• jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This is where Finland and Sweden excel. Because they have mandatory military service, everyone with a gun has been trained in all aspects of it’s use/care. Finland is one of the top 10 countries with the most firearms per civilian, and yet their rate of firearm deaths is minuscule in comparison to the U.S..

    At this rate though, I don’t see how any meaningful gun regulation can be passed. The nra stopped universal background checks from being passed after Sandy Hook. I lost faith in republicans since then. They’re bad faith actors, that when faced with the prisoners dilemma, choose suicide.

    • immutable@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      While I believe in common sense gun control I think that one thing people might miss when comparing America to Finland or Sweden is just how brutal America can be.

      America is an interesting country, if you can stay on the gainful employment ladder you can have a lot of creature comforts and for a few people they get to go up the ladder and have a really nice life.

      That ladder though is dangling over the mouth of a volcano and there are more ways to fall off then anyone wants to admit. There’s also a ton of people just barely hanging on.

      Easy access to guns is a problem, but the fact that so many Americans are so crushed by the system we live under that violence and deadly violence are things people routinely turn to is also a massive problem. For a lot of working poor the system can feel a lot like running on a perpetual treadmill stuck at full speed. We retooled our economy towards service and knowledge jobs, a lot of people in that service industry make just enough money to scrape by.

      There is not a single state in the nation where minimum wage affords a 2 bedroom apartment

      So you have a large number of people that spend the vast majority of their time working difficult jobs rife with customer abuse. They earn just enough money to afford a place to stay and food (and a cellphone so people can sneer at them and say, oh you have a cellphone so you can’t be struggling). Mix that with a big pile of guns and violence is bound to happen.

      We can take away the guns but I suspect Americans have the ingenuity to find other ways to do violence against each other.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      2 months ago

      This is where Finland and Sweden excel. Because they have mandatory military service, everyone with a gun has been trained in all aspects of it’s use/care.

      Article I Section 8 parts 15 and 16 empower Congress to require such training every member of the militia, and they have indicated that the militia is comprised of every able bodied male citizen, aged 17 to 45. (10 USC 246)

      Congress can require training on safe handling. They can require training on the laws governing use of force in self defense and defense of others. They don’t need to mandate additional military or militia service to achieve this.