Is it time to talk about guns?

Or horror movies, or MMA, or waiting for a fight at a Hockey game... the list goes on and on. Or possibly why the complete disregard of Human life. Maybe call it something like Mental Illness.

 

Gun deaths are about 9000 times the number of innocent people murdered watching horror movies, or MMA, or fights at hockey games combined. Gun mania is an example of a specific disregard for human life that can be reduced by having fewer highly lethal weapons around.

 

And pencils misspell words, and forks make people fat. Got it.

 

Misspelled words don't make people dead, and forks don't make people dead. Crazy mass murderers have been around for along time. In Indonesia, they used to "run amok", slashing folks with machetes. They could do that, I suppose. But it's far more risky and not as likely to produce the desired death toll. AR-15's are so much more efficient! If and when we're able to identify these people before their rampage, have effective treatment for them which they are likely to submit too, and are willing to fund it that may help to reduce the carnage. Meanwhile, taking away the means of mass murder might slow them down.

 

You are clearly adding your assumptions. Millions of legal gun owners in the USA would disagree with you. Yes, many gun owners like to hunt, but many enjoy the sport of shooting, and have never killed anything--ever.

 

For your argument to work you have to agree that forks kill more people than guns. An estimated 280,184 Americans die every year of obesity related conditions, and 48,830 from gun violence. That includes suicide.
But the most dangerous utensil is available without a background check. The spork is a dangerous combination of a fork and spoon, allowing a person to eat soup and solids without putting one down and picking up another. It's an equivalent to an assault rifle.

 

it's as matter of directness and the innocence of the victims. When a bunch of kids in a grade school are gunned down, that's a tragedy. Although dead is dead, and we all get there eventually from something, the guy who dies in his 60s from obesity deserves less sympathy than the kids, cuz his own lack of will power was responsible. He could probably have accomplished the same thing without a fork, although he might have received some cold stares in restaurants from picking up the plate and shoveling it in with his hands. And I suppose a determined mass murderer could have gone after the kids with a fork. But with a lower chance of accomplishing the same level of carnage.

Seriously, does your post seem like a compelling argument to you? If it convinces you, you must be seriously screwed up!

 

Exactly !! Could it possibly be a mental health issue, not a gun issue???

That would be an interesting question for your Daughter in Law. Why didn't she practice archery? Could it have been a personal preference?

 

And there it is--- A person who cant sustain a point of view without making personal attacks.
Unfortunately you don't value Human life as much as you want to appear.

 

Are you equating human life with hurt feelings? But actually, I admit my closing comment was out of line, and I apologize. I do think it's important to distinguish between accidental deaths, natural deaths, deaths brought on by bad personal choices, and deliberate acts of violence. There's a reason why we reserve our severest criminal penalties for the latter, since they pose a particular threat to the social order. It used to be that gun control opponents would cite the greater number of deaths by automobiles. Recently, tho, the firearms-related deaths have overtaken the automobile fatalities. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082564685/guns-leading-cause-of-premature-deaths And firearms are now the Number One killer of children and teens.

 

Saw this: "Exactly, the current gun fetish is a mental health issue, that's what I'm saying."

As far as I can tell from my study of a wide range of fetishes, fetishes involving guns are almost non-existent. Connecting mental illness to interest in guns is fair, even if it is a relatively weak connection. Connecting fetishes, those that involve maladaptive behaviors, to mental illness is even more fair. However, the third leg of this three-legged stool, the connection between guns and fetishes is erroneous. The stool cannot stand.

That a gun is necessary for a person's sexual gratification is what would make interest in having or using a gun a fetish. That's the missing piece here.

It seems ridiculous to me that Americans feel the need for 300 million firearms in private hands for personal use, but those with a sexual fetish involving guns are a fraction of one percent of gun owners. The interest of gun owners, in general, in owning guns is in no way a fetish. As thrilling as guns or "gun culture" may be for some, it isn't necessary for said thrill-seekers' sexual release. It could be fetishized, as any object may be, but it isn't. I could make an excellent case for shoe fetishes - the evidence is plentiful. I see no evidence for gun fetishes.

People who use guns to commit crimes rarely identify sexual gratification as a motive. Prosecutors rarely assert that the gun was used for sexual gratification, nor that the crime involving the gun was committed for the purpose of sexual gratification. Percentage of crimes of rape in the US in 2022 involving guns: one percent.

There are certainly right now people who are sitting at home masturbating as they admire their gun collections, and those people have gun-related fetishes. However, they are few in number, and they're not the ones discharging said guns in public.

 

I don't think it's useful to blame "mental illness" per se, as it's usually defined, for either gun violence or America's peculiar attachment to guns. Mental illness is "a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior". Mental disorders. These are specifically defined in the wide variety of pathologies identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Although mass murder seems to be getting to be far too common, it's not common enough for mental health specialists to study them in a rigorous way. The Epidemiological Catchment Area studies by the National Institute of Mental Health found that most people with mental illness aren't violent, but those with diagnosed mental illnesses are more likely to be violent than those without them. Investing in further study makes sense. But risk factors for violence-- youth, maleness, low SES, and substance abuse, were predictive of violence regardless of diagnosable mental illness. Some might say those are, themselves, indicators of mental illness. In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life , Freud showed that in many respects, we're all a little nuts. In that sense, maybe we could diagnose mass murderers and gun enthusiasts in general as crazy. Ordinarily, though, we think of mental illness as a departure from society's norms. If those norms are screwed up, we can accurately say that the behavior is--"normal" for our society. Is it possible for an entire society to be nuts?

 

"Those who feel they have to have a Glock or an assault weapon have a mental health issue."

Thats a huge statement, and I can't help but wonder what your professional background is to make such a claim, and also, what things you enjoy that others might not agree with.

No Archery team at School??? Really? Thats a poor excuse.

 

Could you also share yours with us? You seem to be the one whose been saying mental illness is the culprit.

 

OK, Let's talk accidental deaths. 2023 saw over 112,000 overdoses, granted, some were not accidental. Overdoses accounted for double the number of Firearms deaths. With many of the drugs coming from across the border little, to nothing is being done to control the Border.

 

one could argue ANYONE willing to take a human life without provocation is mentally ill, one could also argue that those people should not own any type of weapon

 

I owned hunting guns for many years…Somehow I never felt the need to own a weapon with a sole use of killing people…lots of them. I agree with MeAgain that there is no legitimate reason for such guns in society. What possible reason is there for having an assault gun in your closet? “Enjoy”….really? Sure looks like a sign of a personality aberration or malfunctioning testosterone. I make such statements as a result of being a humane human being. Most of us don’t feel safer knowing people are running around with such weapons and the “good guy with a gun” malarkey is just plain absurd and sick….an advertising gimmick.