[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by digamma

That's not really playing out in the statistics. Many other cultures have a fascination with violence, video games, movies, war, etc.

What typically changes the game for us is access to guns. We've seen gun sales increase steadily since 2000 (with a slight dip in 2017). The NRA has become big business because it increasingly depends on gun manufacturers to fund its operations. And the gun manufacturers need to sell more guns.

There are some regulatory factors and some strategies the NRA pursued over the 80s and 90s that allowed for ease of permits, which ironically they've spent the last ten years tearing down. The result, however, is a general ease of access to guns, compared to most other developed nations.

So, when you combine the same types of cultural influences that other nations see (violence, etc., mental health issues, etc.) with an ease of access to guns, you have more shootings than compared to those developed nations.

As I think I've posted in this thread before, violent crime is down in the last 25+ years, but gun deaths are relatively flat to slightly up. On a relative basis, we're doing a poor job combating gun violence.

I'm going to again sound like a broken record, but we do see meaningful results with gun regulations. Background checks have been shown to reduce all forms of gun deaths. There's really promising initial results from red flag laws. Enforcing safe storage laws reduces unintentional shootings. Buy backs do tend to show some results. Eliminating stand your ground laws and permitless carry laws have been shown to reduce gun deaths.

I can go on here, but one of the points is that there hasn't been an effective countervailing influence to the NRA until after Sandy Hook. Now there are two national organizations (Everytown (which includes Moms Demand Action) and Giffords) making significant strides and showing up in a variety of ways. Gun issues were a voting issue in 2018 and they will be in 2020. That's new as well. This is not an overnight issue, it's one that will take time to solve.

Yeah, I think it's the combination of our obsession with violence and the easy access to guns. I do think that compared to when I was a kid, violence from individuals to our government is far more accepted as a way to resolve problems.