Thanks for your response. I can’t remember where I saw the stat, but if memory serves it was about 55% of households owning at least 1 gun in the 1970’s vs. about 40% now.
I agree with almost every point you made. It’s honestly refreshing to hear someone in favor of gun control acknowledge that social pathologies (especially the state of our young men) plays a role here.
I’m a hunter who lives in rural county where 45% of the residents have a pistol permit, which means probably 50-60% own a long gun (my very blue state does not require licenses or registration for the latter category). There has been one murder here in the past decade plus.
The US has multiple, overlapping gun cultures. In some places, the number and availability of guns is absolutely a problem. In other places, people seem to do just fine with high levels of gun ownership. I think the challenge is crafting legislation that addresses the problem areas without raising the hackles of the second group of people, many of whom would be on board with gun control measures that showed some nuance and knowledge about the realities of gun ownership, crime patterns, etc.
I agree with the central thesis here for the same reason I think that photos and videos of terrorist attacks and executions should be published. We should face unpleasant truths head on.
One significant quibble- mass shootings are almost certainly a cultural phenomenon. 50 or 100 years ago a much higher percentage of the population owned guns, many schools had rifle teams, and semi-automatic rifles have been functionally the same for that entire period.
I’m personally in favor of reforms like universal background checks, red flag laws, and other measures. But something broke in our culture over the past couple of decades, and broken people are taking advantage of guns that were always available, but that weren’t being used in this way until Columbine.
Thanks for your response. I can’t remember where I saw the stat, but if memory serves it was about 55% of households owning at least 1 gun in the 1970’s vs. about 40% now.
I agree with almost every point you made. It’s honestly refreshing to hear someone in favor of gun control acknowledge that social pathologies (especially the state of our young men) plays a role here.
I’m a hunter who lives in rural county where 45% of the residents have a pistol permit, which means probably 50-60% own a long gun (my very blue state does not require licenses or registration for the latter category). There has been one murder here in the past decade plus.
The US has multiple, overlapping gun cultures. In some places, the number and availability of guns is absolutely a problem. In other places, people seem to do just fine with high levels of gun ownership. I think the challenge is crafting legislation that addresses the problem areas without raising the hackles of the second group of people, many of whom would be on board with gun control measures that showed some nuance and knowledge about the realities of gun ownership, crime patterns, etc.
I agree with the central thesis here for the same reason I think that photos and videos of terrorist attacks and executions should be published. We should face unpleasant truths head on.
One significant quibble- mass shootings are almost certainly a cultural phenomenon. 50 or 100 years ago a much higher percentage of the population owned guns, many schools had rifle teams, and semi-automatic rifles have been functionally the same for that entire period.
I’m personally in favor of reforms like universal background checks, red flag laws, and other measures. But something broke in our culture over the past couple of decades, and broken people are taking advantage of guns that were always available, but that weren’t being used in this way until Columbine.