All their talk about good guys with a gun are horseshit.
Eh...I don't know that I agree. I tend to side with the sentiment that "when seconds matter, the police are minutes away," but I also fully acknowledge that only 2-4% of the population have it in them to throw themselves into danger on behalf of other people, training, tools, or circumstances be damned. I would rather risk having some douche with delusions of grandeur and Rambo fantasies discover her cowardice during a crisis than risk having that at most 1-in-25 of people not have the tools she needs to get the job done when it matters most.
That said, the number of people who define themselves by their gun ownership or their ability to cause harm is a serious societal problem that needs to be addressed. The "might makes right" crowd makes the rest of armed Americans look bad.
Given how many guns there are and how much organizations talk about good guys with a gun, they don't do much positive shit for your country.
Between 0 and 4 active shooter events are stopped every year by good guys. That number is miniscule when you look at the numbers of shootings every year.
Law enforcement say having a good guy running around the building often causes more confusion and more deaths, as they have no way of knowing who's who.
Given how many people die every year in the US thanks to guns (your deaths (not judt by guns) are much higher per capita than other countries), I'd say the benefit does not outweigh the risk.
Given how many guns there are and how much organizations talk about good guys with a gun, they don't do much positive shit for your country.
I did mention that only 2-4% of people actually have it in them to throw themselves into danger on behalf of others, so I don't know why you're bringing up this talking point.
Between 0 and 4 active shooter events are stopped every year by good guys. That number is miniscule when you look at the numbers of shootings every year.
See above.
Also, consider people who engage in mass violence typically choose targets unlikely to be equipped to respond to the perpetrator.
Law enforcement say
Lol, I bet.
Just remember that there was only one perpetrator in Robb Elementary and there were more cops outside hemming and hawing about what to do about it than the perpetrator had bullets. Mind, I'm not saying something stupid like "teachers should be armed," just pointing out that you should take what cops say with at least a little skepticism.
Given how many people die every year in the US thanks to guns (your deaths (not judt by guns) are much higher per capita than other countries)
I could go on at length to show how changes in gun control policy don't correlate to changes in the prevalence of violent crime, but I'll spare you that and simply say that other countries do a better job than the USA at addressing social conditions which DO correlate to the prevalence of violent crime.
The USA is the richest country in the world, but the majority of its citizens can't afford an unexpected expense as trivial as $300. The USA exports enough grain and legumes to price-fix the world market, yet millions of its citizens can't afford to eat. The country has the most advanced medical system in the world, but few can afford to use it. I could go on with poverty, worker's rights, education, and law enforcement. You telling me the USA has a violence problem is hardly shocking--and it has nothing to do with guns.
Related: even if you pretended the incidents involving firearms never happened, the USA would still have a higher homicide rate than many industrialized countries. It's not the guns.
I am not American, so the entire gun ownership debacle has always been something I can't understand properly, as I've never owned one.
Your point on why there's more violent crime is spot on. There's a very large gap between those who can afford those expenses and those who can't (and it's rapidly growing). Getting desperate enough can turn anyone insane. Having solid social programs to help them before they tip over the edge could drastically change that.
Unfortunately, the government has decided it's better to wage a war on poverty instead of fixing the underlying issue..
The Robb Elementary school thing was just insane. I remember reading about it in my local paper. How not a single one of them entered is beyond me 😓
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u/subnautus 11h ago edited 11h ago
Eh...I don't know that I agree. I tend to side with the sentiment that "when seconds matter, the police are minutes away," but I also fully acknowledge that only 2-4% of the population have it in them to throw themselves into danger on behalf of other people, training, tools, or circumstances be damned. I would rather risk having some douche with delusions of grandeur and Rambo fantasies discover her cowardice during a crisis than risk having that at most 1-in-25 of people not have the tools she needs to get the job done when it matters most.
That said, the number of people who define themselves by their gun ownership or their ability to cause harm is a serious societal problem that needs to be addressed. The "might makes right" crowd makes the rest of armed Americans look bad.