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There are all sorts of things you could say about guns. There's only one thing that matters.

There are all sorts of things you could say about guns. There's only one thing that matters. | Almost every Second Amendment supporter is practiced in the art of drawing meaningless distinctions. They like to separate mass shootings and routine gun violence. They like to distinguish intentional gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. They try to make hay out of places you can legally carry guns and places you can't. They wax eloquent about the various types of rifles. shotguns, and handguns. They'll debate to exhaustion the precise definition of an "assault rifle." They'll claim that actually, the proper term is "modern sporting rifle." They'll deflect away to topics like mental illness and poverty, or they'll simply say our country "needs more Jesus." They'll start bringing up hammers and knives (despite such implements being responsible for far less death). Or they'll steer the discussion into sheer racism. What's the common denominator? Every single talking point only serves to obscure the main issue, which is this: Our country is awash in guns of every type. As a result, they're inevitably used to kill and maim in all sorts of different settings, for all sorts of reasons. A simple comparison chart makes this point bluntly. All of our rich-world peer countries - *all* of them - manage their gun problem much better than we do. Remarkably, some of our peers have succeeded in nearly eliminating gun deaths from their society completely. There is no talking around the fact that America's approach to guns is uniquely bad. All that's left for us to decide is whether 40,000+ gun deaths per year is a price we'd like to continue to pay. | image tagged in mass shooting cycle,gun deaths by country american journal of medicine | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
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Here's another way of visualizing the difference in the two arguments here.

--Conservatives (left panel) play up every kind of difference in order to blame circumstances rather than the gun.
--Liberals (right panel) make the obvious point that every gun death involves a gun.

I will be bipartisan now and say: Both sides have a point!

A harmonious and effective gun regulation system would attack *both sides* of this equation. Yes, address poverty. Yes, reduce incentives to traffic drugs, and thus sap away the motivations for gang-related violence. Yes, treat mental illness. Yes, provide suicide hotlines. Yes, invest in deradicalization programs that might deprogram violent extremists before they commit mass murders. Yes, expand job opportunities. Yes, bolster our welfare system. Yes, reform our police practices to reduce the likelihood and severity of fatal police encounters. These are all self-evidently beneficial things to do.

But also: Regulate. The. Damn. Guns.

The irony is: liberals/Democrats *want* to address all the social ills that can cause gun violence - *and also* regulate guns better. And conservatives/Republicans, for all their rhetorical posturing about "circumstances," want to do neither. They defund and disparage the social programs I just mentioned at every opportunity. And they expand the freedom to purchase and carry guns wherever they can.

Result? Well, we already know the result.
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  • Mass shooting cycle
  • Gun deaths by country American Journal of Medicine
    • IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
    Almost every Second Amendment supporter is practiced in the art of drawing meaningless distinctions. They like to separate mass shootings and routine gun violence. They like to distinguish intentional gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. They try to make hay out of places you can legally carry guns and places you can't. They wax eloquent about the various types of rifles. shotguns, and handguns. They'll debate to exhaustion the precise definition of an "assault rifle." They'll claim that actually, the proper term is "modern sporting rifle." They'll deflect away to topics like mental illness and poverty, or they'll simply say our country "needs more Jesus." They'll start bringing up hammers and knives (despite such implements being responsible for far less death). Or they'll steer the discussion into sheer racism. What's the common denominator? Every single talking point only serves to obscure the main issue, which is this: Our country is awash in guns of every type. As a result, they're inevitably used to kill and maim in all sorts of different settings, for all sorts of reasons. A simple comparison chart makes this point bluntly. All of our rich-world peer countries - *all* of them - manage their gun problem much better than we do. Remarkably, some of our peers have succeeded in nearly eliminating gun deaths from their society completely. There is no talking around the fact that America's approach to guns is uniquely bad. All that's left for us to decide is whether 40,000+ gun deaths per year is a price we'd like to continue to pay.