On Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 10:32:11 AM UTC-5, TimR wrote:
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at 11:51:38 AM UTC-5, wrote:
The US has the weakest gun laws in the developed world.

Part of the problem is they lump gang disputes after hours near a
school as a school shooting. When you look at the actual numbers of
what these people fear, it is a pretty remote thing. The kids do have
a higher chance of being killed walking to school or riding with Mom
in a traffic accident.

Humans are just really bad at estimating the probability of an event, much better at imagining the horrible consequences. So we make bad decisions all the time. We respond to what we fear rather than what can harm us.

Every year in the US, guns kill roughly 14,000 by homicide and 22,000 by suicide.

Assault style rifles account for just under .25% of the homicide and .1% of the suicide. So the very first measure to be recommended is to ban these weapons. Why? Because as a nation we fear those guns more, even though they do less harm.

There are two things we could do to start bringing homicide rates down: legalize drugs, ban capital punishment.

Talk about imagining things, how in the world do you drag deaths from
capital punishment into this? First you claim that assault weapons account
for a very low number, then you cite executions for capital offenses,
which is a very small number and totally irrelevant, as something that
would bring the number down. Wow.

What we desperately need is a uniform, reasonable permit process for gun
purchases across the whole US. Similar to what many states already have.
The local police chief issues the permit, after a real background check
that includes pulling all available police files from the local to national
level, checking with employers, references, with your school if you are
a recent graduate. And then the permit can be denied if you are an
alcoholic, drug user, have a criminal record, mental problems, where
the police chief finds that it would not be in the interest of public
safety. Now that would have stopped Cruz from walking into Dicks and
buying his guns. It likely would have stopped the recent Ohio shooter
from legally buying his gun too and many others.