50+killed in Las Vegas concert shooting-200+injured

[oladub]

What about population densities, are those the same? What about poverty rates?

You know, if you wanted to reframe the debate away from guns and focus on the underlying conditions that cause gun violence, I'd be all for that. We could talk about how we need better mental health treatment, reduce poverty, address the problems of distressed inner-cities ravaged by decades of manufacturing decline and racist housing policies, improved educational opportunities for at-risk communities and youth, etc.

Except, for the gun-loving Right, nobody wants to do anything about those things either, because it might cost money. And instead, the Right goes one step further and does the exact opposite, it tries to slash funding to any and all programs that fund education, mental health care, housing, etc.

You don't like gun control? Fine. Propose something else then. We have a problem, surely even you must acknowledge that. Propose something to make things better, as an alternative to gun control. The problem is, the Right offers no alternative to the Left's suggestion of gun control. The Right's solution is "do nothing." Bill O'Reilly said that gun massacres like this are simply "the cost of freedom." Republican Senator John Thune said that Americans should simply learn techniques on how to protect themselves when they're shot at, like "getting low" and creating a low profile that makes you harder to hit.

Do you think Americans want to hear that? That these massacres are just a part of life in America and we should just learn to accept it? That if I don't want to be shot by a crazy man with an AR-15, I should learn how to dodge bullets?

You don't want to talk about whether, for instance, New Hampshire or Washington, D.C. have more guns per capita or stricter gun laws so let's change the topic. Wasn't new gun control legislation the magic elixir that we are supposed to talk about? The average per capita income was $47,700 in Washington, D.C. while New Hampshire's was $34,400 in 2015. So Washington, D.C. has stricter gun laws than NH, probably fewer guns per capita than NH, and a higher per capita income than NH yet it has 21x the per capita murder rate of NH. Let's get more local. "In 2013, with only 7% of the state population, the city of Detroit had 50% of all murders recorded in Michigan." "The per capita income for Detroit was $29,736 in 2015,"The average income in the Upper Peninsula is $23,875. In 2015, there were 5 homicides of all types in the UP or 1.6/100000. Detroit's homicide rate the same year was 43.6/100000. Detroit's homicide rate is over 27x that of the UP's per capita even though the average per capita income in the UP is much less than Detroit's. You want to tell me that gun laws are stricter in the UP or that no one there has a hunting rifle? The variable is not income, who has the most guns, or who has the most gun laws. That leaves population density. Compare Massachusetts and Iowa with Maryland and Missouri as having similar politics, income levels, geography and population densities. Yet the latter states have 4x the gun homicide rate. Blue states manage to make housing very expensive. By the way, how does the right cut funding for education, mental health care, and housing in blue states as those are basically state and local spending issues.

I have some partial off hand solutions for the poverty you claim causes gun violence in places unlike New Hampshire and the UP. These might be the most important. Create a shortage of entry level workers using tariffs and restricting immigration to allow US low income workers the ability to demand higher wages. With higher wages, some of these other problems that you mentioned, will disappear. Alter government policies to encourage two parent families instead of rewarding single parenting. However, if you personally want to reduce your odds of dodging bullets, move from places like Washington, DC to New Hampshire or from Detroit to Traverse City.