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@neiltyson The difference is that mass shootings have never inspired a single effective action to ensure that they never happen again. The equivalent would be if nobody worked on flu vaccines, or effective treatment, despite people needlessly dying from it.
@neiltyson Medical errors: staff can be suspended, fired, have their licenses to practice medicine revoked. Patients or their families can sue the hospital. Staff can be re-trained, if appropriate, or punished. Policies can be made to prevent it happening again (see Harold Shipman case).
@neiltyson The Flu: we have supportive medical treatment, flu vaccination, medical scientists working out which strain is going to be most common this year & producing the appropriate vaccine, and large-scale public health campaigns on coughing or sneezing into your elbow, & washing hands.
@neiltyson Suicide: though the infrastructure of mental healthcare requires vast improvement, we not only have psychiatric drugs & treatment, but 24-hour helplines, and large public campaigns to destigmatise mental health conditions. We’re not doing enough, but we’re doing SOMETHING.
@neiltyson Car accidents: THIS IS WHY WE HAVE SEATBELTS. Also licenses, laws against driving while incapacitated, airbags, stop signs, speed limits, safer cars & safer roads. This is why we have crash test dummies, to mitigate the danger as much as possible, and PSAs against driving drunk.
@neiltyson The only one I’ll give you ground on is homicide via handgun, though arguably we are less disturbed by it as the homicide could be due to a disagreement or crime of passion, as opposed to just senselessly mowing down swathes of strangers based on a warped ideology.
@neiltyson So we have all these measures in place to reduce instances and mitigate risk, through legislation, innovation, and education - yet when it comes to mass shootings, all that comes is a shrug of “thoughts and prayers”, and absolutely nothing done to prevent it happening again.
@neiltyson This borderline religious veneration of the second amendment means that even examining why and how the event happened is stymied, waved away with phrases like “violent media” and “mental health”, when those factors exist in other countries WHICH DO NOT HAVE MASS SHOOTINGS.
@neiltyson People are angry and people are disturbed because it’s like having to carry around a device that every so often painfully shocks you, but you’re told that it just happens, or that it’s sad, but there’s nothing you can do to fix it, or investigate why it’s shocking you.
@neiltyson And meanwhile you see other people carrying the device who are not hurt by it, or who once were but then fixed the fault in it, but you’re told that what they did won’t work for your device, and that this actually makes you more free than those people.
@neiltyson Welp, didn’t expect this to get so much attention but as I honestly cannot be arsed to repeatedly engage with people making specious, bad faith arguments, I’m hitting mute. My time and energy are finite resources, and I’d rather use them on something productive.
