To wit: 5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns. It… doesn’t suck. It is, in fact, a reasonably fair look at the situation that readily admits – in fact, highlights – that gun crime is down and has been down for some time. I’m not even upset about the “bunch of grown men collecting firearms like little girls collect Barbie dolls” bit because, well, it’s true: in my experience, many of them do*. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Anyway, some useful stuff in there. I should also note, more seriously, that one thing that should be addressed far more often in the gun control debate is the problem of handgun suicide. It often gets ignored, largely because one side can’t use it as a scourge with which to flog the other one and the other side doesn’t want to give the one side free ammo. But we really should do something about that… and as soon as I figure out something, I’ll let you know.
Moe Lane
*Sayeth the grown man who spent cash money to give all his dolls action figures Mass Effect 2 squad members new outfits that had no effect on the game whatsoever but did make them look pretty, oh so pretty and nice.
It’s not just gun owners who collect them like Barbie Dolls a lot of Knife owner do too. Thinking about getting a new one myself. But a lot of knives are very specialized but then isn’t that the same with guns (i.e, you don’t hunt feral hogs with an AR-15 you want a larger caliber round). See the CNN article on it.
My understanding is that the EBR platform is compatible with a wide variety of calibers. You’d probably also want a pickup for hogs.
Japan’s, IIRC, Firearms and Blades Control Act does exactly what for their suicide rate?
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I admit that we don’t have near the access to light rail that the Japanese do, if anime is anything to go by.
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Self murder is generally not a technically difficult problem, unless one is trying to fool the medical or forensic examination. (Protip: Don’t bother trying the last, and give up on the idea. Those people have a better background, better experience, and are probably thinking more clearly.)
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Main issue stopping people is that the altered states of mind that lead people towards thinking suicide is a good idea also tend to interfere with being able to create and carry out a plan.
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I’d also note that people who commit suicide by cop are, in my view, mostly scum.
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Re: Cracked #4: See Coreia’s essay of last December or so for why the Cracked treatment falls short.
I would suggest, Moe, that the handgun-suicide link is a perfect chance for 2nd Amendment supporters to make the case that, in the U.S.A., the mental health system needs work.
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This nicely dovetails with properly directing the anger over massacre-type events (avoiding names to prevent attaching even the illusion of popularity…) off of firearms and onto a mental health “system” that has gotten progressively worse since Carter.
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Mew
a) I’m pretty sure some of the really severe issues with the system dated to earlier.
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b) I dunno that sensible reforms are enough to be a panacea where spree killers are concerned.
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c) I’d note that recreational use of substances that alter brain chemistry, might have some relevance to issues of public mental health. I think we’ve been ignoring the issue, as a society, at least since the sixties. I’d further note that at least one of the recent spree killers used pot at one time.
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d) From a civil liberties perspective, I dunno how much power I’d be comfortable handing to a mental health system, even if it were functional.