Gun deaths continued to rise in 2021

[AndyS]

Two-thirds — the share of major cities that have seen more homicides this year than in 2020.

681 — the number of mass shooting incidents in the United States in 2021.

Why is this? Maybe this has something to do with it:

There are more guns than people in the US. Sixty-five times more guns than all the military and all the police forces in the country combined.

There is legal protection for gun sellers, makers and distributors from civil suits. The only industry with such protection.

People have unfettered access to guns without a background check. They're called 80% receivers and are available on the internet to ANYONE. Even a 13 year old can buy and assemble a gun kit.

States 'Must Issue' licenses and concealed carry permits. No human intervention regardless of local and familial concerns.

We guarantee purchase of a gun in 3 days even if the background check hasn't been completed by a system that doesn't even report all agencies to the background data base.

There is over-the-counter retail access to military grade weaponry that can be easily and legally converted to emulate full auto machine guns. Bump stocks are on again/off again legal and auto-sear/forced-reset trigger assemblies haven't been addressed.

100 round magazines are available over the internet with no background check to go with those converted full auto guns some of which were assembled from 80% receivers with no background check.

Thirteen states have 'constitutional carry' with no restrictions on concealed or open carry, many with no background checks or training.

Thirty eight states have 'stand your ground' laws allowing anyone who feels threatened to shoot another person without the responsibility to retreat if possible. Note the word “feels threatened”.

America, we have a problem . . .

[SoCalDavidS]

1. Gun Reform

There is No Such Thing here in America.

If anything, I expect worse to come.

[AndyS]

2. It doesn't have to be this way.

The gun madness began in 1970 when the gun industry pulled off a coup in the NRA and took the largest gun safety and marksmanship organization from a positive influence and handed it to the pure retail greed of the arms makers.

This can be fixed. If you don't like this, make your voice heard with your reps.

[SoCalDavidS]

3. My Representative Is Conservative Michelle Steele

She doesn't give 2 Shits about gun reform. If anything, she wants more guns.

She also couldn't care less about my vote. I'm in a conservative leaning area, so I doubt she feels like she needs my support.

[AndyS]

4. I'm in Texas. If not your voice donate to a violence

reduction org. Moms Demand Action now has a 3x match from Bloomberg.
Others here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/126269

[SoCalDavidS]

5. I'm Sorry, I Just Feel Like It's A Lost Cause At This Point

All of the families from Sandy Hook, and all the families from each and every of the countless school shootings, can't accomplish A SINGLE THING, it seems like any money thrown at it is a waste of time.

IF I saw some progress. ANY Progress, I would gladly throw support in the form of contributions, but I feel like for the last 10-20 years, things have gotten worse and worse. Not better, or even stayed the same, but Worse. That is a fairly long track record of failure for the side hoping for gun reform.

IT IS WHAT AMERICA IS. Other countries look upon us with bewilderment, yet we continue to get more and more beholden to guns. Again, it's not a situation where anything EVER changes for the better in even the slightest way. It's only getting worse, and IMO, will continue to do so for as long as I'm alive. That's just the way Americans are satisfied with I suppose.

By the way, another shooting at a convenience store near Dallas this morning, with several dead. AMERICA!

[AndyS]

6. It does happen. More and more often in fact.

?mw=2580&hash=D069D2F9E92EAF6E491C11D2DED550DF

Christopher Kopacki, the NRA deputy managing director, tried to calm the crowd.
“We are going to do everything we can to protect you,” Kopacki said calmly, standing tall at the front of the room with his hands in his pockets. “But you have to understand we have a numbers problem. It’s coming. I’m going to be honest with you."

[Polybius]

8. Northam pushed an assault weapons ban?

I wonder if that had anything to do with Virginia's disastrous November.

[SoCalDavidS]

9. NRA Fundraising

Sure, they're telling their Klan that they should be worried, "It's coming." Code for, "THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS, SEND MORE MONEY."

I've got a bridge for Anyone who thinks "they" (who are they?), are coming for the guns.

[hack89]

16. It actually started in the 90s when gun control groups screwed up the AWB so badly.

Writing a law that didn’t actually ban assault weapons while kicking off a tsunami of political backlash that they were powerless to stop is how we got to our present position of a emasculated gun control movement that seems incapable of doing anything meaningful.

[AndyS]

17. Rewriting history is not a good idea because you'll have to relive it.

That "tsunami" was a wave of campaign funding for right wing politicians by the gun lobby. The AWB was pretty popular with voters at large, just not the congress critters beholden to gun $$.

If your culture's greatest allies are Republican gunners and a Supreme Court stuffed by Mitch McConnel perhaps a re-evaluation of that culture is in order.

[hack89]

18. But the AWB was fatally flawed

And you have to wonder why it didn’t trigger a wave of fund raising for progressive politicians by the gun control movement. Why is the gun control movement so inept at turning public support into political power? There are plenty of progressive movements that can raise NRA type money and are able to wield considerable political influence because of it. But the gun control movement is completely incapable of doing that.

[AndyS]

20. "But the gun control movement is completely incapable of doing that."

Not really. The gunners have a 50 jump on us but we're gaining.

There was only the Brady bunch. Now there's the Gun Violence archive, Everytown, Moms Demand Action and few others. Then there's more reporting on the topic. Gundom existed below the radar for the last 4 decades but now there's reporting on the costs of gun violence. Bloomberg funded a start up that is now self supporting to do nothing but report on gun violence, TheTrace.org.

The sunlight is shining into the dark corners of the gun culture and the roaches are starting to scurry.

Still have a lot of catch up but every journey begins with a single step and we are now a mile or so down that road.

One advantage we have is the arrogance of the gun culture; they still don't see that we're here. The other advantage is that we are a movement and the gun industry is just that, an industry motivated by profit at the cost of human life.

[hack89]

21. That makes no sense

30 years ago the gun control movement was powerful enough to pass a national gun ban. So there is no reason why the gunners got a jump on them. How did you managed to piss all that power away?

I have been here for 16 years. And I have been hearing the same story over and over again from gun controllers- that this time things are different, that gun control is going to happen, “just you wait”. Yet nothing changes.

And the reason is obvious. Gun control dies in the Senate because we need Senators from pro-gun states if we want a Democratic Senate. Which is why the Democratic Party pays lip service to people like you while not actually doing anything that will repeal moderate voters in swing states. And nothing you have said changes that basic political calculation. As long as Wyoming and Montana have same number of Senators as NY and California it is irrelevant how popular gun control is.

[gratuitous]

7. More guns in circulation than ever, and gun deaths keep going up

Is the NRA gaslighting us?

[SYFROYH]

10. If there is any good news in your graph, its that..

…the rate of increase decreased from 2020 to 2021 compared to 2019 to 2020.

As for your other factoids, those things have been true for at least 15 years if not several decades. Its not logical to attribute to them this momentary rise in gun homicides.

But you do you, boo.

[AndyS]

12. "Its not logical to attribute to them this momentary rise in gun homicides."

Says the guy who argues that guns have nothing to do with gun violence.

I'll let the rest of DU decide where logic lies.

But you go hug your guns, boo.

[SYFROYH]

22. I dont think I've ever claimed guns have nothing to do with gun violence.

But I will be assembling a Benelli shotgun tomorrow. No hugs involved.

[fescuerescue]

11. They should make full auto conversions illegal

Otherwise this is a loophole. People buy a semi auto and the legally convert it to full auto.

[EX500rider]

13. Converting firearms to full auto is illegal

and not as easy as the internet thinks.

[Straw Man]

14. They already are.

The last loophole was bump-stocks, which Trump banned by executive order after the Las Vegas massacre.

[AndyS]

15. There is a technicality that gunners exploit.

A semi auto (legal) resets the trigger each time the gun is fired and the trigger must be pulled again, so technically it is not a machine gun although it fires hundreds of rounds a minute.

Bump stocks (currently illegal) do this by forcing the shooter's trigger finger away from the trigger and having the gun run back into the trigger finger simulating full auto firing.

Binary triggers and forced reset triggers do much the same thing and also emulate full auto allowing the shooter to fire hundreds of rounds per minute.

These devices are currently legal and anyone who can field strip a weapon can install one.

These devices do not turn an AR15 into a duck, they merely make the AR15 quack, walk and fly like a duck.

[NickB79]

19. This is true

Fairly certain a neighbor a mile down the road has one, based on the gunfire I hear most weekends.