Today we will analyze, with rationality, facts, and logic, rather than rampant emotions, the problem of mass shootings in the United States.
As usual, both the left and the right are completely wrong-headed in their analysis, or should I say emotional reactions, regarding this problem.
On the left, the response is always the same: GUNS!!! There are too many guns in the US! We need to ban guns! Or at least ban the big ones! Once we pass a bunch of new laws, all the guns will vanish and the United States will become a peaceful paradise!!!
On the right, the response is always the same: ISLAM!!! We need to stop being pussies and bomb the hell out of these people and kick them out of our country! Once we do that, all terrorism will vanish and United States will become a peaceful paradise!!!
Unlike with other issues, the right and the left aren’t exactly wrong. Rather, their opinions are incomplete. Yes, the amount of guns is part of the problem. Yes, Islam is also part of the problem. There are also several other large contributing factors to this problem that neither the left nor the right ever seem to talk about, since they’re too busy screaming at each other about GUNS! or ISLAM!
Here are the seven causes of mass shootings in the US (and to a lesser degree, Europe). While they are listed in no particular order, all of them are direct contributors to this problem. Moreover, as you’ll see, many of these problems don’t even have a solution.
1. Guns
Sorry right-wingers, but the fact that it’s so easy to purchase and/or otherwise acquire heavy weaponry in the US is one of the reasons we have our mass shootings. Right wingers are incorrect when they say this isn’t a factor or a problem.
Since I’m for freedom, of course I’m against the vast majority of gun laws. As an American citizen, you have the right to defend yourself against violence in a manner you deem appropriate. Banning all guns, or even most guns, is a direct violation of this right.
If your argument is that if there are more guns in a society, there will be more mass shootings, then you are correct. Yet, given a choice between totalitarianism and freedom, I’ll take freedom every time. In other words, I would rather live in a completely free country where there were mass shootings every week (thus risking my own personal safety) than live in a communist or authoritarian country where all guns were illegal (except for those lovely cops who, of course, never shoot anyone, because government never does anything wrong).
Don’t forget that last part. If you want to ban guns, or heavily restrict guns, you’re forgetting that you’re still pro-gun. You’re just pro-government guns instead of pro-citizen’s guns. Historically speaking, when the citizens have no guns but the cops and armies have tons, how has that usually worked out?
Above I said I was against the vast majority of gun laws. I didn’t say I was against all gun laws. While various libertarians may disagree, I see no major problem with state or local governments forbidding you to own a rocket launcher or 50 cal. machine gun. Therefore I agree there probably should be some limit on the types of weapons you should be allowed to purchase and own.
Where exactly should that line be drawn? That gets into a very muddled discussion that I’m not going to have today, but I do think that handguns and rifles should be legal. My point is that I’m not some raging right-winger and I do think some laws restricting weaponry may be appropriate.
Regardless, here’s the standard thing I always say to left-wingers who think we should ban “assault weapons” or the “big scary rifles” but still allow people to own handguns. Okay, you ban all rifles from the US and they all magically disappear. A month later there’s another mass shooting where someone kills 12 kids using only handguns, which are legal (like with what happened at Virginia Tech and many other mass shootings). NOW what we do?
2. Islam
Sorry left-wingers, but Islam is a huge part of this problem. Islam is by far the most violent and psychotic major religion in the world today, and is directly or indirectly responsible for a large percentage of these mass shootings (and bombings). Left-wingers are absolutely ridiculous when they scream racism every time someone points out this fact. I don’t see any hordes of Buddhists shooting up mobs of people with bombs or assault weapons, but I see Islamists do it all the time, and so do you.
To deny that Islam is significant part of this mass shooting problem is to deny the facts. If your argument is that some of this Islam rage is our fault, then I agree (keep reading), but that doesn’t mean Islam is innocent. It clearly is not.
3. Government Incompetence
With many of these mass shootings, its later revealed that these shooters already had numerous run-ins with the law and are often under intense scrutiny from the police or FBI. Yet, these crazies are easily able to purchase weapons, plan mass shootings, and carry them out anyway.
Conservatives often say that if we just enforced the laws we already had on the books regarding gun sales and ownership, we would never need any more laws. To a large degree, this is true.
The problem is that our over-bloated, way-too-big, headed-for-collapse government has grown so fat and incompetent that it can’t do something as basic as keeping criminals under scrutiny by the FBI from purchasing seriously dangerous weapons and killing piles of people.
This is yet another sign of our collapsing Western world. Not only is government too big, but it can no longer perform one of the few tasks government should do, which is to protect us from physical harm by others.
4. Psychotropic Prescription Drugs
In almost all of these mass shootings, if you wait long enough, the news finally comes out about all the god damn psychotropic drugs the shooter was taking, often via legal prescriptions from doctors.
If there were none of these drugs in our society, I seriously question if these mass shootings would even occur outside of ultra-rare and unusual instances. The correlation of prescription drug use and mass shootings is too strong.
It’s quite obvious that many disturbed people who take these anti-depression or anti-whatever drugs turn into murderous psychopaths and kill people, yet doctors and drug companies alike keep pushing this crap on their patients. Thanks, healthcare industry!
5. Comparatively Violent American Culture
I have already discussed this issue several times, namely here and here. We Americans are an unusually violent culture. From our violent founding, to our movies, to our wars, to our hobbies (hunting, martial arts, MMA, paintball, etc.) to our video games, we Americans enjoy violence in ways most other cultures don’t. You can hate that, but that’s the way we are, and we’re not changing. We’ll always be this way, as long as there is an America.
I’ve said before that you could dump a truckload of loaded AR-15s in downtown Chicago and you’d have a bloodbath, but if you did the same thing in downtown Tokyo, not a single shot would be fired. The cultures are different. If you say that gun laws work in Japan or Australia and therefore they will work in the United States, then you’re a complete and utter dumbass. The Japanese are the most nonviolent and polite people on earth, and Australians are super relaxed and chill, but we Americans are a bunch of angry, violent assholes. Again, you may hate that, but that’s the way we are. You’ve got to take this into account when seeking a solution to this problem (if indeed there is one).
6. Psychos
Psychos exist in every society. Bi-polar, extreme Aspergers, extreme clinical depression, schizophrenia, whatever flavor you’re taking about. There’s not much you can do about this unless you embrace big, incompetent government and eventually bankrupt your nation. I’ll say it again; I’d rather live in a nation where there were a few psychos walking around than live in a socialist nation with massive amounts of laws controlling my personal and financial life, a 70% income tax, and massive waste, fraud, and abuse on the part of government spending. But that’s me, and I know most humans disagree with me on this.
7. US Foreign Policy
This is another issue that is rarely brought up when there’s a mass shooting. Islam and psychos are indeed part of the problem, but this all exacerbated by America’s absolutely insane neoconservative foreign policy over the last 65 years. If you’re bombing civilians virtually non-stop for decades in Islamist nations, they’re going to be a little pissed off. (Do you think if the Chinese were regularly drone-striking your town and killing children, you might be a little upset at China?) Some of these people are going to shoot us when normally they wouldn’t. It’s cause and effect.
I’ve already discussed this problem in detail here.
Solutions?
Now that we’ve discussed the seven direct causes of all these mass shootings, it’s time to discuss possible solutions. Here’s where things get hairy.
As you’re about to see, some of these problems don’t have solutions. You either put up with them or move out of the country. I’m personally moving out the country, because I have no desire to live in a collapsing society. But again, that’s me, and most people aren’t going to do this.
Some of these other problems technically have solutions, but the solutions are so severe that you’d probably not want them unless you’re a lover of either hardcore socialism or authoritarianism. That’s fine I suppose, particularly if you’re European or Australian, but this country, America, was founded on the concept of freedom, and if you’re a socialist or authoritarian you need to admit that you’re going against the entire founding concept of America, the single most successful nation ever in the history of mankind.
Here are the possible solutions to the above seven problems, if any:
1. Guns
– Surrender to the leftists and enact sweeping, draconian gun laws. Ban all guns or at least everything other than handguns. This won’t do much, since there are already over 300 million guns held by civilians in the United Sates. This means you’d have to send in the cops to confiscate everyone’s guns, which would likely cause a small-scale civil war. Great idea.
– A better, but still bad idea: Make anyone civilly and/or criminally liable if they sell a gun to anyone that is involved in a gun crime. Put the onus away from government and on the free market. That means if I’m a gun store owner and I sell you a gun, I could be thrown in prison if you use that gun to kill someone, or if someone in your household does so. Thus, I’m going to make you prove to me via blood tests, medical records, and certified paperwork that you have no criminal record, that you’ve never taken psychotropic drugs, that you don’t live with anyone like this, and so on.
– Another better, but still bad idea: Increase penalties for anyone who commits a crime with a gun. If someone uses a gun to commit any crime, throw the fucking book at them. This should be done at the state and local levels, since the federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate or prosecute murder or robberies. If you read the Constitution, the only three crimes the federal government is allowed to get involved with is treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. They can’t do shit about mass shootings, nor should they.
2. Islam
There is nothing you can do to solve this problem.
Even if Donald Trump becomes president and miraculously bans all incoming Muslims into the US (never going to happen in our left-wing country), there are millions of Muslims already here, and the religion of Islam isn’t changing in your lifetime. You’re screwed.
3. Big Government Incompetence
– Dramatically reduce the size of government, particularly the federal government (never going to happen in our left-wing country). The smaller your government, the better job it tends to do.
As I’ve been demonstrating all over this blog, reducing the size of government solves, or at least improves, all kinds of social problems, including this mass shooting thing.
4. Psychotropic Prescription Drugs
There is nothing you can do to solve this problem.
Big Pharma has too much power over our corporatist society, and no election or protest will change this. Doctors are going to continue to prescribe this garbage and people will continue to murder others because of it. You’re screwed.
5. Comparatively Violent American Culture
There is nothing you can do to solve this problem.
American culture is the way it is and you’re not going to change it. It’s true that cultures change over time, and slowly we’re becoming a nation of welfare-state-worshiping wimps more akin to Europe, but by the time 90-100% of Americans become left-wing, gun-hating socialists, America will be long gone (or be transformed into something else unrecognizable). You’re screwed.
6. Psychos
– Surrender to the leftists and make any and all mental health counseling and mental institutions“free” (i.e. taxpayer funded after massive amounts of government waste, fraud, and abuse). Lock up any person who psychologists say is a threat against their will.
Other than that, there is no solution to this problem. Every society has psychos. You’re screwed.
7. US Foreign Policy
This one is easy. Tell the right-wingers to fuck off and do everything I list here. Stop bombing countries, stop invading countries, stop toppling foreign governments, stop arming foreign armies, etc. You know, just start being normal and stop wasting my tax money by using it to murder civilians, enrage people all over the world, and make them want to kill me, especially considering I didn’t vote for any of you jerks in the first place and don’t support anything you’re doing.
Is this going to happen? Nope. (Notice that Hillary and Trump are both warmongers, just like Obama and Romney both were, and Obama and McCain both were, and Bush and Kerry both were…)
Are any of these above solutions going to happen? Not really. Lefties and righties will scream at each other, nothing much will change (except more silly gun laws will be enacted that won’t work) and the decline of the West will continue.
Moving to Asia or South America is looking really good right about now, isn’t it?
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I’m with you on all of this….the only solution is moving to an Asian country like Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines or Singapore or even South America.
BD, what’s your best 3 countries for American Black guys to move to? and what’s your best 3 countries for White guys…thanks.
Those questions are far too general. Go back and re-read some of my Moving Out of the Country posts for more info.
Really interesting post Caleb. Ever since I’ve started reading your blog I’ve noticed that I am able to think more rationally and objectively. You have really made an improvement in my life and I have recommend your blogs to everyone I know.
Take care.
Thanks man.
Great points and clarity, thanks!
A few questions and comments:
“A better, but still bad idea: Make anyone civilly and/or criminally liable if they sell a gun to anyone that is involved in a gun crime. Put the onus away from government and on the free market. That means if I’m a gun store owner and I sell you a gun, I could be thrown in prison if you use that gun to kill someone, or if someone in your household does so. Thus, I’m going to make you prove to me via blood tests, medical records, and certified paperwork that you have no criminal record, that you’ve never taken psychotropic drugs, that you don’t live with anyone like this, and so on.”
Why would this be a bad idea? It seems like a fairly good idea, at least to be financially responsible. This might then involve insurance companies which are, in theory, data-driven. And what about partial liability to people who sell to people who sell to mass murderers, etc?
Why not go carrot and stick? Reward gun stores that can document denying and reporting flagged individuals (supposedly like the gun store in Jensen Beach that flagged and contacted the “authorities”). It could be administered by the Gun Stores Owner Association of America, or whatever it might be called. The reward could be both to the store and to the individual. And in an amount much greater than the profit received from the possible purchase.
In the case of Orlando, possible massive private sector failure as well. A gun store sold gun(s) and a bunch of stuff to someone who ended up being a mass murderer. The other gun store that denied him could have easily alerted all the gun stores in the area – do they have a private sector system in place and if no, why not? He was also employed as an armed security agent by a private sector company. Despite complaints he hadn’t been fired (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-12/orlando-shooter-worked-for-security-firm-with-government-ties).
I think I agree with most of what you write here Caleb, but I have a few places I’ll have to depart from you.
I think one of the causes that you haven’t identified is the pussification of America. People in the United States have become so soft from over dependence on the nanny state that they don’t take matters into their own hands.
This is related to the point about the surfeit of guns in the USA. The truth is that only a tiny number of guns are ever used in crime. Most guns are used to prevent crime. In this case, in Orlando, the problem really was the right people not having enough guns. For example, had the bouncer been armed he could possibly have taken the guy out, had there been a gun behind the bar, possibly he could have dropped the guy. As it was there was an off duty cop in the place who used his 9mm Glock against that rifle who managed to hold the guy at bay for a while and probably saved many lives.
I used to sell stuff to 7/11 type companies, and you go in back of these places and they usually have a loaded handgun under the counter. Those guns though are only ever fired in self defense.
But most people are horrified at such an idea, since they don’t want to take responsibility for their own safety into their hands. The fact is that having an armed populace is the ONLY way to prevent “lone wolf” terrorists from getting out of hand. AS they saying goes — when seconds to count, the police are only minutes away (as was the case in Orlando, where, from what I see, the police response was not good at all.)
The second place I have to disagree with you completely is about the psychotic drug issue. I have heard this before from people I respect, but it really doesn’t add up. Millions of people take SSRIs without turning into psycho murders. To me this is a case of mistaking the cause for the effect. People who are likely to do these kinds of atrocities no doubt have psychological problems (whatever that means) and so are more likely to go to the doctor and have these prescribed. So the psychosis produces both the murderous rampage and the need for the drugs. I don’t think there is much evidence to suggest that the drugs CAUSE the psychosis in the first place. As I say millions of people take them without this effect.
It is kind of like saying that you should never go to a hospital, since the death rate per captia in a hospital is far higher than anywhere else, or praising Hitler because he reduced the cancer rate among European Jews.
I think it’s the genesis of a good idea, but needs some more refining by people who understand the law better. But yes, anything that gets government out of it and the free market and real human beings into it is a good idea.
I don’t disagree with that at all. Good point.
I’m no doctor, so I could be wrong on this, but it’s apparent to me that the odds of someone being violent increases with some percentage of people when they take psychotropic drugs. Maybe that percentage is just 2%, but that’s plenty.
When you say lots of people with psychological problems take psychotropic drugs, the opposite is also true: a hell of a lot of of them don’t, and the ones who don’t aren’t the ones shooting people. That clearly indicates something.
Only if damn near 100% of people with psychological problems took these drugs, then you’d have a point, but that isn’t the case.
Caleb Jones says
> When you say lots of people with psychological problems take psychotropic drugs, the opposite is also true:
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but are you suggesting that in every mass killing had the killer taking psycho drugs? If that were the case then it would be interesting but certainly not definitive (because the sample is tiny and there is another perfectly reasonable explanation for the effect.)
However, I don’t believe that is true at all – though I could be wrong. It is probably also true that most of them played violent video games, but I doubt very much that those two things are any more connected for the same reasons. They probably all drunk coffee too, but most people can use coffee quite safely without shooting up rooms full of people.
And I think it is an important point because the plain fact is that SSRIs make millions of people’s lives much better. I know of several people whose lives have been transformed in positive ways with these drugs.
The FDA bans drugs on the most tiny of pretexts, a fact that must surely put to rest the whole “government is in the pocket of big Pharma”, Tell that to the makers of Vioxx and Seladane. I don’t want to give these death dealing bureaucrats a pretext to rob us of one more medical miracle.
Every one of them? No. The vast majority of the ones we all hear about? Yes. A few Google searches will confirm this. Give it a try.
That’s a completely separate issue and I’m not denying that. I’m saying that it looks like some percentage of people go violent when they take these drugs.
I am for completely abolishing the FDA. The FDA is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths (people waiting for life-saving drugs but the damn FDA won’t let them use them). But that doesn’t mean I’m for drugs that make some people violent.
You’re taking this issue a little too personally. Are you taking these drugs? Or have you in the past?
Caleb Jones says
> No. The vast majority of the ones we all hear about? Yes. A few Google searches will confirm this. Give it a try.
Certainly some, but “vast majority”? There haven’t been enough of these events to talk about “the vast majority”. The sample size is way too small. Like I say, most likely the vast majority of these people also take a different pyscho active drug — coffee — but I don’t think we would indict coffee in the killings. Why? Because most people drink coffee without incident.
> That’s a completely separate issue and I’m not denying that. I’m saying that it looks like some percentage of people go violent when they take these drugs.
Probably. There is definitely a smear campaign going on against these drugs and all I am asking for is proof rather than occasional anecdote.
> You’re taking this issue a little too personally. Are you taking these drugs? Or have you in the past?
No, never have. But I am passionate about science. Science is being drained of its power in the past thirty years by the idea that anecdote is sufficient to “prove” something rather than robust, error measured evidence from repeatable, falsifiable experiment. In fact there was a book on the subject just recently published called “Science on the Verge” which talks about exactly that, describing science as having a “nervous breakdown.”
So not personal no, if it came across that way it was just the medium.
Yes. In the vast majority of these major mass shootings reported by the national media, the shooter is almost always taking these kinds of drugs, or has recently. Google and do your own research if you don’t believe me.
If you’re referring to ALL shootings, or multiple shootings, across America, I’m not discussing that.
Read above.
Also, in terms of anecdotes, I can also tell you about several people I’ve personally known, including my own ex-wife, a long-term FB I once had, and a long-term co-worker I had, who suffered from depression or whatever, started taking these drugs, and became violent and/or extremely unstable when they never had before. Some people just don’t react well to these drugs. The evidence for this is overwhelming.
If you want to think these drugs make no difference whatsoever in increasing unstable/violent behavior with 100% of the people who take them, then you’re welcome to that belief, but I’m reasonably positive you’re wrong.
Again I will repeat I’m no expert here and I could be mistaken; I’m just drawing conclusions from an overwhelming preponderance of the evidence.
@ Fraser Orr
Fraser, you’re either blissfully ignorant or purposefully dishonest. Either way, you’re 1,000% wrong about this. BD is stating facts and reality.
America is a very sick, mentally ill place. You can live in denial or delusion all you want but there is irrefutable evidence all around you.
America is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world’s prescription drugs. And we know Americans LOVE their Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, etc…
Like BD said…google the info. It’s been proven over a million times how drugs (legal or illegal) changes the brain chemistry and the nervous system and thought patterns of the individual…and that’s not including the devastating side effects. In fact, people have to take additional drugs just to address the side effects.
I can go on and on…so since you’re obvious too lazy to do any research on this, I’ve done you a huge favor and included two links to get you started. If you can’t accept FACTS then you have proven yourself to be here for nefarious reasons..either to mislead others or just argue for attention.
Bottom line. BD is absolutely spot on… America is absolutely FUCKED. It’s an Insane Asylum. Every point he presented and addressed is spot on… the only point he neglected to cover was the Racial Issue… which will only get worse in this country and yet another reason America will remain a Hateful, Angry, Violent country. In BD words…..”There is nothing you can do to solve this problem.”
Here’s your links…(you’re welcomed)
http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/popping-pills-prescription-drug-abuse-in-america
“@ Fraser Orr
I think one of the causes that you haven’t identified is the pussification of America. People in the United States have become so soft from over dependence on the nanny state that they don’t take matters into their own hands.”
Another point you may disagree with…about the pussification of America…. The majority of American men have always been pussies, Manginas, Betas…there was never this Golden Age of Alphas in America.
It just that now because of technology and the internet we can see the proverbial Bitch-made man behind the curtain. The ILLUSION has been exposed.. American men are exposed for what they have always been and always will be “BETA BITCHES”…we’ve always Pedalstalized the pussy and had Oneitis…. and the women (as they do today) knew it.
The only difference in now and back in the day was that women was prevented from earning their own income. They were completely financially dependent on men, which gave men this ILLUSION of being an ALPHA but in reality they were BETA-BITCHES and used their Financial position to cover that fact.
So all you’re witnessing today is the TRUTH finally being EXPOSED for what it has always been. “The majority of American men are BETA-BITCHES…always have been and always will be.
Lastly, America has always been a nanny state…how the hell do you think the middle class came about…. do your research…start with WWII and the G.I. Bill.
@Eddie says
> America is a very sick, mentally ill place. You can live in denial or delusion all you…
Wow, dude, what’s with the belligerence? It is just a discussion.
> America is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world’s prescription drugs.
That is entirely irrelevant. The question at hand is whether SSRIs specifically are causative in these violent incidents. The fact that many of these pyschos take these drugs does not demonstrate causality at all, the fact that BD’s wife went nutso doesn’t demonstrate it either. There is a perfectly reasonable alternative explanation, namely that something else caused them to be nutso and they took the drugs to calm down.
> Like BD said…google the info. It’s been proven over a million times how drugs (legal or illegal) changes the brain chemistry
A million times? Really? Certainly psychoactive drugs change brain chemistry, that is, after all, what psychoactive means. But coffee is psychoactive too, and you don’t see too many coffee murders. On the other hand you do see a lot of people murdered as the result of alcohol. Compared to that substance SSRI’s even if you believe the hype, are pikers.
Thanks for the links BTW. I’ll check them out when I have some time.
@Eddie says
> The majority of American men have always been pussies, Manginas, Betas…
Probably true, but this is a different category of pussy. But the nanny state has definitely made it worse, and the SJW movement has even robbed men of the aspiration to be Alpha.
Not to be off topic but if anyone wants to find out more about islam and to find out why muslims behave they way they do check out “Understanding Muhammad and muslims” by Ali Sina. He exlaims several mental disorders and health issues that shaped muhammad and thus islam. Ali sina is an ex muslim who left iran as a teen just before the islamic revolution in 1979 . He’s really interesting.
“Those questions are far too general. Go back and re-read some of my Moving Out of the Country posts for more info”.
He’s asking because in Europe right now, particularly, because of the ‘brown rape’ scares and such it’s probably not a good idea for anyone black to relocate or even visit there. Asian countries such as Japan and China are probably bad choices too since those places are xenophobic to the extreme unless you are white, in which case you are basically treated like royalty.
Because of the actions of migrant third-worlders, the image of any brown-skinned person is very likely tarnished in many countries beyond repair. I have even heard of people in the US discussing such groups differently. You might say its somewhat analogous to how US citizens began to treat Japanese Americans after the Pearl Habor bombing. The actions of other, similar looking people outside the country has affected the perception of any person of related origin everywhere.
We also live in a society where we artificially increase our serotonin with caffeine and sugar and SSRI’s and healthy eating is looked down on at social events. We don’t rest enough.
@Fraser Orr
My sincere apologies…I never meant to come off as hostile…after re-reading what I said, I can see how you may have arrived at that conclusion.
To dismiss the facts (America is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world’s prescription drugs.) demonstrates classic denial or something else.
Ask yourself, why do these people need to take drugs/medication. Medication is only for the sick and mentally disturbed..healthy people don’t need medicine.
@ Ergeniz
Yes, exactly that was my point. But, it’s all good. BD is great at what he does..he can’t and shouldn’t be expected to have insight outside of his area of consciousness. I’ll seek those answers else where through my own research.
Very interesting, but as someone else already said, I’m as white as they come, so I’m not really the guy to ask about the best places for black people to live.
If I was black I’m not sure what I would do. If I was black and young I would likely go to Africa and use my Western skills, values, and influence to make my fortune. But that’s just a wild guess.
FYI my son is black and he has no plans to leave the US.
Yep. It’s pretty fucked up.
Yeah…Fraser’s defense of this issue is strange. There’s facts demonstrating this problem all over the internet but he ignores it all, and then doesn’t provide any facts to back up his own assertions. But as I said, everyone is free to believe whatever they want.
Guns
Why not try liability insurance for all gun buyers like we do for all automobile buyers?
Islam
Let’s try leaving them alone. Not bombing them, not overthrowing their regimes, not supporting dictatorships and occupations in their lands.
Then, let’s see how psychotic (or not) they turn out to be.
Caleb Jones says
> Yeah…Fraser’s defense of this issue is strange. There’s facts demonstrating this problem all over the internet but he ignores it all,
I can’t address all the nonsense on the Internet. After all the Internet is also full of pages telling us that vaccines cause autism or that if you pop this herbal supplement that your dick will grow two inches in a week. So if you have something specific (that won’t take six hours to read) I’ll be happy to have a look.
Mostly though my answer will be the same as it was to the links Eddie posted above. His second link just talked about the overuse of prescription meds in the USA. I don’t have an opinion on that subject. The first one talked about the higher rates of violence among the users of SSRIs. That just comes back to my original comment about correlation not indicating causality. It is like saying people who take cancer drugs die at a younger age on average, and therefore cancer drugs are deadly. That is also mistaking correlation for causality.
As to evidence against this? There are literally tens of millions of people taking these drugs daily, and they are not all going on mass murder sprees.
My view is falsifiable though. Show me a study that shows the violence rate is higher in users of SSRIs than in people who are measured to be statistically similar but who do not take SSRIs in a study that has a statistically significant sample size and longdidudinal adequacy and I’ll be happy to change my mind. This is the standard that good science demands, anything else is just people shooting off their mouth. FWIW, this data is absolutely available since it is collected meticulously by the FDA and other drug licensing agencies around the world.
Lots of fluff on the internet though really is of very little value.
Yes! That’s another good free market solution to this problem that will probably never happen.
Agree 100%. They’ll still be psychotic, but just to each other, not to us.
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Let’s try leaving them alone. Not bombing them, not overthrowing their regimes, not supporting dictatorships and occupations in their lands.
Then, let’s see how psychotic (or not) they turn out to be.
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It’s a wishful idea, but the thing to understand is it’s not really a “live and let live” kind of culture. There’s an article that correlates their behavior with percentage of a population (you can find it if you wanna check it out). It’s interesting and I ran the test on a whole bunch of random countries and found it about 80-85% accurate.
Basically beyond 1% of any population, you’re in a wildcard danger zone. Everything from riots to car burning to rapes to lawless sharia zones, getting progressively worse as that number goes up. You could maybe make the case that the real crack organized shit has political correlation, but it seems the global terrorism is just an inflated version of the more local extremism.
GUNS
– Surrender to the leftists and enact sweeping, draconian gun laws. Ban all guns or at least everything other than handguns.
This is outright impossible, so long as your second amendment stays on the books. The gun nuts are correct: the founding laws of your country forbid any governent from doing this. any such law would be instantly struck down.
– Make anyone civilly and/or criminally liable if they sell a gun to anyone that is involved in a gun crime.
This is also impossible, or if it were possible then it would be gravely unjust. In a just society, a person is not responsible for what another person chooses to do.
– Increase penalties for anyone who commits a crime with a gun.
This will do nothing to stop mass shootings, which are simply men committing suicide-by-cop.
That last point perhaps points the way to reducing mass shootings: make life marginally less shitty for men.
ISLAM
Stop going to other peoples countries and bombing them. Left alone, the muslims (‘islamist’ is not actually a word, you know) will content themselves with killing one another. All that’s needed is to give a little aid and money to whichever side is losing. If this aid is in the form of weapons, sandblast off the ‘made in the USA’.
GOVERNMENT
Dude, you can’t both whine about governments treading on our precious freedoms; and at the same time bitch that they aren’t locking up people who haven;t committed a crime yet.
DRUGS
Agreed. See point 1: why not simply make life marginally less shitty for men? Start by reforming divorce and family law.
CULTURE
Can’t be fixed. If it could, I’d start with football. No more goddamn athletic scholarships (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one), no more looking the other way when educational institutions cheat to keep their student athletes on the Rolls. And no more stadium boondoggles. Read Paul Kersey’s “The Opiate of America”.
PSYCHOS
Point 1 again. Oh, and stop putting fuoride in the water.
WAR
Agreed, totally. But then again: I’m a flaming leftie by your standards.
It’s worthwhile nothing the link between war and culture. America is always at war because of the bloodthirst of the average american. Salt-of-the-earth average Joes down at the bar who deep down belive that war is basically a positive thing.
Good. Let’s hope so.
That’s why I would choose “civilly” rather than “criminally.”
If these people had never committed a crime, you’re correct. The problem is these people the government have been watching are often guilty of committing crimes.
And to repeat, protecting citizens from violence is one of the FEW valid functions of government. If it fucks this up, I have a right to complain. (Not that I care at this point.)
Recent Gun statistics… every year about 30,000 americans die from guns (2/3 from suicide). Guns deaths have now passed automobile deaths in the United States this year. We have more guns in circulation than we do people (323 million people in America vs 357 million guns in America). The U.S. has more guns per capita than any other nation, by far. The U.S. gun homicide rate is 25.2 times higher than 22 other OECD countries.
As BD said, there is no solution when you live in a drug addicted, fear-driven, paranoid-minded, violent culture.
Brace yourself…for more Mass Shootings will happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
I’m not buying your arguments for gun control. less guns does not equal less crime. There are more guns in this country than any time in the past and the violent crime rate is the lowest its been in 30 years.
Something you neglected to mention is that all of these mass shootings happen in gun free zones where it is not legal for those licensed to carry guns to be armed. In the end that’s what usually stops these nutjobs. Somebody with a gun shooting the bad guy in the head or someone with some level of gun knowledge tackling the bad guy when his gun jams or he is reloading.
Also your idea about holding gun dealers liable is ridiculously stupid. Are we going to hold car companies responsible for the deaths on the highway? I mean gun dealers just can’t win. They have to deal with mountains of gun control laws and even when they refuse a sale to an obvious nutjob like the guy in orlando and CALL THE FBI to let them know people still want them to do more. Google it, that is exactly what happened here and you know what the fbi did? NOTHING.
The government can’t protect you and more people are starting to realize it that’s why every month is a new record for gun sales in this country.
Yep, as I’ve been saying forever. And guess what? Scott Adams just made a blog post titled,
Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA
This is not a fixable problem. Put up with it or leave the country.
I’m completely against gun control, as I’ve already explained…
https://calebjonesblog.com/more-gun-deaths-more-of-the-same-arugments/
https://calebjonesblog.com/fun-with-logic-guns/
https://calebjonesblog.com/we-arent-australia/
Correct. I said it was a bad idea. (But it’s a starting point to a better idea someone else will have to come up with; since I don’t give a shit any more).
Again point: 4. Psychotropic Prescription Drugs….proven.
Drugging of the American Boy…( plus access to guns = BOOM!!!! )
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a32858/drugging-of-the-american-boy-0414/