LogFAQs > #972537638

ReturnOfFa posted...

I just keep finding it increasingly bizarre that gun fanatics aren't interested in mandatory training, regular screening and background checks. They'll cite Switzerland as a nation with a high rate of civilian gun ownership, but then Switzerland...has all the things I previously mentioned. It won't stop all shootings in the USA, that's for sure...but it'll definitely help limit a lot of them...

Indeed. There's no reason a country can't be safe with as many guns as the US has (though even compared to other countries with high gun ownership rates, the US has a ridiculous number of guns), that's just something that requires a massive cultural shift to favour safety, mental health, and community dynamics over myopic cries for individualism and freedom with no regard for the consequences. The NRA (funded extensively by arms manufacturers who love what this sort of propaganda does for gun sales) has whipped the fanatics into believing that any attempt to restrict gun ownership in any way is tantamount to enslaving them, and that's kind of a problem.

They're not wrong to say that guns are not inherently the problem. On their own, guns are fine. The problem is mentally ill or otherwise unsuitable people having guns, and where it's never going to be possible to remove all of the mentally ill or otherwise unsuitable people, that means something needs to be done to restrict their ability to get guns.