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Nation capable of spotting spurious link between paracetamol and autism still baffled by obvious link between guns and mass shootings (newsthump.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/theonion@sh.itjust.works
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The United States has once again demonstrated its unique talent for scientific deduction by confidently declaring there may be a link between pregnant women taking paracetamol and children developing autism, while continuing to insist that the 600-plus mass shootings a year have absolutely nothing to do with everyone owning a bloody gun. President Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference with RFK Jnr and his brainworm, announced that Tylenol (the American word for paracetamol, because “paracetamol” contains too many syllables) “could” be responsible for autism. Experts responded by patiently explaining that the evidence is flimsy, research is ongoing, and maybe he should stick to real evidence that everyone understands, such as the evidence presented at his fraud trial. “That’s correlation,” said one baffled scientist, “but not causation. If only we could get the American public to apply the same basic principle to mass shootings, where the correlation is so strong we might as well only plot one line on the graph.” [...]

Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20250924054737/https://newsthump.com/2025/09/23/nation-capable-of-spotting-spurious-link-between-paracetamol-and-autism-still-baffled-by-obvious-link-between-guns-and-mass-shootings/

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[–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

Exactly!

Regulators see "gun deaths" or "gun violence" and jump to scary-looking guns like "assault rifles," which are functionally equivalent (fire the same rounds, can have the same capacity) as rifles they're completely fine with since they look like hunting rifles. Then you look at the stats and the vast majority of gun deaths are suicide and gang violence, which are almost exclusively handguns.

The real solution to these problems isn't even gun regulation IMO, but economic help and mental health access to people in under-served communities. We need better access to good schools, more contact w/ therapists, etc, restricting guns will just change the nature of how gangs operate and which methods suicidal people use, it doesn't solve the root problem.

We may need some gun control changes, but the stats they point to don't match the policies they propose.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    All of this. Especially the second half.

    Unfortunately there's a lot of people on Lemmy that'd rather shove their fingers in their ears and refuse to hear the socioeconomic causes of violent crime simply because it'd mean they don't have to demonize guns anymore

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I think it's incredibly insulting to say people are killing others because they have guns. No, there's another reason for it, and we need to solve that.

    Look at suicide rates, they're pretty similar between the US and western European countries, higher than some and lower than others. People aren't killing themselves because they have guns, they're doing it because they're desperate and see other option to end the pain, and they'd use another method if a gun wasn't available.

    Likewise for gangs, they're not killing each other because they have guns, they're doing it to hide their crimes or eliminate competition. If they didn't have guns, they'd use another method. The US has more of that vs other countries, not because of guns, but because the social safety net and incarceration rates (esp. recidivism) are worse. If people have better options than joining a gang, they'll do that

    Gun crime is more a symptom than the problem.

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