That article blames mass shootings on antidepressants, which is stupid. Mass shootings are pretty much a uniquely American phenomenon which is caused by lack of gun control, something that the rest of the civilized world figured out decades ago but America cannot get her act together.
I think this is an example where data analysis is less useful than just looking at the facts on the ground. For example, central and South American nations have the highest gun murder rates, yes. But they also have unstable governments with large areas controlled by powerful gang armies, and the vast majority of the gun violence is gang related. Is that a good comparison? Yes, in the US most gun violence is also gang related. But is it a good comparison to the typical US mass shootings, which is usually some guy who goes crazy and shoots up a school? That type of thing simply doesn't happen nearly as much in stable countries, or even in the unstable Latin American countries. We also have to take into account how much the freewheeling US gun economy contributes to the availability of guns in those countries.
Let me clarify, I am not saying that gun control laws are a panacea. They obviously are not working very well in Brazil, or Mexico, at least for stopping gang violence. Maybe they wouldn't work here any better, because of the crazy gun culture. But I think the main problem relative to other civilized countries is the prevalence of guns.
I used to think the US mass shooting level might have more to do with a more violent predisposition than other countries, rather than gun control, but after research on other violence rates such as assault crime rate and hospitalizations for violent injuries, I was convinced that the US is not really more violent than Canada, the UK, France, etc.
You claim the correlation is between easy access to guns - a topic explored by the famous documentary Bowling for Columbine, which contrasted Canada with America, which until recently had similar easy access to guns, and yet still lacked mass shootings. Another reason to doubt this correlation is that it is fairly recent - Americans (incl. kids) had access to guns in the post WW2 era and even previously, yet mass shootings only started in the late 90's.
The claims of this article is a different correlation - that Americans take far more psychoactive pharmaceutical products and that it is that which causes the correlation. The article provides for decent evidence, imo, but you may well ultimately be correct. FWIW I've personally been on a high dosage of SSRI's for more than 8 years and am familiar with a lot of the literature - but I'm also (conspiratorially) highly skeptical of the medical establishment, especially after Covid.
Having lived in Canada for nearly all of my life, I can tell you that we've had extraordinarily strict gun laws for at least as long as I've been alive (which has been quite a while now). The restrictions are by no means new (recent changes to the law have been largely cosmetic - and have failed to reduce actual gun violence).
Absolutely. There is a difference between allowing guns for serious hunters, and having a loony gun culture where everybody and there grandmother can get them at a gun show or a Wal-Mart.
Gun regulations are a federal jurisdiction in Canada, so the laws are uniform across the country. I actually spend a lot of my professional time on Canadian policy analysis so this is one of the few things I actually do know quite well. :)
I never saw the documentary so I can't comment, but I do know that handgun permits have been limited to protecting life or property or belonging to an approved shooting club since 1933 and licenses were required to acquire or possess guns or ammunition since 1976 (which, admittedly, is after I was born). As I said, there have been many more recent tweaks to the regulations, but the rules have always been much stricter than in the US.
There is no doubt that gun freedom in USA is part of reason for many mass shootings - my contention, as the article I linked describes, is that all the shooters were on SSRI's, and SSRI's are documented to make some people go haywire at some times - and that it's possibly a cause in the recent Lakewodd tragedy you brought up.
Despite it's conspiracy theory overtones, I find the evidence in this article quite convincing, and likely pertinent: https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/there-is-decades-of-evidence-that
I wish I could understand all this better. It's hugely important.
It certainly is. I find the Substack I linked to be a wealth of well written medical topics with evidenced information.
That article blames mass shootings on antidepressants, which is stupid. Mass shootings are pretty much a uniquely American phenomenon which is caused by lack of gun control, something that the rest of the civilized world figured out decades ago but America cannot get her act together.
Actually, the data I've seen strongly suggests that the US experiences relatively **fewer** mass shooting deaths per-capita than many other nations. See this for a good discussion of the available data: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country.
That website is a distortion of the data on many levels and has been debunked many times. https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/do-mass-shootings-occur-more-often-in-france-switzerland-and-finland-than-in-the-united-states/
The only one that possibly has validity just in terms of the per capita is Norway, which as a tiny nation was skewed by one mass shooting in 2011.
Redefining "mass shootings" is not the same as "debunking". The data is complex. I wrote a bit on the larger topic some years ago: https://stories.thedataproject.net/docs/8-gun-control/
I think this is an example where data analysis is less useful than just looking at the facts on the ground. For example, central and South American nations have the highest gun murder rates, yes. But they also have unstable governments with large areas controlled by powerful gang armies, and the vast majority of the gun violence is gang related. Is that a good comparison? Yes, in the US most gun violence is also gang related. But is it a good comparison to the typical US mass shootings, which is usually some guy who goes crazy and shoots up a school? That type of thing simply doesn't happen nearly as much in stable countries, or even in the unstable Latin American countries. We also have to take into account how much the freewheeling US gun economy contributes to the availability of guns in those countries.
Let me clarify, I am not saying that gun control laws are a panacea. They obviously are not working very well in Brazil, or Mexico, at least for stopping gang violence. Maybe they wouldn't work here any better, because of the crazy gun culture. But I think the main problem relative to other civilized countries is the prevalence of guns.
I used to think the US mass shooting level might have more to do with a more violent predisposition than other countries, rather than gun control, but after research on other violence rates such as assault crime rate and hospitalizations for violent injuries, I was convinced that the US is not really more violent than Canada, the UK, France, etc.
You claim the correlation is between easy access to guns - a topic explored by the famous documentary Bowling for Columbine, which contrasted Canada with America, which until recently had similar easy access to guns, and yet still lacked mass shootings. Another reason to doubt this correlation is that it is fairly recent - Americans (incl. kids) had access to guns in the post WW2 era and even previously, yet mass shootings only started in the late 90's.
The claims of this article is a different correlation - that Americans take far more psychoactive pharmaceutical products and that it is that which causes the correlation. The article provides for decent evidence, imo, but you may well ultimately be correct. FWIW I've personally been on a high dosage of SSRI's for more than 8 years and am familiar with a lot of the literature - but I'm also (conspiratorially) highly skeptical of the medical establishment, especially after Covid.
Having lived in Canada for nearly all of my life, I can tell you that we've had extraordinarily strict gun laws for at least as long as I've been alive (which has been quite a while now). The restrictions are by no means new (recent changes to the law have been largely cosmetic - and have failed to reduce actual gun violence).
Absolutely. There is a difference between allowing guns for serious hunters, and having a loony gun culture where everybody and there grandmother can get them at a gun show or a Wal-Mart.
It may well depend on region, I don't know the details. But the documentary quite specifically focused on that aspect, at least in part.
Gun regulations are a federal jurisdiction in Canada, so the laws are uniform across the country. I actually spend a lot of my professional time on Canadian policy analysis so this is one of the few things I actually do know quite well. :)
I never saw the documentary so I can't comment, but I do know that handgun permits have been limited to protecting life or property or belonging to an approved shooting club since 1933 and licenses were required to acquire or possess guns or ammunition since 1976 (which, admittedly, is after I was born). As I said, there have been many more recent tweaks to the regulations, but the rules have always been much stricter than in the US.
Certainly seems to be the case.
There is no doubt that gun freedom in USA is part of reason for many mass shootings - my contention, as the article I linked describes, is that all the shooters were on SSRI's, and SSRI's are documented to make some people go haywire at some times - and that it's possibly a cause in the recent Lakewodd tragedy you brought up.