Is it time for a serious conversation about Gun Control?

[homersapien 11,362]

50 minutes ago, japantiger said:

So, responding to the proposals just too much for you, huh? 

I would like to understand one other thing though...why does this one particular category of guns that account for .007% of all homicides drive you to such distraction....According to that conservative rag Mother Jones, 27% of mass shootings are conducted with some sort of long gun.   Why not go after shotguns or handguns or even knives or even hammers (they kill more than long guns)....wouldn't that save more lives?  or do you just dislike all guns?  or only scary looking guns?  or are all guns, scary looking?   

Most homicides don't involve a mass shooting, but assault rifles are the weapon of choice for the ones that do.  

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/why-the-ar-15-keeps-appearing-at-americas-deadliest-mass-shootings.html

Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ar-15-model-rifle-again-used-in-a-mass-shooting-1518741842

AR-15 Model Rifle Again Used in a Mass Shooting

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

44 minutes ago, japantiger said:

So, responding to the proposals just too much for you, huh? 

I would like to understand one other thing though...why does this one particular category of guns that account for .007% of all homicides drive you to such distraction....According to that conservative rag Mother Jones, 27% of mass shootings are conducted with some sort of long gun.   Why not go after shotguns or handguns or even knives or even hammers (they kill more than long guns)....wouldn't that save more lives?  or do you just dislike all guns?  or only scary looking guns?  or are all guns, scary looking?   

Homer should put a "Gun-Free Zone" sign in his yard

[japantiger 4,051]

13 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Good read here for those in the middle.  (Some choice language)

https://agingmillennialengineer.com/2018/02/15/****-you-i-like-guns-2/

Damn, good thing that venison in my freezer didn't know the AR I shot him with wasn't a hunting rifle....please don't tell the Aoudad I plan to shoot over spring break...I'd hate for them to go to the ACLU or some nonsense like that.    And my response to the author,  paraphrasing him of course "yeah, **** you, I like guns, period"....

http://www.guns.com/2013/03/28/12-reasons-i-hunt-with-an-ar-15-and-you-should-too/

 

 

[japantiger 4,051]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

Most homicides don't involve a mass shooting, but assault rifles are the weapon of choice for the ones that do.  

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/why-the-ar-15-keeps-appearing-at-americas-deadliest-mass-shootings.html

Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ar-15-model-rifle-again-used-in-a-mass-shooting-1518741842

AR-15 Model Rifle Again Used in a Mass Shooting

Homey, Did you read the article you posted?  the longitudinal studies show that up to ~20% of the weapons used in mass shootings are long guns......even Mother Jones shows that only 20% used a rifle of any kind.  Your articled stated only 10% of mass shootings are made using an AR....

"Overall, AR-15 model rifles have been used in 17 active-shooter attacks since 2000, less than 10%, according to researchers at Texas State University."

https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0057.htm

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/assault-weapons-high-capacity-magazines-mass-shootings-feinstein/

[homersapien 11,362]

7 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Homer should put a "Gun-Free Zone" sign in his yard

I own a BAR in .270 Winchester, a Remington 870 in 12 ga. (w/ two barrels) and a Smith&Wesson 'Chief's Special'.  (I've pared my gun inventory down to the essentials for every legitimate need.)

The latter two are kept loaded.

What about you, sonny?

 

[DKW 86 7,419]

15 hours ago, homersapien said:

That's ironic, coming from the guy who called me a liar but couldn't produce the lie.  

 

The only person that wasnt mocking you was you. 

[TitanTiger 20,472]

On 2/19/2018 at 7:40 AM, Mikey said:

Here's a more accurate assessment of the situation worldwide:

https://www.thejacknews.com/law/gun-rights/the-united-states-does-not-have-more-mass-shootings-than-europe/

 

Actually, it's not a more accurate assessment, when someone who actually understands statistical data dives into the numbers :

Quote

Another debate that crops up in the media in the aftermath of a mass shooting is whether the U.S. is exceptional for the frequency at which mass shootings occur within its borders. Those who claim that it does not often point to OECD data that measures mass shootings per capita based on a country's total population. When you look at the data this way, the U.S. ranks behind other nations including Finland, Norway, and Switzerland. However, this data is deeply misleading, because it is based on populations so small and events so infrequent so as to be statistically invalid.

Mathematician Charles Petzold explains in detail on his blog why this is so, from a statistical standpoint, and further explains how the data can be useful. Instead of comparing the U.S. to other OECD nations, which have much smaller populations than the U.S., and most of which have had just 1-3 mass shootings in recent history, you can compare the U.S. to all other OECD nations combined. Doing so equalizes the scale of population, and allows for a statistically valid comparison. When you do this, you find that the U.S. has a rate of mass shootings of 0.121 per million people, while all other OECD countries combined have a rate of just 0.025 per million people (and that's with a combined population three times that of the U.S.). This means that the rate of mass shootings per capita in the U.S. is nearly five times that in all other OECD nations. This disparity, however, is not surprising, given that Americans own nearly half of all civilian guns in the world.

https://www.thoughtco.com/gun-death-stats-in-perspective-3303385

 

If you'd like to read the full version of why the charts used in your link do not accurately represent the situation, it's here:

http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2015/07/De-Obfuscating-the-Statistics-of-Mass-Shootings.html

 

[SaturdayGT 719]

  Its probably been discussed somewhere here already, but why doesn't armed teachers or armed security in and about the schools to protect the kids get much traction?  Seems like that should have been done along time ago. Sounds to me like a good way to end the weird school shooting craze....

[Mikey 16,576]

17 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

 

Actually, it's not a more accurate assessment, when someone who actually understands statistical data dives into the numbers :

 

If you'd like to read the full version of why the charts used in your link do not accurately represent the situation, it's here:

http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2015/07/De-Obfuscating-the-Statistics-of-Mass-Shootings.html

 

Exceptional, mostly true depending on one's idea of what "exceptional" means. I'll take exceptional. Unique was the above claim. We are not at all unique when it comes to school shootings, or any other type of civilian shootings for that matter..

[TitanTiger 20,472]

2 minutes ago, Mikey said:

Exceptional, mostly true depending on one's idea of what "exceptional" means. I'll take exceptional. Unique was the above claim. We are not at all unique when it comes to school shootings, or any other type of civilian shootings for that matter..

Ok, dispense with "unique."  It's an argument over word choice that misses the actual point.  As I said previously...

Ok, school shootings aren't literally something that only happens in America.

School shootings and mass shootings in general are something that happens in America with multiple times more frequency and are multiple times more deadly in terms of the number of people killed, if you're comparing us to other industrialized, "First World" countries.  It's not apples to apples to say "But Honduras and Nicaragua..."  So, comparing us to places like Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Canada, etc., we are far worse off in terms of how often this sort of thing occurs and the number of people killed (and wounded) in each event.  This is undeniable not just in terms of raw numbers, but when measuring per capita.

So the primary question becomes:  "Why?"  What about the United States, makes us so different from our nearest counterparts around the world?  Are we so different culturally that we believe we have nothing to learn or glean from the experiences and efforts in other countries like us to significantly lessen the occurrence of events like this?

 

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 minute ago, TitanTiger said:

Ok, dispense with "unique."  It's an argument over word choice that misses the actual point.  As I said previously...

Ok, school shootings aren't literally something that only happens in America.

School shooting and mass shootings in general are something that happens in America with multiple times more frequency and are multiple times more deadly in terms of the number of people killed, if you're comparing us to other industrialized, "First World" countries.  It's not apples to apples to say "But Honduras and Nicaragua..."  So, comparing us to places like Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Canada, etc., we are far worse off in terms of how often this sort of thing occurs and the number of people killed (and wounded) in each event.  This is undeniable not just in terms of raw numbers, but when measuring per capita.

So the primary question becomes:  "Why?"  What about the United States, makes us so different from our nearest counterparts around the world?  Are we so different culturally that we believe we have nothing to learn or glean from the experiences and efforts in other countries like us to significantly lessen the occurrence of events like this?

 

So many arguments are currently missing the point. 

A lot of focus right now is on what we can do to make schools safer. Great. What does that have to do with Las Vegas or Orlando?

A lot of the focus on Orlando was on terrorism and bigotry. Great. What does that have to do with Parkland or Las Vegas?

And so on. Only one constant in all this. 

What's crazy to me is that nobody, in all the obnoxious opposition to the word "ban", has ever once offered up a legitimate need for anything other than a shotgun or other type of hunting rifle. It usually just resorts to developmentally arrested dipsh**s with inadequacy issues claiming or insinuating weakness on the part of those who would favor certain bans and other sensible legislation. 

[Mikey 16,576]

3 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

So the primary question becomes:  "Why?"  What about the United States, makes us so different from our nearest counterparts around the world?  Are we so different culturally that we believe we have nothing to learn or glean from the experiences and efforts in other countries like us to significantly lessen the occurrence of events like this?

 

I don't know why. I hung out with some pretty rough kids at some pretty rough schools growing up in urban Miami. M-1 and M-2 carbines were available, which could have easily approximated what today's AR-15 does. A few AK-47's, the world's choice for terrorists and small armies were also around if not as plentiful as the war surplus carbines. Yet, nobody sprayed down their school, drugstore hangout or Saturday night dance.

The better question is "What has changed in America"? That one is in the lap of people that study the social sciences. Looking at guns is looking in the wrong direction.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

1 minute ago, Mikey said:

I don't know why. I hung out with some pretty rough kids at some pretty rough schools growing up in urban Miami. M-1 and M-2 carbines were available, which could have easily approximated what today's AR-15 does. A few AK-47's, the world's choice for terrorists and small armies were also around if not as plentiful as the war surplus carbines. Yet, nobody sprayed down their school, drugstore hangout or Saturday night dance.

The better question is "What has changed in America"? That one is in the lap of people that study the social sciences. Looking at guns is looking in the wrong direction.

That is a good question, but I don't think it goes far enough.  "What has changed in America that hasn't changed in other countries like us?" would be better.  How have we managed to change so much for the worse in this regard while others seem to have improved?

[McLoofus 35,182]

4 minutes ago, Mikey said:

I don't know why. I hung out with some pretty rough kids at some pretty rough schools growing up in urban Miami. M-1 and M-2 carbines were available, which could have easily approximated what today's AR-15 does. A few AK-47's, the world's choice for terrorists and small armies were also around if not as plentiful as the war surplus carbines. Yet, nobody sprayed down their school, drugstore hangout or Saturday night dance.

The better question is "What has changed in America"? That one is in the lap of people that study the social sciences. Looking at guns is looking in the wrong direction.

We regularly tailor our laws to the lowest common denominator as changing behaviors so dictate. 

When the seatbelt conversation came up in the... 50s? 60s?... I doubt anyone suggested that the problem was that cars had gotten faster and we needed to slow them back down. 

[Mikey 16,576]

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

So many arguments are currently missing the point. 

A lot of focus right now is on what we can do to make schools safer. Great. What does that have to do with Las Vegas or Orlando?

A lot of the focus on Orlando was on terrorism and bigotry. Great. What does that have to do with Parkland or Las Vegas?

And so on. Only one constant in all this. 

What's crazy to me is that nobody, in all the obnoxious opposition to the word "ban", has ever once offered up a legitimate need for anything other than a shotgun or other type of hunting rifle. It usually just resorts to developmentally arrested dipsh**s with inadequacy issues claiming or insinuating weakness on the part of those who would favor certain bans and other sensible legislation. 

I don't own one of the military style weapons, mainly because I don't have a use for one. Ammunition is costly. Those things chew up boxes of ammo and I have plenty of other firearms to shoot. That having been said:

There are those out there that want these things. I know two people that hunt with them. Some think that they would be useful if "The Government" tried to overthrow the status quo. Someone used this rather weak analogy: "Rosa Parks didn't need to sit in the front of the bus. She just wanted to sit there and it should have been her right to sit there." I suppose that could be applied to ownership of a military style weapon. It's their right to own such things, why shouldn't they own them? It would take a lot more $ to try to get these things out of circulation than would be required to provide adequate protection.

[McLoofus 35,182]

2 minutes ago, Mikey said:

I don't own one of the military style weapons, mainly because I don't have a use for one. Ammunition is costly. Those things chew up boxes of ammo and I have plenty of other firearms to shoot. That having been said:

There are those out there that want these things. I know two people that hunt with them. Some think that they would be useful if "The Government" tried to overthrow the status quo. Someone used this rather weak analogy: "Rosa Parks didn't need to sit in the front of the bus. She just wanted to sit there and it should have been her right to sit there." I suppose that could be applied to ownership of a military style weapon. It's their right to own such things, why shouldn't they own them? It would take a lot more $ to try to get these things out of circulation than would be required to provide adequate protection.

These are fair points, but I disagree with the last 2 sentences. I don't think that the Constitution guarantees a right to own any ballistic weapon we can come up with, and I'm not sure that spending even a couple billion- I could be wrong, but that feels like a conservatively high estimate- to get them off the streets would be more than it costs to respond to them. I mean, how much do we think just Parkland alone cost law enforcement? How much are we spending to protect law enforcement against increasingly lethal civilians? What about the medical costs/ramifications of these events?  

I don't know. Maybe these things boost the economy. Maybe the tax revenue on these guns floats a lot of boats. But I do imagine there are a lot of hidden and downstream costs in responding to murders. 

[TitanTiger 20,472]

9 minutes ago, Mikey said:

I don't own one of the military style weapons, mainly because I don't have a use for one. Ammunition is costly. Those things chew up boxes of ammo and I have plenty of other firearms to shoot. That having been said:

There are those out there that want these things. I know two people that hunt with them. Some think that they would be useful if "The Government" tried to overthrow the status quo. Someone used this rather weak analogy: "Rosa Parks didn't need to sit in the front of the bus. She just wanted to sit there and it should have been her right to sit there." I suppose that could be applied to ownership of a military style weapon. It's their right to own such things, why shouldn't they own them? It would take a lot more $ to try to get these things out of circulation than would be required to provide adequate protection.

I think we could work out arrangements where such weapons could be owned but had to be kept under lock and key at a secure shooting range facility.  You can go, fire off as many rounds as you like for fun, then the gun stays on premises and you go home without it.  That's just one idea.  It could be altered some.  I only mention it to say that we can make accommodations to allow limited access to certain weaponry without it being a free for all.

As far as overthrowing the government, that's a pipe dream. A handful of hardcore militia types who are into AK-47s, AR-15s and the like are not going to topple a government with the US military at its disposal.  A few scattered thousand people with automatic or semi-automatic rifles aren't going to be any resistance to a force with armored vehicles, drones, smart bombs, fully automatic weapons, high caliber stationary rapid-fire guns, A-10 Warthogs, tanks and so on. 

I would say that the "right" to own certain kinds of arms is not without any constraint.  We don't allow people to own nuclear weapons.  We don't allow people to own tanks and fighter jets that still have the guns, missile systems (much less missiles) and firing control mechanisms intact.  I can't set up a Patriot missile defense battery on my property even if I live in the boondocks.  We classify certain kinds of weapons as too powerful, too dangerous, and unnecessary for the average citizen.  You can still allow a person to have a pistol and/or shotgun for personal and home protection without letting them have any arms they could possibly desire, can't you?

[Grumps 3,704]

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 7:40 PM, RunInRed said:

 

If we rename "school" as "uterus" then the liberals will want the government to pay people to go into all of the poor and predominately black schools and kill them with semi-automatic weapons, right?

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

What's crazy to me is that nobody, in all the obnoxious opposition to the word "ban", has ever once offered up a legitimate need for anything other than a shotgun or other type of hunting rifle. It usually just resorts to developmentally arrested dipsh**s with inadequacy issues claiming or insinuating weakness on the part of those who would favor certain bans and other sensible legislation.

Seriously? You need someone to legitimize legally owning and/or carrying a pistol (something other than a shotgun or hunting rifle) around their waist?

Majority of the bans called for completely fail to address the very guns by which gun violence occurs. After all, at the core of what we really want is to decrease the lives lost due to gun violence - be live lost in the minority occasion (mass shootings) or the majority occasion (non-mass shootings). Assuming that's what we want, then the plausible ban that one should find most likely appeasing would be a pistol ban. In other words, a strict assault rifle ban doesn't address the very gun from which most gun deaths occur. Now, if you are a ban proponent, but your objective is not to stop the guns by which the vast majority of gun related deaths currently occur, then go ahead and only focus on banning assault rifles. 

In essence, to achieve what many ban proponents want would require an overturning of a slew of Supreme Court Cases and a Constitutional Amendment. IMO, this sort of nefarious thinking is exactly the type of tyranny our Constitution protects against and also testifies to the reasons why our government has limits. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

6 minutes ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Seriously? You need someone to legitimize legally owning and/or carrying a pistol (something other than a shotgun or hunting rifle) around their waist?

I neither need nor want anyone to attempt to legitimize pistols to me.

Quote

Majority of the bans called for completely fail to address the very guns by which gun violence occurs. After all, at the core of what we really want is to decrease the lives lost due to gun violence - be live lost in the minority occasion (mass shootings) or the majority occasion (non-mass shootings). Assuming that's what we want, then the plausible ban that one should find most likely appeasing would be a pistol ban. In other words, a strict assault rifle ban doesn't address the very gun from which most gun deaths occur. Now, if you are a ban proponent, but your objective is not to stop the guns by which the vast majority of gun related deaths currently occur, then go ahead and only focus on banning assault rifles. 

But... I just said...

Quote

In essence, to achieve what many ban proponents want would require an overturning of a slew of Supreme Court Cases and a Constitutional Amendment. IMO, this sort of nefarious thinking is exactly the type of tyranny our Constitution protects against and also testifies to the reasons why our government has limits. 

Once again, this is why the conversation inevitably becomes stupid. Nobody. Said. Anything. About. Banning. All. Guns.

Also, tyranny? "LOL."- W. Lapierre

[SaltyTiger 7,789]

13 hours ago, homersapien said:

I own a BAR in .270 Winchester, a Remington 870 in 12 ga. (w/ two barrels) and a Smith&Wesson 'Chief's Special'.  (I've pared my gun inventory down to the essentials for every legitimate need.)

The latter two are kept loaded.

What about you, sonny?

 

Perhaps we should look into restrictions on gun ownership. I never thought about people like you......

[TitanTiger 20,472]

23 minutes ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Seriously? You need someone to legitimize legally owning and/or carrying a pistol (something other than a shotgun or hunting rifle) around their waist?

Majority of the bans called for completely fail to address the very guns by which gun violence occurs. After all, at the core of what we really want is to decrease the lives lost due to gun violence - be live lost in the minority occasion (mass shootings) or the majority occasion (non-mass shootings). Assuming that's what we want, then the plausible ban that one should find most likely appeasing would be a pistol ban. In other words, a strict assault rifle ban doesn't address the very gun from which most gun deaths occur. Now, if you are a ban proponent, but your objective is not to stop the guns by which the vast majority of gun related deaths currently occur, then go ahead and only focus on banning assault rifles. 

In essence, to achieve what many ban proponents want would require an overturning of a slew of Supreme Court Cases and a Constitutional Amendment. IMO, this sort of nefarious thinking is exactly the type of tyranny our Constitution protects against and also testifies to the reasons why our government has limits. 

Let's not go down the trail of "if we can't solve all issues with gun violence, then let's not do anything to solve some issues with gun violence."  Let's start with the preferred weapons in mass shootings that make such events far more deadly.  We can do this in pieces and start with the obvious, right in our faces, low-hanging fruit.  After we do that, we can look to see if there is any role for legal means in combating other forms of gun violence.  But don't fail to act in a manner that we can just because we can't fix everything in one fell swoop.

[McLoofus 35,182]

6 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

Let's not go down the trail of "if we can't solve all issues with gun violence, then let's not do anything to solve some issues with gun violence."  Let's start with the preferred weapons in mass shooting that make such events far more deadly.  We can do this in pieces and start with the obvious, right in our faces, low-hanging fruit.  After we do that, we can look to see if there is any role for legal means in combating other forms of gun violence.  But don't fail to act in a manner that we can just because we can't fix everything in one fell swoop.

I have a Libertarian friend who considers it hypocritical and bad to ban plastic shopping bags but not other single-use plastic products. 

If we banned AR-15s and it resulted in 1 less shooting death a year on average, then it will have been worth it. 

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

Let's not go down the trail of "if we can't solve all issues with gun violence, then let's not do anything to solve some issues with gun violence."  Let's start with the preferred weapons in mass shootings that make such events far more deadly.  We can do this in pieces and start with the obvious, right in our faces, low-hanging fruit.  After we do that, we can look to see if there is any role for legal means in combating other forms of gun violence.  But don't fail to act in a manner that we can just because we can't fix everything in one fell swoop.

Why not start with the preferred weapons in shootings in general which are not assault rifles, but account for far more deaths per year? A complete ban of assault rifles could stop a mass-shooting (if we assume other things also), but it does not stop the majority of shootings that take place in America. The objective isn't achieved and the results are speculative at best. Furthermore, and speaking to a larger point, the administrability of such ban proposals is absurd - I can discuss that if you'd like. 

Alternatively we could start completely somewhere else. One thing that needs to happen is the damned reporting agencies need to get their act together. The kid was red flagged all over and we recently had that dishonorable shoot up a church. Both were very stoppable if the right people were talking/doing their job.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

58 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Once again, this is why the conversation inevitably becomes stupid. Nobody. Said. Anything. About. Banning. All. Guns.

Correct. I didn't say that either. But if you're to combat gun-violence with ban legislation, then I'd suppose one would want to address the type of gun used in most shootings - pistols. 

Before I go any further, could you clarify what you mean by certain bans and exactly how those bans would decrease gun-violence?