
Psychiatrists Can’t Stop Mass Killers - SREinSF
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/opinion/psychiatrists-mass-killers.html
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nicobn
In areas with strict gun control but access to a black market, mass killings
still happen with firearms (see the November 2015 attacks in Paris or the 2017
Quebec City Mosque Attacks).

In areas with strict gun control but limited access to firearms, mass killings
still happen with other modalities. A lot of things can effectively kill a
bunch of human beings assembled in a restricted area: knives, machetes, bombs,
trucks, etc..

The idea that restricting one modality of mass killing will prevent all mass
killings is misguided. Would it reduce the frequency or the lethality ? That's
debatable. Someone who has decided to pursue mass killing as systematically as
the Las Vegas shooter will simply find another weapon to kill en masse.

~~~
Veratyr
> In areas with strict gun control but limited access to firearms, mass
> killings still happen with other modalities. A lot of things can effectively
> kill a bunch of human beings assembled in a restricted area: knives,
> machetes, bombs, trucks, etc..

If these things were as effective as suggested, why is it that in America, one
of the prime examples of loose gun control, just about all the recent mass
killings have been committed with guns?

The other modalities exist but they're less effective (knife/machete/truck) or
are hard to manufacture and use (bombs).

To give an example in favour of reduced frequency/lethality, have a look at
Australia. We just don't see many mass killings there.

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Turing_Machine
"The other modalities exist but they're less effective (knife/machete/truck)"

No, they aren't. This guy in Las Vegas killed ~160. The 9/11 attackers killed
~3,000.

> or are hard to manufacture and use (bombs).

No, they aren't. The Happy Land Social Club attacker killed 87 with a dollar's
worth of gasoline.

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slamdance
58 were killed in Vegas, as of today's count.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Thanks... I think I momentarily confused it with the number of wounded.

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forgottenpass
Psychiatrists can't, because nothing can.

People don't want to internalize the reality that society relies on an
overwhelming amount of trust and there will always be abuses of trust. There
are thousands and thousands of systems to prevent abuses of trust, and
establish trustworthy institutions in society, but they all come at a cost,
and are all fallible.

[https://www.amazon.com/Liars-Outliers-Enabling-Society-
Thriv...](https://www.amazon.com/Liars-Outliers-Enabling-Society-
Thrive/dp/1118143302)

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pizza
mental illness is more about isolation, stigma, guilt and shame than it is
about the individual, mostly

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mozumder
The only way to stop mass killers is to ban and confiscate guns from the
public.

The public should not be allowed to defend themselves with firearms. Only the
government should have the monopoly on violence in a proper, respectable
advanced society.

~~~
reitanqild
Again: governments have killed way more people than insane gunmen over the
last 100 years.

Yes, America has seen a number of mass shootings. But you have not seen any
Rwanda, Srebrenica or Birkenau on your soil.

I absolutely think there exist a better way (as seen in Sweden, Norway,
Austria and a number of other countries with very many guns on private hands)
but removing _all_ guns from the population should't be what you are looking
for IMO.

It's kind of like insurance: costly and totally pointless until your house
burns down.

~~~
pizza
there's a good point that slavoj zizek makes, imo, about how you can't have a
genocide without a poet (often, leading it); the case for all of those
examples (rwanda, srebrenica, birkenau), for sure.

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jrowley
Arguably though, if we invested in way better mental healthcare for all, we
might save lives / improve the quality of life for enough individuals to
offset the cost off mass shootings. That being said, I think we need to
restrict access to guns in general. If the government wanted to take you out,
an AR15 is not going to save you from a predator drone or whatever we have in
our arsenal.

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2_listerine_pls
Take Mexico as an example of a Country where nobody is allowed to have guns.
People are regularly abducted from their houses & cars without any means of
defense. More have been killed by OC than by mass-shooters.

~~~
Veratyr
Take Australia as another example of a country where nobody is allowed to have
guns (well they are but they need a good reason). The intentional homicide
rate is 1/5th of what it is in the US.

Cherry picking examples doesn't really bring much to the discussion.

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slamdance
...and strangely enough they have less than 1/10th the population as the US.
There are more people in the greater-Los Angeles area than there are in the
entire continent of Australia

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Veratyr
The rates I'm comparing are per 10k people, so they take this into account.

