Outsider view on US gun problems

Joat42 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Addressing the root causes if violence of all typed would be even better. Figure out why people resort to violence and address THOSE issues instead of butting heads with the Second Amendment and Gun Control Fanatics on both sides of the issue.

One root cause is social inequality, there are others but that is the really big one.

I would put social inequality much further down the list; social inequality has been with us for a long time and all over the world, but American violence is unique problem.

I would put social inequality much further down the list; social inequality has been with us for a long time and all over the world, but American violence is unique problem.

I think that the US has a double whammy. Easy availability of cheap guns, and social inequality.
The social inequality comes from the lack of a national welfare and health net. Not saying that our country is anywhere near perfect, but when it is possibly the most similar to the US apart from size (pioneering history, country traditions, free press and democracy, multicultural but English speaking), yet has less than 10% of violent gun crime per million people than the US, it is worth looking at the differences.
Our higher basic pay (about $18 an hour) means less working poor, our state housing programs means less homeless, and our welfare/health nets mean that even those at the bottom have some dignity. As Dylan sang "If you ain't got nuthin you've got nuthin to lose".

Daryl wrote:The social inequality comes from the lack of a national welfare and health net.

The rot goes much deeper than simple singe-soured solutions. Before you can fund healthcare, you need jobs. For jobs, you need employers.

Over-population, Drugs, prison crowding, immigration,
etc -- all have to be solved first.

American violence is hardly a unique problem:

https://www.statista.com/chart/5369/mur ... isualised/

This map is a clue to a MAJOR factor in the US homicide and crime rate.

Daryl wrote:Just curious. If the police in the US are incompetent and indolent, why does the US have a massively higher incarceration rate than any developed country, and most shithole countries?
My theory would be that the lack of a national welfare and health net leads to people being desperate?

It is a result of "supply side sentencing." Criminals do not crunch the numbers but they intuitively understand what the risk of arrest, effective prosecution and probable sentence is. In many big American cities such as Chicago, the risk of getting arrested for murder is extremely low. This encourages people to commit more murders. Ditto for rape, robbery, agravated assault and property crimes. Thr US has attempted to compensate by mandating long prison terms. Unfortunately; the low probsbility of arrest conditions criminals to commit many crimes before they finally loose the criminal justice lottery. The end result is that people commit so many crimes that a large number eventually end up serving very long sentences.

I am an extreme advocate of police reform that emphasizes criminological expertise rather than simply responding to emergencies. A seasoned, well educated detective that is well supported by a crime lab and thus able to solve crimes is far more effective at detering crime than a young, inexperienced officer on the street responding to emergency calls.

The rot is so bad in the US is so severe that Oregon had to mandate that police submit rape evidence kits to the state crime lab rather than allow them to moulder in evidence rooms. The result is many rape arrests includihg many repeat offenders.

You think may be Oregon would have had fewer rapes if police had done their freaking jobs rather than have a circle jerk?

Weird Harold wrote:

Daryl wrote:The social inequality comes from the lack of a national welfare and health net.

The rot goes much deeper than simple singe-soured solutions. Before you can fund healthcare, you need jobs. For jobs, you need employers.

Over-population, Drugs, prison crowding, immigration,
etc -- all have to be solved first.

Uhm, all those things you listed are due to social inequality.

And funding is not difficult, just take some of the billions that is poured into the military for example. And if you want it cheaper, just switch over to a single payer system.

Joat42 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The rot goes much deeper than simple singe-soured solutions. Before you can fund healthcare, you need jobs. For jobs, you need employers.

Over-population, Drugs, prison crowding, immigration,
etc -- all have to be solved first.

Uhm, all those things you listed are due to social inequality.

I would argue that the reverse is true.

Joat42 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The rot goes much deeper than simple singe-soured solutions. Before you can fund healthcare, you need jobs. For jobs, you need employers.

Over-population, Drugs, prison crowding, immigration,
etc -- all have to be solved first.

Uhm, all those things you listed are due to social inequality.

Weird Harold wrote:I would argue that the reverse is true.

IF there where no social inequality:

• There would be no reason to immigrate (except for work/love etc)
• There would be no reason to commit crime (except those that do it anyway)
• There would be no reason to take drugs to cope with reality (except those that do it anyway)

Everything you list is a symptom of social inequality.

Bullshit. If you could magically remove ‘social inequality’ overnight, it would be back by this time next week. Violence would be back first thing in the morning.

There will always be greed, envy, and those with the driving need to control people. There will always be those that believe they’re better than everybody else. There will always be brutes and monsters that get off by hurting, killing and terrorizing others. There will always be groups that hate everybody unlike them.

And, there can never be absolute social equality because people are not equal. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are industrious, some are lazy. Some are conscientious, some are irresponsible. Some are honest, some are liars, some are sociopaths. Trying to make everybody ‘equal’, no matter how much they contribute to or take from society, would be the worst kind of injustice. Good, honest, hard workers must be rewarded; lazy, lying sociopaths must be punished. Fail at that, and it is impossible to maintain a functional society.
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Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?
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SMR bows to Imagios1892 for insightful and well written post.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Bullshit. If you could magically remove ‘social inequality’ overnight, it would be back by this time next week. Violence would be back first thing in the morning.

There will always be greed, envy, and those with the driving need to control people. There will always be brutes and monsters that get off by hurting, killing and terrorizing others. There will always be groups that hate everybody unlike them.

And, there can never be absolute social equality because people are not equal. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are industrious, some are lazy. Some are honest, some are liars, some are sociopaths. Trying to make everybody ‘equal’, no matter how much they contribute to or take from society, would be the worst kind of injustice. Good, honest, hard workers must be rewarded; lazy, lying sociopaths must be punished. Fail at that, and it is impossible to maintain a functional society.
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Do the 'progressives' really believe that your waiter should have 'income equality' with your doctor?