1398
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
1398 points (97.2% liked)
News
23257 readers
3207 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Negative. Gun Control in the United States predates the founding of the country and it was both racist and classist from the very outset. As documented in that link Gun Control laws have been around for over 200 years and were instituted against Blacks but also against the Irish, the Chinese, and Native Americans.
Your comment is based on The Mulford Act, a stupid and racist piece of California legislation passed with bi-partisan effort and signed by then Governor Ronald Reagan in response to publicly armed Black Panthers. It wasn't even close the first serious gun control law to get passed.
For instance Mulford was modeled on The Sullivan Act enacted by New York State in 1911. It intentionally targeted Italian immigrants, another distinct minority at the time.
This country has ALWAYS enacted Gun Control in response to racial and class elements.
Okay, fair, my bad. You're right.
Also holy shit, why would any reasonable person support stupid shit like gun control in that light?
In yesterday's society it was to protect the wealth and position of the Upper and Middle classes. In today's society it's because it seems like an obvious response to things like Mass Shootings and Gun Crime. The hidden in plain sight truth though is that modern day Gun Control proposals are doing the same thing as yesterday's Gun Control proposals because if you have enough money they will not apply to you.
Pass a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban? No problem for the wealthy, they'll just drop $20,000 on a pre-ban machine gun that can be legally transferred to them. Pass a Federal "Red Flag" law? They don't care as they know it'll never be enforced against them; their connections, money, and lawyers will see to it. Federal UBC? Again, no worries as their connections, money, and lawyers all make sure they won't be impacted. Remove the 2nd Amendment and ban the private ownership of firearms? No worries, the bodyguards surrounding them and their families will still be armed, just like they are everywhere else in the world.
What makes it even more stupid is that no direct causal link between the number of guns in circulation and the amount of "Gun Crime", however you define that, has ever been shown. In fact the data shows something very different than the reality most people believe in.
The household ownership rate has been bouncing around the low to mid 40s since 1972.. The population of the US grew from 240M in 1972 to 322M in 2014 too, so that 40% household ownership rate includes an addition 80 Million people.
The number of NICS (Federal Background Checks) in the United States quadrupled from 10 Million per year to 40 Million per year between 1998 and 2020.
Meanwhile Intentional Homicide fell from it's high of 9.82 in 1991 to 4.4 in 2014, a decrease of 50%. Gun Crime specifically peaked in 1993 and then declined by 49% over the next 20 years.
In short US Citizens bought a SHIT ton of guns starting in the 90s and tens of millions of new owners were added as our population grew...all while both Violent and Gun Crime continued to drop. We have a problem for sure, but it ain't the number of guns in circulation.
I always thought the drop on violent crime was because of the ban on leaded gasoline.
It's a good theory and one that I bought into as well but the statistics should have stayed down if that was the cause. Since they didn't there must have been another factor.
I think they jumped back up because of the lockdowns
Unfortunately Violent and Firearm Crime statistics started climbing again in 2015. The pandemic may have played a role but it cannot be the cause.
🤔 So what happened in the mid to late '10's to cause it? Maybe it was the rise of Trump.