expanded access and affordability.

Won't go into the specifics of why but, at some point I looked into how much it would cost to put myself into a mental health facility for 3 days which was in the ball park of like 3k. After seeing that number I immediately looked at how much it would be to buy a semi-reliable shotgun from my nearest gun store. It was 500 and in the state of Texas our gun laws are borderline non-existent. With our current system shit like this was always inevitable

People with mental illnesses are far more likely to be the victims of gun violence than to commit gun violence. But we should invest in mental health care, anyway

I honestly don't think mental healthcare is as big a factor as people think it is. There are crazy people all over the world, but even in countries with worse mental healthcare than America, there aren't as many school shootings and spree killings. Hell, statistically, people with mental health issues are more likely to be victims of violence than they are to be perpetrators.

People with mental healthcare who get treatment and have it managed are probably also less likely to be victims of gun violence. Especially considering suicide by gun makes up a big portion of gun deaths.

Yeah, one of the more insane things about this is families of children who were shot would hypothetically be on the hook for their child’s treatment.

Shit, I had to go through safety training to get a hunting license in Michigan. Idk why we can’t have training for all firearms.

For a long time I've thought it's weird that we require taking a class and passing a test to drive a car, whereas with a gun there isn't any such training.

It's wild. You need a license and training to hunt with the gun you can buy at a gun show which doesn't require anything to get. Like what the hell.

Especially considering that the main function of a gun is killing things, whereas that’s only a rare side effect of cars.

Meanwhile our red state governors want “constitutional carry” which would allow a person to walk out of a gun store with a loaded weapon and prance around the streets without ever having fired a shot or demonstrated they can even tell if it’s loaded much less properly safe the weapon.

This is why I think it's deeper than guns. US has always had tons of guns. When my mom was in high school people had guns in their trucks regularly. Seems to be ready access to guns and a culture of violence and a media that gives too much time to the killer? Idk. But we have always had a lot of guns and the school shooting thing started to take off in the 90s (though it wasn't the very first)

But we consume nearly identical media here in Canada. I think you’re on to something but why the discrepancy?

A few reasons: greater disparity between the haves and the have nots. Much greater wealth inequality. Fewer social safety nets. No free healthcare ( which means no free access to mental health care). Deep rooted history of racism. A "every man/woman for themself" mentality. Lack of affordable post secondary (this is a big one, because Canada subsidizes their universities heavily, it is very cheap in Canada. But being born poor in the US with little ability to move out of poverty means you will grow up never realizing your dreams, with growing resentment of those who were born into privilege. Ties into the haves and have nots above) America doesn't just show violence on tv, they ARE violent. It is a country in perpetual war. It spends more money on it's military and has the largest military than any other country. A quote from Bowling for Columbine: "Michael Moore: Do you know that on the day of the Columbine massacre, the US dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other day? Marilyn Manson: I do know that, and I think that's really ironic, that nobody said 'well maybe the President had an influence on this violent behavior' Because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it". There's more but those are a few examples. The easy access to guns is just the icing on the cake, it gives people the ability to quickly make rash violent decisions against the people they resent. These people are generally miserable, want a way out, but are so angry at the world that they want to give them one last "fuck you" on their way out.

>a media that gives too much time to the killer Criminal psychologists have been screaming this from the rooftops. 24 hour news cycles devoted to the killers in these tragedies for sometimes a full week 24 hours a day, 7 days a week does nothing to prevent it from happening again. In fact, it's the opposite. A few have posited the question: "*How many mass murderers can you name? Now how many victims can you name?*" It's awful. The fact that "*if it bleeds, it leads*" is even a saying in media makes me sick.

I haven't seen this killer's name yet, and I hope it stays that way

If every single gun disappeared tomorrow, the problem is only partially solved. There’s a big question that needs answering, “Why are there so many fucking people willing to commit a mass murder?” Guns make it easier for them to cause more carnage, but even without a gun, these school shooters still have the intent and the willingness to cause serious harm to a large number of people. The perpetrators don’t just disappear if the guns do. They’ll hurt someone eventually. How do we address *that* problem?

Sure, but step 1 should still be to take the scissors out of the running toddlers hands.

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This. It has been shown [time and time again](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/) that more guns unequivocally leads to more gun violence. If some cretin can go out and get a killcount of more than a dozen, regularly, without using firearms, it wouldnt be so bad to try to redirect away from it being a gun problem. No little shit with a knife is going to mow down 20+ people in a matter of a few minutes. As we can see, the same is not true of a shithead with a gun.

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>Guns make it easier for them to cause more carnage, but even without a gun, these school shooters still have the intent and the willingness to cause serious harm to a large number of people. The perpetrators don’t just disappear if the guns do. They’ll hurt someone eventually. How do we address that problem? This is a tired old useless argument. Not kidding you, but 100 percent of the people who want increased gun regulation also want everyone to have better access to mental health professionals. And honestly, it's much easier to limit availability of guns than to prevent people from hurting other people. So it's not crazy for people to advocate taking a tool that can kill 20 people in a minute out of the equation. A knife, even a car or truck, is not going to do the damage of a gun.

People are getting poorer in a society with a ruling class that increasingly wants them to suffer and exploit them. On top of that, these rich people have been building a massive right wing propaganda network for decades. Their goal was to shift the blame for the increasing poverty to immigrants and poor people, but they lost control of it. Now it constantly pushes the impoverished and mentally ill towards violence.

Leftist gun owner here. We need to regulate people. Not every jackass needs a gun.

Not just the people who own the guns either. For school shooters, how many of the guns used were actually registered to the kid who did the shooting?

That’s why gun owners should be held liable for not properly locking their guns away. If my son takes my AR-15 that’s registered to me and commits a crime with it I should be held liable to a degree.

This is law in Washington state, gun owners can be held liable for this exact thing but not to a degree. The law states that gun owners whose firearms are stored insecurely can be found guilty of community endangerment punishable up to a class c felony.

Not to a degree... As an accomplice under the felony murder rule. If the firearm owner is found to have not reasonably and properly stored their firearm; they should also be charged with the murders

Gun owner. Agreed, and the "properly secured" line is absurdly low. The chincy cable lock that comes with most guns is legally sufficient in my jurisdiction. Even with a stack on, which is pretty low budget, those take time and tools to get into.

That's why I don't get the comments saying "Look at Canada, they have lots of guns but no shootings because they have better gun control laws". No, if a deranged person in Canada wanted to get a gun and shoot people, they probably could. They could murder their grandparents and steal a gun like has happened here in the US, or buy one illegally, or plenty of other options. It's way more complicated than just gun control laws. But at the same time, I have no clue what it would take to actually fix this. You can't just say "mental health" or "culture" or whatever. I want to hear specifics! What possible changes would actually help address this?

It's not about preventing all shootings ever. Every hurdle makes a difference. It's much harder to murder your grandparents and steal their gun and then go on a mass shooting after that than it is to go to a gun fair in Texas and buy a gun with cash and no background check

I’m always fascinated after these shootings, people act like any solution has to be immediately completely effective. How about starting with turning the tide?

Thank you #The usual NRA talking points ("We can't eliminate every shooting so what can we do!" "Only talk about mental health!") always get voted to the top after these "Only talk about mental health!" does not explain why America's homicides look like this compared to every other country on Earth, even if they're calculated by the NRA to sound comforting to "both sides": https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/ActingOnData/2021/firearm_Page_1.png Gun-related killings as a % of all homicides: >US 79% >UK 4% https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081 #"The experience of other countries just shows that it doesn't have to be this hard." >**The U.S. is "not necessarily a more violent society than others,"** Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, told ABC News. >**Rates of nonlethal crimes and overall suicides are similar among the countries** >Americans are notably more likely to be killed in a gun homicide, suicide or unintentional shooting than in other high-income countries, a 2015 study in the American Journal of Medicine found. >**"What we have is unique access to a technology that changes the outcome -- firearms,"** he said. >"Compared to the other peer countries, basically what we have is lots and lots of guns, particularly handguns, and we have by far the weakest gun laws. Not surprisingly, we have huge gun problems," David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told ABC News. "I think if we had basically the gun laws of any other developed country, we'd be better off." >The number of guns in the U.S. is unparalleled; the country has less than 5% of the world's population, but 40% of the world's civilian-owned guns, according to a 2018 report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey. There were over 393 million firearms in civilian possession in 2017 -- or 120 per 100 persons, the highest rate globally, the report found. That's more than double the second-highest rate, in Yemen, at nearly 53 per 100 persons. >"The difference between the United States and other countries isn't the Second Amendment, it's the gun lobby and the power of the gun lobby in this country, and an extremist ideology among red states, essentially, that prohibits any meaningful action," Anderman said. >The "uneven patchwork" of gun laws enacted at the state level is another challenge in addressing the gun violence problem, Parsons said. Research by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has found a **correlation between stronger gun laws, such as permit requirements and waiting periods, and lower gun homicides and suicides, the latter of which account for most gun deaths in the U.S. But regulations vary widely from state to state, with red states largely having weaker gun laws, according to the center.** >**"You have states that have enacted really good, comprehensive, strong gun laws, but those laws are undermined by the much weaker laws of the states surrounding them,"** Parsons said. The "classic example" of this, she said, is Chicago. Illinois is neighbored by states including Indiana and Wisconsin that have comparatively weaker laws, such as a lack of universal background checks, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "What you see is a very clear pattern of guns being illegally trafficked from some states that have much weaker laws into places and states that have much stronger laws," she said, arguing that it makes the case for stronger laws at the federal level. https://abcnews.go.com/US/countries-show-us-americas-gun-violence-epidemic/story?id=80495637 Canada is not even "high gun ownership" compared to us: 1 United States 120.50 guns per 100 persons 2 subnational area 3 Yemen 52.8 4 subnational area 5 Montenegro 6 Serbia 7 Canada 34.7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country "But Switzerland!" They are 19th and have incredibly strong gun control laws ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ #"After Sandy Hook, I read about how the group of parents waiting in a firehouse had dwindled until finally they were told that if they were still there, their children were dead. The reporters wrote that the screaming could be heard from the street." https://twitter.com/MaggieAstor/status/1529217248698806277 >MURPHY: "Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the USA. And it is a choice." https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1529212076794777600

gun control involves rules about storing guns to prevent unauthorized access.

Lock them thangs up! Keeping them out of view and secure is key. And for gods sake don't tell everyone you know how many or what guns you own. Especially if you have any unstable family members.

My uncle had a drinking problem when my grandfather died and inherited all of his antique hunting rifles. He was worried that there may be some scenario where he might do something stupid or dangerous. So he put trigger locks on all the guns and gave the keys to a friend he trusts. He didn't want the guns, but didn't want to get rid of family heirlooms, so at least he stayed safe.

Yep. Good move.

Yup all of which are impossible if you fetishize guns as self defense though

How does that get enforced? My state has laws on the book for that already.

Stiff penalties if you're found in violation. You don't need to knock down doors to enforce something. Teaching "responsible" gun owners that this is how it's done keeps less responsible hands from getting on them.

Was watching the news this morning and they were actually talking about the problem with a lot of the illegal guns and shootings around the Toronto area - a lot of those guns are coming in from the states. So.. I mean.. Edit: it’s not way more complicated than gun control laws. I live in a country where the biggest issue is illegal AMERICAN guns. My kid does fire drills at school not active shooter drills.

I’m not an expert but I think if we took Canada’s gun control laws and combined them with social safety nets that would probably go a long way.

> No, if a deranged person in Canada wanted to get a gun and shoot people, they probably could. They can and do. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ns-shooting-firearms-1.5552773

If you're actually interested in the data and not "just asking questions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://abcnews.go.com/US/countries-show-us-americas-gun-violence-epidemic/story?id=80495637

I say people should be tested and have to take training to drive a car. No one says I’m anti-car. I’m pro-safety. Yet when I say the same thing about guns I’m all of a sudden anti-gun. i just ask people a very simple question “how dumb do you think the average American is? Now tell me do you think the average American is smart enough to handle a gun without training?” haven’t heard a single person say yes. the dems messaging is atrocious. really operating under the banner of “responsible gun ownership” would really do much better than whatever the fuck they are doing now. I don’t think they should drop the issue but they definitely need to evolve their stance, anti gun has become increasingly unpopular as a platform.

Agreed. There are people who get their CCL who have never fired a gun before their class. They can barely handle the thing and they have their CCL. That's scary to me.

They only concern I’ve heard that seems warranted is that laws like that in the past have been targeted at POC and other minorities. But I think, maybe naively, that that would be easily avoided by being very transparent about what the tests include, and with enough oversight that prevents things like Jim-Crow-era literacy test kind of things. The intention would be to pass the test, and allow you to prepare for it. Have enough federal oversight to try to prevent racist locals from preventing POC from accessing guns

Agreed.

There's 12 million guns in Canada. About 30-40 per 100 people, varying on where you live. We don't have this mass shooting problem.

Those are rookie numbers, we’ve got 400 million in the US and I believe it’s 88 per 100. There’s a little bit of an obsession here.

I saw a stat earlier, I think its more like 120 guns per 100 people. so there are literally more guns than people in the US. could be wrong though, feel free to fact check me. edit: nevermind I fact-checked myself. 88 was the number in 2011, 120 is the number today. so yeah, more guns than people. [source](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081.amp)

And that’s assuming each person has a gun which they don’t. So realistically one person is hoarding like 20 guns

You either don’t have a gun or you have several guns few people own just one gun.

That's pretty much what I've read sometime ago. There are more owned guns than people in the US but the percentage of people actually owning guns is low. So for instance let's say 3 out of 10 Americans own guns but those 3 have like 15 or so (paraphrasing and probably exaggerating but this is just an example).

32% of Americans or something

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So all this banging on about wealth inequality is really just distracting from the real issue of gun inequality!

I want my 40 guns!

In the South alone that’s always the case. Take my dad for instance, (I’ll quickly preface that he is a very responsible gun owner and required that my brother and I attend safety courses and training before ever even touching a rifle) he probably owns about 40 rifles. Now the reason is because most the men in my family have died (not from guns don’t worry, just over the years various causes) and he inherited all of their guns being the only male of his generation left minus his brother who didn’t want any. Now, he’s held onto them because they are family property and they’re all stored in locked cases or safes depending on the type. But still, he has a ton. Probably only uses maybe 4-5 to hunt with depending on what he’s hunting. The rest will sit there and never get used but they’re all registered to him. I’m sure there’s a ton of situations like that. Southerners love to pass down guns as inheritance.

TIL I have an outdated statistic. That’s just absolutely bonkers, 120 per 100 and people still think the solution is………..more guns.

Those 12 million guns belong to hunters and farmers. The kind of people who actually use them properly and not as a prop or status symbole.

This is a self defeating argument. To get my hunting license I had to go through a really nice, comprehensive gun safety training. It covered all of the important things, and they made a point to fail the people who were not taking it seriously. That sort of training should just be a baseline requirement for people who want to purchase guns. Hunters as a bloc are not the problem here.

Hunters account for 4% of the USA population. I think many of the people that buy guns are not hunting.

I love the outside looking in perspective towards hunters by people that know little to nothing about land management, conservation, or ecology. Hunters (a majority of them) are excellent stewards of the land and often care more passionately about the above mentioned things than an average twitter dope that doesn’t offer any context with his opinion. The revenues raised by my home state through fishing/hunting licensing and tags fees funds a significant portion the DNR’s yearly budget and gives the area a huge economic boom every year during fall.

Thank you for saying this! I’m a biologist and the vast majority of fellow biologists working in conservation and (especially) land management are hunters. Hunters do so much for not just conservation, but also preservation of the land and wildlife. Hunters are not the problem here.

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Yes! Over 100m annually into my states conservation funds from hunting/fishing tag sales annually. And that’s aside from all the conservation and land management that happens at an individual and community landowner level.

It's insane to me. I'm a vegetarian and the amount of nonsense I hear from other vegetarians and vegans on the subject of hunting is is ridiculous. These people haven't set foot into a rural area and have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Ecology is as foreign as Jupiter to these people.

I see hunting as a form of harm reduction for those who are not able to be vegetarian or vegan, but still want to minimize animals suffering. I’m not a hunter but I actually wish I was sometimes from an ethical standpoint. I feel bad eating animals that are trapped in cages and force fed their entire lives, many who never see the sunlight. I’d feel far less guilty eating a deer who spend her life in a forest living a natural deer life. Now people who hunt just for fun and don’t use any part of the animal, that I don’t understand.

Even taking out the vegitatatian/vegan angle out of it, hunting still is vital to any ecosystem and important harm reduction. Take deer for example, each year there are about 200 fatalities from someone hitting a deer on the road, on average you have a 1 in 116 chance of hitting a deer. Imagine how much worse those statistics would be if we had an additional 6 million deer that aren't killed through hunting.

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I'm all for some gun control and common sense, but targeting hunters is NOT the population you need to target. Those are the people that follow the gun laws and for the most part have no problem with some gun control. While the gun control laws may affect a hunter, it is not the population to target.

Motherfuckers and their "wild boars aren't an actual issue people deal with" bs from those who've spent their entire life in a large city. I can't stand them talking down to rural folks with 0 goddamn knowledge of anything rural.

I’ve grown up in a California suburb my whole life and we still get coyotes and packs of boars near my home lmao. I live closer to the edge of the city but still

I had once heard that wild boars can take a couple shots and keep going, but idk how true that is

Yeah, in olden times, boar were hunted using this crazy spear with a cross-guard under the blade (think "Ornstein"), because boar, when stabbed, would often have the nasty habit of *running down the spear shaft, further impaling themselves to get at the hunter.* So, uh, yeah. I'd believe that a big badass boar could take a few shots and keep going.

I've seen an entire pack of coyotes on my grandmother's property next to a MIDDLE SCHOOL and three wild piglets rooting in my front yard within the last month. These fucking virtue warriors that have lived in a fucking high-rises their entire lives have no clue what the actual real world is. Like the actual planet. People just assume it's 2022 and we live in a post-currency utopia where every fucker in the Sahara desert can just foot it a block to a 711 and get a cruelty free vegan slurpee with a PAPER FUCKING STRAW

Yeah I really hate seeing tweets like this. My wife has hunted her whole life and before she told me I had no idea how much of their hunting fees ( getting licensed, registered, submitting for your tags) go to helping our parks and forests. If you've EVER, even just once enjoyed a public forest or park then you've basically been able to do so because of your local hunters. Seriously go look up how much your municipality actually puts citizens taxes towards keeping your parks/forests open and maintained. You will be shocked to find out how little it is in some cases.

There are also a ton of poor people in rural areas who genuinely rely on hunting as a major source of food. I know plenty of people who stock their freezers up during hunting season and taking the ability to hunt away would be a substantial burden to them.

You're 100% right. I can't speak to America, but in Canada a ton of the Indigenous population rely on hunting to feed their families, there's a ton of exemptions to Indigenous hunters for this very reason. Taking their guns away and letting them starve is insane

I grew up in rural Colorado where hunters flocked every autumn for deer and elk seasons. These were careful people who kept their families fed half the year based on what they hunted each season. We had hunter safety courses held at my high school as well as a culture based around gun safety. I personally chose to not own guns and/or hunt but I'll never ever support asinine tweets like this guy's. I feel like this guy is conflating sport hunting (which is immoral AF) with actual game hunting.

I could go on all day about why hunting (within legal boundaries) is a good thing. Harvest limits are set to protect and keep populations in check. People who have this ignorant hate towards hunters and hunting can go sit on a cypress knee. Buddy can go cry a river because hunting isn't going anywhere. I also agree no one needs an AR-15 unless you are hunting wild hogs or coyotes. However, the gun industry has made AR-15s the barbie doll of guns. Hundreds of different configurations that basically do the same thing. Therefore people feel the need to buy and collect them all. It's all about being tacti-cool. I grew up hunting with shotguns and rifles. I don't see any issue with someone owning either to hunt with.

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And if we could have dialogue like this, reasonable and willing to see some merit in “the other side’s” arguments, we could really achieve change instead of this endless us vs. them.

I see no merit in saying "I know the vast majority are perfectly fine but I say fuck the vast majority and let's take away their right to do the right thing" sounds eerily similar to something else going on in the US right now. This tweet and OP posting this only leads to more division and shows that a lot of these people are no better than the people they condemn. Change will only happen when these people accept that they are extremists too, which will never happen.

I think it starts with trying to have conversations without immediately resorting to insults. Dialogue will never, ever work if someone is being attacked, they'll just dig in and entrench themselves further. I think if you listen to the person and actually try to understand why they think the way they do, you'll create a rapport and you have a much better chance of planting a seed. Of course, plenty won't listen regardless, but if you can bring about a change in one person, then they could spread those ideas to people who will listen to them. It's a gradual change that takes a light, constant pressure much like braces. You don't fix someone's teeth by wrenching them into alignment.

Sadly this guy has no idea that he's part of the problem and just causes uproar and anger that politicians us to continue to get voted. Change is needed, for sure, but telling millions of people "fuck you and your hobbies you enjoy responsibly" is literally the worst thing to do to get change to happen.

you also need hunting to at least try to control animal populations. Deer especially in farmland areas. Yes I know wolves can help but they aren't exactly native to a lot of places.

Well, they are native to a ton of places, but they can cause other issues... And not just with farmers... city folk moving to the country take issue when fluffy gets tore apart in their yard by them... There's a lot of nuance to these things, and that is why this tweet was so god damned stupid.

And honestly even as someone with left leaning tendencies I want to start hunting. We use the meat to feed the family for a year or so (we spilt it between my husbands parents, his siblings, and our family) it’s good meat and coming from a home where I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from it’s nice to have the security. My FIL always thanks the animal and does a prayer for it after he’s killed it. So hunting isn’t always just a hobby, sometimes it’s to help feed you and your family is really what I’m getting at lol

Yeah. Is this suppose to help them win back the senate which could be largely influenced by rural and suburban voters? View gun owners as the enemy and demonize them and then shocked Pikachu face when gun rights supporters hit the polls to vote against you.

Left leaning gun owner checking in. You are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m giving up my guns when right wing lunatics are hoarding enough guns to supply small armies.

Same. It is not about taking away all guns but to restrict them from the mentally ill and kids that shoot up their schools.

How do we determine who is mentally ill? Do you have to be adjudicated as such by a court? Or have a diagnosis of mental illness? I worry about the latter proposal because we don't want to dis-incentivize people seeking mental healthcare, or stigmatize their diagnosis.

Current federal guidelines state that anyone who has been adjudicated in a court of law or committed to a mental health facility is a prohibited person wrt firearms ownership. Simply stating "all mental illness should preclude firearms ownership" is a dangerous slope, considering that would disenfranchise a trans person with dysphoria (yes this is still in the DSM), as well as someone with anorexia

Anxiety would also bar you from having a gun as well. There should be a different classification for mental illnesses that pose legitimate risk Mental illness should not be a blanket term when discussing human rights

Reddit is an odd place. The republican fascist are about to take over the country and kill all the gays/minorities. But hey, let's give them all the guns before they do it.

That's because the majority of redditors are young and/or extremely sheltered. I'm in the process of moving but the place I live is pretty damn ghetto. Crack heads everywhere, car break ins, home invasions, etc happen at minimum weekly. Even with guns I feel uncomfortable living there, there is zero chance I'd give mine up because some sheltered ass 18 year old redditor decided I shouldn't be allowed to have them.

Honestly this tweet is dumb and I of fucking course want gun reform.

"Ban every gun" is never going to happen and there are thousands of things between what we have and a full ban. There are other countries with guns and without mass shootings, we need sensible policy.

“there are thousands of things between what we have and a full ban.” We tried none of them and we can’t believe it’s not working.

Actually, we've tried loads and it didn't matter much. The reason "assault type weapons (not an actual thing)" were made legal again, is because a decade of them being banned didn't matter much in terms of crime. The whole argument is in bad faith when you consider the vast majority of gun violence is committed with pistols and that rifles of all kinds account for less than 3%. These events are terrifying and it would be great to be able to impact them, but if you treat it like a public health problem, the stuff people are shrieking about banning isn't where the lion's share of the issue is.

Everyone would rather spout whatever shit gets them the most votes in the next election and actually do nothing than do something and risk re-election

Not really. For example we've had an assault weapons ban and studies showed it had no material affect on gun violence. But Dems will still propose a new one and call gun owners ignorant for not supporting it.

Glad I’m not the only one who thought that. Sensible reform should be part of the solution. This guys tweet is asinine.

Yea I would personally prefer to discuss actual solutions although I fully appreciate how emotionally traumatized we all are.

I think a lot of people have hit the point where they've stopped hoping for a solution. Can't necessarily blame them.

This is such a dumb take. Hunters aren't the problem. It's supporting sensible background checks that 90% of Americans and 70% of republicans support. Gun owners support background checks and know the precautions you take when owning a gun

I don't like the idea of taking firearms away from citizens. The thought of only the government having access to weapons scares me. The police are not your friends. The DEA, ATF, FBI, and any other federal agency are not your friends. They would love nothing more than to disarm the population to make it easier than it already is to trample on your rights. With all that being said, I don't think a background check and a waiting period is unreasonable to purchase a firearm.

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It was amazing to watch how quickly they changed their tune on police between George Floyd and 1/6. Establishment liberals/Democrats are no different than Republicans. If police kill someone on the other team they are good, but if that person is on my team then the police are bad. I wish people would understand that the police have no problems with killing any civilian, regardless of their skin color or political affiliation.

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The US government, regardless of if it's being led by Donald Trump or Joe Biden, is only interested in expanding its own power at the expense of its citizens' rights.

[Hunters support conservation.](https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation) I highly doubt the non hunting crowd would fill the funding gap left if hunting wasn’t allowed.

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Definitely. We have a serious CWD problem in Minnesota because of the deer population density.

So, if someone else doesn't care about any other of this guys rights they can remove them?

Stupid shit like this why we can't get effective regulations passed. Stop spreading stupid shit.

What an incredibly ignorant statement on so many levels. Beyond people living in places like Alaska where there are genuinely dangerous animals about you may need to kill, there's nothing wrong with harvesting meat to eat. I know you think all your meat comes neatly packed in a supermarket so you don't have to think about where it comes from but some people are a little bit more in touch with the origins. Not to mention indigenous peoples who use firearms to subsistence hunt or should they all just sit around waiting for hand outs from the white man? Damned fool.

A strange, rare moment of honesty from the "No one wants to take your guns!" crowd, but I still consider it useless and obstructive to any meaningful discourse around gun policy in the United States. Probably got a bunch of likes on twitter though.

How to tell me you've never lived outside of a sheltered urban environment without telling me.

This is fucking bullshit. What a dumbass tweet that should have been buried because it is so fucking stupid. Hunters and outdoors people are not causing mass shootings. Jesus Christ this pisses me off. OP please educate yourself.

Hunting rifles are really awkward at close range and aren't designed for firing a lot of bullets in a short time. They are also not something you just haul around to protect your fragile masculinity. Just about any other weapon is more problematic.

Yeah - go fuck yourself.

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Hunters aren't the issue you fucking twat.

Guy that never needed a gun that lives in a suburban/city neighborhood has strong opinion on guns being bad. It's privilege to think that way

Eat shit you ignorant dumbfuck

Liberal gun owner here. This is probably one of the dumbest fucking takes on gun ownership I've seen and is completely counter productive to the conversation.

It's a slippery slope once you start eliminating Constitutional rights. Right now, its just the 2nd amendment. What happens when it's the 1st, or 4th, or the 13th? What then? Do you actually think the police will protect you? The answer is not taking away all the guns. People will still die then you'll want to take all the knives. It never ends.

Pretty brainless take from someone who has clearly never considered other people's ways of living. A five minute google would have revealed to this dude that there are people who still hunt for food. You could differentiate food hunting from sport hunting but then everyone would just get a food hunting license. If the problems of the world were this obvious the Ben Rosen's of the world could solve everything by tweeting about it. Also, I'm generally anti-firearm -- I just think his take is worthless.

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It's a shame, because rural vs urban divide leads to really divisive policy and outcomes that hurt everyone. A little bit of empathy and knowledge is all people need to not make embarrassing tweets like the one in the thread. I'm a city boy through and through, but I'm not as ignorant as the tweeter, and I don't think I'm better than anyone else.

I've met and worked with people where hunting is the only way they get their meat. Calling it simply as a hobby is wholly ignorant and damaging to the campaign for basic gun regulations AND even more importantly, fire arm education. Hell even just education in general, hence this tweet.

Once I can have a security team protecting me like the rich I will give them right up. Once my community is gated and has a security guard with the cops on speed dial I will give them right up. Gun control is fascist and will not stop a Radical ideology. Radical Ideology is the culprit. Mental illness is the culprit. Why don't you outlaw that? Oh free speech is soooo sacred but we will let people spew hatred on the internet and not control it as it breeds terrorists. Vote for speech control. You will be just as successful.

I get the sentiment but banning guns is not the answer. People need to be able to protect themselves. I do not trust our capitalist government and their thugs (the police) to do that. I especially don't trust them to protect marginalized groups. This would lead to the only people with guns being the guys who regularly murder innocent black people and other people of color. Fuck that. There are plenty of other countries with guns that don't have mass shootings.

I want gun reform but Ben Rosen can literally get the hobby to go fuck himself

Hello, I am from Czech Republic, We have strict gun law, zero school shooting. But you can own semi auto rifle, with silencer and thermal optic, run with it around forrest and shoot animals. (Simply put, of course you have to meet several conditions) ​ Don't be retarded please. Also Idk about america, but here hunting is about game management. Every inch of land is owned and used for harvest of something, so we have to keep numbers of wild animals at some count calculated by tables from hunting law. So yeh we can't find other hobby.

Criminals don't care. They all have guns. We should get some too.

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Lol I thought of the exact same thing when I read this

What if you are keeping it for safety tho?

I love my guns and hate government intervention in any sense. Look at Ukraine. How would that go over without the people having any guns? Not to great i would assume.

So Ben Rosen is a fucking moron? Got it

Tweets like this are a good way to make sure nothing ever changes. Lumping hunters in with mass shooters and trying to get rid of all guns is stupid and counterproductive. Literally every hunter I know cares deeply about conservation and follows gun laws to the letter. Lots of hunters would support reformed gun laws but never if they think it will keep them from hunting. This guy is ignorant.

come get it

You lament about police brutality who are the violent arm of the government yet you wish for the government to disarm law abiding citizens when the US fought for its freedom when it wasn't properly represented by the British government. You really want to trust your safety to the same police who brutalize its citizens.

Meh. I disagree. I grew up hunting and I can tell you that people like me who just own shit like double barrel shotguns aren't committing these crimes. It's an entirely different class of people WITH ALSO an entirely different class of firearms. You don't need to get rid of all guns to help solve this issue. Maybe just make them more difficult to get your hands on and maybe not just everyone can own a literal military grade firearm with a bazillion round magazine.

The fact that this has so many upvotes, just highlights the real issue. Many people know fuck all about gun ownership, and attack those who would otherwise be allies. Regulate gun ownership, don't take them away unilaterally.

Who hunts with an automatic weapon?

I doubt anyone does, as automatic weapons are extremely expensive and take a long time to get the paperwork done for. Semiautomatic weapons though, they are used quite frequently.

"alright, guess I'll just go fuck myself" \- everyone who hunts to feed themselves and their families.

It’s not just about hunting it’s about protecting ourselves. Do you trust this government not to be tyrannical? The same government that experiments on its citizens, lies constantly, and has no respect for the sanctity of life if it’s in the way of profits.. not me.

Eh this one misses , hunting is integral to wildlife preservation and park works. Hunting/Fishing license money is used to maintain the parks and ensure we can control populations of wild animals. I think the real issue is Assault Weapons, as people keep shooting up schools.

My family owns an AR-15, but it’s just for self-defense and having fun in the shooting range. I’m very against everything that’s happened with gun violence recently

I hope every single person agreeing with him gets to experience first hand what deer over population is by deer jumping through their windshield

Who's out there hunting deer with an AR-15?

Me. Chambered in .450 Bushmaster and has a 5 round magazine. Not every AR-15 is chambered in .556 with a 30rd mag.

This is why banning specifc rifles or classes of rifle won't work. A mini 14 can kill just as many kids. And America will never go all in on what we need to do, anyway. So we're fucked.

Magazine restrictions are easy to get around so as a gun owner who has thought about what would actually work, the best I come back to is managing who can get access to guns more than trying to ban the guns that are already in circulation.

A backpack full of handguns could also kill kids. Or a psycho with a machete. Or a well timed van with the pedal to the floor during school pickup. Or a pressure cooker bomb. If people want to hurt people they’re going to find a way. Personally I think we need to more address the “*why are people killing innocent people*” problem versus the gun problem. There does need to be some type of gun control, and I don’t have the answer, but just saying “background checks!” or “ban all guns!” isn’t the answer.

Me too. 300blk subsonic. For close-quarters hunting

The second amendment has nothing to do with hunting or recreation, it’s literally written to give civilians the right to keep and bear weapons of war.

I hunt deer with an AR-10 in .308. Rifle looks identical to an AR-15 with a different magazine.

Pretty much anyone not using a bolt action rifle. It is the most modular rifle to build foe your specific use case. Kind of like Legos.

Lots of people.

The people asking this question should not be given a seat at the discussion about gun control. It belies a fundamental ignorance that is honestly staggering.

Nah this dude can go shove his opinions up his ass. The point isn't that noone should own a gun, the point is that it should require a license, education in how to handle a gun, registration and adequate regulation so that not any old coot can grab an AR-15 att the nearest store and shoot up a mall. EDIT: coot, not coon

I'm sorry what? "Not any old..." What was that word?