Sigh…Florida man. Can we just break that d*** shaped state off and send it to Cuba?
What does “well-regulated militia” mean, particularly the “well-regulated” part?
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Yeah, let’s include the entire thing. Cool meme, I guess.
We all agree on regulation. The question is where is the line. The quicker we come to understand that, the quicker we can actually have a conversation on this topic.
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I am a big 2A guy but these memes are embarrassing. There has to be middle ground to have a conversation and come up with measures that make a difference.
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Some think in very black and white terms. You want some gun control, that means you want to take all guns away. No room for nuance.
They ignore the fact that you already can’t have any gun or arms you want.
But it makes for cool memes to own the “libs.” More black and white thinking on the libs thing too. You either agree with everything from the right or you’re a leftist.
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Again, the gun violence issue is not solely about mental illness if it actually is at all.
The scale of gun violence in the United States lends itself to astonishing comparisons.
Our nation’s firearm-related civilian death toll over the past 50 years exceeds the number of soldiers who perished in combat in all our wars combined. More American children and young adults died from firearm injuries in 2020 than from any other cause. In recent years, our rate of gun homicides has been 25 times higher than that of comparable nations. And if we were to inscribe on a granite wall the names of all those lost to firearm violence in the past two decades, we would need a monument 12 times larger than the Vietnam War Memorial.
The absolute numbers are equally sobering.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, an estimated 2.5 million people have been injured in gunfire in the United States, and 750,000 of them have died. Although we grow increasingly accustomed to random shooting rampages — a uniquely American recurring nightmare — on the day of any such shooting in 2020, an average of 134 other people died from firearm injuries. More than half those deaths were suicides; others were gang shootings, domestic violence incidents, or arguments gone bad between intoxicated young men. The U.S. gun homicide rate increased by 33% in 2020.
*. . . *
In a diverse nation with more guns than people and a constitutionally protected right to bear arms, the complex mix of circumstances and cultural forces that fuel gun violence pose daunting challenges for those who hope to understand and address it.
## What’s going on?
“Why would anyone kill all those innocent people?” That’s the natural question when we learn of yet another senseless gun massacre against strangers in a public place.
The answer we often hear is “mental illness,” an explanation that fits the common perception that people with serious mental illnesses are dangerous. But most violence, including lethal and near-lethal violence, is [not causally linked to mental illness](Mental illness and reduction of gun violence and suicide: bringing epidemiologic research to policy - PMC).
Mental illness is quite common in the United States. In 2020, approximately 20% of U.S. adults — 53 million people — met criteria for at least one psychiatric diagnosis in the previous year, and nearly 6% — 14 million individuals — had a serious, impairing mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. Given that so many individuals have a mental health diagnosis and the large majority of those individuals are never violent, psychiatric illness is too blunt an instrument to serve as a useful indicator of violence risk.
Indeed, if serious mental illnesses suddenly disappeared, violence would decrease by only about 4%. More than 90% of violent incidents, including homicides, would still occur.
Even mass shooters, who might seem most likely to be driven by mental illness, don’t necessarily suffer from major psychiatric disorders. Arguably one of the best such reports on the topic, conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, found that only 25% of such assailants had a diagnosed mental illness. Although it is difficult to obtain precise data on the gun-prohibited status of every mass shooter, less than 5% of these individuals had a record of a gun-disqualifying mental health adjudication, such as an involuntary commitment to a mental health facility.
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The mental illness thing never made sense to me because this is such a uniquely American issue.
That’s not to say we don’t have a problem to solve in that space. It just can’t be the driving force though.
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That seems about right. The mental illness card addresses very few of the cases of injury and death by firearms. I’ll play nice with those wanting to address mental illness, it’s a worthy subject, and probably a big factor in the homeless problem. But solving or dealing with mental illnesses
effectively will only make a small dent in the number injured and killed by guns. Simple fact.
Now suicide by firearm is way up there too in our country. Is a person that commits suicide
suffering from a mental illness and/or severe depression ? That’s not to say severe depression is
the only cause of suicide either. Suicide by gun gets about 24,000 people a year since at least
2019.
I don’t get how…bur he did shoot up his own car first.
Will be many more of these incidents with
everyone carrying pistols. Most will have more
deadly outcomes to the participants or innocent
bystanders.
The stand your ground law has serious flaws in that line of thinking that allows charges to be dropped.
It’s odd the other drivers actions are not clearly
stated. Did other driver throw a water bottle or actually shoot first ? If you can pull a gun and shoot at someone for throwing a water bottle and not get charged, that’s crazy.
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He brake checked him first to escalate things.
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I thought I read he had been sent home for wearing that to school as he should have…but yeah, the GOP is celebrating that shirt.
I have a lot of questions.
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Guns having sex with each other is an NRA sexual fantasy.
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That’s not what God designed those holes for
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And a trigger finger has a different conotation as well.
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