Shooting at Elementary School (est 27 dead)

[Garrdor]

Woot 80th post.

Man, maybe i should commit acts of cruelty to get more b.rantz discussions.

[Ddrak]

Woot 80th post.

Man, maybe i should commit acts of cruelty to get more b.rantz discussions.

You mean like Hairpull's flash animations?

Dd

[Garrdor]

Ouch, ice burn (below zero)!

[Harlowe]

Now an arsonist gunman kills two fireman, and was armed with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun and a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle and a stockpile of ammunition. Bushmaster semi-automatics appear to be the current weapon du jour for crazy mass-murdering dudes with guns.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... lling-note

[Harlowe]

Just to add - "Spenger was convicted in 1981 of the 1980 beating death of his grandmother. He was released from prison in 1998."

[Embar Angylwrath]

There are more deaths from automobiles than there are from guns in the US. If you take away the roughly 50% of gun deaths that are suicides, (ostensibly because someone who wants to commit suicide will find another way), there are roughly 11,000 homicides and accidental deaths, homicides making up a little more than 90% of the total of those two categories combined. Its about 1/3 of the automobile related deaths. Maybe we outlaw the car?

The answer isn't in banning guns, its in reworking our access restrictions. Just like in terrorism, we will never prevent crazies from going off and killing people. However, the gun homicides that Sandy Hook and Columbine represent are such a small statistical percentage of overall homicides that they are negligible. Why are we using a statistically irrelevant, although horrific event, as the nexus for a monumental shift in gun control?

It makes no sense to me. We don't blink an eye at the thousands of inner city youth that get shot up each year by other inner city youth. But when 20 white kids die in a fluke event, now we pay attention?

[Ddrak]

Suicides dropped by 60% when we took the majority of guns out of circulation. Other methods took too much setup time (and therefore time to rethink) compared to finding a gun and shooting yourself. That was actually the largest savings in lives.

I think given your stats on car deaths, you should implement a system whereby people are not permitted to drive an automobile unless they can prove themselves capable, own insurance, submit to random alcohol and drug testing, have their license revoked for relatively minor offenses and are heavily restricted in where they can actually drive. There should probably be a bucket load of money spent in policing these things too. Oh wait...

See, the "banning guns" thing is an NRA strawman. No one with any sense thinks it's even remotely possible in the US. Like you said, the key is access restrictions, and sane ones with no "grandfather-in" type clauses. Anything that reduces the ease of access to weapons (legal or illegal) will make a difference, and anything that doesn't is worthless.

Why use a school shooting when it's (correctly identified) as statistically irrelevant? Same reason we use 9/11 when it is also statistically irrelevant. The human brain is hardwired to pay attention to the sensational and unexpected rather than the commonplace. We're actually completely crap at risk identification and management.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Your point on 9/11 is well taken and illustrates just how a knee jerk reaction to a statistically low probability event did nothing to keep our skies safer, and only has caused the US enormous amounts of money and created a bloated and dysfunctional agency, the TSA. Sixty dollar locks on the cockpit doors were all we needed.

And look at California for driving laws... we give illegals a driver's license and in LA, they won't impound a car if the driver doesn't have a license or insurance (not fair to the illegals).

Suicides are rarely undertaken by military-type semi automatic weapons. Its handgun or shotgun, typically. So other than an outright ban on just about any type of firearm (like in Oz, with a nod towards a couple of special classes over there), restricting access to those types of firearms would do little to curb firearm assisted suicide.

[Ddrak]

Fair point on suicides. An assault weapons ban would do nothing. I was conflating different things.

Dd

[Partha]

Why are we using a statistically irrelevant, although horrific event, as the nexus for a monumental shift in gun control

Monumental shift? Really?

Assault weapons are the tiny minority of gun sales and ownership in the United States. Restricting them leaves plenty of other guns available. There's also no conceivable need for an assault weapon in civilian hands - not hunting, nor self-defense.

[Kulaf]

Are you saying it's......inconceivable? Because I do not think that word means what you think it means.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I don't have to prove a need Partha, in order to exercise my right.

And you've missed the point of the entire thread. Guns don't kill people. Without ammo, they are just big, unweildy clubs. Ammunition kills people. Limit the type of ammo. Job done. Nothing in the Constitution that says I have the right to buy teflon coated, high muzzle velocity, high joule rated ammo. If one limits the power of the calculated energy of the bullet as it leaves the muzzle, you can turn an assault-type weapon into a large handgun, for all intents and purposes. This can easily be accomplished by both reducing the mass of the bullet and reducing the charge in the cartridge.

[Ddrak]

I am somewhat amused at the NRA blaming it all on video games:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse.

Dd

[Partha]

I don't have to prove a need Partha, in order to exercise my right.

Yell 'Fire!' in a movie theater, then. Same principle applies.

If you want to claim that the Second Amendment allows you to carry any sort of weaponry you want, you're wrong, there's about a hundred years of Supreme Court decisions that say you're wrong, and regulating them out of existence is quite legal, all the NRA's jabbering aside. Just like you don't have the right to own a .50 sniper rifle or an Atchisson assault shotgun, there's no 'right' involved if the country finally decides they're tired of watching these kinds of mass murders.

[Kulaf]

I would argue that the weapons need to be viable military use weapons. The heart of the amendment is that the states would be able to field a militia force and actually fight. Only allowing technology from 100 years ago is not going to provide much of a fighting force.

I hate the buzz word "assault weapon" because it is pointless. There are assault rifles that are bolt action. The other buzz word is "semi-automatic"......which encompases any magazine fed weapon that chambers the next round and allows you to fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Neither of these things are bad in and of themselves.

[Partha]

How many people go hunting with a Bushmaster? How many times have Bushmasters been used in home defense instead of a shotgun or a handgun? How many would be perps have been killed by a Bushmaster?

Anyways, you're arguing nonsense, and we know it. No right is inviolate and universal, and commonsense restrictions are not illegal. No one needs that type of gun for defense or hunting, the two legitimate purposes of owning firearms, therefore we'd be much better off if they weren't available for criminals to steal from 'responsible' gun owners or buy in a straw purchase from 'responsible' gun dealers or off the secondary market where no controls exist.

[Kulaf]

A Bushmaster what? How many people go hunting with a Winchester? Remington? Etc. etc. Bushmaster is a manufacturer.

No one it arguing that gun ownership/usage is an all inclusive right.......other than you. But you are trying to draw lines of distinction in strange places like caliber and manufacturer which is rediculous.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

[Partha]

A Bushmaster what? How many people go hunting with a Winchester? Remington? Etc. etc. Bushmaster is a manufacturer.

No one it arguing that gun ownership/usage is an all inclusive right.......other than you. But you are trying to draw lines of distinction in strange places like caliber and manufacturer which is rediculous.

What do they manufacture? Have you ever looked?

What guns do they make that are suitable for HOME DEFENSE or HUNTING? I'll give you three guesses, the first two don't count.

Winchester/Remington are not the same thing as a company that specializes in military style knockoff rifles. But way to keep missing that point.

[Ddrak]

This stuff doesn't help and quite frankly, it makes the gun lobby look desperate. It's a complete strawman. The argument is someone that goes unhinged with access to a weapon like an AR (with sufficient ammunition) will kill a lot more people than someone without access to that class of weapon, and the reason the gun lobby doesn't want to address that is it's impossible to defend against.

No, guns don't kill people. They make it a lot easier for people to kill people.

What the hell this knob thought he was going to do with an AR that any number of cheaper weapons would achieve more effectively and efficiently is beyond me. Small dick, I guess?


And @Kulaf, I don't think "semi-automatic" is a buzzword at all. It's an excellent dividing line if you choose to put it there - it is a good means of reducing the fire rate.

Dd