Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Political Footballs or Hot Potatoes

I like free-flowing threads, and there are a number of these topics on other threads. My approach for this thread is to name various political issues where the country or ourselves have come to loggerheads and solutions, even obvious ones, seem impossible to achieve. It may require a massive change in representation or rules, but I'd enjoy hearing people's thoughts on the subjects.

I'll start with a few front burner ones:
Abortion illegalization: (I'm in favor of the Roe v. Wade formulation, not Casey, but there is room for reasoned discussion);
Immigration reform;
Climate policy;
Gun regulations.

I don't look for any meaningful reform on any of those issues, or any other as yet un-named issues, for at least a decade.

But I do look for millions upon millions of words to be written about them as the parties toss them back and forth. Cycling from one to another to keep the news cycles fresh.

I’ll bite and start with mass school shootings. My initial question is, has any researched mass school shootings? Since we’re talking mass school shootings, how about the definition of 3 or more deaths. 1 wouldn’t be a mass and 2 would be a couple. I don’t think 1 or 2 qualify as a mass shooting. Since we’re talking schools, I’m including college. College to me is a school. For the record, the first mass school shooting, 3 or more deaths took place in Austin Texas in 1968, known as the UT Tower shooting where there were 18 dead and 31 injured. Keep in mind I’m using the number 3 or more to indicate a mass. Since the first mass school shooting in 1968, there were 2 in the 1970’s, 2 in the 1980’s, 10 in the 1990’s, 7 in the 2000’s, 13 in the 2010’s and 2 so far counting Texas for the 2020’s.

Mass school shooting is a recent development. They didn’t happen prior to 1968. The only mass killing at a school prior to 1968 occurred in Bath Michigan, 1927. It was a bombing, not a shooting. One can say the same with mass shooting in general. From 1900-1970 there were 28 of them, 3 or more deaths for a mass shooting. From 1970 to today, we may have approached 200 or are getting mighty close. Interesting is that 17 of those 28 mass shootings prior to 1970 occurred during the Al Capone gangster era.

Maybe finding a cure to all these mass school shootings and mass shootings in general doesn’t lie in gun control. There wasn’t many if any gun control laws prior to 1970 outside of the 1930’s law that one had to have a federal permit to buy and or own a machine gun. Maybe finding a cure is comparing societies of pre-1968 when the first mass school shooting took place to post 1968. That is if we’re interested in finding a cure or the reason for all these mass shootings. It might be something as simple in how we raise our kids today or something much more complicated that may include multiple things or differences between societies when no mass school shootings occurred to today when they’re becoming common place. I don’t think the answer lies in gun control. I fear that even with taking all guns away, that these kids will find another means to kill. Bombs, arson, chemicals or any other method. I would hazard a guess that mental health has a lot to do with it. A survey conducted between 1990-2012 showed that 90% of all the mass shooters who survived had undiagnosed mental health problems. Interesting that the push to close mental institutions between 1967-1981 coincides with the first mass school shooting along with dynamic increase in mass shootings in general.

Have fun with this.

I believe that the Republican side has one thing, and nothing else, on their minds - KEEPING THEIR JOBS! They believe they have to fight everything Democratic because that's how they get elected! They have defined the devil (Democrats) and are fighting that devil to save the nation! The interesting thing is that the Dems, on the other side, are doing, exactly, the same thing. This kinda takes up all the time, insofar as what they are actually there for to do.

I suspect the pity should be saved for the rest of us. The real shame is that there is no way to vote the whole bunch of them out of office and start over from scratch. I am NOT, however, suggesting that we have a Constitutional Convention which would be a genuine sh*t show! (and probably destroy the nation)

I agree. As a swing voter, no loyalty to either major party, I sat back and watched the Republicans opposed anything and everything Obama and the Democrats did or wanted for Obama’s last six years. Then the reverse was true to Trump during his final two years, Democrats automatically opposing anything Trump and or the republicans proposed. Which didn’t hinder Trump nor the Republicans because they didn’t have a legislative agenda. Thus, it’s easy to understand Democrats thinking they didn’t oppose any and all things republicans. They certainly did for Trump’s first two years with a GOP controlled congress, only the Democrats didn’t have the numbers to stop the GOP. Basically, Trump’s tax cuts. But with the help of the filibuster, the Democrats were able to stop the repeal of the ACA.

This isn’t how it worked in the past. There were few straight party line votes prior to Obama. Mainly I think it was because of the party leaders in congress. Lott and Daschle, before them Dole and Mitchell and on back, they never required everyone in their party to vote straight party line as is the case now. Even Lott and Daschle came up with a power sharing agreement for a 50-50 tie in the senate after the 2000 election.

https://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/05/senate.powershare/index.html

Being naïve and old school, I expected something along that lines in the senate after the 2020 election produced another 50-50 tie. No way in today’s modern political era of polarization, the great divide along with the super, mega, ultra-high partisanship in Washington these days. I was very foolish to even think along those lines. Way behind the times.

I expect nothing and am seldom disappointed.

School shootings are usually carried out by students or former students.

Racially motivated shootings are usually carried out by young men.

Random massacres by older men.

All symptoms of the same disease.

It is not mental illness that drives this issue - it's the guns. Statistically, there is no difference in the rate of mental illness in the United States versus the other G20 nations, yet we are the only one with this plague. There are solutions:

"Ironically, those on both ends of our contemporary political spectrum cast the Second Amendment as a barrier to robust gun regulation. Gun rights supporters – mostly, but not exclusively, on the right – seem to believe that the Second Amendment prohibits many forms of gun regulation. On the left, frustration with the lack of progress on modern gun control leads to periodic calls for the amendment’s repeal.

Both of these beliefs ignore an irrefutable historical truth. The framers and adopters of the Second Amendment were generally ardent supporters of the idea of well-regulated liberty. Without strong governments and effective laws, they believed, liberty inevitably degenerated into licentiousness and eventually anarchy." Five types of gun laws the Founding Fathers loved (The Conversation).

"Consider these five categories of gun laws that the Founders endorsed":
#1: Registration;
#2: Prohibition on public carriage of firearms;
#3: No stand-your-ground laws;
#4: Safe storage laws; and
#5: Loyalty oaths

The problem is, history is agin' 'em, so they ignore the history.

Registration of all firearms does not infringe one Iota on the Second Amendment. Arguments otherwise are just paranoid nonsense. That's historical reality.

Banning carriage of firearms in public places has roots that precede the Constitution. Again, established historical fact. Why is it that duels didn't happen in New York? They went into the countryside in New Jersey.

Background checks and licensure are reasonable, rational, and historically established provisions. Limitations on types of privately-owned firearms, the same. There is no need for common possession of AR-15s and other assault weapons. Own one? Store it at the gun range, and shoot it there, just as with machine guns.

No Constitutional reservation of rights is without legitimate, and historical, circumscription. Thinking the Second Amendment is special is called "special pleading". It's nonsense. Besides, the Second Amendment was never intended to address private ownership of firearms. Again, that's historical fiction. As I've noted ad infinitum it is covered by the Ninth Amendment. Moreover, both firearms and societal expectations have evolved since the 18th Century. What the founders gifted us was a framework for balancing individual and public interests. That includes adjusting to changed circumstances.

Okay, guns are the cause. Then explain why the first mass school shooting didn’t occur until 1968. Plenty of guns around pre-1968 with very little gun control laws if any other than one had to have a federal permit to own or buy a machine gun. Mass school shooting is something new, they never occurred pre-1968. We have a timeline there.

Semi-automatics have been around since 1885 in different forms and styles, from pistols to rifles. The AR-15 is just another version of a semi-automatic rifle. If guns were the cause, semi-automatics in particular, one would expect mass school shooting to have happened before the first one did. Especially since there were basically no gun control laws that I’m aware of between 1885-1968. No background checks, no registration, no nothing to include no age limit and no mass school shootings.

If guns are the cause, then guns should have caused mass school shootings before 1968. They didn’t. One can basically say the same for all mass shootings in general. 28 between 1900-1970, approaching 200 since 1970. No, there’s something else at work than just guns causing mass shootings or killings. I believe even if you banned or took away all guns that the killings would continue, only by other means, bombs, chemicals, arson, etc. Guns aren’t the cause, they’re a tool. A tool that can be replaced by something else by those who want to go on a mass killing spree.

Speaking of weapons, here’s something that is very interesting and legal.

10 CRAZY WEAPONS THAT ARE STILL LEGAL IN THE US

https://www.online-paralegal-programs.com/crazy-weapons-that-are-still-legal-in-the-us/

There were plenty of domestic terror mass murders before 1968, but they were usually carried out by the KKK against Black people, so nobody "counted" them. I think one thing we have to look at is who is doing the murdering now: Mostly young men who have been raised in a culture that tolerates young men spending countless hours doing simulations of mass killings in front of their computers and watching entertainment that glorifies that. Where that intersects with parents who tolerate or promote gun use and then ownership by their young male children, you get real-life mass shootings. These are essentially "suicide-by-cop" gone mass media amplification. These guys compete for "most kills" before dying by police gunfire.

To fix it, there are a bunch of things we could do. Like make sure they don't gain access to weapons of mass murder potential. Ban all "shooter games". Stop making movies and TV shows that show killers as heroes. Make sure all young people can access mental health help via required public school counselors and psychological assessments. Take kids away from insane, abusive, and negligent parents. Institute zero tolerance for school bullying. Promote other activities that they could enjoy besides the things that steer them into mass shootings. (Which horror of horrors might include safe sexual activities, since pubertal hormones surging are probably a significant contributor.)