For example why those 3 cities? Why not other cities?
Why not those three cities? I picked three cities at random from what I remember hearing in the news; your other examples are a great illustration of my point: none of those other cities are experiencing murder on a great scale with AR-15s. It's just more proof to my central thesis: selective outrage. Certain political groups freak out when 22 kids are murdered with an AR-15 style rifle, but they don't care about the children killed or maimed daily by handguns, in ALL of those cities you mentioned. So thanks!
Please don't tell me your solution to gun violence is to build more hospitals in high gun crime areas? Good point actually, tons of doctors and nurses with expensive cars and high net worth in areas that are flush with violent gun crime; I can't possibly see what would go wrong with that idea.
In sum these conversations are never fruitful, never satisfying, never provide Catharsis with the releasing of tension. For we are talking about inside and outside, with things that penetrate the inside and that is inherently full of tension.
I'm not saying remove emotion from the debate, but hyperbole, which is an entirely different concept.
I'm also saying to address the root cause of so many violent gun deaths: gangs, drugs, cartels and criminals. There will always, always be the lone wolf mass shooter we can't stop. That is something as a society we have to accept.
What we don't have to accept is the daily gun violence and children murdered by criminals and gangs that could be prevented.
I already explained why with the whole overdetermination thing. Instead solving it is to circle around it many times and each small thing chipping away at things.
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We really do not know how many guns are being sold in the year due to it being illegal to research and track it due to federal law. That said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives thinks about 11.3 million guns per year were made and sold to consumers in the United States. Note this is only domestic production and consumption, we / the United States also import several millions gun a year for consumer use. I can provide statistics from other sources but I am do not want to mix and match statistics from different sources for they use different methodologies but it is in the several million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/us/politics/gun-manufacturing-atf.html
Lots of graphs for what we are talking about with breakdown for types of guns
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/report/2021-firearms-commerce-report/download
Now how many American guns being made for American commercial use was about 3.9 million in 2000 vs 11.3 million in 2020. I picked that year for it is a nice 20 year number but also it is the year after Columbine. We have almost triple the amount of new guns per year (it is 2.9x the amount) and I do not feel any safer.
And do not twist my words with providing those stats I just provided. Yes we have more guns on the streets and I do not have a magical fix that can fix them and just removing them from the streets is not going to fix the problem. But when you increase the number of guns you do not just increase crime you also increase all other forms of gun deaths such as accidental family member deaths, suicides', domestic violence that is deadly and non deadly, etc. I am signifying we tripled the amount of guns being bought per year to signify we have a big problem and it seems to be getting worse not better.
(note from other sources we think the 2021 gun sales are similar to the 2020 gun sales, though a small decrease compared to 2020 but still much higher than 2019.)
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As for me being mad about all the other types of gun deaths, I am frickin mad about them too but me voicing it will not change anything even if I am infuriated by them. Ones heart can break only so many times that one does not even voice the fury. But one should not turn to nihlism.
If you want to hear my thoughts on the matter (not my voice but he is a casual friend of mine) then listen to Pat Blanchfield talk about Guns almost 3 years ago on this podcast.
https://player.fm/series/know-your-enemy/gunpower-w-patrick-blanchfield
(and yes Pat's book they mentioned still has not come out, he has rewritten it and the world kind sucks right now)
*NM*
- 26/05/2022 08:05:48 PM
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- 27/05/2022 11:59:21 PM
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