@Olivier5,
It seems that someone I would consider a realist, you would consider a defeatist.
With both gun violence and climate change, you argue from the ignorant assumption or assertion that there is nothing to be lost by attempting your suggested solutions. In both instances there very definitely is something to lose and in both cases as well, the loss could or would be significant.
When determining whether or not to take radical measures that will either strip a Constitutional right from a very large group of citizens or very seriously impacting and possibly severely harming a nation's economy there are a few questions that must be answered beyond
will it feel emotionally satisfying to a large group of people who don't really value the right in risk?
1) What specifically is the problem for which a solution is being sought, and is there, in reality, more than one (or two, or three and so on) that are being lumped together under a single heading?
Two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides. A fraction something less than one-third are homicides of one degree or another. A small fraction are deaths caused by accidents with guns and no one involved, including the victim, wished to see the victim harmed. There may be more than three categories, but I can't, at this time, imagine what another might be and I suspect the three comprise a very large percentage of the whole
With you tunnel vision you see one common element in all three categories and that is the involvement of a gun. Your simplistic answer is to remove guns from the environment. No guns, no gun deaths.
If all suicides, homicides, and accidents involved guns you might have stumbled across a potentially successful solution, but they are not, and you haven't.
I don't know the annual number of suicides or what the percentage of those deaths involved guns and what percentage involve other means such as drug overdose, razors, hanging, leaping from a high place, driving one's car into a tree at 100mp or off a cliff, stepping in front of a speeding train, car, motorcycle or horse. I could go one but I'm sure you get the picture.
We don't though need the precise numbers to illustrate the point to be made. For the sake of argument and ease of calculation, let's assume that the number of suicides each year is 100,000 and that 75% involve guns. I have no idea of these numbers are even close to reality, but initially, it doesn't matter. Using these numbers and your solution of removing all guns from the environment, after implementation, we would be left with 25,000. That's still a large number but would you say that reducing the original number by 75% was a sufficient solution and we can move on to calculations around homicides? Unlikely but even if you did we would have to ask ourselves how many of the 75,000 who sought to kill themselves using a gun would still manage to end their lives using another means?
We know it would not be a trivially small number so we can't even come back to the question of whether 25,000 suicides is something we can tolerate, but I don't imagine anyone can predict with any accuracy how many suicides would still happen if there were no guns available. It's not as if the 75,000 suicides by gun were the result of severe depression over the number of gun-related suicides each year. Mental health will not automatically improve if all guns are banned. Putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger is not an easy thing to do unless perhaps one is desperate to die and if that's the case then I don't think the means to use will factor into the equation.
We know that women very infrequently use guns to kill themselves, and yet a great many of them still do kill themselves every year and will continue to do so regardless of the presence or lack thereof of guns. Are suicidal women braver than suicidal men? More patient? If there is not a significant difference to explain why women might be fine with using pills, a razor, a fall etc, but men would not be, then there is very little reason to believe that all or most of the men who killed themselves with a gun would not be fine with choosing another method if a gun was not available to them. If this is the case, then it is likely that a significant percentage of the 75,000 suicides by gun would become suicides by another means. Suddenly the main category of gun deaths is no longer significantly diminished by the banning of guns
This is just the beginning of asking all the necessary questions and I'm just rattling them off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other factors and angle to pursue and given time we can come up with them.
Now you might respond to this in two predictable ways
1) Saving any of these lives is important
2) You're not even suggesting all guns should be banned
#1 - Of course all lives are precious and it is important to "save" as many as possible. I'm Pro-life. This is an argument I often make when discussing abortion so I won't be shy about it. You I believe are Pro-choice and I would imagine that you don't consider an unborn child to be a "life" Now I'm not going to entangle us in a debate on abortion and what life is, but unless you are incredibly arrogant, you should be able to acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree here. If not, then I will make the argument that there is no reason to save the lives of people who want to kill themselves.
These people all seem to want to die, Shouldn't they be allowed to? Who are you and I that we should be able to substitute our wish that they live for their wish to die? After we so heroically save their lives we will walk away to enjoy our lives (the ones
we don't want to end) and they will be left to suffer for whatever reasons led them to suicide in the first place. That would be big of us wouldn't it? That is also a very similar argument to the one Pro-Choice folks make when they accuse Pro-Life folks of walking away from an unwanted baby
they heroically save the little boy or girl's life.
#2 - Actually I think you may have and if so I congratulate you on being honest. A great many people share your idea but won't come out and say so for fear that they will stir up opposition from people who in the polls say they want more
sensible gun control Nancy Pelosi is one such person, but she's either too stupid or too venal to bother to hide her deception. When word came out that Republicans and the NRA were willing to discuss banning "bump stocks." Idiot Pelosi goes before the cameras and says she's glad there won't be opposition to banning "bump stocks" but that won't be enough and she is counting on that ban to be a "slippery slope." In other words banning guns all together will join a "bump box" ban that is already careening down the slope. I feel pretty sure that she says these things for local consumption. She knows what her local voters want to hear her say and that she did so with an affected sly smirk made them all the more delighted I'm sure, but she forgets that the words that she says before a local crowd of left-wingers will be picked up by the networks and broadcast nationally. She's such a cretin that this doesn't seem to concern her because you can be sure as hell that she will soon be before a national TV audience and pronounce that the Dems are only looking for "sensible gun control" measures
like the majority of Americans want.
Of course, if one is really only looking to tinker around the edges then any expectation that the tinkering is going to lead to dramatic reductions in gun deaths. Virtually every expert who has been speaking publicly had said that the sort of tinkering a lot of people are insisting is all they want, would not have prevented the Vegas massacre or a number of other mass murders that have so shocked the American people and are the platform of tragedy and anguish upon which Dems and progressives seek to build a political victory. It's all political theater and it's disgusting in its cynicism
I don't mean to suggest that all rank and file Dems or progressives who are not aggressive activists on this issue are being cynically disingenuous. On the contrary, I feel pretty sure they are sincere, but they are also ignorant, which is why taking steps to restrict a right that the Founders felt important enough to enumerate in what is referred to as the
Bill of Rights should not be taken without due consideration of all of the facts.
Again, I have only scratched the surface of the questions that need to be asked and the discussion that needs to be conducted before solutions are shoved down our throats for political reasons: Dems because they want a victory their base will value, and Repubs because they don't want to be seens as absolutely intransigent right after someone used guns to shoot hundred of people and kill over 55. They are all playing roles in the political theater, and only a few of them on other side is being honest about their intentions. Surprisingly Michael Moore is one of them on the Left although he can't accomplish anything but stir up the base. There must be one or two Reps in Congress who are shooting straight (no pun intended) with folks about what they really want to see happen, but the GOP base will fry any Republican who comes out and talks about agreeing to sensible gun control measures, and the Dem leadership will squash any Dem in Congress who tries to turn a complete ban or repeal of the 2nd Amendment into the Party's Policy Position.
I'm happy to keep going with these questions and points but I suspect no one is really interested in going deep into the weeds because to do it right will take some research and not just regurgitating either sides talking points that consist of misinformation and disinformation.
There are sensible gun control measures that should be attempted and could have some positive impact but none of them alone will result in a dramatic reduction of gun deaths, and they'll have very little success unless they are focused on the human component of these tragedies and not the hardware. Domestic violence is, I think, a good example of a problem that involves and is made worse by guns but is not caused by guns. As with suicides, domestic violence leading to deaths will not be eliminated or greatly reduced by eliminating guns altogether or tinker around the edges of the conflated issues. Banning gun ownership by known abusers will help and banning it for everyone will not magnify the success of a focused effort. Making it more difficult for me to purchase a gun will not reduce an abused woman's risk of being shot and killed by her abuser
And if social programs are such panaceas to progressives let's agree that we need to have one that is a lot more effective in protecting women and children from the actual threat they face and it's beastly husbands, and boyfriends, fathers and step-fathers, not a lunatic who randomly shows up at one playground in America every 5 to 10 years.
