Bill Maher blames Hollywood on America's shooting problem...

I didn't want to post this as I have been sour with Maher with his horrid back talk of Stan Lee after he died, but by god, I had to with this one as he isn't the only one to preach this horsecrap.

Okay, Bill, here are some non-Hollywood works... as in, not American, with gun happy media, from places with common sense gun laws.

From Canada:

From Hong Kong (during the era of British Colonial rule):

From Japan:

And from the UK, with an icon that couldn't be more British (even if he was played by an Australian, a pro-independence Scotsman, and an Irishman at one point):

Ugh...

What do you think is causing the increase in mass shootings and violent crime?

Too open of gun laws for one. Unlike the places I mentioned where mass shootings are far lower. It's Jack Thompson level BS.

So too open gun laws are a recent issue?

Maher wasn't blaming shooting on Hollywood, he was calling out Hollywood's hypocrisy in censoring everything else in movies, just not violence with guns. You should actually listen to it. You heard only what you wanted to hear, and applied what you thought you heard to your own narrative. That's simply dishonest.

What are you talking about? California has the strictest gun laws and the most mass shootings. Chicago has an almost complete ban on carrying handguns, yet, the most homicides per year of any city, most of which are caused by guess what? handguns. The recent shooter in Buffalo, NY said he specifically targeted NY state because their stricter gun laws meant a lower chance of facing resistance.

Again, you seem to have a habit of shifting reality to fit a narrative.

Interesting considering Texas made their laws more open and look what happened there. Also the police were against those actions that Abbot took.

When several red states are allowing open carry (including here in Utah), already adding to a major, long time issue.

Maher sometimes has some really bad takes.

Open carry is the reason behind mass shootings and violent crime?

Man, Bill using movies as a scapegoat how pathetic this is Fox news levels of stupid.

@Stevo_the_gamer: Are shootings a recent issue though? The joke about postal workers tendency to go on killing sprees is older than most of the people that post in this forum. And airplane hijackings used to be weekly news. It at least seems like school shootings got more common after the assault weapons ban expired, but I don't know the data on that off the top of my head.

I do think we would have more bipartisan luck trying to imrove our mental health system than gun legislation though. All the aforementioned countries have that over the U.S. too. Around here if you want halfway decent mental health treatment, you need to go to prizon first.

Pretty off base. Canada consumes pretty much the same media and barely has any gun violence in comparison. It's the gun laws, not the media. He was cherry-picking too, and making nonsensical generalizations about violence in movies, like all of them being about revenge.

Maher's audience are robots. They'll laugh and cheer at anything he says. Miss when he didn't have an audience during the height of the pandemic, before the vaccines.

I'm at the point where I don't click on Maher links just to keep views away from his content. The guy is a douche bag anti-vaxxer and spreads some serious pseudoscientific nonsense from time to time.

This may be the first thing upon which we agree.

Yes, gun laws have become more relaxed over the years.

Higher rates of mass shootings in US states with more relaxed gun control laws | BMJ

Again, how does an open carry law effect, aid, or facilitate any of these events?

And California is still about twice as many mass shootings as the next highest state. How are their gun laws again?

This is absurd. No state is an island.

What is absurd is none of you can answer a simple question. Tell me how one state's open carry laws effected mass shootings in another state then. Give an example.

Right-to-carry gun laws linked to increase in violent crime, Stanford research shows

Still a lot of right wingers in California...

You're claiming it has been linked to an increase in violent crime... Not only is the evidence for that dubious at best, but it has absolutely nothing to do with mass shootings, nor does it answer the very simple question of how these state's laws are in any way responsible for, or aiding the act of any mass shootings.

Answer the question that was actually asked.

That's not my claim. Sorry, but you can't deflect from the facts.

@tjandmia:

weird.

states that tend to have more restrictive firearm laws also tend to have fewer gun deaths.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

This is a false analysis and shows why arm-chair science is bad science,

• Higher rates of mass shootings in US states with more relaxed gun control laws | BMJ
• States with weaker gun laws have higher rates of firearm related homicides and suicides, study finds - CNN
• News: The Looser a State's Gun Laws, the... (WIRED) - Behind the headlines - NLM (nih.gov)
• Stats of the States - Firearm Mortality (cdc.gov)

You were even wrong on the specific States,

California Has Toughest Gun Laws in United States and Fewer Deaths - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

What studies are you citing? Any study I am capable of finding is telling me the opposite of what you are saying. And I'm even actively looking for ones with your claim.

Yup. Eoten is lying. He will cite no study stating the opposite.

@eoten: I'm not sure where your information is coming from, but can respond generally. The state with the largest population and second most densely populated city in the nation, would very likely have the highest crime rate in raw numbers. I mean, it should have the highest rate of just about anything in raw numbers.

Where does your link state laws have become more relaxed? Again, is this a recent issue?

@warm_gun: In fairness, Canada has the same number of people as California spread over a much larger area. Lower crime rate is to be expected.

Not saying you're completely off base though, Japan manages to have little crime despite high poulation density and grotesque violence in it's media.

When you adjust for rate, as he should have done if he wasn't being intentionally dishonest, CA shows reduced instances:

• California Has Toughest Gun Laws in United States and Fewer Deaths - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
• Fact check: Did gun deaths drop in CA after gun control laws? | The Sacramento Bee (sacbee.com)

Which falls in line with national studies and other state studies. Areas with more lax laws show more firearm homicides/violence and mass shootings.

Even per capita it is no lower than Florida, or Texas despite having significantly stricter laws, showing there to be no actual correlation between any existing gun laws in any state, and crime levels, or the rate of mass shootings.

Do you not understand without universal laws that it's impossible to curb access?

You're trying way too hard to pretend to not understand. It's weird.

What has happened to Bill Maher is what happens to all wealthy people; they become old, rich, crazy, right-leaning white men.

This devolution ignores race and gender.

🤣

Not sure if you were asking a general question, but I'll throw in my $0.02.

Comrade Bojangles cites the following:

• Lack of wealth distribution.
• Lack of opportunity.
• Poor education.
• Poor mental health system and cultural approach; we aren't open about it. We'll talk about how much our back hurts and work but we won't talk about how our job depresses us.
• Racist social and cultural foundation that has carried over to today.
• Prevalence of right-wing fundamentalism (this isn't me saying this, this is the FBI saying this...the FBI, arguably the most traditional and conservative federal agency).

The amount of guns doesn't help, but there's nothing we can do about that. I'm sure COVID has added to it, but that's an extenuating circumstance imo.

Then why claim, or defend someone who claims open carry laws in one state have an impact on shootings in another?

Think about what you just posted and then get back to us.

FBI is far from the most traditional and most conservative federal agency and what we've seen with mass shooters and what is written in their manifestos and seen in their online activity could hardly be considered political one way or another.

Honestly I think it's that people's mental health nosedived during nearly 3 years of lockdowns and some of them just don't know how to reacclimate to more of a normalcy. Violent crime is skyrocketing because charges have been lessened and the penalty for getting caught is less severe that the instant reward of the gratification it brings some people. This also applies to lesser crimes (by large part) even more so.

We need to get back to respecting authority (hopefully some agreements and common ground can be found) and understanding that crime doesn't pay, and if that means making the penalties more severe than so be it. Laws exist for a reason and no one should be above them. Accountability is the key for all concerned.

This does not work, we have decades of evidence to support why it does not. "Law and order" measures--mandatory minimums, putting non-violent offenders in prison, three-strikes laws, etc--just does not work. Period.

Need to find solutions elsewhere; I think we need to look in the mirror. The problem is more than just "bad people are bad"; why are they bad? Are they actually bad or are they products of their environment? What can we do to actually prevent people from committing crime outside of fear of prison? Does fear of penalties even work?

Also blaming COVID is kind of a copout; US has had issues with violence for a long time.

As for authority, again, the problem is the reverse: authority (as in law enforcement, politicians, etc) does not respect the ultimate authority of this country, that being the people of this country. Corruption, bribes, payouts, abuses...there is a laundry list of reasons why we should not unconditionally respect authority.

Who watches the watchers, eh? That should be our biggest question right now.

I don't believe it is for one second, but that's just my take man. Laws have been a lot more lenient the last couple/few years and we all know why. It isn't working to say the least. When people no longer fear the police, authorities, or the penalties they will suffer then new measures must be taken (no I'm not saying law abiding citizens should fear authority figures, but I sure as hell feel as though criminals should). What exactly? Hell if I know... I doubt anyone here would want to hear any of my ideas on that.. lol... but then again I try to be as much of a law abiding citizen as possible and I worked hard to get to where I am the same as anyone else can.. so *shrug*

Completely writing off lockdowns as a possible reason to increased violent crime and mass shootings seems irresponsible to say the least. The numbers are rising, not staying steady or decreasing. Mental health is and will always be the main reason people snap and do unthinkable things. Happiness, brain chemistry, and contentment are major keys to this and I refuse to believe otherwise. We are in an age of instant gratification, information, and goods are easier to get than previous decades (even with shortages for the most part). Boredom can do terrible things to people.. I've seen it first hand.

When you lessen the severity of punishments then crimes will go up. It seems pretty clear cut to me. Fly by night unmonitored polls and fact checkers be damned.

I don't buy into the products of their environment spiel by the way. I have had plenty of friends and acquaintances over the years that were dealt a bad hand (including myself at times), but at some point in time you either grow up and become your own person or continue to blame others for your misfortunes. Some of those people went on to better themselves and some never got out. It's a personal choice though... Kind of like how I don't subscribe to drug addictions or drinking as being diseases. A lot of people would argue with me, but take it from someone who struggled with alcohol at one point (also while dealing with PTSD and a TBI)... it was my own damn fault, so I quit drinking, smoking, and taking most addictive medications and never looked back. I have been much happier since then and the amount of incidents I find myself in that are unfavorable for my life have dropped off significantly. It was easy for me to blame everyone but myself, but once I took responsibility for myself things got much easier and everything started falling into place.

Sure I know not everyone has that motive or willpower, but blaming others for your own shortcomings has always been something I disagreed with. Once again, that doesn't mean I'm right, it just means that I view things a little differently than the way they are presented.

It's all a game and we are the mice.. the cats keep us fighting so they can feast.

Bill Maher is the worst. I've been saying it for years, and he's not getting better.

crap take. to pander to his viewers

So given that Maher didn't actually say what the OP claimed he said, nobody has actually comment on what he actually did.

Hollywood pretends to be at the forefront of every woke movement. They've censored nearly every aspect of their movies to be in line with that. Everything, except for guns. Why?

We can go a step further. Alec Baldwin shot and killed a woman by filming one of those gun movies. If Hollywood wasn't making such a movie, Baldwin wouldn't have been playing with a gun, pointing it at people, and pulling the trigger, likely practicing his "quick draw" and she would still be alive. She will never get justice because Alec Baldwin is part of the elite class that normal laws, laws that would put ether of us in prison for several years for the crime of manslaughter, or negligent homicide, do not apply to Hollywood.

Right over like a 747.

Again, where does your link state laws have become more relaxed? Again, once more, is this a recent issue?

Really??? Still playing the right wing deflection game? I don't get why you guys even bother with that nonsense. It just makes you look even more foolish.

Search the article for "2010". It mentions the increase in permissiveness.

My God, that was so weird...

This is something that happened to people all over the world, but once again, the problem is uniquely American. It's easy access to the guns and the disgusting gun culture the right has infected the nation with that are the problems.

Really? There was a mass shooting at a German university earlier this year. But hey, ignore it, and pretend it only happens in the US in order to shoehorn it into your narrative.

I'm not sure if you just pretend to be obtuse or if you really are, but when someone talks about shootings with regard to the U.S., they mean the frequency at which they happen in comparison to other developed nations.

@tjandmia said:

@eoten said:

@tjandmia said:

@WitIsWisdom said:

@Stevo_the_gamer said:

What do you think is causing the increase in mass shootings and violent crime?

Honestly I think it's that people's mental health nosedived during nearly 3 years of lockdowns and some of them just don't know how to reacclimate to more of a normalcy. Violent crime is skyrocketing because charges have been lessened and the penalty for getting caught is less severe that the instant reward of the gratification it brings some people. This also applies to lesser crimes (by large part) even more so.

We need to get back to respecting authority (hopefully some agreements and common ground can be found) and understanding that crime doesn't pay, and if that means making the penalties more severe than so be it. Laws exist for a reason and no one should be above them. Accountability is the key for all concerned.

This is something that happened to people all over the world, but once again, the problem is uniquely American. It's easy access to the guns and the disgusting gun culture the right has infected the nation with that are the problems.

Really? There was a mass shooting at a German university earlier this year. But hey, ignore it, and pretend it only happens in the US in order to shoehorn it into your narrative.

I'm not sure if you just pretend to be obtuse or if you really are, but when someone talks about shootings with regard to the U.S., they mean the frequency at which they happen in comparison to other developed nations.

So is that why Alec Baldwin hasn't been arrested yet for pointing a gun at a person, pulling the trigger, and killing them? It was all the gun's fault?

I'm not sure what "deflection" you're referring too. You're still consistently missing the point.

What does that quote have to do with existing states going from restrictive gun legislation to having more relaxed gun legislation? It's referring to the rate of crime from the FBI UCR, as the previous sentence speaks to the rate of "mass shootings." Remember context, reading comprehension.

Again, a third time, is this a recent issue?

@Stevo_the_gamer:

1. You're deflecting.

2. It's a recent issue.