23 Steps Toward Reducing Gun Violence

Don't you think it is immature to make a statement that another person "likes it when six year old children are gunned down in cold blood" because they disapprove of the government's actions and are taking action of their own against it? You can disagree with a person's actions without resorting to such base insults. In fact, making such an inflammatory statement erodes the credibility of the rest of your work. I don't agree with the Congressman's actions but I also do not believe that executive fiat is the answer to all that ails our society.

I have one question for you...of the 23 Executive orders issued by President Obama, which one or ones would have prevented Sandy Hook from happening?

Pete, that's hard to say, but what is your point? One does not issue 23 Executive Orders in response to a single event. One does so in response to an endemic and serious problem our society needs to stop ignoring.

@pete: ##8, 12, 15, 19 could potentially help to prevent or ameliorate another Sandy Hook directly, with several others having a less direct effect or affecting comparable but not identical situations.

While history may repeat itself approximately, it's simplistic to take Sandy Hook and expect the next mass-shooting crime (or attempt) to be exactly the same. Effective response requires imagination as well as understanding.

I have to wonder if numbers 2, 16, and 17 could have the unintended consequnce of people not seeking or continuing treatment for mental health issues. In other words, people with guns going off their meds.

Cameron Lewis' comment is spot on. Conservative rural Americans also love and want to protect their children, just like you do. Many of them will be willing to compromise on this cultural/political issue, even to the extent of gun registration, if they see evidence that that will really help to Save The Children. They will not compromise if they believe it's only a set-up for future confiscation of every gun their familes own and responsibly use. And they are more likely to believe that the more rhetoric they see that demonizes them as evil untermenschen - something you, Dr. Laden, do frequently. I usually don't argue about guns on your blog because I don't care to be sidetracked into debating the question of whether, because I own guns and think that is okay, I personally am crazy, stupid, evil, and secretly looking for an excuse to kill people. But when I see other gun owners commenting here, even very civil and sensible ones, being heaped with abuse, it does not give me confidence that a voluntarily accepted compromise would even be comprehended to be such, much less that it would reduce underlying cultural hostilities.

To put it another way: What are you willing to give up? How much of the anti-gun wish-list would you be willing to take permanently off the table in exchange for the other side putting things on the table that make them uncomfortable? Democracy requires compromise, something we haven't had nearly enough of lately, and one prerequisite for serious negotiation is a belief that any compromise agreed upon will be respected in the long term. If we don't build that belief, there are enough people on either side of America's culture war to destine us to permanent gridlock. Republicans are having to deal with the fact that they can't dominate national politics by appealing only to the 30% of the voters who are white males. You also can't dominate national politics by telling the 41% of voters who own guns that you think they are scum.

Those contributors having fainting spells regarding the rough language directed specifically at Representative Steve Stockman (an elected politician who is unlikely to be bothered by a harsh opinion) - presumably they are admitting that they, too, would like the President impeached for legally issuing some executive orders.

Joffan - Ad hominem and straw man in one sentence, even if a not terribly grammatical one - nicely done, thanks for making my point! No, I concur that the executive orders are entirely within the bounds of the president's office (to address your straw man), and I have no particular love for dumb teabagging politicians. However, I also do not assume either that being a right-wing dimwit means you *like seeing children killed*, or that being from Texas means you are probably a right-wing dimwit. I have a bunch of friends from Texas, some very liberal, so I might decide to have a fainting spell about the implied insults to them. People who *like seeing children killed* really are evil untermenschen who need and deserve to be harassed or worse by the state and society at large. If you tell every conservative and moderate rural person in America, or even just everyone who shares Rep. Stockman's particular ideology, that this is what you think they are, they'll oppose everything you want to do out of simple self-defense. This is, at least on paper, a democracy. If you hate, loathe, and despise a large fraction of the electorate, you'd better hide that fact if you want to gain enough political power to make them do what you want. I'm not even telling you not to hate your fellow Americans because it's morally wrong - I'm just informing you that it's bad strategy to keep rubbing their noses in the fact that you hate them.

Jane, when someone says they are going to impeach the POTUS for issuing executive orders without knowing what those executive orders even say, how are people supposed to take him seriously and think that he has the same values that the rest of us do? Or that he has any values that anyone else would recognize as values.

What Stockman is saying is that any new regulations aimed at reducing gun violence against children are unacceptable. What that tells me is that he does like the status quo, and that deaths of children are not sufficient motivation to change it.

I don't doubt that rural conservatives love their children. The problem is that they don't love other people's children and so don't care if other people's children get shot due to gun violence that would be preventable through legislation or executive order.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/01/19/happy-gun-appreciation-day/

Daedalus2u - Thanks for the example. If I were a rural American, I'd be getting out the checkbook to oppose anything you were pushing. Just listen to yourself. Being a dumb teabagger means you have no values of any kind and are purely evil? Maybe he makes bread from the blood of urbanite babies? Just being a conservative rural person means you "don't love other people's children" - as if you, you specifically, love strangers' children? I doubt it! - and "don't care if other people's children get shot"? The half of the population that is on the other side of this Kulturkampf from you know that this is a vicious, cruel lie. They know that someone who would issue such a lie knows nothing whatsoever about them or their lives. They know that you do not comprehend what hunting means to their families, or what needs they have to protect livestock, or perhaps to protect themselves from human predators in places where the law may be hours away - and they can't explain it to you, because someone who is so prejudiced against ruralites does not care whether they are happy, safe or prosperous, and doesn't want to hear what they think they need to remain so. But I'm sure you love every single one of their little children.

I learned to shoot in the cadet force at school, then went on to shoot at University. Using a hair-trigger, the ability to think "now" and fire the gun without feeling my finger move was the closest I have ever felt to being at one with a machine. Following the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres, the restrictions on gun ownership were draconian - Olympic pistol shooters can only train abroad and many gun clubs could not meet the requirements so had to close. In general, in Great Britain our police officers do not carry firearms (but they do in Northern Ireland). Gun deaths between England & Wales and the much smaller population of Northern Ireland are comparable but usually less than 100 per year each. As far as the second amendment is concerned, if I wanted to bear arms to defend my country I could join the reservists but the weapons would still be locked up centrally. I was saddened that I could no longer shoot but agree with the legal changes. I found something else to do and moved on.