Another Mass Shooting

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So guns are more dangerous, easy to use and efficient, but according to you not more dangerous, easy and efficient enough to make a distinction between them and, say, axes, regulate according to that distinction, and expect a drop in the overall murder rate and hope to at least make these kind of atrocities harder to commit?

First off, guns are not easy to use. It takes a lot of practice to shoot them accurately. You might note that most spree killers spend months practicing. Or they were gun nuts to begin with, like the Columbine killers.

Second of all, I already said I support a certain level of gun control. Background checks, waiting period, mental health evaluation.

Thirdly, while it would make them harder to commit, it wouldn't eliminate them. In a world with no guns, evil would still find a way. There is no solution. We live in an imperfect universe. Bad shit happens. It always will.

Fourthly, with advancing technology, it will be impossible to prevent the manufacture of guns. In the next few decades, people will be printing them out. This will probably be illegal, but that will prevent it like laws prevent people from cooking up meth.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

I don't know about that. It seems that in western european countries where most guns are banned, the murder rate hovers around a quarter of that of the USA. What factors other than the prevalence of firepower do you think accounts for that?

Aren't Western European countries better places to live? Like maybe there is less murder because the conditions that push people to murder one another exist to a lesser degree in those nations? Lower social inequality, less pissed off people. Healthier sex lives because of more liberal sexual mores--spree killers overwhelmingly tend to be losers with women.

Guns as the sole factor is simplistic.

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Kael

Not only does the history of firearms and their development stand completely contrary to that point,

Actually, for most of their history guns were inferior to bows and crossbows in most respects* They could pierce armor better (though the best crossbows could pierce plate armor), which is what ended knights, but their main draw was that it is much easier to learn to shoot a gun than to become a skilled archer. Lots of relatively quickly trained soldiers was what was desired, so they went with guns.

Originally Posted by Kael

. . . it's also completely refuted and ignored by those who claim that having more guns more readily available would somehow result in fewer gun-induced deaths. After all, while many make the 'argument' that a sufficiently skilled and motivated attacker could also kill a lot of people with a machete, table leg, or bobby pin, I don't see many people making the argument that we could be safer from such attacks if only we all carried dueling swords again.

It's a lot harder to carry a sword around "just in case" than a pistol.

*They were quicker to reload compared to guns of their day, are quiet, do not produce clouds of smoke, and were reliable. Before the cap was invented in the 19th Century, guns were pretty unreliable. They might fire when needed, and they might not. All this was why pikes and swords persisted into the age of the gun. The sword didn't finally go away until after WWI--besides with the Japanese, that is. They had a cultural fetish for them that died hard in WWII.

[Clutch Munny]

People in this thread, or anywhere for that matter, who have argued that guns are the sole factor in the occurrence of mass shootings, and that gun control would not only eliminate mass murders, but would remove all evil from the universe and prevent bad shit from happening: you have been gainsaid.

Everyone else can consider the question, "Kashmir, can you be something other than a fucking moron?" to be asked and answered.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

First off, guns are not easy to use. It takes a lot of practice to shoot them accurately. You might note that most spree killers spend months practicing. Or they were gun nuts to begin with, like the Columbine killers.

Yeah, in fact it takes longer to train to kill people with a gun than a knife or an axe!

Oh wait, no it doesn't! And you know this, so claiming "guns are hard! derp!" is so stupid I almost wonder if you're trolling us. "Guns are not easy to use" might have some worth as a statement if you were talking about the ease of using guns compared to say, I don't know, taking a dump, but here, in this context? It's laughable.

For me to kill someone with some sort of melee weapon would take serious effort, quite possibly even beyond my physical capabilitites depending on my target and how much warning they get to fight back.

With a gun? Trivial, even without training, even with a crappy aim, because if I can get close enough to stab you I can sure as hell be close enough to shoot you.

Originally Posted by Kashmir

Thirdly, while it would make them harder to commit, it wouldn't eliminate them. In a world with no guns, evil would still find a way. There is no solution. We live in an imperfect universe. Bad shit happens. It always will.

Did you really write this? Do you think we're all idiots here or something? Normally I just let other people lambast people posting incredible stupidity, but this is a really serious issue and one of the few chances America might have to actually change its insane gun culture is being hamstrung by arguments like this, generated by idiots like you.

[Clutch Munny]

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert told Fox News over the weekend that he wished the Sandy Hook Elementary School principal, who was reportedly killed after confronting the shooter, had an assault rifle in her office "locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out … she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."

The latest U.S. debate: Should teachers carry guns? - World - CBC News

[Vivisectus]

[quote]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

First off, guns are not easy to use. It takes a lot of practice to shoot them accurately. You might note that most spree killers spend months practicing. Or they were gun nuts to begin with, like the Columbine killers.

Nonsense. I can reliably hit a human torso-sized target at 30 meters with a handgun, and I can hit skeets about 90% of the time even when they are doubled and shot at different heights and angles. I am far from a gun nut: I have not spent more than a handful of afternoons shooting. Any idiot who does not have the palsy can shoot a gun! Perhaps not to professional standards, but easily well enough to do enormous amounts of damage in a short period of time.

By comparison, I can also hit the same target with my composite bow, but that took me quite a lot of practice, results in far less force, is less reliable, harder to hide, etc etc etc.

Second of all, I already said I support a certain level of gun control. Background checks, waiting period, mental health evaluation.

Thirdly, while it would make them harder to commit, it wouldn't eliminate them. In a world with no guns, evil would still find a way. There is no solution. We live in an imperfect universe. Bad shit happens. It always will.

Gun control wont prevent all bad things, or even all massacres. But it can be argued that they would prevent a bunch.

The fact that not all injuries are prevented by seatbelts does not make them a bad idea.

Fourthly, with advancing technology, it will be impossible to prevent the manufacture of guns. In the next few decades, people will be printing them out. This will probably be illegal, but that will prevent it like laws prevent people from cooking up meth.

Yahbut AFTER that brainscans that can predict when we are going to shoot someone will be regularly done, so we might as well scrap this and wait for that to happen.

Aren't Western European countries better places to live? Like maybe there is less murder because the conditions that push people to murder one another exist to a lesser degree in those nations? Lower social inequality, less pissed off people. Healthier sex lives because of more liberal sexual mores--spree killers overwhelmingly tend to be losers with women.

We eat more cheese too. Do you think that is a factor also?

All those things you mentioned could conceivably be linked to a different attitude to murder. They could or could not have a significant effect. We don't know.

The guns now, those we can be pretty damn certain of.

If the cheese is a factor, than this is a perfect opportunity for me to say "Blessed are the cheesemakers".

Guns as the sole factor is simplistic.

Perhaps not sole. But probably very large.

On top of this - apart from shooting at targets, what else is a handgun FOR other than shooting people? Let people defend themselves with pepper spray, and ban all non-hunting weapons. It is just safer all round.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So guns are more dangerous, easy to use and efficient, but according to you not more dangerous, easy and efficient enough to make a distinction between them and, say, axes, regulate according to that distinction, and expect a drop in the overall murder rate and hope to at least make these kind of atrocities harder to commit?

I don't know about that. It seems that in western european countries where most guns are banned, the murder rate hovers around a quarter of that of the USA. What factors other than the prevalence of firepower do you think accounts for that?

The murder rate is lower in countries that have guns too. There are lots of guns in Canada.

I think the main difference is social and cultural. Inequality is probably a factor, I think.

[Vivisectus]

Tennessee Pastor Sam Morris: Mass Shootings Caused by Schools Teaching Evolution, Homosexuality | Moral Low Ground

It was the gays whot did it... and biology teachers!!!

[LadyShea]

Gays cause everything here, including hurricanes. Sometimes abortion is the cause.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The murder rate is lower in countries that have guns too. There are lots of guns in Canada.

I think the main difference is social and cultural. Inequality is probably a factor, I think.

The vast majority of guns in Canada are hunting rifles, because it seems every second Canadian hunts. I lived in Calgary for a year, and they sure love their hunting in those parts. I did not see that many handguns. In fact, I don't remember seeing one at all, except in the hands of police.

There are restrictions on owning, moving and operating handguns and semi-autos that the US does not have.

Maybe you are right, and you Americans are somehow inclined to murder each other 4 times more often than countries with a similar way of organizing things because of cultural differences and the fact that you are all mad as hell that you have the finest medical facilities in the world, but cannot afford to use them.

Personally, I think the vast amount of affordable, available and easily obtained purpose-designed person-killing devices might, conceivably, be a slightly bigger factor.

[LadyShea]

Gun laws vary by state. Connecticut has pretty restrictive gun laws similar to Canada.

Easy access to guns makes it way easier for people who snap to take a whole lot of others with them, for sure. But, I have guns, and I guarantee I will never shoot up a mall or school or anything. We need to figure out why some people use guns in such horrific ways and try to correct those factors.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The murder rate is lower in countries that have guns too. There are lots of guns in Canada.

I think the main difference is social and cultural. Inequality is probably a factor, I think.

Social and cultural differences have to be relevant, yes. But even in Canada, the murder rate (and gun violence rate) is higher in regions where gun ownership rates are higher. It's all just much, much lower than in the USA.

E.g.,

Big-city crime? Murder rates are higher in rural Canada - Toronto - CBC News

[Vivisectus]

Canadian laws are stricter, and they make it harder for these weapons to be used or moved. Possibly as a result, there are less of the dedicated people-killing ones.

I don't think the "I have a gun, and look, it hasn't made me shoot anyone so guns must not be the problem" argument is a very strong one. It is true that guns don't kill people. They just make it easy and convenient to kill people.

It seems such an odd cycle: all these millions of responsible gun owners tooling up to defend themselves from other gun owners.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Gays cause everything here, including hurricanes. Sometimes abortion is the cause.

I've heard the Chinese have a pretty advanced strategic abortion-hurricane plan.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Tennessee Pastor Sam Morris: Mass Shootings Caused by Schools Teaching Evolution, Homosexuality | Moral Low Ground

Christopher Hitchens on Jerry Falwell:

The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you’ll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God’s punishment if they hadn’t got some kind of clerical qualification? People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.

[LadyShea]

I apologize that I was unclear. I think we need better gun control. I just don't know what that should look like.

Also, I have long thought something is seriously wrong with American culture. There is just something collectively wrong with us.

And yes, Alaska has lax gun laws, people carry all the time up there it's totally all Wild Wild West, and they have a very high murder rate.

[beyelzu]

I like how many different points you argue, Kashmir, that do not go together or seem at odds.

Guns were adopted because though inferior were easy to learn and yet shooting a gun is something that takes alot of practice.

Have you shot a gun before? I do not shoot much these days, but I grew up in very rural GA where shooting was something you did for fun, drunk or sober. I was given a 3030 lever action rifle for christmas when I was 11 or 12. Another year, I was given a .22 rifle semiauto. Shooting something large that is close or not moving isn't really that hard. It is just point and fire. We aren't talking about learning how to shoot well at a distance or putting two in middle of the chest.

It wasn't a random aside about the 3030 and 22, see, the 22 was semiauto so I would take it squirrel hunting. The ammo was cheaper and the bullets theoretically did less damage to the squirrels. (According to my friends, the 3030 would blow apart a squirrel)

I never saw it myself.

Shooting a few bullets at a time, I could shoot a squirrel which move really fucking fast. When I didn't have 22 ammo and used the 3030 instead with the increased time of the lever action, I never got one.


In fact the point of banning automatics and quick reloading semiautomatics is that those attributes make killing people so much easier. I ain't never killed nobody, but it does make killing skittish squirrels easier.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

Social and cultural differences have to be relevant, yes. But even in Canada, the murder rate (and gun violence rate) is higher in regions where gun ownership rates are higher. It's all just much, much lower than in the USA.

E.g.,

Big-city crime? Murder rates are higher in rural Canada - Toronto - CBC News

But doesn't Canada have a different culture than America being in Europe and lacking the rugged individualism and western expanding frontier for much of its history like America does and did?

Also, they have socialized medicine, so maybe their gunshot victims are just getting better care.

[Vivisectus]

OMG they shot Beyelzu in mid sentence. Damn maniacs!!!

[beyelzu]

I admit that I can probably be overly sensitive towards veiled racism having grown up and spent almost all of my 35 years in the south, I consider the argument that the US has a different culture to be something of a dog whistle. I think that people often associate gun violence with gangs or minorities. I think the argument that there are cultural differences really means that we have 12 or 13 percent African Americans.

This is similar to the argument that "sure, we test lower in the US but we teach everybody and everybody gets to take the standardized tests, where other countries track people into manual trades at a younger age." This argument is combined with the understanding that persons of color belong in those trades and are bringing the test results down.

I don't think that everyone who makes the argument is a racist, I do think that they have internalized a racist argument.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

OMG they shot Beyelzu in mid sentence. Damn maniacs!!!

Sorry, I stealth edited you.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

Shooting a few bullets at a time, I could shoot a squirrel which move really fucking fast. When I didn't have 22 ammo and used the 3030 instead with the increased time of the lever action, I never got one.

Did you used to bullseye womp rats in your T-16 back home? They're not much bigger than two meters.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

I admit that I can probably be overly sensitive towards veiled racism having grown up and spent almost all of my 35 years in the south, I consider the argument that the US has a different culture to be something of a dog whistle. I think that people often associate gun violence with gangs or minorities. I think the argument that there are cultural differences really means that we have 12 or 13 percent African Americans.

That never occurred to me (it's a really high-pitched dog whistle, apparently) but I can get where you're coming from. Some white Americans feel they need guns to protect themselves and their families, because they feel threatened by something like a black teenager in a hoodie walking through their gated neighborhood. The perceived threat level is a million times worse than the reality, and yet with the threat of gun mishaps, the perception gets switched? It's bonkers.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

I admit that I can probably be overly sensitive towards veiled racism having grown up and spent almost all of my 35 years in the south, I consider the argument that the US has a different culture to be something of a dog whistle. I think that people often associate gun violence with gangs or minorities. I think the argument that there are cultural differences really means that we have 12 or 13 percent African Americans.

This is similar to the argument that "sure, we test lower in the US but we teach everybody and everybody gets to take the standardized tests, where other countries track people into manual trades at a younger age." This argument is combined with the understanding that persons of color belong in those trades and are bringing the test results down.

I don't think that everyone who makes the argument is a racist, I do think that they have internalized a racist argument.

Oh wow, no. I find whites (especially of the redneck variety) much more violently inclined* and gun nutso, in my limited experience, then any minorities I met living in the big cities.

*Mostly domestic violence inclined in my again, very limited experience of the people I know or have met

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Did you used to bullseye womp rats in your T-16 back home? They're not much bigger than two meters.

No one is saying ban speeder mounted hunting weapons. We're just saying that no one who isn't actually an Imperial Stormtrooper needs access to a heavy repeating blaster. There's a reason that a blaster owner is more likely to end up killing themself than an attacker; only Imperial Stormtroopers are precise enough to use them properly.