Mass shootings: Solution(s)
Is there just ONE thing that needs to be done to end (severely lessen, tbh) mass shootings, or is it a matter of fixing several things for a complete solution?
Leaving the question open and not naming any possibilities, although you are certainly free to mention them if you like.
radcen:
A suite of reforms will be necessary to reduce firearms related deaths and injuries caused by mass shooting.
Attack the Causes:
-Better monitoring of mental health in the population and more resources in local community health centres devoted to mental health care for those identified as potential threats to the population at large. These local resources must be geared to catering to people who have no or little family support systems. Counselling and if necessary pre-emptive detention should be emphasised rather than medication and management of symptoms remotely.
-Reduce and end the violent conditioning which entertainment, gaming, advertising and the wider culture of America has created to glorify violence and thus lessen the impulse to lash out and raise the social barriers to using violence.
-Begin reprogramming those indoctrinated into the five-hundred year old American Gun Culture which glorifies firearms and lowers the barriers to using violence as a solution to social and societal problems.
-Shift economic policy from an inflation management preoccupation to a full employment goal to keep unemployment and under employment at a minimum.
-Create a universal national service programme for all youth to build personal character, social responsibility and understanding of the law and civics. Make participation in such a programme mandatory for all youth without regards to social standing, economic means and political clout.
Attack the Means:
All the social and mental ills listed above exist in countries other than the USA but only in the USA are such mass shooting so routine. Thus easy access to firearms with great potential for quick and overwhelming destructive potential must be addressed. -Restricting and prohibiting certain types of firearms and firearm accessories from public possession is necessary. The right to own and bear arms does not mean the right to own and bear all arms regardless of their destructive capability and their speed of delivering death.
-Full and thorough background checks and cooling off waiting time periods for all commercial and private gun sales with no loopholes and mandatory gun registry with state (not federal) authorities for each firearm, accessory and ammunition lot purchased/traded/transferred.
-All automatic guns should be prohibited from general public ownership or possession.
-All semi-automatic handguns and long-arms should be restricted to people trained and qualified for their use and vouched for by a certain number of fellow citizens who are willing to take on joint and several legal liability should a restricted gun owner abuse his/her use of such weapons. All sniper rifles, long range marksmanship accessories and special ammunition should be likewise restricted.
-All citizens of good character, sound mind and no criminal convictions should be able to own and bear arms not restricted nor prohibited only on their own property or other sites where firearms use is authorised. Possession of a legal hunting license should permit firearms possession on public lands for the purposes of hunting only. Firearm must be in a temporarily disabled state for transportation purposes to and from other locations where firearms possession and use is authorised.
-High capacity magazines/clips should be illegal as should be jerry-rigging magazines/clips to hold more rounds then they were legally restricted to. Five-round magezines should be the legal limit.
-Certain types of highly destructive ammunition must be prohibited as should be certain types of firearms accessories.
-The state should be able to interdict the possession or ownership rights of individuals diagnosed with certain mental illnesses or convicted of violent crime that might lead to a desire to kill or be killed with respect to firearms.
-All guns confiscated from people who illegally possess them must be destroyed as soon as they are no longer needed as evidence for prosecution. Illegal firearms should never be recycled in society, unless permanently disabled and used as museum pieces.
-All guns used in crime by formerly legal owners of firearms and all other guns owned by them should be confiscated and destroyed when no longer needed as evidence for legal proceedings.
-Laws against the use of firearms during the commission of a crime must be enforced and when additional punishment for firearms use in the commission of a crime is required by law it must be fully served without parole before the rest of the sentence and the possibility of parole is begun.
Continued next post.
Feminism to blame for school shootings. Who knew? For the record, though, it's not so much that being a boy is a bad thing...I've never even heard that, outside of MRA rants desperately seeking sympathy for non-existent problems...rather, being an asshole is a bad thing. That was something that wasn't taught for far too long, and I don't see how it impacts school shootings, but ok.
