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- cross-posted to:
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A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that across all political and social groups in the United States, there is a strong preference against living near AR-15 rifle owners and neighbors who store guns outside of locked safes. This surprising consensus suggests that when it comes to immediate living environments, Americans’ views on gun control may be less divided than the polarized national debate suggests.
The research was conducted against a backdrop of increasing gun violence and polarization on gun policy in the United States. The United States has over 350 million civilian firearms and gun-related incidents, including accidents and mass shootings, have become a leading cause of death in the country. Despite political divides, the new study aimed to explore whether there’s common ground among Americans in their immediate living environments, focusing on neighborhood preferences related to gun ownership and storage.
I just came here to say I don’t understand this because while these guns are by and large used in mass shootings, handgunss cause far more death.
Handguns are less accurate, and are used far less for hunting or other sport (at least compared to rifles), partially due to their sheer inaccuracy. They are way more likely to be used in a murder, and people are way less likely to take the time to lock them up properly because they want them “at hand.”
I’m way more likely to be shot by some dumbfuck with a handgun than be caught up in a mass shooting.
Unpopular opinion: ban handguns
I think it’s more that multiple very well-known mass shootings happened with the killers using them- the Pulse nightclub, Uvalde, Stoneman Douglas and Sandy Hook schools and the Las Vegas shooter at the music festival.
But I am guessing that is more about their popularity than their utility.
I mean, agreed, I understand where the fear comes from, and why. It makes public spaces unnerving… but so do handguns, in my opinion. Just because you can’t kill as many as quickly doesn’t mean you can’t still cause carnage and death and harming innocent bystanders.
I’m just way more statistically likely to be shot by a handgun, and so I personally view it with that information in mind. Like, I don’t flip people off for driving like assholes on the road anymore like I did in my youth. Not really worth the likelihood of road rage and some crazed asshole packing heat. Post-COVID it’s gotten way worse.
I don’t disagree. I always feel uncomfortable when I see someone walking around with a handgun in a holster because I have no idea who they are and if they can be trusted with that gun. And if we found a way to stop so many people from living in fear all the time, I wouldn’t see it or be especially worried about it when I did. Unfortunately, with the American media telling everyone they’re about to be murdered any time they go anywhere…
Even if they can be trusted with a gun, even if they pull it out to save the day in a crisis…
There’s still projectiles flying that could hit people and things other than the intended target. That’s the part that it always comes back to for me. Bullets aren’t target-seeking. Even the best and most well-meaning shooter can miss in a stressful situation (especially with a handgun), it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. It just means adding a gun to any situation complicates the situation violently. Adding multiple guns multiplies the violence.
Mass shootings use handguns more often than rifles
I feel like the licensing in Australia is in generally pretty good (sometimes it’s bonkers reactionary in terms of what gets banned).
Rifles you can get levers and bolt action. They fire plenty fast enough for whatever you want to do with them recreationally.
Handguns are licenceable but it’s strict as fuck. Expensive club membership, regular training/competing events (community + keeping skills and culture good), 6 month probationary period with only supervised shooting, another 6 months before you can buy your own, have to have a rock solid safe bolted to the floor inspected initially and randomly (every few years realistically). Seems completely reasonable, handguns exist to put holes in paper and kill humans, plus they’re highly concealable and much harder to use.
Canadians have a lot of guns, for hunting and for fun. Most of them are long, though, because handguns are heavily regulated and a bit of a hassle so pretty much just a firing range thing. We don’t have a lot of gun deaths compared to the USA, and it’s not just culture. It’s the handguns.
Popular opinion: just ban guns
I think it’s the fear of what a full-auto AR-15 can do to a crowd compared to a handgun.
Right, but fear isn’t based in rationality. Even after 9/11, we went balls to the wall against “terrorism” but like… the reality was that a US citizen getting killed by a terrorist on US land was less likely than being struck by lightning. So we had a War on Terrorism over something less likely than a lightning strike.
I’m literally pointing out that handguns cause way, way, way, way more deaths, in general than rifles.
I understand the fear of a mass shooter, but… it’s just not as likely, and we’ve had a precipitous drop in mass shootings in the last year.
Not saying it’s rational, just pointing out my interpretation.
Are fully automatic AR-15s even available to the general public like that? I thought the ones civilians could buy were semiautomatic?
In Canada? Not legally. In America: no new automatic guns can legally be made for sale. The existing stock of legal automatics requires a special process to transfer from one owner to another, and they are expensive.
They can be converted and if someone is ready to go and shoot people in a crowd I don’t think they’re too worried about the conversion being illegal.