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[Naturegirl1999]

What matters is that there was a shooting, why are people arguing about whether the person is trans or not, the shooting is wrong regardless, I propose something like a gun license and background checks before purchase of a gun is allowed, mental health reform is very important too, what will it take for things to change?

[Ziusudra]

If it didn't happen after Sandy Hook it never will.

[hector13]

Oh you didn’t know? Sandy Hook was a hoax perpetrated by… the government? *shrug* Them, I guess, using crisis actors.

[Frumple]

Oh hey ng, didn't notice you were back. Hope things are going alright.

Anyway, folks are mentioning the trans bit because it was mentioned by the cops involved (which lends it negative credibility on the face of it, but still), and is likely to cause murderous backlash even if untrue. It'd be remarkable regardless if for no other reason than how rare it is -- the huge majority of mass shooters are very much not transfolk, even with a steadily escalating genocide campaign being ginned up against them.

It absolutely is correct the shooting itself is more important, though. I just think most of us are pretty resigned to exactly fuckall being done on that front. One wing of our political landscape doesn't have the power to force much through, and the other wing is, well, trying to legalize open carry in florida and whatnot.

What it will take for things to change when it comes to gun control and the mitigation of events like this is for american conservatism to be broken as a political movement. Until the GOP and their ilk can no longer prevent positive change on that front, it will not happen, and the regularity of the incidences in question will largely either not budge or escalate. There's not really anything else sufficient to make the problem budge.

[da_nang]

The first thing that needs to change is to end the duopoly of political parties. When one party says they support X and Y, and the other says they support Not X and Not Y, it screws over those who would rather have X and Not Y, or Y and Not X.

Only then can the government focus on the one thing that reduces these events while preserving your rights: reducing Americans' propensity for violence, which ultimately stems from socio-economic conditions that—shockingly—do not belong to a Western "First World" country.

But the Owner class wouldn't want that, now would they?

[Robsoie]

Maybe one of your president could launch a nation-wide referendum initiative to see exactly what the american people want about their gun subject, would be a great way to apply actual democracy without lobbies of various influence getting in the way.

Though from what i read after googling around it would seem a work of litteral titans to get all your country various states to agree on something like that, i guess that's a problem of federal states vs unitary states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in_the_United_States

[Random_Dragon]

Imagine actually letting the people vote on issues instead of letting them vote (or "vote" when you factor in voter suppression and gerrymandering) for politicians who decide what bills get proposed vote on them and among themselves.

Direct democracy, how un-American! 

[Lord Shonus]

There's no such thing as a "national referendum" in the US. There's no mechanism to create one, and if one were somehow to be carried out it would have no legal power and thus be meaningless. It is as sensible a suggestion as saying that the President of Britain should undo Brexit by Executive Order.

[hector13]

Referenda generally don’t have any legal power. Brexit could have been ignored without fear of legal reprisals.

[Frumple]

There's no such thing as a "national referendum" in the US. There's no mechanism to create one, and if one were somehow to be carried out it would have no legal power and thus be meaningless. It is as sensible a suggestion as saying that the President of Britain should undo Brexit by Executive Order.

Eeehhh... constitutional amendments are pretty close to it? Or at least about the closest thing in sentiment we've got to one.

The concept of one of those going well on any front at the moment is a bad joke, though.

Interstate compacts might be a close second, I guess.

[Random_Dragon]

We are in practice essentially back onto the topic of representative vs direct democracy with the basic concept here, in that the idea as proposed isn't really a thing here in the US and that's pretty overtly by design.

Granted, it started out that way by design for reasons that are from a modern perspective pretty damn stupid, but it stays that way because it's also quite helpfully a system where the people who'd be in a position to change that are the ones who benefit most strongly from it staying that way.

[Lord Shonus]

There's no such thing as a "national referendum" in the US. There's no mechanism to create one, and if one were somehow to be carried out it would have no legal power and thus be meaningless. It is as sensible a suggestion as saying that the President of Britain should undo Brexit by Executive Order.

Eeehhh... constitutional amendments are pretty close to it? Or at least about the closest thing in sentiment we've got to one.

That's considerably more involved than a "referendum". It would either require the proposed amendment to pass both houses of Congress and then attempt to win the vote in two-thirds of states, or else arise from a "constitutional convention" held by the several states.

[Naturegirl1999]

How do we decide the delegates for the states to go by the convention route? Or is it the governors that are delegates?

[Lord Shonus]

That's the fun part.

Nobody has any idea how that would work, because it has never been done. There's a mention of it as part of the process in the Constitution, but no instructions how to do it. The several states would have to essentially manufacture a process to set up their delegation. Practically speaking, the option doesn't exist.

[Folly]

What matters is that there was a shooting, why are people arguing about whether the person is trans or not, the shooting is wrong regardless

School shootings are old news. One happens on more days than not in the US, and most of us have long since accepted that nothing is going to change.
On the other hand, Trans Rights are an ongoing battle. If this thing does pan out, it could lead to some degree of reform within The Church, The School System, or both.