Three paths to ending mass shooting deaths. Choose one.

[TygrBright]

Stipulate these three major factors that contribute to the steep rise in mass shooting fatalities in America are collectively (though not exclusively) causative. The proportions and relationships between these factors may vary somewhat from incident to incident, but data strongly indicate that they are all three present in some combination in nearly ALL mass shootings over the past ten years.

The three factors are:

1. Easy access to high levels of firepower, through multiple firearms, high-capacity magazines, and/or weapons with high firing rates via automatic or semi-automatic firing ability. The "ease of access" factor is made up of a number of elements including limitations on background checks, lack of age restrictions, etc. This combines with the reality that high levels of firepower can be amassed quite legally via purchase of weapons with such firepower and/or purchase of easily modifiable weapons and the accessories or equipment necessary to convert them.

2. Inability of social services, medical services, and law enforcement to combine a demonstrated pattern of domestic violence with confiscation of weapons already in perpetrators' possession and prevention of their obtaining more weapons. In some cases this is because (in some cases multiple) reports of abuse have never been pursued to the point of the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and reporting that would initiate the process of confiscation/prevention where such statutes apply, and in some cases this is because there are no such statutes applicable.

3. The presence of high levels of 'toxic white masculine inadequacy (TWMI)' psychology in the perpetrators' worldview and motivations. Indicating factors include patterns of verbal and physical bullying, abuse of animals, claims of experiencing victimization based on ethnicity and gender, identification with aggressive, violent cultural and social sub-groups, and increasing social isolation outside such groups.

The elimination of any ONE of these three factors would sharply decrease the incidence of mass shooting fatalities in America. The elimination of all three would bring a virtual end to such incidents altogether, but it's probably too much to hope for.

Each path has its own costs, barriers, challenges, and chances for success.

Path One: Eliminate access to high levels of firepower
This is the 'gun control' route: Enactment and vigorous enforcement of nationwide legal restrictions on the acquisition of specific quantities and/or types of guns, accessories, etc. While from a technical standpoint it is probably the simplest path, it is neither easy nor cheap. The political will is almost certainly lacking and it would take considerable time and money and possibly some sacrifice of Constitutional liberties to achieve, as well as a large investment in enforcement and possibly in an effort to remove most or all of the existing weaponry that would contravene such restrictions, from the hands of existing legal owners.

It would likely be quite effective in greatly diminishing mass shooting fatalities although it would not guarantee against escalations of other types of fatal mass violence (bombings, plowing through crowds with automobiles, etc.) and it would not alleviate the growing toll of 'retail-level' gun fatalities such as one-on-one shootings, gang violence with handguns, suicides, and accidental deaths.

Path Two: Facilitate reliable identification and disarmament of domestic violence perpetrators
This is a complex challenge as it combines overcoming the cultural tolerance of domestic violence against women and its enabling by multiple systems, with the enactment and enforcement of uniform legal mechanisms to disarm, track, and prevent the rearmament of perpetrators. While political will in this direction has gained some momentum, it may take considerable time and investment to build support for the solution and reassure those threatened by the notion that such a system could be abused and/or used against them.

Also, getting law enforcement and all those other systems to actually work together and/or vigorously implement threat assessment and targeting would be... extremely challenging. (Law enforcement is one of the professions that seems to be associated with an elevated risk for engaging in domestic abuse.) However, it would likely be quite effective in reducing mass shooting fatalities (although again, it might not have much impact on other gun-related fatalities.)

Path Three: Develop a robust system to prevent, identify, and treat TWMI nationwide
Personally, I think this one is least likely to be successful as a dedicated effort on any timeline short enough to significantly reduce the death toll. But in the long run it could effectively be brought about as a side effect of numerous other social and political changes potentiated by demographic and cultural trends. Reversing income inequity, strong and substantial investments in quality public education and environmental sustainability, massive infrastructure investments, could provide the younger population cohorts with hopes for meaningful human connection, quality of life, and fulfilling work.

Combining that with the aging and natural death of the older population cohorts, and the improvement of social conditions generally, would diminish the death toll-- particularly if one of the other paths was also implemented to reduce mass shootings and their attendant anxiety, paranoia, division, and social disruption. Without that additional intervention, consistent and expensive effort might achieve the result, but not for several decades or even a century.

How much passion, how many resources, how much political will can we commit to ending mass shooting deaths?

Personally, I don't think we can do all three. But it's an option. Which (if any) do you think offers the likeliest hope? Respond in the poll below.

curiously,
Bright

2 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Path One only
	0 (0%)
	Path Two only
	0 (0%)
	Path Three only
	0 (0%)
	A combination of multiple paths (describe and discuss)
	1 (50%)
	None of the above, we're just going to have to learn to live with it
	0 (0%)
	Something else (describe, please)
	1 (50%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[maxsolomon]

1. Nothing happened after UVA, after Aurora, after Newtown

Nothing will happen now while the GOP holds all 3 branches of Government except existing Gun Laws will become more permissive.

We will live with the death toll, just like we did then. The 2nd Am. says what it says, and the America people appear to like it this way.

[Soph0571]

2. Do what the UK did after Dunblane

Introduce extremely strict licensing laws alongside policing of those laws

You get to keep your guns if you can prove why you need them, do not have a criminal record, are mentally stable and agree to allow the police to access your premises on demand to ensure that you are keeping them in the proscribed manner. Otherwise fuck off on the whole gun thing.

I know that is pie in the sky in the land of the fearful and mass gun shootings. But it works.

[maxsolomon]

4. you can't get there from here.

pie in the sky, indeed.

[GeorgeGist]

3. Repeal 2A!

[maxsolomon]

5. think you'll live to see that?

anything else you'd like while we're at it? socialized medicine?

[Cairycat]

6. The biggest problem is the ready access to excessive firepower

so that needs to be the first step. But as time goes on, I think more and more the root of the problem is toxic masculinity, and a paradigm shift in men's and women's roles needs to happen. That would also help with the domestic violence, which is intertwined with the problems with toxic masculinity.

[hunter]

7. Pushback begins at home. The law will follow.

Gun culture will go the way smoking and drunk driving did.

I remember people smoking in the produce aisle of the grocery store, smashing their cigarette butts out on the floor and lighting up another. I remember people bragging openly about their prowess as drunk drivers. I remember breakfast places full of smoke.

It's okay to tell gun fetishists you find their habits disgusting. It's okay not to allow their guns in your house or your community.

If they insist, it's okay to tell them to fuck off.

The second amendment is from the same sick world that allowed slavery, counting slaves as three fifths of a person. It's bullshit.

[qwlauren35]

8. Can't see any of these happening.

Especially number 3. The people with the guns are virtually children. They are not dying off.