Fuck all the people who saw the signs but did nothing.
This could have been avoided.
Nah, this blood, as with almost all mass shootings, is completely on the 2A people as far as I’m concerned.
Australia cleaned up their act in response to mass tragedy. Our society just isn’t a society.
That would require some degree of cooperation and sacrifice. Modern Americans just don’t have those qualities in us.
This is what our people have chosen to be.
We can’t do what Australia did. 2nd Amendment aside (and that alone is a huge blocker), we have a much larger population and a much larger inventory.
Australia confiscated 650,000 guns on a population at the time of around 18 million people. Even that was only 20% of the guns in the country.
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
The United States has a population over 330 million with over 400 million guns.
20% of 400 million would be 80 million guns. To take those off the street, we would have to run the equivalent of the Australian program 123 times.
Logistically, it’s impossible. Even without the 2nd amendment we don’t have the capacity to do it. There’s no way to collect and dispose of them.
Who says this has to be done in a day? Have gun drop off places which keeps lists, destroy the guns (weld the muzzle or drill in a hole both can be done in 2minutes for a single gun) and then sell them to scrapyards. People have time until the end of 2024.
The Australian plan did take a year, October 1996 to September 1997, and all they got was 650,000 guns which was 20%.
Americans first, have no obligation to give up their guns thanks to the 2nd Amendment and second, aren’t as likely to give up their guns.
You aren’t getting 80 million (20%) even in a year, and again, we don’t have the capacity to collect and dispose of them.
80 million / 50 (yeah, I know, it won’t be an even distribution, but let’s work the math roughly) 1.6 million per state / 12 months = 133,333 a month per state.
The Australian plan took 12 months to collect 650,000. So the US would need to meet that in about 5 states in one month.
The most successful gun buyback in US history collected 4,200 guns across 4 buybacks.
https://www.hcp1.net/GunBuyback
The Australian plan cannot work here.
I mean, you’re throwing out a lot of numbers claiming it is impossible, but we have logistics and resources that Australia didn’t in 1996. If Amazon can deliver 7.7 billion packages a year, and the US can count 150 million votes in a week during election season, we can figure out how to break down 400 million guns over a month, a year, or a decade. It doesn’t have to happen overnight. The “Australian plan” doesn’t have to work here, but getting guns off the street somehow does.
I guarantee you don’t want a private company like Amazon handling gun confiscation, public policy should not be up to private companies to enforce. Might as well ask people to drop off their guns at the local WalMart and ask untrained staff to deal with them. No good will come from it.
Elections are a different deal because all you’re processing is bits of paper and data, you aren’t running the risk of, you know, explosive ordinance.
Even if we had the logistics, which we don’t, there’s still the 2nd amendment to contend with. We can’t force people to give up their guns, that’s a right the Australians didn’t have.
Repealing the 2nd Amendment can be done, but it starts with 290 votes in the House. You did watch the struggle it took to get the 217 they needed to elect their own leader, right?
I didn’t suggest Amazon run the process. I just meant “logistics infrastructure exists on a scale unimaginable in 1996”. 600 million COVID doses given out in the US might have been a better comparison. Or 7.2 billion packages by USPS in 2022. There are 708k cops in the US. That’s 2 guns recovered per cop per month to have it done in 90 days.
There is literally no argument in the world where “the logistics make it impossible” is a reasonable claim.
Likewise, “we’ll never get 290 votes” is a lazy and cowardly claim. Yes, it’ll be hard. Yes, it’ll be a fight. Yes, we’ll have some minds that will be impossible to change. But your apparent argument in defense of gun rights seems to be “aww, jeez, it seems pretty tricky” which is truly mind boggling to me.
I’m actually mostly on your side, I think the US is too far gone. If you took peoples guns off them in the US, I genuinely think there would be a or several small civil wars.
Further a lot of people would just refuse, hide their guns etc.
If the US actually tried to do what Australia did I think you’d actually see a drop in shootings etc but it would take 50-70 years to actually get through the majority of weapons ‘on the street’.
But to say it’s logistically impossible is absolutely and completely wrong. It’s culturally near impossible.
P.s. I’m Australian and our shooting crimes are going up, pistol numbers are going up too and we have the worst self defence laws. I wish I could have a loaded Glock and the right to shoot an intruder in my home honestly.
Think of like this, your average pistol weighs just over a pound (.45kg) and your average rifle around 8 pounds (3.62kg)
So somewhere between 400 million and 3.2 billion pounds of metal, wood, and plastic. Between 180 million and 1.448 billion kg.
Low number is assuming all pistols, high number is assuming all rifles, so the real number is going to be between the two.
As a point of comparison, the US generates 268 million tons of garbage every year:
https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/us-trash-production
You’re talking many times that JUST for guns.
Run some numbers on the amount of weight the US military moves annually.
The US Military is legally prevented from operating inside the United States:
If you’re trolling - hilarious.
If you’re not - fuck bro, you need to get out a bit. Literally not the point whatsoever, not even relevant.
Our society just isn’t a society.
Which is why I’d prefer to have a gun
Don’t forget the day before he killed people that this was “a good guy with a gun”
They need a red flag/extreme risk protection order (ERPO) law in their state, at the very least. If used, such a law could have prevented this. It’s one of the things that Moms Demand Action has been pushing for.
As soon as someone comes in with HI/SI that should trigger a response that removes all weapons from someone’s home, a 72 hr psych hold, and informs all immediate friends/family that they are not to be allowed near guns/knives. Period
Of course he could have done that step first but instead another damaged and armed asshole imposes his demons on others and inflicts grievous pain on dozens of families before offing themself.
Yet another in a long list of isolated incidents because after trying nothing we’ve run out of ideas.
It’s not like we’ve tried nothing; he should have been dealt with when he made threats, but the police don’t want to act on the laws we have in place. They want to wait until a tragedy happens so they can feel like they’re being heroes, apparently.
The US has both a gun problem AND a mental health problem. We need more immediate access to long term healthcare.
The addition of the 988 hotline is an ok start but mental health issues are still demonized and have limited resources.
Tragic underfunding + stigma = tragedies
Everyone check in on your friends and loved ones, too.
We need universal mental health care full stop. Even if you’re against universal health care in general, and I don’t know why anyone would be, start with universal mental health care.
Get people assessed, get them the treatment they need. If they need to be held the rest of their lives, figure out how to make that work safely and humanely.
stigma
You’re adding to the stigma by blaming this fascist terrorism on people with mental problems.
the hotline is a copout to help people ignore the systemic problems fueling depression epidemic
Oh the whole thing is definitely a broader socioeconomic and societal issue, for sure. That’s why it’s a crisis line and not a therapy line.
But let’s be clear here, this guy did not do these things because he had a mental health problem. Dude had a plan, a really complex one, and had extensive training in the army to carry a plan out like this , to avoid being captured and to cause as much damage as possible. If he was just suicidal, he would have just offed himself instead of 22 plus other casualties he caused. Do not blame on what he did on his mental health problem and failure to get it sorted
I blame it on society as a whole, the failure to take away his guns whenever he checked into a mental health place, and for failure to take care of his veterans.
I don’t think you kill 18 people without a mental health problem.
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Had problems with an ex, some old friends, and it looks like he was fired recently from a job. Wanted revenge I guess.
I mean, that’s sort of exactly why everyone needs someone to talk to and process stuff. If you’ve lost a relationship, friends, and a job you should be able to access care when you start having dark thoughts like this.
Exactly, small things that build up can lead to tragedy. Especially when you’re mentally unstable to begin with. What happened with him was horrible and tragic, but not totally his fault. Society has some blame to take too because they let him out of that facility without a support system in place and they didn’t take his guns. Two things they should have done. In addition to help and support we also need trigger laws that take all your guns and other weapons, and inform your family and friends that this person is not allowed to have guns, and closely monitor his financials to see if he’s trying to buy a gun. Any ONE of those would have prevented what happened in Lewiston.
Agreed
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Let’s be real. The only way this stops is when enough republicunt politicians see their own children murdered in such incidents.
Not even then. They’d try to increase militarization of the police instead.
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When the black panthers started advocating for carrying guns, Republicans supported gun control.
Maybe drag queens should start a pro gun PAC? Start carrying everywhere, but like really cute pink and teal guns?
They are. I’ve seen a documentary about the creation of black/left-wing/LGBTQ-friendly gun clubs.
Minorities who traditionally were not attracted to guns/shooting are starting to feel unsafe in the current USA and it’s not hard to see why.
Jews are starting to get armed. Everyone’s getting strapped, America is getting less and less safe by the minute.
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California keeps passing them then they get struck down
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Time for the usual political debate to run it’s course and nothing to happen, because any change to the conditions that generate this violence run against capital interests.
To run its* course.
Did that make you feel like a big man?
It’s a free world. Think whatever you think of me. Not that you care but nah. It didn’t make me feel like a big man. It just made me feel like I scratched an itch.
This was a good guy with a gun…until he wasn’t.
…and the trash took itself out.
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Toxic crusaders. We’re gross but we still don’t kill minorities
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