Gunman shoots 18 people.

[Ranb]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/university.shooting/index.html

Gunman shoots 13 people on university campus, no fatalities reported so far.

Ranb

Edited to correct casualties.

[Drudgewire]

Hope there are no fatalities. :(

[Fnord]

Hope there are no fatalities. :(

So far, only the nut with the gun.

[Drudgewire]

So far, only the nut with the gun.
Yeah, let me rephrase that. I hope there are no fatalities except the rule10ing rule10er that did it.

[Skibum]

Hope there are no fatalities. :(

From the sounds of it there will probably be quite a few dead, as many of the victims were reported to be shot in the head.

It'll probably take awhile to assess the situation before any numbers are given out.

[Lothian]

That is awful. 30 shots, 17 people shot none dead. Was this man not taught to shoot properly? I blame the parents, he is a disgrace to the militia.

[Mobyseven]

13? I thought the article still said 18.

And the gunman shot himself. I'm pretty sure that's fatal.

[Drudgewire]

4 critical, 8 stable, 6 fair to good.

The president just gave a press conference that consisted of every question being answered with "we don't have that information."

[Ranb]

13? I thought the article still said 18.

And the gunman shot himself. I'm pretty sure that's fatal.

When I first saw the article, it said 13 shot. I wrote 18 in the title by mistake. Right after I corrected the body of the post to 13, the number had been updated to 17 shot and gun man killed. The news moves fast.

Ranb

[fuelair]

A person who tells the truth to the press like that is welcome to have a beer with me. They are smart enough (press) to know that most, if not all, questions are unansweable with any real accuracy early on and are just concerned with something to print, read out or editorialize over. Hell with 'em!!

[Drudgewire]

A person who tells the truth to the press like that is welcome to have a beer with me. They are smart enough (press) to know that most, if not all, questions are unansweable with any real accuracy early on and are just concerned with something to print, read out or editorialize over. Hell with 'em!!
Your post reminded me why I left Journalism in disgust and hate reporters so much, so I am now in total agreement with you and that guy rules.

[WildCat]

The shooter wasn't even a student at the school. And he used a shotgun, which explains why there were so many shot but relatively few deaths.

Incidentally, I am an alum of NIU and had several classes in that lecture hall. There's actually 2 large, auditorium-style lecture halls in that building and some classes hold 150 students.

[Fnord]

As of this posting:

Wounded: 14
Dead: 4 + Gunman

MSNBC LINK (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23171567?GT1=10856)

[LawnOven]

I took my statistics final in Cole Hall.

Something like this would happen in Dekalb.


Oh and incidentally, in case you forgot or didn't know; there were "death threats" on NIU's campus at the end of last semester, which caused the university to shut down for a day.

[WildCat]

Some details I heard on another board I'm on, from a guy whose roommate was in that class.

Apparently, the gunman sat in the class in the middle of the room, and left halfway through. No one thought anything of it since people often leave class early. He then came back in through the back door just before the class ended (one of the doors on either side of the stage where the professor was) by kicking it open. There was a silent pause, then he pulled a shotgun out from behind his back and started shooting. The professor was right next to him, he got shot in the arm.

The shooter wasn't even a student there.

6 dead now is the latest report.

[Drudgewire]

6 dead now is the latest report.
:(

[LostAngeles]

CNN is reporting he was at sociology grad student although not currently enrolled.

I'm now wondering what the class was...

[LostAngeles]

OK, CNN says it was geology.

[Drudgewire]

For the record, that's five real people dead and one scumbag I hope there's a Hell for tonight.

[Pardalis]

Again? How many shootings does that make in the last few months?

[Puppycow]

Man. That sucks.

[LostAngeles]

Again? How many shootings does that make in the last few months?

I'm only aware of the nursing school shooting a few weeks ago.

[a_unique_person]

Fifth school shooting in a matter of days.

[Overman]

Had a lot of buddies go there. This is awful.

[Puppycow]

Speaking of grisly murders, there was one here in Japan a couple days ago. (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080213a3.html)
SURVIVOR'S HANDS LOPPED OFF
Family ax murder-suicide claims three
Kyodo News

Three members of a family were found dead Monday afternoon in a suspected murder-suicide at their home in Adachi Ward, Tokyo, and another was found alive but severely mutilated, police said.

Listed in critical condition, the survivor, a 15-year-old boy, told rescuers as he was being rushed to a hospital that his father had attacked him. The youth was found with his hands chopped off and the back of his head caved in, Nishiarai Police Station officials said.

The deceased have been identified as Toru Sasaki, 52, his wife, Kazuko, 49, and his mother, Tokuko, 84. The boy, in his first year of high school, has only been identified as Sasaki's second son, police said.

[Drudgewire]

Had a lot of buddies go there. This is awful.
You have my very deepest sympathies and while all life is important I hope no one close to you was involved. :(

[LostAngeles]

Fifth school shooting in a matter of days.

The fifth? Are you sure? :eye-poppi

[LostAngeles]

Had a lot of buddies go there. This is awful.

Is everyone ok?

[WildCat]

OK, CNN says it was geology.
Oceanography to be specific.

[Pardalis]

Anybody want to argue against gun control now?

[WildCat]

Anybody want to argue against gun control now?
By "control" you mean a ban, right?

Yeah, I'll argue against it. Rare cases make bad law.

[Pardalis]

Rare cases make bad law.

These cases get less rare by the minute.

[Drudgewire]

Anybody want to argue against gun control now?
You really want to start this following a shooting in an area considered a gun-free zone?

Yeah, I'm game... although it's late so I may not respond until morning.

[Pardalis]

You really want to start this following a shooting in an area considered a gun-free zone?

Yeah, I'm game... although it's late so I may not respond until morning.

Well, it's gonna come up sooner or later.

We can't wait for the next shooting to start debating on it.

[Drudgewire]

We can't wait for the next shooting to start debating on it.
Tru dat. :)

See you in the morning. Yay for wrap-up/slack off Fridays at work.

[LostAngeles]

Hold on, I'll do it for you:

If he didn't have a gun, this never would have happened.

If someone else had a gun he could have been stopped.

*repeat*

[Drudgewire]

Hold on, I'll do it for you:

If he didn't have a gun, this never would have happened.

If someone else had a gun he could have been stopped.

*repeat*

Party pooper. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/colbert.gif

[WildCat]

These cases get less rare by the minute.
Less rare or more sensationalized?

Murder rates have been dropping since the drug wars of the early 80's.

What we have is suicidal scumbags who want to take out others before they off themselves because they somehow see this as a blaze of glory. Probably just a matter of time before they start strapping bombs to themselves to up the death toll even more.

A few years ago we had a girl who tried to kill herself by colliding head-on with another car (http://cbs2chicago.com/northsuburbanbureau/jeanette.sliwinski.sentencing.2.595975.html). She lived, but 3 guys in the other car were killed. She only got a sentence of 8 years*... :(

Suicide used to be a private thing, apparently that's not the case any more.


*likely she'll be out in 2.

[Pardalis]

Suicide used to be a private thing, apparently that's not the case any more.

Let's just not give them the rope they need. If they can't get guns then at least that'll be one good thing.

Of course you could argue that they would come up with another weapon to use, but at least guns (their prefered choice it would seem at the moment) will be out of the equation.

[a_unique_person]

The fifth? Are you sure? :eye-poppi

Just what I read in the paper. They didn't list the events, or the exact number of days.

[WildCat]

Let's just not give them the rope they need. If they can't get guns then at least that'll be one good thing.

Of course you could argue that they would come up with another weapon to use, but at least guns (their prefered choice it would seem at the moment) will be out of the equation.
Was a time rope was all the needed, or a bridge to jump off, or a running car in a closed garage, or a private bullet to the head.

Now you have to take out as many people as you can. I was serious when I said the next step will be a suicide vest in a crowd, it's not that hard to do. I have no doubt it will be the next fad as soon as one person does it.

It will be interesting to see what the background of this guy was. These types of things are usually the end result of a long string of ignored warning signs.

[a_unique_person]

Six dead.

[LostAngeles]

Less rare or more sensationalized?

Murder rates have been dropping since the drug wars of the early 80's.

What we have is suicidal scumbags who want to take out others before they off themselves because they somehow see this as a blaze of glory. Probably just a matter of time before they start strapping bombs to themselves to up the death toll even more.

A few years ago we had a girl who tried to kill herself by colliding head-on with another car (http://cbs2chicago.com/northsuburbanbureau/jeanette.sliwinski.sentencing.2.595975.html). She lived, but 3 guys in the other car were killed. She only got a sentence of 8 years*... :(

Suicide used to be a private thing, apparently that's not the case any more.


*likely she'll be out in 2.

I've been seriously suicidal tons of times. Standing from a stance of normalcy and trying to figure out my thought processes when I'm that way is a mess. The things that make sense, the logistical reasoning...

Distorted thinking leads to really bizzare conclusions.

Maybe they're trying to inflict their pain on others? I don't know. I can't understand taking random people with you. I just know that in my case, being suicidal really ****s up your reasoning.

Maybe it is the attention. "Hey! Look at me! I hurt! Feel my pain!"

Just what I read in the paper. They didn't list the events, or the exact number of days.

Ok. I was wondering if you had a list or something handy.

Party pooper. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/colbert.gif

Hey, I can finish it off too:

The general consensus is that dangerous people should not be in possession of guns, but the partisan bickering, heated feelings, and trolls from either end of the spectrum ruin any attempt at coming to a general, acceptable resolution and the the thread dies until the next mass shooting.

[LawnOven]

Interesting, how many threads discussing gun control, brought about by tragic events can this sub-forum support at once?

[LostAngeles]

Interesting, how many threads discussing gun control, brought about by tragic events can this sub-forum support at once?

Many years ago, on the forum where I met my boyfriend, the denziens would manage to crash the software almost daily from posting too much.

While I expect that this software is much more stable, I also expect a crash of this sub-forum in about... another tragic event or two?

[a_unique_person]

Was a time rope was all the needed, or a bridge to jump off, or a running car in a closed garage, or a private bullet to the head.

Now you have to take out as many people as you can. I was serious when I said the next step will be a suicide vest in a crowd, it's not that hard to do. I have no doubt it will be the next fad as soon as one person does it.

It will be interesting to see what the background of this guy was. These types of things are usually the end result of a long string of ignored warning signs.

Which is the sign of a dysfunctional society as much as a dysfunctional individual. He was also likely a law abiding citizen before he wasn't.

[LawnOven]

Which is the sign of a dysfunctional society as much as a dysfunctional individual.He was also likely a law abiding citizen before he wasn't.


In the depths of winter in Dekalb, it is a depressing place. Theres just something about that town, which doesn't lend itself well to positive mental health. Last year, someone committed suicide on the train tracks behind my apartment. Then there was the time the police were diving in the pond near where we lived, looking for our neighbors old high school friend, who had gone missing after leaving a bar one night.

Some how its hard for me to be surprised by all of this.

Incidentally, my fiance(e) used to TA in the class room where the shooting occurred.


FORMER STUDENT
Peters said the gunman was a sociology major who last attended classes as a graduate student in the spring of 2007 and who may have since enrolled at a different college. He said he had no police record or previous contact with police. http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSKRA48086720080215?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Yep you were right. He apparently was law abiding.
At least, for me, he wasn't an Anthropologist; because then I would probably know him.

[Big Les]

The shooter wasn't even a student at the school. And he used a shotgun, which explains why there were so many shot but relatively few deaths.

Really? I thought shotgun wounds (at this sort of range) were more damaging than handgun bullets - mostly because they're comparable to multiple handgun bullets fired at once (unless it was bird shot or something). There's also a higher chance of hitting with at least some of the shot, in one shot, whereas repeated trigger pulls on a pistol can easily all go stray.

Sorry to be so cold about it. :(

[Normal Dude]

Really? I thought shotgun wounds (at this sort of range) were more damaging than handgun bullets - mostly because they're comparable to multiple handgun bullets fired at once (unless it was bird shot or something). There's also a higher chance of hitting with at least some of the shot, in one shot, whereas repeated trigger pulls on a pistol can easily all go stray.

Depends on the shot in the shells.

[Big Les]

Obviously - but you could say the same thing to Wildcat. We certainly can't say that the reason for the low number of deaths was the shotgun - it could have been the handguns missing or inflicting non-fatal wounds, or any number of environmental factors. Maybe he was a crap shot with all of the weapons?

The Stockton school shooting involved an AK47, and many survived those wounds too.

[Lucky]

The fifth? Are you sure? :eye-poppiJust what I read in the paper. They didn't list the events, or the exact number of days.


The fourth, according to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7246003.stm).
It is also the fourth shooting at a US education establishment within a week.

Last Friday, a woman shot dead two fellow students before killing herself at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. In Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a student on Monday, and a 15-year-old was shot at a junior high school in California on Tuesday.

[baron]

Interesting, how many threads discussing gun control, brought about by tragic events can this sub-forum support at once?

Perhaps there should be a separate forum entitled "Multi-victim Civilian Shootings in the US".

[Darth Rotor]

These cases get less rare by the minute.
You only know what you read in the papers. Your problem is that you are focusing on an event in a location you don't associate with any danger, a college campus. Multiple murders happen each week in major cities.

Your silence on that appears to be callousness. No, it doesn't, it's a matter of staring at a spike.

I'll remind you that 30,000,000 lawful gun owners didn't kill anyone yesterday. Your draconian approach is noted, and is consigned to the same dustbin as draconian drug laws that do no good.

DR

[ponderingturtle]

The general consensus is that dangerous people should not be in possession of guns, but the partisan bickering, heated feelings, and trolls from either end of the spectrum ruin any attempt at coming to a general, acceptable resolution and the the thread dies until the next mass shooting.

The problem is clearly identifying dangerous people before hand.

From your admission in this thread, it would seem that you are not stable enough to be considered a safe person to own guns for example.

That is going by the VT shootings and the shooter their having issues with depression and suicidal thoughts in the past.

[ponderingturtle]

The fourth, according to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7246003.stm).

But those are all personal disputes that generaly fall under the radar and get forgotten about when talking about school violence.

As violent deaths in schools have been decreaseing, this would seem to be an expected statistical cluster.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The gunman has been identified as Steven Kazmierczak.

Reports that he was despondent over not being able to spell is name have not been confirmed.

[Darth Rotor]

The gunman has been identified as Steven Kazmierczak.

Reports that he was despondent over not being able to spell is name have not been confirmed.
I blame the teachers for not teaching how to spell phone net tickly.

Ban the NEA!

Lost Angeles: I think you are on the right track

Maybe it is the attention. "Hey! Look at me! I hurt! Feel my pain!"
We have long since entered the Warhol Horror Generation.

DR

[LawnOven]

Apparently he published a professional paper as an undergrad about prison suicides and self inflicted wounds or something.

Pretty crazy.

"I think everyone is numb and kind of out of it. This just doesn't happen in DeKalb," said Rosa Balli, 47, owner of Eduardo's Mexican Restaurant.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-niu-shooting_webfeb16,0,4111841.story?page=1

Yes it does.

I mean yeah its not like everyday someone shot up the campus. But there was enough bizarre, violent s--- that happened there in the 3 years that I lived in that town, to make that statement look like no more than wishful thinking to me. I mean just a couple of months ago they shut down the campus during finals week because of threats of mass murder.

I guess the news isn't going to interview the guy that says "Yeah, boy I saw this one coming; it was only a matter of time!" That just doesn't sound very good.

[Pardalis]

Multiple murders happen each week in major cities.

Yes, and alot of them involve guns.

I'll remind you that 30,000,000 lawful gun owners didn't kill anyone yesterday. Your draconian approach is noted, and is consigned to the same dustbin as draconian drug laws that do no good. I'm not talking about a ban, but a very strict registry. We have one in Canada, but I think it should be more strict and include all kinds of guns, because obviously it failed us again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_College_Shooting).

I don't see what's the fascination with having a gun in the house. Civilians should do what they are supposed to do, live their lives instead of playing cowboys and indians. The police will take care of protecting them, that's their job.

[WildCat]

Well, now we have a possible reason. And it's very similar to the VT shooter (http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080215/47b51c50_3ca6_1552620080215-1893583530):
The man who gunned down five people at Northern Illinois University in a suicidal rampage became erratic after halting his medication and carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case, police said Friday.
I thought they were going to crack down on psychiatric patients being able to buy firearms? Guess not...:mad:

[Skibum]

The police will take care of protecting them, that's their job.

If that's the case, every cop on the planet is an almost complete failure.

[WildCat]

In the depths of winter in Dekalb, it is a depressing place. Theres just something about that town, which doesn't lend itself well to positive mental health. Last year, someone committed suicide on the train tracks behind my apartment.
Man, I hear you! When I went to NIU in the late 80's (graduated in '90) those train tracks were the suicide method of choice for several students. The running sick joke at the time was that NIU students died in strange ways. Besides the obvious suicides on the train tracks, there were several others killed walking on them going home from the downtown bars (those freight trains go through DeKalb at very high speed). It seemed several would also die every year choking on their own vomit after drinking too much. We had one guy steal a glass from a bar (McCabe's, long since closed), slipped on the ice on the sidewalk, the glass broke and severed an artery in his leg and he bled to death. I was also acquainted with 2 guys who were tripping on LSD one night, and for some reason decided to see who could stand closest to the train going by. The "winner" was beheaded by a ladder attached to one of the cars.

And a friend of mine to this day was paralyzed from the waist down during a frat initiation. He had been blindfolded and they were leading him along the train tracks, and while going over a viaduct he fell through the tracks and onto the street below.

I don't know what it is about that place, but I did have a good time there!

[Marquis de Carabas]

Someone callous enough could make a tidy sum releasing a cover version of Leadbelly's "DeKalb Blues" with updated lyrics. There's always a way to market grief.

[LostAngeles]

The fourth, according to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7246003.stm).

You know, I have to be honest here. There are school shootings and there are school shootings. One is where a kid shows up and starts shooting randomly like yesterday and the nursing student. The other is where one kid shows up and shoots the other. The latter has happened so often here and for so long I barely blink at it.

The problem is clearly identifying dangerous people before hand.

From your admission in this thread, it would seem that you are not stable enough to be considered a safe person to own guns for example.

That is going by the VT shootings and the shooter their having issues with depression and suicidal thoughts in the past.

I'm having difficulty properly registering my offense at this post. I can't even see how that was a necessary comment. Really, you should have just called the UCPD and warned them that because of my depression and past suicidal thoughts, I'm a shooting threat.

BTW: My last name is often mispelled as well. It's Scottish and composed of two fairly common English words. You might want to jump on the phone.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
I'm not talking about a ban, but a very strict registry. We have one in Canada, but I think it should be more strict and include all kinds of guns, because obviously it failed us again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson_College_Shooting).

May I ask how a registry helps identify people who are likely to go off their meds and jackassulate?

I don't see what's the fascination with having a gun in the house. Civilians should do what they are supposed to do, live their lives instead of playing cowboys and indians. The police will take care of protecting them, that's their job.

Actually, in the US, the police are there to enforce the law and have no specific duty to protect the people. There just aren't enough of them.

...and, actually, the ones who DO play Cowboys and Indians (http://www.sassnet.com/) have a very low rate of gun crime and accidental shootings. I suspect it's because if they screw up on the society's safety regulations, they don't get to play, and if they screw up on the state and federal gun laws, they don't get to have the guns at all.

[LostAngeles]

Hi


May I ask how a registry helps identify people who are likely to go off their meds and jackassulate?



Actually, in the US, the police are there to enforce the law and have no specific duty to protect the people. There just aren't enough of them.

...and, actually, the ones who DO play Cowboys and Indians (http://www.sassnet.com/) have a very low rate of gun crime and accidental shootings. I suspect it's because if they screw up on the society's safety regulations, they don't get to play, and if they screw up on the state and federal gun laws, they don't get to have the guns at all.

Hey!

I already had this argument for you both! Either settle down now or I will turn this thread right the hell around and no one will be getting any ice cream except me and your dad!

[baron]

Apparently this guy was on medication and all four guns he used were legal and licensed to him.

"These things happen," said the chief investigating officer at the press interview.

You couldn't make it up.

[Bikewer]

As a police officer of many years experience, I can assure you that the chance of police protecting you from a given crime is vanishingly small. I've been in police work since 1968, and my involvement with crimes "in progress" might easily be counted on the fingers of two hands.

We do a fair-to-middlin' job of finding and arresting criminals after the fact, but that does little to protect the victim.
How many of these mass killings have been interrupted by police?

It's the nature of these things to be essentially unexpected. Even when individuals present warning signs, they are often ignored by family and friends. Medical professionals are either prohibited from communicating alarming symptoms to police, or reluctant to do so.

We would like to think that the average citizen has little to fear from home invasion, serial rapists, and drug-addicted burglars who may react violently if discovered, but the fact remains that all these things happen, and they happen more frequently in some areas of the country.
Forgive citizens who feel a little more secure with a defensive weapon in their home.

Unfortunately, in cases such as this one, the weapon involved may have been legally purchased and kept in all due safety for years, until whatever circumstances conspire to drive the owner over the edge.
Then, that legally-acquired weapon may be the instrument of a mass murder. Since we have no functioning crystal balls at present, I don't see any way of preventing such things.

News just in indicates that the fellow had purchased at least one of these weapons quite legally within the week, that he "had been on medication" (unspecified), but that he had recently quit taking it.
All too typical. An individual with some sort of mental-health problem, likely of recent onset, with no warning signs whatever.

[Drudgewire]

We would like to think that the average citizen has little to fear from home invasion, serial rapists, and drug-addicted burglars who may react violently if discovered, but the fact remains that all these things happen, and they happen more frequently in some areas of the country.

Forgive citizens who feel a little more secure with a defensive weapon in their home.
Thank you. And thank you for your service. :)

How many of these mass killings have been interrupted by police?

Off the top of my head I can only think of one, that being the club incident where Dimebag Darryl was killed... and that was just happenstance that an off-duty officer was at the show.

[LostAngeles]

Thank you. And thank you for your service. :)
...

Ditto. I wish we could get Bikewer on TV to shut the talking heads up with that.

[WildCat]

Apparently this guy was on medication and all four guns he used were legal and licensed to him.
Not really. Here (http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/6-181.pdf) is the application for a Firearms Owners Identification Card here in Illinois. Note question #3 "In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?".

Problem is, medical privacy laws prevent this from actually being checked on. This needs to change! I don't think the honor system is adequate in this case.

eta: Illinois does not license or register firearms, just the owners.

[Nogbad]

According to the Yahoo news report he was considered a good student and a generally OK guy. It would appear that something flipped his switch.

There are a large number of guns in circulation in the US but invariably these shootings are ended by the shooter taking his or her own life. Does the argument "guns are essential to stop this sort of thing" really hold water?

[TellyKNeasuss]

We do a fair-to-middlin' job of finding and arresting criminals after the fact, but that does little to protect the victim.
How many of these mass killings have been interrupted by police?

What percentage of all homicides do these mass killings comprise?

We would like to think that the average citizen has little to fear from home invasion, serial rapists, and drug-addicted burglars who may react violently if discovered, but the fact remains that all these things happen, and they happen more frequently in some areas of the country.
Forgive citizens who feel a little more secure with a defensive weapon in their home.Given that even studies done by pro-gun researchers have shown that people who live in homes where there is a gun are more likely to be homicide victims than people who live in homes where there not a gun (not to mention the accidental deaths), people who feel think that they are safer having a gun are living in a fantasy world.

[Pardalis]

Hi

May I ask how a registry helps identify people who are likely to go off their meds and jackassulate?

It won't. It would certainly make it a little more difficult for them to obtain arms, especially if their background is being checked.

Actually, in the US, the police are there to enforce the law and have no specific duty to protect the people.What about "to serve and protect"? Isn't that their credo?

...and, actually, the ones who DO play Cowboys and Indians (http://www.sassnet.com/) have a very low rate of gun crime and accidental shootings. I suspect it's because if they screw up on the society's safety regulations, they don't get to play, and if they screw up on the state and federal gun laws, they don't get to have the guns at all.I'm just saying people are trained to do certain things. Pro guns proponents seem to think they are supermen: during a shoot out they think they could spot the bad guy and take him out. To me that's absurd. You need training to do that, and even then nobody is immune to mistakes. Having a gun of your own doesn't make you safer, IMO it makes things even worse, it makes things even more unpredictable. It multiplies the possibility of something going wrong by a hundred.

[LostAngeles]

Not really. Here (http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/6-181.pdf) is the application for a Firearms Owners Identification Card here in Illinois. Note question #3 "In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?".

Problem is, medical privacy laws prevent this from actually being checked on. This needs to change! I don't think the honor system is adequate in this case.

eta: Illinois does not license or register firearms, just the owners.

See, I read that as, "have you been hospitalized for psychiatric care?" Nothing indicates the gunman was hospitalized. It's the difference between going to the Neuropsych hospital and the regular hospital.

I agree that the honor system is not at all adequate in such a situation. I can't see why there can't be a secure database where the name or even SSN is matched up against a true/false value. If true, then no gun, if false, that part of the application is clear.

[LawnOven]

Man, I hear you! When I went to NIU in the late 80's (graduated in '90) those train tracks were the suicide method of choice for several students. The running sick joke ...onto the street below.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Haha, I would say you knew some crazy people-- anywhere else they would be, but that sounds about right for that lovely place.

I remember one of the gentlemen in my Anthropology department wrote a thesis on how having a freight train running through the town every 10 minutes affected peoples lives.


I don't know what it is about that place, but I did have a good time there!

Well I'm glad someone enjoyed their time in Dekalb. :)

I finished a graduates degree there in the spring of 07'; and was quite happy to leave (to put it nicely).

[Drudgewire]

According to the Yahoo news report he was considered a good student and a generally OK guy. It would appear that something flipped his switch.

There are a large number of guns in circulation in the US but invariably these shootings are ended by the shooter taking his or her own life. Does the argument "guns are essential to stop this sort of thing" really hold water?
Him getting shot after killing one person rather than shooting until he got bored and offed himself? Yes, I'd consider someone else with a gun in that situation "essential."

[Fnord]

It will be interesting to see what the background of this guy was. These types of things are usually the end result of a long string of ignored warning signs.

According to this CNN LINK (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/02/15/university.shooting.suspect/?iref=mpstoryview), Steven Kazmierczak...

- was an award-winning sociology student.
- was a leader of a campus criminal justice group.
- displayed no "red flag" warnings of any violent behavior.
- worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in "corrections, political violence, and peace and social justice."
- co-authored a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States.
- was an awarded student ... someone that was revered by the faculty and staff and students alike.
- was a fairly normal, unstressed person.
- was taking medication but had recently stopped.
- had become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks.
- always paid his rent on time, never a noise problem, left his apartment spotless.
- was the recipient of a dean's award for his graduate work in sociology in 2006.
- served as vice president of the university's Academic Criminal Justice Association.
- worked on a paper on self-injury in prisons with the ACJA's current president.
- had no arrest record.
- had no known history of mental illness.
- had a valid state-required firearm ID card.

So what do we look for? Intelligent, well-behaved people who get good grades, pay their rent on time, and legally own firearms?

[WildCat]

It won't. It would certainly make it a little more difficult for them to obtain arms, especially if their background is being checked.
This is done. See my last post, that information is verified by the state police. Except medical records...

[E.J.Armstrong]

You only know what you read in the papers. Your problem is that you are focusing on an event in a location you don't associate with any danger, a college campus. Multiple murders happen each week in major cities.

Your silence on that appears to be callousness. No, it doesn't, it's a matter of staring at a spike.

I'll remind you that 30,000,000 lawful gun owners didn't kill anyone yesterday. Your draconian approach is noted, and is consigned to the same dustbin as draconian drug laws that do no good.

DR
The old - 'you only know what you read in papers' - appears again. I had missed its presence for a while. Glad to see it is still alive and providing general hilarity.

Why assume that he is not concerned about major cities. That would be a straw man would it not and you are exceptionally good at erecting and smokin' your own brand.

Are the draconian laws against murder that don't work also to be thrown in that same dustbin, if you are serious about that argument? Thou shalt not kill. What a draconian law that is - and it doesn't work either. Which liberal government came up with that rubbish?

After all, why have any laws at all when none of them get observed all the time? Darth Rotor demands anarchy for all.

Only in America.

[WildCat]

- had no known history of mental illness.
Except he did, apparently. And he was off his meds.

[LawnOven]

Someone callous enough could make a tidy sum releasing a cover version of Leadbelly's "DeKalb Blues" with updated lyrics. There's always a way to market grief.

Getchya famous Dekalb (memorial) Corn right here! Wrapped in a piece of barbed wire, signed by Cindy Crawford.

Yeah, I think that about covers everything Dekalb is famous for. Time to exploit!

[LostAngeles]

Except he did, apparently. And he was off his meds.

We don't know what those meds are. We can speculate that they were for mental illness since he became erratic afterwards, but they could have been any number of things. I was given low doses of an anti-depressant for migraines and that made me a bit loopy. The drug being marked for restless legs syndrome can cause compulsive behavior. Hell, he could have been on vicodin for all we know for a toothache and coming off the narcotic made him erratic.

Edit: I just popped over to Consumerist and found this. It's on the med, but what the hell, man?:

...The FDA has reported 37 suicides and more than 400 reports of suicidal behavior in connection with Chantix, a pleasure blocking drug that sits in the nicotine receptors and prevents the smoker from properly experiencing their nicotine high. The FDA recently issued a patient advisory about the drug, requesting that patients carefully monitor their moods. The possible side-effects of Chantix now include "anxiety, nervousness, tension, depressed mood, unusual behaviors and thinking about or attempting suicide."

... The FDA says "vivid, unusual, or strange dreams may occur while taking Chantix." The problem, it seems, is that for some people... these dreams don't just happen while you're asleep. ...

Links: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01788.html
http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/
http://consumerist.com/357049/this-is-your-brain-on-chantix (contains the above info)

End Edit

The highest probability is that you're right, WildCat, but I just wanted to point out there might be other things.

Also, it's not entirely conflicting that he had no known history of mental illness. If you asked my classmates and some of my friends, they would have no idea about my depression. You can put up some really good masks sometimes.

Now, if they had asked his doctors, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Apparently this guy was on medication and all four guns he used were legal and licensed to him.

In which case, he would have had the full support of the NRA.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The man of the hour:

[Drudgewire]

In which case, he would have had the full support of the NRA.
He would have had the support of the NRA to purchase them. If someone had been carrying and shot him dead while he was in the middle of the rampage, THEY would have had the FULL support of the NRA.

The NRA supports legal ownership AND USE of firearms. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/eng101.gif

[Nogbad]

Him getting shot after killing one person rather than shooting until he got bored and offed himself? Yes, I'd consider someone else with a gun in that situation "essential."

The point I made was that despite the large number of guns available this rarely happens. How "more armed" do you want your society to be?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
It won't. It would certainly make it a little more difficult for them to obtain arms, especially if their background is being checked.

The last firearm I bought, a .308 bolt-action rifle, included a check with the FBI about me. I don't know what the database includes, but I did get the rifle. The question arises, then, what information a strict registry of firearms would provide that a comprehensive listing of persons prohibited from purchasing firearms does not.

There was some talk after the Va. Tech shootings about changing the way mental health stuff was reported to the FBI look-up system... I wonder what happened with that.

What about "to serve and protect"? Isn't that their credo?

Motto, not credo. It looks nicer on the side of the police cruiser than, "You have the right to remain silent...".

The problem is that there just aren't enough police to protect the citizenry. They catch the bad guys, then hope that punishments make the OTHER bad guys think twice about committing similar crimes.

I'm just saying people are trained to do certain things. Pro guns proponents seem to think they are supermen: during a shoot out they think they could spot the bad guy and take him out. To me that's absurd. You need training to do that, and even then nobody is immune to mistakes. Having a gun of your own doesn't make you safer, IMO it makes things even worse, it makes things even more unpredictable. It multiplies the possibility of something going wrong by a hundred.

Yep. It's a problem. Imagine being faced with a choice of, "a small chance," and, "no chance at all."

But, actually, it's not too hard to spot the bad guys during a gun fight: They're the ones shooting at you and not wearing jackets with, "POLICE," written on them. Once the jackets start showing up, things can become muddled, but I'm willing to accept the risk being shot by the police, accidentally, over the risk of being shot, on purpose, by a bad guy.

As for unpredictable: I LIKE unpredictable when the predictable part is me or the people around me getting shot. Multiplying the possibility of something going wrong for the bad guy/guys by a hundred is kind of my goal!

It's pretty much all moot, though, because these cowards choose places that are, "no gun," zones on purpose.

[dudalb]

Not really. Here (http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/6-181.pdf) is the application for a Firearms Owners Identification Card here in Illinois. Note question #3 "In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?".

Problem is, medical privacy laws prevent this from actually being checked on. This needs to change! I don't think the honor system is adequate in this case.

eta: Illinois does not license or register firearms, just the owners.

I agree.
I am a gun owner, and firm believer in the right to own firearms,but I have no problem with laws to keep those with mental ane emotional problems from buying guns, and giving police the right to enforce this ban,medical privacy laws be damned in this case.
This area is one reason I am not longer an NRA member, along with the One World COnspiracy crap I hear coming from some high officials in the NRA.
BTW I hope Britney Spears does not have access to guns.....

[baron]

Not really. Here (http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/6-181.pdf) is the application for a Firearms Owners Identification Card here in Illinois. Note question #3 "In the past 5 years, have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?".

I don't get your point.

Question 3 does indeed ask about having recent mental illness. What of it?

He could have lied and said "no" (assuming the opposite is true). As you say, nobody's going to check.

He could have been treated for a mental illness in a facility NOT used primarily for the treatment of people with mental illnesses, therefore still had a mental illness and responded "no".

He could have responded simply "yes" (nothing on that form says he would be denied in that eventuality)

He could have had a non-mental illness that impairs judgement, for example diabetes.

Not what I'd call a stringent procedure.

[Drudgewire]

The point I made was that despite the large number of guns available this rarely happens. How "more armed" do you want your society to be?
If I'm part of that society I'm going to say "by at least one more gun," since I don't have a .45 yet. :p

[Fnord]

Except he did, apparently. And he was off his meds.

What was his medical history, I wonder? Depression? Bipolarism? Schizophrenia? Impotence?

Maybe he went off his Viagra.

But this does bring up a good point. Should it be legal to sell firearms to a person who is currently undergoing pharma treatment for emotional or mental disorders? How about within the last five years? Ten? Never?

Sure ... put guns in the hands of people suffering from chrinic depression or bipolar disorder; or anyone who has ever been convicted of a DUI or who attends A.A. meetings. That'll teach'em! (Sarcasm)

[WildCat]

Maybe he went off his Viagra.
I really doubt people would say "he went off his meds" if he stopped taking Viagra.

But this does bring up a good point. Should it be legal to sell firearms to a person who is currently undergoing pharma treatment for emotional or mental disorders?
Absolutely not. And that's why laws need to be changed to allow the medical records of firearms buyers to be checked. I thought this was going to be the case after Virginia Tech, apparently it wasn't a high priority.

[baron]

But this does bring up a good point. Should it be legal to sell firearms to a person who is currently undergoing pharma treatment for emotional or mental disorders?

And what about a procedure for taking guns off people who develop such illnesses after they've already obtained their guns?

[WildCat]

And what about a procedure for taking guns off people who develop such illnesses after they've already obtained their guns?
I'm all for that also. The same way they're taken away from convicted felons.

[Drudgewire]

Considering the opinion of some of the people in this thread seems to be that anyone who would own a gun must be crazy, I'll take the side of those who call that a dangerous slippery slope.

[Fnord]

{snip} ... that's why laws need to be changed to allow the medical records of firearms buyers to be checked. I thought this was going to be the case after Virginia Tech, apparently it wasn't a high priority.

And what about a procedure for taking guns off people who develop such illnesses after they've already obtained their guns?

That has my vote. My dad missed shooting my sister by just an inch or two because when he "went off his meds" (oxygen - he was emphysemic), he though that anyone coming near the house was trying to break in. He'd had those guns since before I was born.

There is actually provision for becoming the conservator of someone else, provided that it can be proven in court that the conservatorship is necessary. How do we know when it's necessary? After the person does something to endanger their own life or the lives of others due to mental or emotional impairment!

In other words, it's much more difficult to take away a person's right to bear arms because you merely suspect that they might harm themselves or others, than it is to use deadly force on a crazed shooter and then bag the body.

There are likely very many more persons with mental impairments who own firearms and do not shoot up a school than those who have the same impairments and pull a DeKalb or Columbine incident.

Where to draw the line?

[baron]

I'm all for that also. The same way they're taken away from convicted felons.

If it were feasible I'd be in favour too, but the point I'm trying to make is that additional measures in isolation can't work.

Take this proposal, that people should have their guns taken away if they subsequently suffer from mental illness. On the face of it, it's a great idea. In practice it's impossible. It's been estimated that more than 1/4 of Americans have mental illness at some point in their lives ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5111202/ ) so this measure, laudable though it is, just isn't realistic, and that's not even considering the other effects it would have such as the reduction in people seeking treatment for their illness, which would arguably lead to even more gun crime.

[Normal Dude]

This area is one reason I am not longer an NRA member, along with the One World COnspiracy crap I hear coming from some high officials in the NRA.

Ditto. I am very much pro gun ownership, but I canceled my membership with the NRA two years ago. Their rhetoric and "everything-is-black-and-white" outlook is simply too much for me.

[Drudgewire]

Ditto. I am very much pro gun ownership, but I canceled my membership with the NRA two years ago. Their rhetoric and "everything-is-black-and-white" outlook is simply too much for me.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the NRA... but I retain my membership just so I can pull it out along with my ACLU card and really screw with people's heads. :D

[Normal Dude]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the NRA... but I retain my membership just so I can pull it out along with my ACLU card and really screw with people's heads. :D

:D Don't those two cards burst into fire upon contact? :D

[lionking]

I wish any one of the pro-gun posters would have the honesty to say:
"Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence". And please leave out red herrings like knives and motorcars.

[Skibum]

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

[a_unique_person]

I'm all for that also. The same way they're taken away from convicted felons.

When you consider something like 40% of the population suffers from a mental illness at some time in their lives, that's going to hard to enforce.

[a_unique_person]

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

When you consider the response to 9/11, when 3,000 died, to firearms, which is something like 14,000 each year, you have to wonder though. That response included massive invasions on civil rights and liberties, a monetary cost of about one trillion dollars, and thousands of americans dead and many many more wounded and scarred for life.

[dudalb]

Wayne LaPIerre seem to be the worst offender when it comes to wackjob rheteoric from A high ranking NRA official, and I wonder why they keep him around. He does nothing but harm.

[Skibum]

When you consider the response to 9/11, when 3,000 died, to firearms, which is something like 14,000 each year, you have to wonder though. That response included massive invasions on civil rights and liberties, a monetary cost of about one trillion dollars, and thousands of americans dead and many many more wounded and scarred for life.

I fail to see how your post resembles any sort of response to mine, or are you just using my post as a springboard to post your rhetoric?

[Redtail]

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence

[dudalb]

I see EJ Armstong is using this for his usual "America Is Evil" rant.

[LostAngeles]

When you consider the response to 9/11, when 3,000 died, to firearms, which is something like 14,000 each year, you have to wonder though. That response included massive invasions on civil rights and liberties, a monetary cost of about one trillion dollars, and thousands of americans dead and many many more wounded and scarred for life.

http://www.roflcat.com/images/cats/whut-ian.jpg (http://www.roflcat.com)

How...

H...

How does...

...Are you a Republican strategist?

I don't...

How in the Christ's blue balls does 9/11 fall out of gun ownership?

[Normal Dude]

I wish any one of the pro-gun posters would have the honesty to say:
"Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence". And please leave out red herrings like knives and motorcars.

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

So, you were saying?

[Drudgewire]

"Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence."

Yeah, that works just fine for me too. :cool:

[LostAngeles]

I am not a pro-gun poster, but:

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

Do I think the policy needs to be amended as previously discussed in this thread? Absolutely. I don't like guns. I'm not comfortable with them, I wouldn't want to live in a house with them, but I will not begrudge a law-abiding, stable person's desire to own one for protection/sport/collection.

A gun makes mass murder a little easier for those without access to some 409 and Clorox.

[Drudgewire]

Oh snap he bought his Glock at topglock.com. I've bought a slug plug and the awesome R. Lee Ermey "This is my Glock, there are many like it but this one is mine" t-shirt from there.

ETA: Oh good grief CNN has a woman saying he was probably obsessed with violence and played horrible video games and watched movies like the "sick" "No Country for Old Men."

Suddenly I'm nostalgic for blaming this on guns.

ETAA: LA, Pickles is definitely the coolest 'kloker. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/rock.gif

[Fnord]

ETA: Oh good grief CNN has a woman saying he was probably obsessed with violence and played horrible video games and watched movies like the "sick" "No Country for Old Men."

Journalism at its finest.

It was bound to happen, anyway. Once journalists run out of facts to report, they go for the emotionally speculative sound bites from the Wal*Mart crowd.

When I heard the first reports, someone said "He was wearing some kind of black beanie." I thought "Yarmulka" and immediately felt sorry for any person who dresses properly for shabbat. I expected someone to start blaming zoinists for the attack. It turns out he was wearing a knitted cap, or "Touque" (spelling check, eh?).

Now I'm waiting for the Jackson-Sharpton team to chime in with "It was a racially-motivated attack" and start a whole 'nuther round of trans-cultural finger-pointing.

ETA: One more thing; yes, in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment, with which I am happy. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence, provided I am armed as well.

[Drudgewire]

I expected someone to start blaming zoinists for the attack. It turns out he was wearing a knitted cap, or "Touque" (spelling check, eh?).

If anyone tries to blame this on Bob and Doug McKenzie I can't be held responsible for my actions. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/fist4su.gif

[TellyKNeasuss]

The claim that the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that individuals have a right to own firearms is questionable. My understanding is that the courts have generally not interpreted the amendment in this manner, but instead have interpreted it as giving the states the right to have their own militias (now known as the National Guard).

[DJW]

The claim that the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that individuals have a right to own firearms is questionable.

Questioned by you...yes. It's not a claim--btw, it is an amendment to the constitution, which reads a certain way...you should look at it a bit.

My understanding is that the courts have generally not interpreted the amendment in this manner, but instead have interpreted it as giving the states the right to have their own militias (now known as the National Guard).

Your understanding is not interpreted by me to mean a whole lot. The National Guard? Yeah, okay....No not really. That's my best Eddie Izzard impersonation and I'm sticking to it.

[lionking]

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

So, you were saying?
What I am saying now is when do these repeated massacres become too much? Weekly? Daily? Several times a day? And this is where a Unique Person's analogy with 9/11 is not too far off track. 9/11 was too much and resulted in the War on Terror, right or wrong.

[TellyKNeasuss]

The claim that the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that individuals have a right to own firearms is questionable.
Questioned by you...yes. It's not a claim--btw, it is an amendment to the constitution, which reads a certain way...you should look at it a bit.
My understanding is that the courts have generally not interpreted the amendment in this manner, but instead have interpreted it as giving the states the right to have their own militias (now known as the National Guard).
Your understanding is not interpreted by me to mean a whole lot. The National Guard? Yeah, okay....No not really. That's my best Eddie Izzard impersonation and I'm sticking to it.
Sorry if my post was not understandable by you. The first phrase of the 2nd Amendment states "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State", and "bear arms" was commonly used during the 18th Century to refer to military service. In part because of these two considerations, the courts have for the most part ruled that the 2nd Amendment refers to a collective rather than individual right. For example, from the US Supreme Court's opinion in United State v. Miller:
"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense."

[LostAngeles]

What I am saying now is when do these repeated massacres become too much? Weekly? Daily? Several times a day? And this is where a Unique Person's analogy with 9/11 is not too far off track. 9/11 was too much and resulted in the War on Terror, right or wrong.

The massacres are not because of guns, they're enabled because of guns. The root causes of them are something else entirely.

Like I said, if you took away the guns they'd find another way to get their name splashed up on CNN and then you have to take away the 409 and Clorox.

Then something else.

Then something else.

It's like, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning," when there's a brain tumor.

[LostAngeles]

OK, watch where this finger points. See it? It's pointing at Steven P. Kazmierczak. When the Virgina Tech shooting happened it was pointing at Seung-Hui Cho.

I'm not pointing it at Glock, the NRA, Rockstar, Hollywood, or anyone else.

They did not the pull the trigger. They did not kill or wound the victims.

Something is wrong with these people. Something compels them to hurt as many people as they can before killing themselves. The gun makes it easy. There's others ways to do it, but the gun is spectacular and simple. If we take away the gun, who's to say they won't find another way.

We've had the gun control argument a thousand times. How about we discuss an actual plan of preventing these? Effective restriction of guns from the dangerously mentally ill. Mental health care. The stigma surrounding it. Something else that may spur these insane acts of violence.

[a_unique_person]

ETA: One more thing; yes, in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment, with which I am happy. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence, provided I am armed as well.

Should students be sent to school armed?

[Lothian]

We've had the gun control argument a thousand times. How about we discuss an actual plan of preventing these? Effective restriction of guns from the dangerously mentally ill. Mental health care. The stigma surrounding it. Something else that may spur these insane acts of violence.Before deciding to ban those undergoing mental health treatment you need to decide why you let people have arms in the first place. Any decision on not allowing people to have guns must be with reference to why they don't fit into the 'allowed' category.

If you think people should be armed for self defence why should depressives not have the same rights ?

If you think it is for a militia should the unfit also be banned ?

If it is for hunting, should non hunters be banned ?

If it is for shooting at gun clubs should everyone be banned ? (The guns need not leave the club)

You can't decide who to deprive the right from having a gun without considering why you are letting others have the right.

[shuize]

I wish any one of the pro-gun posters would have the honesty to say:
"Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence". And please leave out red herrings like knives and motorcars.


Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

As to the later discussion, the idea that the Second Amendment only applies to the militia is by no means settled law.

[Lothian]

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.
Could those who are happy with the mass murders in America please explain why they are happy.

Are you happy for people to be murdered as the price for your freedom to shoot for sport or are you happy for people to commit mass murder so you have the freedom to take them out with your own gun ?

[Normal Dude]

Could those who are happy with the mass murders in America please explain why they are happy.

Are you happy for people to be murdered as the price for your freedom to shoot for sport or are you happy for people to commit mass murder so you have the freedom to take them out with your own gun ?

This is completely dishonest, and makes it pretty obvious you have nothing useful to contribute to intelligent conversation. *Ignore*

[Normal Dude]

Should students be sent to school armed?

Yes. With assault rifles. Graduate and honor roll students get hand grenades.

[Lothian]

This is completely dishonest, and makes it pretty obvious you have nothing useful to contribute to intelligent conversation. *Ignore*There is nothing dishonest and my point is quite clear. Lots of people are saying they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying. I am asking what that price is for ?

If it is an uncomfortable question for you by all means ignore it. Alternatively if the point has offended you so much feel free to put me on ignore.

[Big Les]

Sneaky though that q was, what is actually wrong with being "happy" with mass murders? As long as they are statistically infrequent overall, and a majority of people in a society wish to retain gun ownership, then they are the price paid for that freedom. The same cost/benefit choice occurs with cars, with power tools, with dangerous sports, even in health and safety risk assessments - you accept a low level of risk to allow for certain activities to take place.

Personally, I would struggle, simply because my own gun ownership (along with that of whoever else partook) would be strictly recreational and I would rather lose the right to possess (say handguns) than have anyone die.

However, there is mitigating risk by heavy restriction, and there is knee-jerk blanket ban where existing laws have not been implemented correctly. I speak of the UK laws in this regard - I would have no ethical problem at all with owning guns if I could only keep them at a suitably secured club. Many Americans feel different - I don't think we can condemn them for this - it's just that they believe the risk/benefit ratio to be positive. It's a cultural thing.

[Lothian]

Sneaky though that q was, what is actually wrong with being "happy" with mass murders? As long as they are statistically infrequent overall, and a majority of people in a society wish to retain gun ownership, then they are the price paid for that freedom. The same cost/benefit choice occurs with cars, with power tools, with dangerous sports, even in health and safety risk assessments - you accept a low level of risk to allow for certain activities to take place.

Personally, I would struggle, simply because my own gun ownership (along with that of whoever else partook) would be strictly recreational and I would rather lose the right to possess (say handguns) than have anyone die.

However, there is mitigating risk by heavy restriction, and there is knee-jerk blanket ban where existing laws have not been implemented correctly. I speak of the UK laws in this regard - I would have no ethical problem at all with owning guns if I could only keep them at a suitably secured club. Many Americans feel different - I don't think we can condemn them for this - it's just that they believe the risk/benefit ratio to be positive. It's a cultural thing.I agree with everything you say (apart from the sneaky bit:D).

[Damien Evans]

and down the rabbit hole we go...

[Unalienable]

This is exactly why I never go anywhere in public without packin' heat.

[baron]

If we take away the gun, who's to say they won't find another way.

What "other way" would that be? Killing 5, 10, 15 with a knife? With a bat? It's impossible. Or will these disillusioned folk all become experts at covert bomb-making and terrorism and go down that route?

This argument that things would be just as bad without guns is ridiculous and flies in the face of all the evidence.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
There is nothing dishonest and my point is quite clear. Lots of people are saying they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying. I am asking what that price is for ?

If it is an uncomfortable question for you by all means ignore it. Alternatively if the point has offended you so much feel free to put me on ignore.
I don't believe that anyone has said that they are, "happy," about mass murders.

Accepting a price for something of value does not equate with happiness over the price. Ask anyone who bought a new house in the US before the Fed brought down the prime rate. $2,000 a month is downright painful.

They're not happy about the price, but they get a HOUSE.

Freedom is a messy thing.

Part of that is pretty much having to wait until after someone has done something bad to punish them. This allows the possibility... indeed the CERTAINTY... that someone is going to jackassulate, but in a country that really believes in, "innocent until proven guilty," you're kind of obligated to allow that periodic and unhappy jackassulation.

Law abiding people in this country can purchase, own and carry firearms. That's a freedom. We also have the freedom to put bars on our windows and reinforce our doors to help keep us safe. We have the freedom to buy samurai swords if we want to. Part of the price we pay is that someone, somewhere, is going to be a jerk about the whole thing.

We're not happy about the price, but we get freedom.

[a_unique_person]

The current offender was law abiding. Till he wasn't.

PS.

It seems to be a popular American notion that the world can be divided into those who are law abiding, and those who aren't. The transportation of criminals in the 1700's to Australia, in the apparent belief that if you got rid of them all, (the prisons were overflowing), then crime would be solved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convictism_in_Australia

It wasn't.

[iAmerican]

The Roman Catholic priest(s) who molested Kazmierczak while he was an altarboy must be found and charged with his crimes at NIU.

[a_unique_person]

Where did you read that?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
What "other way" would that be? Killing 5, 10, 15 with a knife? With a bat? It's impossible. Or will these disillusioned folk all become experts at covert bomb-making and terrorism and go down that route?

This argument that things would be just as bad without guns is ridiculous and flies in the face of all the evidence.
I've got news for you: Firearms just make killing easier.

Not having a firearm just moves the target selection to more helpless targets or escalates the nature of the weapon.

...and as for having to become, "experts at covert bomb-making," there are books at the public library (this IS the USA, after all) and websites that will tell you how to make a very serviceable bomb with stuff you can pick up at the hardware store and the grocery.

Now, I'm a bloody-minded guy. It used to be my job (your tax dollars at work) to figure out how someone else might figure out how to kill a whole building full of people, and please believe me when I tell you that the number of ways YOU HAVEN'T thought of are staggering in both number and scope.

This does not speak badly of you!

I far prefer your, "Killing 5, 10, 15 with a knife? With a bat? It's impossible," world. I, however, live in a bloody-minded world where some bloody-minded jackass, is, even now, looking at the gasoline tanker refilling the tanks at the convenience store across the street and thinking about those road flares he has in the cellar.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
The current offender was law abiding. Till he wasn't.

PS.

It seems to be a popular American notion that the world can be divided into those who are law abiding, and those who aren't. The transportation of criminals in the 1700's to Australia, in the apparent belief that if you got rid of them all, (the prisons were overflowing), then crime would be solved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convictism_in_Australia

It wasn't.
So... what... we should treat anyone who CAN be a criminal AS a criminal?

Doesn't that wind up with EVERYONE living in Australia?

Everyone CAN be a criminal. The popular American notion is that we don't treat people as criminals until AFTER they DO something criminal. Those who manage to refrain from criminal actions, and those who simply don't get convicted, are considered, "law abiding."

[Mobyseven]

Doesn't that wind up with EVERYONE living in Australia?

I like Australia as is. If the gun culture comes here and gets the law changed, I move to Canada.

[Parsman]

I think for most of us outside the US it isn't the right to own firearms but the laxity of ownership regulation that confuses us. It should be harder to get a lethal firearm than a box of cookies but it often seems that it isn't. Is that a fair perception? I ask the question genuinely as a European who has little knowledge of US firearm regulations.

[baron]

I've got news for you: Firearms just make killing easier.

Not really news. That's what I said.

Not having a firearm just moves the target selection to more helpless targets

More helpless than a roomful of kids?

or escalates the nature of the weapon.

Escalates from a gun?

In 1996 in the UK a paranoid schizophrenic took a machete and tried to kill as many 3 - 4 year olds as possible in a crowded classroom. How many did he kill? Er, none. Zero. Not one single one.

How many would he have killed with a gun? Well, how many were there in the class again...?

...and as for having to become, "experts at covert bomb-making," there are books at the public library (this IS the USA, after all) and websites that will tell you how to make a very serviceable bomb with stuff you can pick up at the hardware store and the grocery.

For goodness sake, I know that it's possible to build a bomb. My point is that nowhere near the number of people who would take a gun and go blasting would take this route, and even fewer would be successful.

I could construct a device to catapult frozen turnips that would prove pretty lethal but I don't see a need to restrict access to elastic material and heavy root crops prior to addressing the shambles that is US gun control.

[Redtail]

There is nothing dishonest and my point is quite clear. Lots of people are saying they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying. I am asking what that price is for ?

If it is an uncomfortable question for you by all means ignore it. Alternatively if the point has offended you so much feel free to put me on ignore.

Who said they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying?

[Autolite]

I think for most of us outside the US it isn't the right to own firearms but the laxity of ownership regulation that confuses us. It should be harder to get a lethal firearm than a box of cookies but it often seems that it isn't. Is that a fair perception? I ask the question genuinely as a European who has little knowledge of US firearm regulations.

Well, lets look at the gun control laws that we have in Canada. Here, a gun owner must apply for a "Possession/Acquisition Licence" through the Chief Firearms Officer of their respective province. A background check is carried out to look for a history of criminal behaviour, domestic violence, mental problems and the like.

Then the applicant must take any necessary training and/or pass written and practical examinations to demonstrate that they have a comprehensive understanding of firearms including the laws pertaining to their storage, use, transport and transfer.

Then the application must be approved by the applicant's spouse. As a matter of fact, an ex-spouse or anyone with whom the applicant has had a conjugal relationship with in the past three years (IIRC) can veto the application.

If the applicant passes the checks, exams, and has spousal approval the Chief Firearms Officer, at his/her discretion, can issue the "Possession/Acquisition Licence". The licence is valid for five years at which time another background check is carried out, and spousal approval again sought, if the applicant seeks a renewal.

If the applicant is granted the licence, it can then be used to make firearm purchases either from a authorised firearm dealer or a private licenced gun owner. In any case the transaction (AKA "transfer") is recorded and the firearm is tracked on a national firearm data base (a gun registry).

Certain firearms, such as handguns and some rifles, are classified as "restricted" which requires that the applicant have a "restricted" endorsement on their "Possession/Acquisition Licence". (There is also a "prohibited" endorsement but that encompasses a relatively small percentage of firearms owners). The acquisition of a "restricted" firearm again requires authorization of the Provincial Chief Firearms Officer for each individual transfer.

Once the firearm is purchased the gun owner has to apply to the Chief Firearms Officer for a transport permit (in the case of a "restricted" firearm) to bring the firearm from the place of purchase to the gun owners residence (where the firearm will be kept and stored) by the most direct route. (In other words, no stopping off anywhere to show your buddies the "neat" gun you've just bought).

Once home, the firearm must be stowed and secured as per the applicable laws. Consider also that having firearms stored on the premises, the gun owner by default, is subject to a search and or inspection of the premises at any time by anyone authorized to carry out such search and inspection. If the gun owner wants to hunt, then another set of tests must be passed in order to obtain a hunting licence.

If the firearm is a handgun, then in 99.999% of the cases the gun can only be fired at a target practice range that has been approved by the Provincial Chief Firearms Officer. In this case, the gun owner must apply again to the Provincial Chief Firearms Officer for another ATT Permit (Authorization To Transport) in order to bring the firearm from the place of residence to the shooting range (shortest possible route, no stops). The ATT is granted as a one time permit or for a specified period of time at the discretion of the C.F.O.

In any case, whether hunting or target shooting, the gun owner must have the applicable gun registration documents, the P.A.L. (the gun licence) and transport permits (if required) readily available for inspection by any authorized officer.

So we have all these checks, double checks, authorizations, permits and licences to ensure that responsible people can own firearms. The problem is that irresponsible people tend to ignore the processes involved. Say gang- banger "A" in Toronto needs a gun to blow off the head of gang-banger "B" in Mississauga. Gang-banger "A" goes downtown, buys a gun on the black market and then heads to Mississauga to carry out the deed.

The next morning the newspapers scream "Gang-banger In Mississauga Gets Head Blown Off". The gun control advocates scream that "THERE AREN'T ENOUGH GUN LAWS, WE NEED MORE GUN LAWS" and the responsible gun owners are once again vilified simply because they own guns.

Go figure ...

[Kestrel]

So we have all these checks, double checks, authorizations, permits and licences to ensure that responsible people can own firearms. The problem is that irresponsible people tend to ignore the processes involved. Say gang- banger "A" in Toronto needs a gun to blow off the head of gang-banger "B" in Mississauga. Gang-banger "A" goes downtown, buys a gun on the black market and then heads to Mississauga to carry out the deed.

So what is the source of the black market firearms sold in downtown Toronto?

I suspect most of them are smuggled in from the United States.

[Drudgewire]

What "other way" would that be? Killing 5, 10, 15 with a knife? With a bat? It's impossible. Or will these disillusioned folk all become experts at covert bomb-making and terrorism and go down that route?
How covert to do you really have to be to get instructions for a shrapnel bomb off the Internet? Where there's a will there's a way and suicide bombers ruitinely kill a lot more innocent people than the worst shooting rampages.

Of course, we could always ban nails and batteries I guess. :confused:

[Lothian]

Who said they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying?

The following people all said that mass murder by firearms is a consequence of a liberal gun ownership policy. They all said they are happy with the policy and accept the consequence. You can try to argue that this means something different to them being satisfied that mass murders are a price worth paying for liberal gun ownership, but that is the way 99% of people will read it.

If you want to clarify your post (second one down) feel free.

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

So, you were saying?

"Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence."


I am not a pro-gun poster, but:

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.



ETA: One more thing; yes, in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment, with which I am happy. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence, provided I am armed as well.

Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which I am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence.

[Drudgewire]

We said we're happy with the 2nd Amendment. Being happy with a medication doesn't mean you're happy with the side-effects, it means you accept it.

But thanks for the blatantly dishonest generalization. :)

[Lothian]

We said we're happy with the 2nd Amendment. Being happy with a medication doesn't mean you're happy with the side-effects, it means you accept it.

But thanks for the blatantly dishonest generalization. :)I obviously don't mean you jump up and down with glee every time a mass murderer goes lose.

You accept that consequences of liberal gun ownership is that there will be mass murder by firearms. Do you accept that this is a price worth paying for liberal gun ownership ? I am struggling to see any other reading into the above statements.

[Redtail]

The following people all said that mass murder by firearms is a consequence of a liberal gun ownership policy. They all said they are happy with the policy and accept the consequence. You can try to argue that this means something different to them being satisfied that mass murders are a price worth paying for liberal gun ownership, but that is the way 99% of people will read it.

If you want to clarify your post (second one down) feel free.

I see no where in any of those statements where anyone said they were "happy with mass murder". You are either mistaken or a liar. Which one are you?

[Skibum]

I obviously don't mean you jump up and down with glee every time a mass murderer goes lose.

You accept that consequences of liberal gun ownership is that there will be mass murder by firearms. Do you accept that this is a price worth paying for liberal gun ownership ?

I realize that we were asked not to bring up the car comparison when we were prompted to make those statements, but in your particular post I think a comparison to cars is valid.

Like guns, allowing liberal ownership of vehicles leads to incidents of mass deaths. While sad and tragic in both cases, I accept it as the price to live in a somewhat free society.

I am struggling to see any other reading into the above statements.

I think you are trying to read too much into them.

[sugarb]

Hi

I don't believe that anyone has said that they are, "happy," about mass murders.

Accepting a price for something of value does not equate with happiness over the price. Ask anyone who bought a new house in the US before the Fed brought down the prime rate. $2,000 a month is downright painful.

They're not happy about the price, but they get a HOUSE.

Freedom is a messy thing.

Part of that is pretty much having to wait until after someone has done something bad to punish them. This allows the possibility... indeed the CERTAINTY... that someone is going to jackassulate, but in a country that really believes in, "innocent until proven guilty," you're kind of obligated to allow that periodic and unhappy jackassulation.

Law abiding people in this country can purchase, own and carry firearms. That's a freedom. We also have the freedom to put bars on our windows and reinforce our doors to help keep us safe. We have the freedom to buy samurai swords if we want to. Part of the price we pay is that someone, somewhere, is going to be a jerk about the whole thing.

We're not happy about the price, but we get freedom.


In my opinion, this was a very good post. While reading this thread, and others with comparisons between guns and motor vehicles, what came to my mind was something happening in our family only settled yesterday: my aunt is a law-abiding person. She recently had to have some surgeries on her eyes. Immediately after the surgeries, she was fine, but a few weeks later some problems developed. Her greatest worry in all of this three month mess was losing her drivers license due to loss of sight...something that all of the doctors treating her eyes told her was a very real possibility.

Fortunately, yesterday we took her to a final appointment, and barring any unforeseen problems with the final corrective surgeries, her vision has been saved and she can keep her license to drive. What has been running through my mind is this: were she to own a gun, and lose her vision, no agency would take that gun away. Gun ownership is a freedom we have, but also a privilege, or felons wouldn't lose that right. Driver licensing is much the same. Both, in the wrong hands, are extremely dangerous. Medications are labelled with warnings about driving while using. A whole lot of people ignore those warnings and drive anyway--we have to, after all, go to our places of employment. Most of us can't afford to not work while on certain medications.

In a very real way, knowing that there are a whole lot of folks on the roads this time of year taking OTC cold medications, not to mention people on prescription drugs with side effects that may impair one's ability to drive safely, I feel much more threatened on the road by irresponsible people driving vehicles (note that I feel threatened by the people IN the vehicles, not the vehicles themselves) than I do by the guns many of the people in our semi-rural community own.

Anyway, just thinking, but there are many "rights" we are given as American citizens that most people are responsible about. Rights come with responsibility, after all. Some people choose to abuse those rights, and it is more than abuse of gun ownership that we are threatened by on a daily basis. Still, I'd rather have those rights than not. In my mind, the answer isn't removing the instruments of whatever threat. Instead it is in better oversight as to who enjoys the privileges of the freedoms we are granted.

[articulett]

I obviously don't mean you jump up and down with glee every time a mass murderer goes lose.

You accept that consequences of liberal gun ownership is that there will be mass murder by firearms. Do you accept that this is a price worth paying for liberal gun ownership ? I am struggling to see any other reading into the above statements.


I agree with you. They have an illusion that their guns make them safer... that their guns would never be used to harm a life via accident, mental illness, a sudden rage, poor impulse control etc. They are so sure. But don't all gun owners feel that? Doesn't a gun have to be loaded and accessible to actually save a life. Isn't that asking for tragedy? That's the same as on the thread where the kid used his fathers legally owned gun to kill his own family. I'm sure both the son and father would have made the same arguments about their gun... and both lives are ruined by that gun that was bought to protect the family...

Plus the father's own sister was killed by a similar tragedy in his own family in his youth and yet he was still deluded into the idea that he was safer with his gun. I think this idea that guns make people safer is a complete fraud believed by fearful (and often irrational) people. It makes an impulse bad mood so readily transformed into a tragedy--suicide, accident, homicide, prison sentence, life long guilt and loss.

It's obvious that there will be more gun tragedies--not just dead people but the destroyed lives of survivors and the maimed and the people who get the most horrible phone call of their life saying that their kid is dead-- we can guarantee that this will happen with the more guns that are accessible to more people. Countries that have taken pains to lessen the availability of firearms like Australia are a testament to the fact that less guns that are less available means less of these kinds of tragedies.

But to a gun owner... the increased numbers of destroyed lives are worth it for their "feelings" of safety. Guns so rarely save a life... and they have to be relatively unsecured to be accessible in an emergency anyhow-- they are just so much more likely to destroy a life no matter how safe it makes the owner feel. Look at all the gun tragedies this month... Couldn't the owner of those guns be making the exact same arguments as the gun owners here? Aren't they just really saying that they "feel" safer and it's their "right" and so the cost of liberal gun ownership laws is worth the devastation.

In America, many men have a strong emotional attachment to their gun. It feels like it's impossible to have a dialogue on the subject because they fear people are trying to take away their guns. The assurances of men from other countries where firearms have been restricted don't comfort them. I would not allow a gun in my home, and I feel bad that the people in my country who would like to see less guns so readily accessible have no voice... they are seen as trying to take away rights rather than prevent tragedies.

A government should allow it's people to balance the rights with the costs... it's why we allow ourselves extra time to be investigated more thoroughly in airports. But there is so much obfuscation that goes on every time there is a tragedy like this where a perfectly reasonable sounding guy who sounds as normal as any gun owner on this forum takes their legally owned gun and kills a bunch of people before killing themselves.

I don't think your rhetoric and your rights are much comfort to the parents of the victims... including the parents of the kid who did this act. And people will blame everything... including the parents to avoid having to say, maybe guns shouldn't be so easy to get. A gun makes it possible for horrible horrible things to happen on a whim... in guarantees they will. And rarely does a gun save lives. Hand guns are designed to kill people. They work.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
I think for most of us outside the US it isn't the right to own firearms but the laxity of ownership regulation that confuses us. It should be harder to get a lethal firearm than a box of cookies but it often seems that it isn't. Is that a fair perception? I ask the question genuinely as a European who has little knowledge of US firearm regulations.
If you want to buy a handgun in the US, you need to provide an accepted photo ID, like a driver's license, and a social security number. Most US drivers' licenses have the social security number ON them, but I think a few just have a drivers' license number.

You fill out a federal form, in your own hand (that is, someone can't fill it out FOR you) and that information is sent to the FBI to be looked up in their database of persons denied the right to buy firearms. It used to take a few days, but it's pretty much while-you-wait now.

Most states have a parallel system of documentation, as well, so you wind up filling out two documents.

I seem to remember having the FBI check on the last long arm I bought as well, so the regulations may have tightened up a bit.

The federal and state regulations for accomplishing the transfer are part of the requirements to possess a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to own and operate a store that sells firearms. The records are fairly detailed, and the penalties for fudging them are pretty steep.

So... yeah... it is as easy to buy a firearm, here, as it is to buy a box of cookies... providing you have to check with the FBI to buy cookies.

[baron]

How covert to do you really have to be to get instructions for a shrapnel bomb off the Internet?

Not particularly. Once downloaded, however, I suspect the bomb does not magically appear, fully primed and ready for action. Obtaining the components, building the bomb, building the detonating device and smuggling it to the desired location would require a good deal more skill. What's more, it's highly unlikely to work.

However, this is pretty much irrelevant. If people (i.e normal people, not religious fanatics) were willing to become suicide bombers they'd have done so already, in the US, the UK and elsewhere.

So where are they?

The fact is that it simply does not happen and will not happen on any remotely significant scale.

Where there's a will there's a way and suicide bombers ruitinely kill a lot more innocent people than the worst shooting rampages.

So why do all the killers discussed in these forums use guns if a suicide bomb is (a) more effective and (b) simple to engineer?

Suicide bombers have completely different aims and motives to people who go on killing sprees. If you don't understand this you need to read up on some psychology.

Of course, we could always ban nails and batteries I guess. :confused:

When dozens of people are being killed on a daily basis by nails and batteries, and nails and batteries somehow cease to have any other useful function, then that would indeed be an option worth considering.

[LostAngeles]

What "other way" would that be? Killing 5, 10, 15 with a knife? With a bat? It's impossible. Or will these disillusioned folk all become experts at covert bomb-making and terrorism and go down that route?

This argument that things would be just as bad without guns is ridiculous and flies in the face of all the evidence.

Awww, that's so cute how you conveniently cut out the other way I keep mentioning.

Unless you didn't realize what it was, in which case, I presume someone else does your housecleaning.

[Ranb]

I think for most of us outside the US it isn't the right to own firearms but the laxity of ownership regulation that confuses us. It should be harder to get a lethal firearm than a box of cookies but it often seems that it isn't. Is that a fair perception? I ask the question genuinely as a European who has little knowledge of US firearm regulations.

Why don't you read the laws that are on the books in the USA first before engaging in hyperbole? Even though a person can by a gun without a background check in many places in the USA, they are not as available as cookies. It is not a fair perception. I do not believe you are genuine.

I do believe that you are keeping yourself ignorant of American culture on purpose to relieve yourself of any responsibility for making informed statements. If you want to learn about American gun culture or culture in general, then there is no substitute for visiting the USA and learning about it first hand. Thinking you can learn about it from the biased statements (mine included) on internet forums or equally biased news programs from any country is a big mistake. If you actually care, then you owe it to yourself to find contacts in other countries who can show you around and let you discover the real country, not the one presented on the news or internet.

Whenever I have visited other countries, it was the times that I was traveling with a local that were the most memorable. They were very rewarding experiences and ones I will never forget. You may want to try this yourself.

Ranb

[sugarb]

Hi

I don't believe that anyone has said that they are, "happy," about mass murders.

Accepting a price for something of value does not equate with happiness over the price. Ask anyone who bought a new house in the US before the Fed brought down the prime rate. $2,000 a month is downright painful.

They're not happy about the price, but they get a HOUSE.

Freedom is a messy thing.

Part of that is pretty much having to wait until after someone has done something bad to punish them. This allows the possibility... indeed the CERTAINTY... that someone is going to jackassulate, but in a country that really believes in, "innocent until proven guilty," you're kind of obligated to allow that periodic and unhappy jackassulation.

Law abiding people in this country can purchase, own and carry firearms. That's a freedom. We also have the freedom to put bars on our windows and reinforce our doors to help keep us safe. We have the freedom to buy samurai swords if we want to. Part of the price we pay is that someone, somewhere, is going to be a jerk about the whole thing.

We're not happy about the price, but we get freedom.


In my opinion, this was a very good post. While reading this thread, and others with comparisons between guns and motor vehicles, what came to my mind was something happening in our family only settled yesterday: my aunt is a law-abiding person. She recently had to have some surgeries on her eyes. Immediately after the surgeries, she was fine, but a few weeks later some problems developed. Her greatest worry in all of this three month mess was losing her drivers license due to loss of sight...something that all of the doctors treating her eyes told her was a very real possibility.

Fortunately, yesterday we took her to a final appointment, and barring any unforeseen problems with the final corrective surgeries, her vision has been saved and she can keep her license to drive. What has been running through my mind is this: were she to own a gun, and lose her vision, no agency would take that gun away. Gun ownership is a freedom we have, but also a privilege, or felons wouldn't lose that right. Driver licensing is much the same. Both, in the wrong hands, are extremely dangerous. Medications are labelled with warnings about driving while using. A whole lot of people ignore those warnings and drive anyway--we have to, after all, go to our places of employment. Most of us can't afford to not work while on certain medications.

In a very real way, knowing that there are a whole lot of folks on the roads this time of year taking OTC cold medications, not to mention people on prescription drugs with side effects that may impair one's ability to drive safely, I feel much more threatened on the road by irresponsible people driving vehicles (note that I feel threatened by the people IN the vehicles, not the vehicles themselves) than I do by the guns many of the people in our semi-rural community own.

Anyway, just thinking, but there are many "rights" we are given as American citizens that most people are responsible about. Rights come with responsibility, after all. Some people choose to abuse those rights, and it is more than abuse of gun ownership that we are threatened by on a daily basis. Still, I'd rather have those rights than not. In my mind, the answer isn't removing the instruments of whatever threat. Instead it is in better oversight as to who enjoys the privileges of the freedoms we are granted.

[baron]

Awww, that's so cute how you conveniently cut out the other way I keep mentioning.

Unless you didn't realize what it was, in which case, I presume someone else does your housecleaning.

You mean -

Like I said, if you took away the guns they'd find another way to get their name splashed up on CNN and then you have to take away the 409 and Clorox.?

First of all I had no idea what Clorox was until I googled it, on account of living in a country which is not the US (yep, it's not just a rumour, these places do exist).

More to the point, are you suggesting that you have some kind of logical argument here that I'm deliberately skipping over because it has me foxed?

Household bleach? If people didn't have access to guns they'd use bleach?

Are you kidding?

I've already communicated my argument against the likelihood of killers using other equally effective methods if guns weren't available. Just because I decided I had better things to do than list all the items that could be used to lesser effect in a gun replacement scenario (e.g. knives, bats, tyre irons, spades, kettles, scarves, tree branches, dictionaries, a frozen rabbit on a rope and yes, household bleach) it doesn't mean they weren't implicit in my argument. I simply quoted a subset of these for ease of presentation.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
More helpless than a roomful of kids?
Hospital neonatal care unit full of infants? Building full of paraplegic and elderly. You BET there's more defenseless people than a room full of kids.
Escalates from a gun?

In 1996 in the UK a paranoid schizophrenic took a machete and tried to kill as many 3 - 4 year olds as possible in a crowded classroom. How many did he kill? Er, none. Zero. Not one single one.

How many would he have killed with a gun? Well, how many were there in the class again...?
Machetes are the weapon of choice in the Hutu-Tutsi (if I remember correctly) conflict. How many dead there? Just because one guy lacks the wherewithal to get the job done with a big knife doesn't mean that there aren't a bunch who do.
For goodness sake, I know that it's possible to build a bomb. My point is that nowhere near the number of people who would take a gun and go blasting would take this route, and even fewer would be successful.
Do buses and subway cars in England still have the, "What To Do In Case of a Bomb," placards up on the walls? American nutjobs grab a gun. What do British nutjobs grab?

I suspect that one reason people go after mass targets is because they thing they're going it get BIG TV and radio coverage after the fact. The, "They're gonna remember ME," is, I believe, the primary reason that people chose this method of suicide. Taking the firearms out of the equation doesn't solve the, "self aggrandizing nutjob," part of the problem.
I could construct a device to catapult frozen turnips that would prove pretty lethal but I don't see a need to restrict access to elastic material and heavy root crops prior to addressing the shambles that is US gun control.
...and the Oklahoma City bombing, to follow your agricultural lead, was done primarily with farm fertilizer. What's your point?

[LostAngeles]

You mean -

?

First of all I had no idea what Clorox was until I googled it, on account of living in a country which is not the US (yep, it's not just a rumour, these places do exist).

More to the point, are you suggesting that you have some kind of logical argument here that I'm deliberately skipping over because it has me foxed?

Household bleach? If people didn't have access to guns they'd use bleach?

Are you kidding?

I've already communicated my argument against the likelihood of killers using other equally effective methods if guns weren't available. Just because I decided I had better things to do than list all the items that could be used to lesser effect in a gun replacement scenario (e.g. knives, bats, tyre irons, spades, kettles, scarves, tree branches, dictionaries, a frozen rabbit on a rope and yes, household bleach) it doesn't mean they weren't implicit in my argument. I simply quoted a subset of these for ease of presentation.

409 contains ammonia.

Clorox is bleach.

The combination of the two makes a deadly gas and is standard teaching in Home Ec (or at least was 15 or so years ago). Household cleaners can be deadly in combination. Oven cleaner, draino, the list goes on.

Someone who wants to kill themselves and take other people with them and doesn't have a gun can build a bomb of some kind with relative ease out of ordinary objects. It doesn't take MacGuyver. It could just take a science class.

[Skibum]

I agree with you. They have an illusion that their guns make them safer... that their guns would never be used to harm a life via accident, mental illness, a sudden rage, poor impulse control etc. They are so sure. But don't all gun owners feel that?

Some gun owners might feel that way, perhaps many, but ALL...no definitely not.

Doesn't a gun have to be loaded and accessible to actually save a life.

It helps.


Isn't that asking for tragedy?

No it isn't. It might slightly increase the odds, though.


That's the same as on the thread where the kid used his fathers legally owned gun to kill his own family. I'm sure both the son and father would have made the same arguments about their gun... and both lives are ruined by that gun that was bought to protect the family...

Plus the father's own sister was killed by a similar tragedy in his own family in his youth and yet he was still deluded into the idea that he was safer with his gun. I think this idea that guns make people safer is a complete fraud believed by fearful (and often irrational) people. It makes an impulse bad mood so readily transformed into a tragedy--suicide, accident, homicide, prison sentence, life long guilt and loss.




Eh, I was going to dissect your whole post then realized it's pointless.

Your type of rhetoric is exactly what makes gun owners and rights arguers dig in and assume a defensive posture instead of willing to work towards a compromise.




It feels like it's impossible to have a dialogue on the subject because they fear people are trying to take away their guns.

See, WE don't have to have a dialogue with your side.

We already have the right to keep and bear arms, you want to restrict that.

It would be much different if we were in Pennsylvania more than 200 years ago, discussing what rights we should put in the Constitution.

Your side is the one that has to come to the table with something other than
argument by anecdote, appeal to emotion and strawmen crawling all over the place.

You want to get me to agree to limit or change my legal rights, bring a better argument.

If you want to even have a meaningful discussion about the topic, drop your rhetoric and combative discussion tactics.

Unlike the "gun-lovers" and "gun-crazy" and "little dick" people your side likes to portray our side as, I'm willing to have a discussion and even possibly change my mind, as long as you drop the garbage.

[Redtail]

409 contains ammonia.

Clorox is bleach.

The combination of the two makes a deadly gas and is standard teaching in Home Ec (or at least was 15 or so years ago). Household cleaners can be deadly in combination. Oven cleaner, draino, the list goes on.

Someone who wants to kill themselves and take other people with them and doesn't have a gun can build a bomb of some kind with relative ease out of ordinary objects. It doesn't take MacGuyver. It could just take a science class.

In fact when I was in Grad school at UCONN the high school next door to the theatre building someone made the mistake of combining the two and they had to evacuate the entire school.

[Autolite]

So what is the source of the black market firearms sold in downtown Toronto? I suspect most of them are smuggled in from the United States.

Personally, I haven't researched the issue but I do beleive that Canadian gun control advocates claim that the majority of illegal guns found here have in fact been smuggled in from the States.

If we assume that every illegal gun in Canada had arrived from the U.S.A., then who is to blame? Both the United States and Canada already have laws in place that prohibit the illegal transfer of firearms across borders.

Perhaps the guns aren't really the problem? Could it be that each country has failed to employ sufficiently effective deterrents? Just a thought...

[Autolite]

Someone who wants to kill themselves and take other people with them and doesn't have a gun can build a bomb of some kind with relative ease out of ordinary objects. It doesn't take MacGuyver. It could just take a science class.

I used to work with explosives and part of our training included familiarization with homemade bombs, IEDs and such. I do get the impression that the majority of folks, (thankfully perhaps), are quite unaware of how easily these devices can be constructed with common materials. Homemade firearms are pretty much a "no-brainer" also. The information is out there and easily accessed. Perhaps this all could have been avoided if the government had banned "Meccano Sets" and "Hasbro Chemistry Kits" fifty years ago ... :o

[LostAngeles]

I used to work with explosives and part of our training included familiarization with homemade bombs, IEDs and such. I do get the impression that the majority of folks, (thankfully perhaps), are quite unaware of how easily these devices can be constructed with common materials. Homemade firearms are pretty much a "no-brainer" also. The information is out there are easily accessed. Perhaps this all could have been avoided if the government had banned "Meccano Sets" and "Hasbro Chemistry Kits" fifty years ago ... :o

In a few of my science classes we had the fertilizer bomb explained and the interesting properties of sodium demonstrated to us with the comment, "Ah, you're Honors students. It's ok. You won't do anything bad with this knowledge..."

[articulett]

I don't think anything makes gun owners work towards a compromise from what I see. Their solution always seems to be more guns. They hear things that people aren't saying. They believe they overestimate the likelihood of a gun saving their life and underestimate it being used for tragedy.

I don't think there is a solution. I don't keep a gun because I am well aware that it is more likely to destroy my life in some way than to save it. It makes suicide of myself or a loved one too easy for one. But I have no means of protecting myself from people like the kid in the OP... the man who decides to kill himself and take out a bunch of random people in the process. It is not a comfort to me since the owners of the guns in all the recent tragedies could have argued exactly like you... made the same excuses... used the same rhetoric. No one ever imagines their gun will be used to destroy lives on a whim or accident or suicide or tragedy... no matter how often it happens...

I feel like people in other countries feel when they look at America... but I don't have a solution. The irrational people are the ones that are armed. I just hope that the ever increasing weaponry doesn't intersect with my life. It would be great if gun owners only destroyed the lives of other gun owners... if you could protect your life from being destroyed by guns by not owning one. But we cannot. And I think the gun enthusiasts show why it's so hard to implement something like they've done in Australia and other countries.

I really should avoid these conversations. It heartens me to feel other people who feel as I do, but there are some people who post who make me think about how many "irrational" unpredictable angry people out there who have guns... I don't have any solution and the mentality frightens me.

Don't the gun owners see that from my perspective, all the gun owners in this months' tragedies could give the same assurance... could have felt the same way... could have written the same thing-- right? Couldn't they have? You reassure yourselves that your guns make you safer, but you sure don't reassure the rest of us that such is the case.

Yes, you do have the right to own arms just like the kid in the OP. But you do so knowing that the increased availability of guns makes this kind of thing more frequent.... it makes gun tragedies and ruined lives more likely. That appears to be okay with you because in your mind your guns make you feel safer.

[Rolfe]

How covert to do you really have to be to get instructions for a shrapnel bomb off the Internet? Where there's a will there's a way and suicide bombers ruitinely kill a lot more innocent people than the worst shooting rampages.

Of course, we could always ban nails and batteries I guess. :confused:


You can of course point to all these shrapnel bombings and mass knife murders and so on that occur in universities and other such places, in countries which don't share the US attitude to guns?

How many?

Within the last year?

Ten years?

Ever?

Rolfe.

[articulett]

Guns are specifically designed to kill people... all those other things aren't... and they aren't so readily accessible and deadly either. Guns can turn an impulsive bad mood into a tragedy far quicker and more readily than just about anything--and so they do.

The kids at Columbine didn't kill anyone with their pipebombs. its was bullets that were responsible for all the deaths. I think it's disingenuous to pretend that similar tragedies would fill in where the gun tragedies disappear... the studies show that there are more attempted suicides by other methods... but not as many successful suicides.

[Lothian]

I see no where in any of those statements where anyone said they were "happy with mass murder". People said they are happy with liberal gun laws even though then know that a consequence is that there will be mass murders. My posts have been quite clear in that each time I have questioned people's acceptance of mass murder as a valid trade off against the freedom to own a gun.

I have never suggested that people are happy with mass murders in isolation.

You said "Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence."

You are either mistaken or a liar. Which one are you?Lets see.

You say that mass murder by firearms is a consequence of liberal gun ownership that you are willing to accept.

So when you said "Who said they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying?" I would argue you did. I personally see no difference in the two statements, however I am happy for you to point out how I am mistaken or where I have lied.

If I have lied it was certainly unintentional and I would happily apologise.

[Skibum]

The irrational people are the ones that are armed.






Really? Is that all you have of substance to say? An insult.
Way to convince people, you gonna bring out the "little dick" insult next.

[articulett]

It isn't you Lothian. You are correct. The price Americans pay for a plethora of readily obtainable weapons designed to kill people in an instant... is lots of lives destroyed in just such an instant... and the fear of those afraid that their loved one might be next. An American can try to avoid the tragedy of having a gun used to harm a loved one by not having one in their home, but they have no means of protecting themselves from the random guy who decides to die and take out a bunch of people in the process as is increasingly common in America.

It is so rare for a gun to actually be available loaded and ready to save a life, and yet people imagine that their guns are more likely to be used for that... and they can't imagine the horror or accident or suicide or ready tragedies that happen to gun owners who never could have imagined such a thing... gun owners that feel just as protected by their guns... even if they know people who have had their lives destroyed by guns... they feel immune from such tragedies and overly fearful of being being in situations where their gun will save their lives.

This worries me, because when people think guns will save their lives they have to carry around or keep loaded weapons in ready reach. That greatly increases the risk of a tragedy or accident. And that increases the likelihood that me or my loved one will be a victim of that tragedy.

[articulett]

I have no delusions about being able to convince or converse with the irrational, skibum. I have seen no evidence that it is effective for anything. I prefer to talk about the irrational and commiserate.

And I have no idea what your issue is with "little dicks", but I'm guessing you are as sensitive in that area as you are in your fear that someone is trying to take away your guns.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
People said they are happy with liberal gun laws even though then know that a consequence is that there will be mass murders. My posts have been quite clear in that each time I have questioned people's acceptance of mass murder as a valid trade off against the freedom to own a gun.

I have never suggested that people are happy with mass murders in isolation.
I have never assumed that you lied. I was just responding to when you said:
Could those who are happy with the mass murders in America please explain why they are happy.

Are you happy for people to be murdered as the price for your freedom to shoot for sport or are you happy for people to commit mass murder so you have the freedom to take them out with your own gun ?
The implication here, at least of the first sentence, was that, and I quote, "those who are happy with the mass murders in America," might mistakenly include me.

[Lothian]

It isn't you Lothian. You are correct.Thanks I am well aware of that. I appreciate that the attitude towards guns in America is very different to the rest of the developed world. I know that the gun culture is such that when weighing up the pros and cons of liberal gun ownership most Americans favour the status quo.

When I see people say that they accept that mass murder is a consequence of liberal gun laws, I presume that they see that as one of the cons. I am interested in what those people see as the pros. I am aware of different arguments for guns whether sporting, for protection, or those that purely like collecting historical weapons.

I expect that the pro's people have when considering the pros and cons of liberal gun laws affects their overall judgement considering the very big downsides.

I expect that someone who is scared and feel they need a gun for protection would be persuaded less by the downsides of liberal gun laws than someone who keeps his or her gun at a club and never takes it out into the public. The latter may be persuaded by some sort of tighter controls than the former.

I find the personal protection argument particularly interesting when limitations are put on people allowed to protect themselves. Should convited felons be allowed guns ? What about convicted felons serving in the armed forces ? Should depressives be denied the right to protect themselves ? Why should children not be allowed guns ?

As you say I think that most Americans look at the gun issue from their own perspective as individuals have more rights to own a gun. In the UK guns laws are tighter. It is argued that tight gun laws are required for societies benefit. As such we are used to looking at the issue from a national rather than personal perspective.

[Lothian]

Hi

I have never assumed that you lied. I was just responding to when you said:

The implication here, at least of the first sentence, was that, and I quote, "those who are happy with the mass murders in America," might mistakenly include me.No problem. You said "Part of the price we pay is that someone, somewhere, is going to be a jerk about the whole thing." That is the point I was making. I never meant to imply that people were happy with the jerks. They are happy chosing liberal gun laws knowing jerks are a consequence.

'Happy' in this context does not mean they like all consequences of their decision rather their conscience is clear. They are happy that liberal gun laws is the right choice.

[Redtail]

People said they are happy with liberal gun laws even though then know that a consequence is that there will be mass murders. My posts have been quite clear in that each time I have questioned people's acceptance of mass murder as a valid trade off against the freedom to own a gun.

I have never suggested that people are happy with mass murders in isolation.


You said "Yes in the US we have a liberal gun-ownership policy, supported by the Second Amendment which am happy with. One of the consequences of this is mass murder by firearms. I am willing to accept this consequence."

Lets see.

You say that mass murder by firearms is a consequence of liberal gun ownership that you are willing to accept.

So when you said "Who said they are happy that mass murders are a price worth paying?" I would argue you did. I personally see no difference in the two statements, however I am happy for you to point out how I am mistaken or where I have lied.

If I have lied it was certainly unintentional and I would happily apologise.
Ah. So it's mistaken then.

I'm happy for the right to own my guns. I accept that mass murders by guns are possible because of this

I'm happy American Tobacco Co. funded part of my education. I accept the fact that millions of people died due to smoking related causes.

I'm happy that I have the right to free speech. I accept the fact that said free speech included people like Fred Phelps.

I'm happy I own a motorcycle. I accept the fact that motorcycles are far less safe than cars and an accident on one could kill or seriously injure me when in a car.

According to your logic, I'm happy that mass murders by guns are possible, I'm happy that millions of people died for my scholarship, I'm happy Fred Phelps protests funerals, and I want to die in a motorcycle crash.

Wrong on all counts.

Now then,

Could those who are happy with the mass murders in America please explain why they are happy.

Are you happy for people to be murdered as the price for your freedom to shoot for sport or are you happy for people to commit mass murder so you have the freedom to take them out with your own gun ?

No one said they are happy with the mass murders in America.

[baron]

Hospital neonatal care unit full of infants? Building full of paraplegic and elderly. You BET there's more defenseless people than a room full of kids.

So your argument is that if nobody had guns, killers would target neonatal units and elderly care homes. Do you make this stuff up as you go along or do you actually have evidence? I can't say I've noticed a huge increase in OAP massacres or butchery of the newborn since handguns were banned in the UK.

"Gee, I'm gonna have trouble killing more than a handful of students with this machete, I'd best hasten down to the Rosehill Care Home where I've got a much better chance of getting into double figures."

Yep, I'm sure that's exactly how these killers' minds work.

Machetes are the weapon of choice in the Hutu-Tutsi (if I remember correctly) conflict. How many dead there? Just because one guy lacks the wherewithal to get the job done with a big knife doesn't mean that there aren't a bunch who do.

We're talking about an individual arming himself and attacking a group, not African civil war. Clearly you're being silly as no right-thinking person could genuinely think this was relevant to the discussion.

Do buses and subway cars in England still have the, "What To Do In Case of a Bomb," placards up on the walls?

No, why would they? The number of people killed by English bombers in the UK in the last 30 years is, I believe, less than the number of Americans killed by guns every three hours, so maybe you want to rethink that one.

American nutjobs grab a gun. What do British nutjobs grab?

Their balls, because they don't have the luxury of being protected by heavy weaponry.

I suspect that one reason people go after mass targets is because they thing they're going it get BIG TV and radio coverage after the fact. The, "They're gonna remember ME," is, I believe, the primary reason that people chose this method of suicide. Taking the firearms out of the equation doesn't solve the, "self aggrandizing nutjob," part of the problem.

It doesn't solve it, it helps significantly, for reasons that I'm tired of listing.

...and the Oklahoma City bombing, to follow your agricultural lead, was done primarily with farm fertilizer. What's your point?

What's yours? If you're suggesting that an absence of guns would result in the same number of annual deaths by fertilizer bombs then perhaps you could present your evidence.

[TellyKNeasuss]

Hi

If you want to buy a handgun in the US, you need to provide an accepted photo ID, like a driver's license, and a social security number. Most US drivers' licenses have the social security number ON them, but I think a few just have a drivers' license number.

You fill out a federal form, in your own hand (that is, someone can't fill it out FOR you) and that information is sent to the FBI to be looked up in their database of persons denied the right to buy firearms. It used to take a few days, but it's pretty much while-you-wait now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this only applies to guns bought in stores. I don't think that in most locales there is any restriction on gun sales between private parties.

[godofpie]

I don't think anything makes gun owners work towards a compromise from what I see. Their solution always seems to be more guns. They hear things that people aren't saying. They believe they overestimate the likelihood of a gun saving their life and underestimate it being used for tragedy.

I don't think there is a solution. I don't keep a gun because I am well aware that it is more likely to destroy my life in some way than to save it. It makes suicide of myself or a loved one too easy for one. But I have no means of protecting myself from people like the kid in the OP... the man who decides to kill himself and take out a bunch of random people in the process. It is not a comfort to me since the owners of the guns in all the recent tragedies could have argued exactly like you... made the same excuses... used the same rhetoric. No one ever imagines their gun will be used to destroy lives on a whim or accident or suicide or tragedy... no matter how often it happens...

I feel like people in other countries feel when they look at America... but I don't have a solution. The irrational people are the ones that are armed. I just hope that the ever increasing weaponry doesn't intersect with my life. It would be great if gun owners only destroyed the lives of other gun owners... if you could protect your life from being destroyed by guns by not owning one. But we cannot. And I think the gun enthusiasts show why it's so hard to implement something like they've done in Australia and other countries.

I really should avoid these conversations. It heartens me to feel other people who feel as I do, but there are some people who post who make me think about how many "irrational" unpredictable angry people out there who have guns... I don't have any solution and the mentality frightens me.

Don't the gun owners see that from my perspective, all the gun owners in this months' tragedies could give the same assurance... could have felt the same way... could have written the same thing-- right? Couldn't they have? You reassure yourselves that your guns make you safer, but you sure don't reassure the rest of us that such is the case.

Yes, you do have the right to own arms just like the kid in the OP. But you do so knowing that the increased availability of guns makes this kind of thing more frequent.... it makes gun tragedies and ruined lives more likely. That appears to be okay with you because in your mind your guns make you feel safer.
http://www.myfoxwghp.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=2E9436AD14B1D45D6A1968EBC1BA85DF ?contentId=3113758&version=5&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_ColumnistArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173351273751

I can appreciate your point of view but I think like most people who take your point of view, you have never been the victim of violent crime. I have been through 4 armed robberies personally (my restaurant a total of 7). It was after the 3rd armed robbery that I got a gun. The gun as saved me on 2 of the robberies that I was present for. So to say that my gun ownership gives me a false sense of security is not true. It gives me a very real sense of security. I would not have the wherewithal to come to work on a daily basis without my gun. Am I in favor of gun control? Absolutely. But I'll be damned if I am going to just roll over and take it from these people that don't have jobs, have drug habits to feed and look on me as their personal ATM.

[godofpie]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this only applies to guns bought in stores. I don't think that in most locales there is any restriction on gun sales between private parties.
In NC if you buy a gun from an individual there is no paperwork or permit involved. Only when buying from a dealer.

[articulett]

Different states have different regulations, but it seems to be pretty easy to get guns through ebay or at garage sales or through gun shows or personal ads. Regulation is inconsistent and fought very hard by very powerful gun lobbyists in America. Many gun owners feel that any attempts at legislation are an attempt to take away their rights...

Guns are everywhere in America and it looks like these kinds of tragedies will just increase. There doesn't seem to be a way to limit the increasing and ready availability of loaded weapons and the gun owners seem to greatly underestimate their risk of tragedy resulting from their gun while over estimating the probability of a gun saving a life. I'm sure the guy in the OP felt "safer" with his gun... but I fear people like him. He ruined many lives... His parents are destroyed as well... no matter what their belief about guns or whether they own one or not... their lives HAVE been destroyed by their sons gun just as the parents of the other victims have been.

The safety people feel from their guns is an illusion. And events like this make those who believe that guns make them safer... get more guns and keep them loaded and ready ensuring more weapons available for tragedies just like this. Guns rarely prevent or slow these sort of mass murders. They just ensure that a single person can destroy a whole bunch of lives very quickly with a machine designed to do just that.

[gumboot]

Machetes are the weapon of choice in the Hutu-Tutsi (if I remember correctly) conflict. How many dead there? Just because one guy lacks the wherewithal to get the job done with a big knife doesn't mean that there aren't a bunch who do.


Mass murder and atrocity are very different things. There's a whole lot of different dynamics going on in a group atrocity that are not occurring when a single person busts into a room, shoots up a bunch of people, and then kills themselves.

[articulett]

http://www.myfoxwghp.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=2E9436AD14B1D45D6A1968EBC1BA85DF ?contentId=3113758&version=5&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_ColumnistArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173351273751

I can appreciate your point of view but I think like most people who take your point of view, you have never been the victim of violent crime. I have been through 4 armed robberies personally (my restaurant a total of 7). It was after the 3rd armed robbery that I got a gun. The gun as saved me on 2 of the robberies that I was present for. So to say that my gun ownership gives me a false sense of security is not true. It gives me a very real sense of security. I would not have the wherewithal to come to work on a daily basis without my gun. Am I in favor of gun control? Absolutely. But I'll be damned if I am going to just roll over and take it from these people that don't have jobs, have drug habits to feed and look on me as their personal ATM.

I see your point. But I also know people who carry guns because they have been victims of crimes... but their guns wouldn't have saved them from their victimhood. A rape victim isn't likely to have her gun ready and loaded should another attack occur... and carrying a loaded weapon is a great risk to others should a kid be looking through your purse or should your purse get stolen. The father in the other thread was a lawyer and had a gun to protect him. I'm sure he felt safer... but he was killed with his own gun and his son has ruined his own life by using that gun bought for protection. I'm sure your gun does make you safer. But it sounds like it would be as safe loaded as unloaded... because it's the appearance. On the other thread they illustrated a gun killing someone for stealing beer. I don't know if I could live with myself for that. Maybe it does protect store owners and save lives and property. I don't know of any such cases personally, but I know of multiple cases where guns bought for protection or sport were used in tragic ways-- homicide, suicide, accident... a misfiring at a "bad guy", etc. I always wonder if the gun owner ever imagined such a scenario... the kid in this OP did... but how long ago. Was there a time when he would have sworn that he could never be such a person?

I'm not against shop owners having guns. I'm not even sure I have an idea of what would work. I just feel afraid that I might suffer the consequences of these ever present guns or someone I love might get caught in the crossfire. All these guns and make me feel less safe. Your gun makes you feel safer, and it might even make you safer. But from my perspective it's just another gun that some crazy person might grab and shoot someone I love in a fit of rage, depression, accident, or poor aim at someone stealing beer. To me, it's another gun with more of a potential to destroy lives like those in the OP than save a life.

Most guns don't save lives nor destroy lives. But the latter is much more common. And it's not just the dead people whose lives are destroyed.

I understand that people own guns to protect them from other people who own guns. I don't think the risk is worth it for myself. I don't have any problem with your gun or your rights. But your guns make you feel safer, not me. All these guns and rights don't make the average American safer... just more prone to having their lives ruined by a gun. There is a difference between feeling safer and actually being safer. You are willing to risk your gun being involved in a tragedy... (killing the wrong person in a shoot out for example) because it makes you feel safer. And maybe you are... I don't know. I'm all for that. Except that I worry that someone I care about might be the wrong person caught in the cross fire. There is nothing to make me feel safer regarding that scenario. My not wanting a gun in my home doesn't save me from such fears. It doesn't save me from being the victim or loving a victim of someone who is sure that their gun makes them safer.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this only applies to guns bought in stores. I don't think that in most locales there is any restriction on gun sales between private parties.
You are correct, and I forgot that avenue of purchase.

In Indiana (I don't know about other states), the ruling is... errr... WAS, anyhow - I haven't checked recently because I don't want to sell any of mine... that a firearm is private property and may be disposed of as such. That means no federal or state forms and no requirement for storage of a record of the transaction.

Generally a bill of sale is used, as it would be for the sale and transfer of a farm animal or non-automotive heavy equipment.

Since there is nothing like an interim owner of a firearm, as there is, sometimes, with a used auto (that is, when the dealer takes ownership of a car in order to transfer that ownership to another party), and since all dealers have to do the FFL thing, anything that goes back to a dealer has to have the whole federal and state thing done to transfer it again.

Interstate transfer, though, requires the use of a receiving FFL holder, and possibly a sending FFL holder as well, I'm not sure. Once a firearm enters the dealer's possession, all the federal and state checks have to be done for ownership to be transferred again.

[Mobyseven]

In a few of my science classes we had the fertilizer bomb explained and the interesting properties of sodium demonstrated to us with the comment, "Ah, you're Honors students. It's ok. You won't do anything bad with this knowledge..."

What year of school was that in? We were being shown said properties in year eight...one of my mates had to go to hospital when the teacher used a bit too much sodium (a good example of why high school science teachers should have at least a basic knowledge of science).

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
Mass murder and atrocity are very different things. There's a whole lot of different dynamics going on in a group atrocity that are not occurring when a single person busts into a room, shoots up a bunch of people, and then kills themselves.
Yes - atrocity is when people perform several mass murders for political reasons.

The point was about one person not being able to kill some children with a machete. My counter point was that there are places where people seem to have no problem killing several people with machetes.

The principal point is that one occurrence isn't proof, wither way.

Oh - and - since you're reading: This is AMERICA.
:boggled: If anyone's going to figure out how to kill more people with less effort, it's going to be an American. :boggled:

[articulett]

Nothing makes killing a person as quick and easy and certain as a gun. It's what guns were invented for. Machetes have a lot of uses. Nothing makes killing on a whim (suicide, homicide, or accident) quite as quick and easy as a gun. Nothing else is as easy to obtain and as easy to kill with nor as specifically designed to kill.

I am interested in the development of electric bullets... they shoot from guns but they act like tasers... much less deadly but as incapacitating or more moreso. Someone shot with one is paralyzed and can't shoot you; whereas a person shot by a bullet can shoot back. But kevlar doesn't protect against them. I would consider owning a gun for protection is such a case. The appearance alone could ward off an attacker, and it's much less likely to be involved in a horrific tragedy or kill a curious or suicidal kid.

I wonder if gun owners will be willing to switch to those kinds of bullets should they become widely available. They would be as protected as they appear to feel now, without their guns being as much of a threat to those like me?

[gumboot]

Hi

Yes - atrocity is when people perform several mass murders for political reasons.

The point was about one person not being able to kill some children with a machete. My counter point was that there are places where people seem to have no problem killing several people with machetes.



I think you missed my point. In a group atrocity there are significant psychological dynamics occurring that are not present in a single person busting in to kill some children with a machete.

That is why I contend they are not comparable. (I also disagree that atrocity is necessarily political - atrocity can be perpetrated for a variety of reason, many of them non-political, including your own example of Rwanda (which was ethnic and economic in cause)).

[Autolite]

Many gun owners feel that any attempts at legislation are an attempt to take away their rights...

Actually, this is not completely unjustifiable. In Canada, there has been a firearms registry for handguns since 1934. Gun control advocates had been lobbying many years for a comprehensive, all inclusive registry to include long guns (rifles, shot guns and certain pellet guns).

The then federal Liberal government under Prime Minister Jean Chretien was adamant that the purpose of a gun registry was to enable law enforcement to effectively track and monitor gun ownership (in the interest of public safety) and that mass confiscation was in no way part of the agenda.

Well the all encompassing registry came into effect in the mid '90s and responsible gun owners lined up in droves to register their squirrel guns. And they were duped...

Immediately prior to the last Canadian federal election, the Liberal Federal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that upon re-election his government would press for the wholesale confiscation of all privately owned handguns in the nation (which would not have been possible had there been no national gun registry). Legitimate gun owners were shocked at this blatant disregard for personal property rights. They were lied to and they knew it.

As it turned out the entire affair was a tempest in a teapot. The federal Liberals were defeated in the election and the newly elected Progressive Conservative Party was now at the helm.

The new PC government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has taken a rather more pragmatic approach to the problem of violent crime by promising more resources funneled to the RCMP and repealing the long gun registry. The registry has since been shown to be a completely ineffective, useless program and a colossal waste of tax payers money.

Americans gun owners do indeed have a valid concern...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_gun_registry

[Redtail]

Nothing makes killing a person as quick and easy and certain as a gun.

Bombs.

It's what guns were invented for. Machetes have a lot of uses. Nothing makes killing on a whim (suicide, homicide, or accident) quite as quick and easy as a gun.

Machetes: Cutting through brush. Cutting through people or animals.
Guns: Shooting people or animals...
Well you did double it.


Nothing else is as easy to obtain and as easy to kill with nor as specifically designed to kill.

Bows and arrows.

I am interested in the development of electric bullets... they shoot from guns but they act like tasers... much less deadly but as incapacitating or more moreso. Someone shot with one is paralyzed and can't shoot you; whereas a person shot by a bullet can shoot back.

Depends on where you shoot them.

But kevlar doesn't protect against them. I would consider owning a gun for protection is such a case. The appearance alone could ward off an attacker, and it's much less likely to be involved in a horrific tragedy or kill a curious or suicidal kid.

Well the appearance alone of my gun could ward off an attacker. If a kid is curious how badly would a shot that could incapacitate a full grown man hurt a kid? Now if the kid is truly suicidal then how much harder is it to find another means of killing himself?



I wonder if gun owners will be willing to switch to those kinds of bullets should they become widely available.

Will it take down a deer or boar? I mean I could just incapacitate it then slit it's throat but it'd be nice to know.

They would be as protected as they appear to feel now, without their guns being as much of a threat to those like me?
How much of a threat are my guns to you?

[gumboot]

Bombs.

Are you honestly contending that a bomb is as quick and easy to use as a firearm? :eye-poppi


Bows and arrows.

Are you honestly claiming that a bow is as easy to kill with as a firearm? :eye-poppi


Will it take down a deer or boar? I mean I could just incapacitate it then slit it's throat but it'd be nice to know.

Hunting boar with a gun? Pffft. Dogs and a knife - that's real hunting.

[articulett]

But Canada has much less gun violence and tragedies than America. There have been an increasing number of mass shootings in America. That is not so in Canada. Nor is it true in Australia where their gun laws have decreased these kinds of tragedies as well. I'd be willing to put up with the inconvenience or loss of rights if our gun tragedies could be on par with other such countries... I don't just count the dead people. I am talking about ruined lives. Lots of lives are devastated because of guns... accidents, homicides, suicides, and events like the OP. But I don't have that choice.

But maybe Americans will consider keeping their guns loaded guns loaded with non lethal bullets such as the electric kind that are in development now.

[articulett]

The columbine kids built bombs... their pipe bombs killed no one. The guns were responsible for their deaths. Bombs aren't exactly the kind of thing used very often in these "whim" killing events. Countries that limit their guns don't seem to have a plethora of bomb making youth blowing up universities.

[Redtail]

Are you honestly contending that a bomb is as quick and easy to use as a firearm? :eye-poppi

Well yes. A gun is point and shoot a bomb is get in general area and detonate.;)




Are you honestly claiming that a bow is as easy to kill with as a firearm? :eye-poppiYep. It would take a bit longer... But then If I went totally bat guano I suppose I could rig up a pipe bomb of sorts on the arrow. ;)




Hunting boar with a gun? Pffft. Dogs and a knife - that's real hunting.

:o I freely admit that I've seriously considered smithing my own spear with a boar bar but I have to acknowledge that my smithing skill are lacking. (And yes boar and fowl are the only things I hunt with a gun.)

[Redtail]

The columbine kids built bombs... their pipe bombs killed no one. The guns were responsible for their deaths.

The London Bombers built bombs... They didn't have guns. The Bombs were responsible for their deaths.

Bombs aren't exactly the kind of thing used very often in these "whim" killing events. Countries that limit their guns don't seem to have a plethora of bomb making youth blowing up universities.

Ok... What did the Provos blow up?

[articulett]

I don't know... I can't make sense of anything you are saying... you seem to think that limiting guns means that the gun tragedies like those in the OP will be replaced by bomb tragedies. I think that sounds like the rhetoric of many irrational gun owners in America.

Yes, I'm concerned by the number of irrational people who own guns. I'm sure nobody thinks that the gun they own will end up destroying anyone's life. Please buy non lethal bullets and avoid bringing your weapons around people I care about. I hope you are just joking, but if you don't mind I think I'm going to put you on ignore because you sound like part of the problem.

Anhow, here's more on the OP http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/16/university.shooting/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i72zWlWRLvc1ejGI5WpefItEjKCAD8URPA2O0

[gumboot]

Well yes. A gun is point and shoot a bomb is get in general area and detonate.;)

And how does one detonate said bomb? Did one buy it? Or make it? How does one fire a gun? Does one buy it? Or make it?


Yep. It would take a bit longer... But then If I went totally bat guano I suppose I could rig up a pipe bomb of sorts on the arrow. ;)

Using a bow effectively takes a pretty substantial amount of expertise. Not so of a gun.


:o I freely admit that I've seriously considered smithing my own spear with a boar bar but I have to acknowledge that my smithing skill are lacking. (And yes boar and fowl are the only things I hunt with a gun.)

When I was a boy I used to go boar hunting with my friend and his dad. We just took their dogs and some hunting knives. I didn't know any better. :boggled:

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
I think you missed my point. In a group atrocity there are significant psychological dynamics occurring that are not present in a single person busting in to kill some children with a machete.
I would be interested in what psychological dynamics reduce one's ability to use a machete, once the decision has been made to kill a room full of kids.

I may have been premature: I assumed a decision to kill the room full of kids, because that was the original scenario.

[Redtail]

I don't know... I can't make sense of anything you are saying... you seem to think that limiting guns means that the gun tragedies like those in the OP will be replaced by bomb tragedies. I think that sounds like the rhetoric of many irrational gun owners in America.

You seem to think that limiting guns would stop mass murders. Without going into detail you could eliminate guns entirely and I can think of 3-4 ways off the top of my head to commit mass murder that would make Columbine and VT look like an "innocent accident" if I went crazy. My point is that there is a far deeper problem in America that needs to be addressed and people like you want to put a band-aid on a gash that goes to the bone.

Yes, I'm concerned by the number of irrational people who own guns. I'm sure nobody thinks that the gun they own will end up destroying anyone's life. Please buy non lethal bullets and avoid bringing your weapons around people I care about. I hope you are just joking, but if you don't mind I think I'm going to put you on ignore because you sound like part of the problem.


I'm concerned about the number of irrational people who think that having a gun means you want to destroy anyone's life, or that it eventually will. For roughly 23 years lived in a house where there was at least 1 gun loaded with a round in the chamber (for autos) at all times (It was 4 guns but my Mom became suicidal due to meds) and there were no tragedies involving guns.

Anhow, here's more on the OP http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/16/university.shooting/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i72zWlWRLvc1ejGI5WpefItEjKCAD8URPA2O0


Yes. People are crazy. Believe me, I know.

[gumboot]

Hi

I would be interested in what psychological dynamics reduce one's ability to use a machete, once the decision has been made to kill a room full of kids.

I may have been premature: I assumed a decision to kill the room full of kids, because that was the original scenario.


It's complicated, but in summary:

A person wanting to kill someone must overcome their natural resistance to killing.
The more personal and immediate the act is, the harder it is to overcome it.

This dynamic is in place in both scenarios. However in the atrocity scenario there are other factors at play.

The killer is being compelled by the group which helps to overcome the atrocity.
Often this compulsion will extend to threats of physical violence or death.
These compulsions make overcoming the resistance much easier.

Now, once the first killing has occurred, you get a psychological "backlash".

Think of it as "what goes up must come down". The greater the resistance that had to be overcome, the more severe the backlash. This backlash is why so many murders end in suicide or attempted suicide.

Now in the case of the single killer, this makes subsequent killings more difficult, and results in increasing psychological distress.

But in the atrocity scenario another group aspect is at play. The atrocity group, having committed the atrocity, are psychologically vulnerable. In order to protect themselves psychologically, they skew their perception of reality and justify their actions - for example dehumanising the victims, asserting that their proven superiority makes it just, and so forth. The construct a lie - a distorted version of reality.

The problem is when they come across the next village their lie is undeniable - evident in the humanity of the villagers. So they are compelled to commit additional atrocities to assert their dominance over the victims and vindicate their distorted reality. And the same thing occurs when a new person joins the group - that new person becomes a mirror of the lie of their perceptions. So the group must compel the newcomer to join "the dark side" by also committing atrocity (which brings as back to the beginning and into the atrocity loop).

Thus the psychological dynamics of a group atrocity are very different to a lone killer, and comparing the two is not valid.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Thanks for the perspective, gumboot. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's worth thinking about.

[gumboot]

Hi

Thanks for the perspective, gumboot. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's worth thinking about.


For a more detailed explanation read On Killing: The Psychological Cost Of Learning To Kill In War And Society by Lt Col Dave Grossman. It's a very interesting book.

[Lothian]

Ah. So it's mistaken then.

I'm happy for the right to own my guns. I accept that mass murders by guns are possible because of this

I'm happy American Tobacco Co. funded part of my education. I accept the fact that millions of people died due to smoking related causes.

I'm happy that I have the right to free speech. I accept the fact that said free speech included people like Fred Phelps.

I'm happy I own a motorcycle. I accept the fact that motorcycles are far less safe than cars and an accident on one could kill or seriously injure me when in a car.

According to your logic, I'm happy that mass murders by guns are possible, I'm happy that millions of people died for my scholarship, I'm happy Fred Phelps protests funerals, and I want to die in a motorcycle crash.

No one said they are happy with the mass murders in America.You stated that mass murders are a consequence of liberal gun laws. You linked mass murders to those laws. My reference to mass murders was clearly to those you accept as a consequence of the liberal gun laws, as opposed to mass murders such as 9/11.

I abbreviated 'the mass murders arising as a consequence of liberal gun laws being a regrettable but acceptable side effect". That is quite clear from my posts. For you to conclude I was suggesting that people were happy people were victims of mass murder is a mistake on your part not mine.

To put my statement into context perhaps this might help you understand it.

You are happy that Fred Phelps protesting funerals is an acceptable consequence of free speech.

You are happy that motorbike deaths are an acceptable consequence of motorbikes.

You are happy that mass murders are an acceptable consequence of liberal gun laws.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Didn't we have a talk about this, "happy," stuff just a little bit ago?

Remember that being happy with the house and unhappy with the price, but accepting the price because it gets you something valuable NOT being the same as being happy with the price?

Here you area, again, saying, "happy with the price as an acceptable consequence of having a house."

No, we are not happy with the price. We're happy with the house. We accept the price.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
For a more detailed explanation read On Killing: The Psychological Cost Of Learning To Kill In War And Society by Lt Col Dave Grossman. It's a very interesting book.
A quick follow-up question: Do you think it's that much easier to kill with a gun than with a machete? Don't the same factors come into play when someone decides to shoot a bunch of people for the first time as do when the goal is to chop them to death?

My personal feeling, remembering my success rate the first time I picked up a machete on the farm as a boy to chop underbrush, is that it's more easily explained as, "city boy don't know how to chop."

[baron]

You seem to think that limiting guns would stop mass murders. Without going into detail you could eliminate guns entirely and I can think of 3-4 ways off the top of my head to commit mass murder that would make Columbine and VT look like an "innocent accident" if I went crazy.

This has been done to death in this thread and a dozen others. The pro-gun crowd have repeatedly and deliberately failed to address the criticisms of this nonsensical point of view so I for one officially give up.

My point is that there is a far deeper problem in America that needs to be addressed and people like you want to put a band-aid on a gash that goes to the bone.

What's the point in tending to the wound when the idiot will go and shoot himself again?

I'm concerned about the number of irrational people who think that having a gun means you want to destroy anyone's life, or that it eventually will. For roughly 23 years lived in a house where there was at least 1 gun loaded with a round in the chamber (for autos) at all times (It was 4 guns but my Mom became suicidal due to meds) and there were no tragedies involving guns.

My great-uncle smoked 40 a day and died at the age of 99. Ergo, smoking is perfectly safe.

[gumboot]

Hi

A quick follow-up question: Do you think it's that much easier to kill with a gun than with a machete? Don't the same factors come into play when someone decides to shoot a bunch of people for the first time as do when the goal is to chop them to death?

The same basic factors are at play. The key difference is that the resistance to killing is not an absolute thing, it's a variable and it is affected by a host of factors. The actual killing methodology and proximity to the victim plays a key part.

The more removed the killer is from the actual act of killing, and from the victim, the easier it is to overcome the resistance (and also the lower or more delayed the backlash, allowing for continued killing).

The actual act of killing itself can vary from the extreme case of killing someone by penetrating their body with your own (say killing them by shoving your thumb through their eye into their brain) or issuing an order for someone to fire a missile that flies across the world before blowing up a house.

On this scale shooting someone with a firearm would involve a lesser resistance than actually cutting them with a machete. Firstly it's a simple matter of range - with a machete you have to be close. Secondly with a machete you are physically holding the object that enters their body and kills them, whereas a person firing a gun has no physical contact with the bullet.

Distance from the victim is the second major component and pretty much mirrors what I said above - you physically need to be closer to a victim to kill them with a machete. At that range it becomes impossible to deny the pain and anguish and suffering you have inflicted on the victim. They may even make some physical contact with you.

Another aspect to consider in this specific case is how people were targeted. In terms of the above factors, with a machete it is undeniable that you yourself killed the particular person dying right in front of you. In contrast if you fire a shotgun indiscriminately into a large crowd of people you have not individually targeted anyone, and so at an intellectual level you can deny personal responsibility for the death of a specific individual.

Lastly, killing someone with a machete would typically take longer than killing them with a firearm. You pull the trigger, there's a bang, they fall down, and you move onto your next victim (they of course might not actually be dead yet, but you have dismissed them from your mind). In contrast when you kill someone with a blade you are immediately in the presence of their pain and suffering as they are initially injured. You may have to inflict additional wounds on them to kill them.

Last thing to consider is the "blowback" or the psychological repercussion of overcoming your resistance. The resistance in the machete example is more extreme for the reasons explained above, and that results in a more severe and more rapid blowback - it may occur during the actual act of killing them. As such you're more likely to be overcome with grief sooner, preventing you from continuing.

In contrast blowback from a firearm killing may be delayed or less severe, and as the actual act of killing is quicker, you're simply more likely to be able to kill multiple people before being overwhelmed by the psychological ramifications of what you have done.

A final foot note to this is that in this case the killer appears to have intended from the beginning to shoot until all ammunition was exhausted except one round which he used on himself. Knowing that suicide is the intended end result, this has a profound impact on the resistance to killing and also on the impact of the blowback (if you know you're going to die at the end of it, there's no ramification).

In contrast I have a hard time believing someone would plan to walk into a room with a machete, hack a bunch of people up, and then turn the machete on themselves.

All of these factors essentially make killing a group of people with a gun much easier than with a machete.


My personal feeling, remembering my success rate the first time I picked up a machete on the farm as a boy to chop underbrush, is that it's more easily explained as, "city boy don't know how to chop."

I don't think that's it at all. The resistance to killing is entirely independent of any ability to perform the mechanical action. Soldiers throughout history have failed to fire their weapons at the enemy despite receiving extensive weapons drill.

[LawnOven]

Oh I'm so proud, my alma mater, finally gets to be a proper gun control debate thread on JREF.

On a different note.

I want to carry a sword! Whats the deal with all these conceal carry laws in states with a bunch of guns?

Never swords!

Anyone know in what state I could carry around a sword as I go grocery shopping, or for a stroll in the park? (you know and not get it taken away or harassed by nosy cops.)

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Thanks again, gumboot. Judging from most first-time brush-clearing machete use, there seems to be a lot of psychological resistance to cutting locust saplings, too, so I'm not buying it 100%, but I'm going to get that book.

[bigred]

That is awful. 30 shots, 17 people shot none dead. Was this man not taught to shoot properly? I blame the parents, he is a disgrace to the militia.
What a hilarious joke; very classy too. I bet you were a riot after 9/11.


As for the idea that a lot of college kids toting guns around campus would be safer, I would hope the illogic of that would be more than a little obvious. Good grief.

[LostAngeles]

What year of school was that in? We were being shown said properties in year eight...one of my mates had to go to hospital when the teacher used a bit too much sodium (a good example of why high school science teachers should have at least a basic knowledge of science).

10 and 11. 8 was geology, 9 was physics/chem, 10 was bio, 11 was chem.

We got the chem teacher to do the demonstration for an entire week straight. He couldn't remember if he had done it or not.

[Redtail]

This has been done to death in this thread and a dozen others. The pro-gun crowd have repeatedly and deliberately failed to address the criticisms of this nonsensical point of view so I for one officially give up.

Of course it has.



What's the point in tending to the wound when the idiot will go and shoot himself again?

That's why you teach him not to shoot himself.





My great-uncle smoked 40 a day and died at the age of 99. Ergo, smoking is perfectly safe.

For him it was.

[Pardalis]

The man of the hour:
http://forums.randi.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10083&stc=1&d=1203105258

Anyone reminded of Mr. Bean?

[Drudgewire]

Anyone know in what state I could carry around a sword as I go grocery shopping, or for a stroll in the park? (you know and not get it taken away or harassed by nosy cops.)
Colorado allows open carry in many situations, although The Emperor (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3385370) probably screwed the pooch for that in the near future (story says "knife," when he went to rent his tux it was dangling from his belt all "sword-like.")

[Rolfe]

A quick follow-up question: Do you think it's that much easier to kill with a gun than with a machete? Don't the same factors come into play when someone decides to shoot a bunch of people for the first time as do when the goal is to chop them to death?


In Britain we suffer from a severe shortage of comparable incidents. In spite of strict gun control laws, I'm afraid I am unable to point you to any school (or other) massacres by lone lunatics wielding anything other than a gun.

We've only had two school attacks in recent memory, and it's getting not all that recent now. (Our current no. 1 tennis champion was a frightened eight-year-old hiding under a desk yards from the only fatal example.) Interestingly, neither attacker was a disaffected teen, both were middle-aged weirdos. Maybe a lesson there somewhere? Maybe when disaffected teens can't get guns they don't run amuck in schools at all?

Anyway, attack one, the infamous Dunblane massacre (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/13/newsid_2543000/2543277.stm). March 1996. Thomas Hamilton had some perfectly legal guns, and some sort of grudge against society, and he killed 16 five-year-olds and their teacher.

Attack two, the Wolverhampton machete attack (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/8/newsid_2496000/2496685.stm). July 1996. The name associated with this is not the attacker, who is quite forgotten (Horrett Irving Campbell), but Lisa Potts, the teacher who was badly injured protecting her pupils. In all, three children and four adults were injured. Nobody was killed.

So, sorry for the shortage of data, but these are the only incidents I have to go on. And I know which one I'd rather not be involved in.

Widening the subject to werdos going on killing sprees, I can only think of one other incident in Britain in my memory, the Hungerford massacre (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/19/newsid_2534000/2534669.stm) in August 1987. Michael Ryan. And he had guns.

These sorts of incidents do stamp themselves on public consciousness. I can't remember any others. So, number of angst-ridden teens going on shooting rampages? None at all. Number of angst-ridden teens going on any other sort of killing rampage? None at all. Number of nutjob middle-aged men going on rampages with lethal intent? Three. Number of these involving guns? Two. Number involving machetes? One. Number of fatal gun incidents among these? Two. Number of fatal machete attacks among these? None.

Yes, there are different sorts of killings, primarily terrorist attacks, formerly the IRA and now Moslem extremists. There have even been a couple of certifiably insane Scottish "nationalists". They have used different means, with greater or lesser success.

But the phenomenon of the lone weirdo setting out to kill a bunch of people and then possibly himself, well, the evidence of our experience is that non-gun-related incidents are rare and the one non-gun-related incident that happened was not fatal.

Rolfe.

PS. One thing that really shocked me at the time of Dunblane was an American commentator who seemed to be glad that we'd had a school gun massacre too, so that he could point to it and say, look, it still happens even where there are strict gun controls, so this is a good argument against gun control. How twisted can you get?

[Lothian]

Not a machete but I do recall a sword attack (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/541982.stm).

No one died.

[Rolfe]

Not a machete but I do recall a sword attack (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/541982.stm).

No one died.


Oh, I have some recollection of that now. Of course, when nobody is killed, it doesn't stick in the mind so much. I had some trouble tracking down the Wolverhampton report because I'd forgotten where it happened. So, two sword/machete wielding attackers, total death toll nil. Wolverhampton and Thornton Heath - just places.

Nobody in Britain will ever be able to rid the names of Hungerford and Dublane of their terrible associations though.

Rolfe.

[dann]

School Massacres: Normal Insanity (http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/schoolmassacre.htm).

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
... snip ...

Nobody in Britain will ever be able to rid the names of Hungerford and Dublane of their terrible associations though.

How many of this type of thing have you has since... ummm... checking facts... since ummm... Charles Whitman invented this new method of wrongdoing in 1966?

...and about dann's post: Isn't homicidal mania a form of psychosis?

[volatile]

Hi


How many of this type of thing have you has since... ummm... checking facts... since ummm... Charles Whitman invented this new method of wrongdoing in 1966?



Honestly? It really isn't that much higher than the 2 Rolfe mentioned.

Yes, that's right. Two.

[articulett]

They're rather routine here, it seems:

Printed in an article referencing the OP shooting:

— There have been five shootings in US schools and universities in the past few days. They include a nursing student in Louisiana who shot two students and herself, and a 17-year-old who shot dead another student in gym class
— A massacre last week at a city hall meeting in Kirkwood, Missouri, left five people dead
— In 2005-06 there were 14,300 incidents of children disciplined for using or possessing a firearm or explosive device
— Two thirds of homicide victims in the US are killed with firearms
— There are about 11,000 firearms-related deaths in the US annually – more occur in two days than the UK records in a year
Source: US Department of Justice, CNN, agencies, Harvard University

and

The past couple of weeks have been a dangerous time to live in America. We witnessed a skein of high-profile, multiple victim shootings, many causing the deaths and woundings of several innocents and police officers. Meanwhile, the world looked on in shock and disgust.
The shootings included:
~Saturday, February 1: 15-year old honor student shoots and kills parents and two brothers in Baltimore suburb;
~Saturday, February 1: Gunman shoots and kills five women in suburban Chicago clothing store;
~Sunday, February 2: Gunman shoots and kills three at suburban Washington, DC pizzeria after argument over Super Bowl;
~Thursday, February 7: Gunman shoots and kills police officer, three others in fiery Los Angeles stand-off;
~Thursday, February 7: Disgruntled citizen shoots and kills two police officers, three others in rampage during Missouri city council meeting; and
~Friday, February 8: Nursing student shoots and kills two other students and self at Louisiana college.
What would have likely been the most damaging shooting of all during the period occurred mercifully without death or injury Sunday, February 2, when a man armed himself with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and approached the Super Bowl near Phoenix intent on massacre, but had a last-minute change of heart and turned himself in before opening fire.
The series was capped off this past Thursday, Valentine's Day, when a disturbed gunman shot and killed 5 students and wounded 16, before killing himself, in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University.

From another article:


US death toll
October 2007 Sheriff's deputy Tyler Peterson shot and killed six people at a house party in Crandon, Wisconsin, before turning the gun on himself.
April 2007 At Virginia Tech (below), loner Seung-Hui Cho, a Korean American, killed 32 students and staff in the worst school shooting in US history. He then killed himself.
October 2006 Charles Roberts lined up five schoolgirls against a blackboard before shooting them at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Paradise, Pennsylvania. He killed himself.
April 1999 Students at Columbine high school were targeted by Colorado misfits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris who opened fire on classmates, killing 12 teenagers and a teacher. The pair then killed themselves.
October 1991 George Hennard drove a truck into Luby's Cafe in Killeen, Texas, shot dead 23 people, then himself.

"In the U.S., we have a couple of dozen mass killings every year," says James A. Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston, and a noted authority on murder sprees. The intense media focus on events like the Virginia Tech shootings, last year's slaying of five young Amish girls at a rural Pennsylvania school, or the 1999 Columbine massacre, has created a perception that they are happening more frequently, but the number of such tragedies has stayed constant for close to 30 years. And while mass killings are an international phenomenon -- the Dunblane massacre in Scotland, a rampage in Erfurt, Germany, that left 16 dead in 2002, and Canada's own École Polytechnique, Taber and Dawson College shootings among them -- the U.S. remains their unquestioned epicentre. Fox ticks off his possible explanations: America's obsession with high-powered weapons, an "eclipse in community" and family breakdowns that have left more and more people isolated, and a popular culture that celebrates those who get even, and pities those who don't. "Most of these mass killers have a clear sense that they are right and other people are wrong," he says. "A clear sense that they are being victimized by an unfair system, and they go after the people they hold responsible."

And we can't do anything because gun owners think the answers is more guns and fewer restrictions. Everyone imagines themselves a hero with their gun, and they feel that these tragedies are worth their "right to bear arms". They will comment on everything but the tragedy and throw out a bunch of tangents to avoid admitting this, but the bottom line is, those who wish there were fewer loaded guns around-- those who wish they were mandated to be locked up and unloaded... we are shouted down by the gun nuts... and they are armed. There doesn't seem to be a solution... just rhetoric --and the gun lobby is one of the most powerful in America.

We have gun tragedies every day in America. We have far more massacres than any other civilized country--we average a "couple dozen" a year. It's barbaric... and there seems to be no means of stopping this escalation--with the posts of "gun enthusiasts" you should see why. Even posts like this are perceived as "threats to their rights" by them. They are more prone to paranoia and more like to overestimate the likelihood of their gun being used "heroically" and greatly underestimate the risk that it might be used to harm their life or the life of someone they know. The more irrational they are, the more likely they are to keep a loaded gun around for "protection". The ones that snap, never think they are the ones that will snap... the parents of kids who snap all had "no idea". Those who should know because they have already experienced a gun tragedy in their family first hand-- still keep their loaded weapons at the ready. If witnessing the ruination of another's life cannot change one's habits, what in the world will?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

But, again, what makes gun homicides worse than other kinds of homicide (the other half of the American homicide problem)? Why do you think that disarming law-abiding citizens will make the crime rate, homicide rate and suicide rate go down when it plainly did not in the UK? Why does the UK with MUCH LOWER overall crime rates than the US have a nearly IDENTICAL suicide rate?

Why were the 30,694 firearm deaths in 2004 somehow more tragic than the 32,691 poisoning deaths? Why are gun deaths more important than the other 143,059 deaths that happened in 2004?

Why are murders that get into the newspaper and onto TV more important than the ones that don't?

Just asking.

[Ryokan]

But, again, what makes gun homicides worse than other kinds of homicide?

I wouldn't say they're worse. But they're so much easier!

[articulett]

I wouldn't say they're worse. But they're so much easier!

Yep. Instant massacre. Grab dad's gun and go, eh? With tools that are easy to conceal and made to do the job most efficiently. It does tend to be the most popular method of massacre in America, doesn't it?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
Yep. Instant massacre. Grab dad's gun and go, eh? With tools that are easy to conceal and made to do the job most efficiently. It does tend to be the most popular method of massacre in America, doesn't it?

...or drop in at the grocery store and buy a few bottles of liquid chlorine laundry bleach and household ammonia.

It's a dangerous world.

Think that'd make the papers?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
I wouldn't say they're worse. But they're so much easier!

And, unless I misremember my English, "easy," and, "irreplaceable," are not synomyms.

So: Where did all those gun deaths GO in Britain?

But the actual question was about the amount of tragedy implicit in homicide, and the effect that, apparently, different available methods and weapons seems to vary it.

[articulett]

If it was a method of massacre used a couple dozen times a year, I'm sure it would.

I suspect it's not one many people choose for multiple reasons.

[articulett]

Hi


And, unless I misremember my English, "easy," and, "irreplaceable," are not synomyms.

So: Where did all those gun deaths GO in Britain?

Well, it appears they've ended up in the same place as all people not massacred by guns GO here in America. Most of them go on living their lives. (You know, like those kids would be doing if they weren't shot by the dude in the OP article?)

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
Well, it appears they've ended up in the same place as all people not massacred by guns GO here in America. Most of them go on living their lives. (You know, like those kids would be doing who weren't shot by the dude in the OP article?) Duh.

Actually, no. As I posted above, the same number of people are being murdered. The same number of people are committing suicide.

It's just different people. Why is the death of a teenager killed by a gun worse than the death of a teenager killed by a knife?

And, again: Where did the gun deaths go? If taking away guns saves lives, whey are there the same number of deaths after they took away the guns?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
If it was a method of massacre used a couple dozen times a year, I'm sure it would.

I suspect it's not one many people choose for multiple reasons.

NONE of these happened until the Texas Tower Sniper incident. He got WEEKS of every-night TV coverage and analysis.

What a way to go! Down in a BLAZE of MEDIA GLORY!

No one's poisoning rooms full of elementary school kids because no one's thought of it yet, just like no one thought of shooting bunches of people at school before 1966.

Give 'em time. Give 'em time.

[articulett]

The other countries don't have near the number of massacres we do... or homicides... or even suicides of young people.

You can't seriously believe that all gun victims would have died via chemical bombs or something.... Certainly not the kids mentioned in the OP... or the family killed by the son who got the gun his dad kept to protect his family (which wouldn't have worked to protect anyone in a chemical bomb attack, I might add.)

I strongly suspect many of these guns are used because they're available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilization_behavior

You don't see chemicals and think "gee, it would be so easy to make a chemical bomb..." People do see triggers and think, I wonder what would happen if I just pulled this. I can change everything... in an instant. I can kill myself and make a whole lot of other people suffer as well. And some do. Quit pretending that this kid would have used or done something else... that is really a stretch... but one that "gun enthusiasts" often seem to make.

Do you really think we'd have as many massacres and homicides were it not for the omnipresence of loaded weapons designed to kill people?

[INRM]

I hate it when gunmen do crap like this. It ends up lending credence to the attitude that regular law enforcement isn't enough and that the government should go out of their way to monitor everybody looking for people who might (meaning not even remotely certain) do something -- something which is antithetical to what the fourth-amendment stands for.

This is always the thing that worries me first and foremost whenever a gunman goes on a rampage, how it will affect our civil-liberties.


INRM

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
The other countries don't have near the number of massacres we do... or homicides... or even suicides of young people.
Better check your facts. Britain and the US have nearly IDENTICAL suicide rates. The suicide rate spiked the reporting period AFTER 1997, too, when all of their guns were heavily controlled or confiscated. In 2005, the US had a slightly LOWER suicide rate than Britain.

I don't know about ALL other countries, but Britain ALWAYS had lower overall crime rates, but even there, the crime rates are on the rise. If guns cause crimes, and fewer guns mean LESS crime, why is the british rate going up?

As for massacres: We invented it. We're better at it.

Again, why do you think that the death of 10 people in a clump more tragic than 10 people killed, spread all over the country?

You can't seriously believe that all gun victims would have died via chemical bombs or something.... Certainly not the kids mentioned in the OP... or the family killed by the son who got the gun his dad kept to protect his family (which wouldn't have worked to protect anyone in a chemical bomb attack, I might add.)
Then what's killing the Brits?

There was NO decline in homicide rates or suicide rates after they went all... as everyone in this country says, "draconian," only the anti-gun people say it like it's a GOOD thing.

Shouldn't there have been SOME effect?

The kid in the OP was almost an Eagle scout. That means that he had an axe and knew how to use it. Would it have been less tragic if he'd killed them with it?

I strongly suspect many of these guns are used because they're available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilization_behavior

I suspect so, too, but other things are available as well. Well- they apparently are in Britain, anyhow.

You don't see chemicals and think "gee, it would be so easy to make a chemical bomb..." People do see triggers and think, I wonder what would happen if I just pulled this. I can change everything... in an instant. I can kill myself and make a whole lot of other people suffer as well. And some do. Quit pretending that this kid would have used or done something else... that is really a stretch... but one that "gun enthusiasts" often seem to make.
Well - actually, I do. Your tax dollars at work.

I used to take bombs apart for the Army, and the training I received to that end have left me thinking a little differently than most people. Everywhere I go, I'm doing a risk analysis and escape plan. <<shrug>> Chemicals in the grocery store, culvert under the street, oncoming cars in traffic all get tallied up as I go along.

ANYHOW: Just because YOU see triggers and think, "I wonder what would happen if I just pulled this", doesn't mean everyone does. I see a trigger and immediately check which way the muzzle is pointed. I was trained with THOSE, too.

A stretch to think that an Eagle scout could have used an axe? I almost guarantee there was one around the house, garage or tool shed, and he knew how to use it. A gun being around is an excuse too. Available is available, as the homicide rates form Britain have shown pretty well.

...and you still haven't answered how you know that the father in the OP didn't leave his firearm unloaded and locked.

Do you really think we'd have as many massacres and homicides were it not for the omnipresence of loaded weapons designed to kill people?

As for homicides, they do in Jolly Old. Give me one reason it should be different here.

As for massacres, again, American invention, and good ol' American expertise.

[articulett]

I hate it when gunmen do crap like this. It ends up lending credence to the attitude that regular law enforcement isn't enough and that the government should go out of their way to monitor everybody looking for people who might (meaning not even remotely certain) do something -- something which is antithetical to what the fourth-amendment stands for.

This is always the thing that worries me first and foremost whenever a gunman goes on a rampage, how it will affect our civil-liberties.


INRM

Yes, the gun enthusiasts always worry about that... they never worry about the dead people, oddly enough. Every post where guns are mentioned, they come a'running, lest someone think of asking them to keep their guns unloaded and locked up.

It's a right that non-Americans don't seem to be longing for. I wonder why?

[GeeMack]

We have gun tragedies every day in America. We have far more massacres than any other civilized country--we average a "couple dozen" a year. It's barbaric... and there seems to be no means of stopping this escalation--with the posts of "gun enthusiasts" you should see why. Even posts like this are perceived as "threats to their rights" by them. They are more prone to paranoia and more like to overestimate the likelihood of their gun being used "heroically" and greatly underestimate the risk that it might be used to harm their life or the life of someone they know. The more irrational they are, the more likely they are to keep a loaded gun around for "protection". The ones that snap, never think they are the ones that will snap... the parents of kids who snap all had "no idea". Those who should know because they have already experienced a gun tragedy in their family first hand-- still keep their loaded weapons at the ready. If witnessing the ruination of another's life cannot change one's habits, what in the world will?


Reasoned discourse, maybe? Maybe a change of approach by anti-gun faith-heads who refuse to understand the issue, who wrongly and dishonestly attribute a particular mode of thinking to all gun owners? As I mentioned here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3513668#post3513668), you've clearly demonstrated that you don't have a clue about how gun owners generally think, articulett. As long as you, and others like you who refuse to become properly informed about the issue, remain so entrenched in your wrongness, as long as you can only offer hyperbolic complaining, you won't make any kind of productive contribution towards reducing this particular societal ill.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Reposted from another thread:

Lets see what the British Home Office (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page108.asp) has to say about how safe Britain is because of the gun ban.

All crime:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_TOTAL_RECORDED_CRIME_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page6.asp)
Brits are a level-headed lot- not much overall change. The disconnect in 88/89 is because of a change in reporting and recording practices in April of 1998.

Violent Crime:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_TOTAL_VIOLENT_CRIME_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page66.asp)

Homicide:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_Homicide_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page40.asp)


Robbery:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_TOTAL_ROBBERY_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page21.asp)

Theft from the person of another:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_Theft_from_the_person_of_another_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page35.asp)

Violent disorder offences:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_Violent_Disorder_offences_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page52.asp)

Sexual offences:
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/files/images/TREND_TOTAL_SEXUAL_OFFENCES_06.gif (http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page24.asp)

Composite suicide raw numbers from National Statistics at statistics.gov.uk (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13618) (I had to run the totals):

Year Total Suicides
1991 6317.0
1992 6378.0
1993 6212.0
1994 6045.0
1995 6084.0
1996 5877.0
1997 5816.0
1998 6354.0
1999 6255.0
2000 6124.0
2001 5932.0
2002 5826.0
2003 5731.0
2004 5850.0
2005 5671.0
2006 5554.0

Let me SHOW you that (I had to have Excel open anyway)....
http://home.insightbb.com/~alsohlstrom/UK_Suicide_Numbers.jpg

From http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/41605.php]medicalnewstoday.com

The report shows the most recent suicide rate (for the 3 years 2002/3/4) was 8.56 deaths per 100,000 population - a reduction of 6.6% from the 1995/6/7 baseline. The target is to reduce the suicide rate by at least a fifth by the year 2010 (from the baseline rate of 9.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 1995/6/7 to 7.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2009/10/11).
1.066 * 8.56 would give the 1995/6/7 baseline a value of 9.12, right?

In the US, our same-period suicide rate was, according, again, to WISQARS (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/), for 2002/3/4 (Suicide, All injury) was 10.87, and for 1995/6/7 (again, Suicide, All injury) was 11.53.

So, in a country where handguns are popular and available, if the anti-gun arithmetic is any where near right, shouldn't we have significantly more than about 2 more deaths per 100,000?

Also, the article is happy about such a low suicide rate, and proud of a 6.6% drop, while the USA had, while increasing the number of handguns, managed a 5.7% drop of its own!

According to statistics.gov.uk (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/suicide0305.pdf)
UK suicides reach 30 year low in 2003
There were 5,755 adult suicides in the UK in 2003, the lowest
number since 1973, according to data released today by the
Office for National Statistics.

Suicide rates for men, which were rising through the 1970s and
1980s, have decreased steadily since 1998. The rate for 2003,
18.1 deaths per 100,000 population, was the lowest since 1978.

Suicide rates for women, which fell steadily in the 1980s and early
1990s, have decreased only slightly since the mid-1990s. The
rate for women remained around 5.8 deaths per 100,000
population in each of the years 2001 to 2003.


The US same-period suicide rate for men was 17.99 per 100,000, and for women, 4.18.

Now, using raw data for 2003, we had 31,484 suicides, of which 16,907 were committed with firearms, so about half the suicides were with guns. Britain, however, with no handguns and strict controls on all guns, seems to have a HIGHER suicide rate!

My compilation of suicide rates per 100,00 for men and women (the Brits break it down, and I have to reassamble it...) is coming soon....

[Gagglegnash]

Hi
... clip ...

It's a right that non-Americans don't seem to be longing for. I wonder why?

Let me make a WAG on that: Because they are non-Americans?? :eye-poppi

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Crude suicide rates of US and UK men and women, 1991 to 2005

Year UK Me UK Wo US Me US Wo
1991 | 20.95 | 6.69 | 20.07 | 4.66
1992 | 21.07 | 6.70 | 19.53 | 4.59
1993 | 20.48 | 6.48 | 19.70 | 4.58
1994 | 19.90 | 6.13 | 19.58 | 4.44
1995 | 20.22 | 6.11 | 19.48 | 4.35
1996 | 19.19 | 5.99 | 18.97 | 4.29
1997 | 19.00 | 6.10 | 18.35 | 4.34
1998 | 21.10 | 6.24 | 18.16 | 4.29
1999 | 20.72 | 5.99 | 17.15 | 4.04
2000 | 19.92 | 6.20 | 17.11 | 4.00
2001 | 19.30 | 5.80 | 17.61 | 4.10
2002 | 18.68 | 5.83 | 17.95 | 4.26
2003 | 18.14 | 5.78 | 17.63 | 4.25
2004 | 18.08 | 6.03 | 17.70 | 4.61
2005 | 17.51 | 5.83 | 17.75 | 4.47
(I wish I could post tables....)

[Wolverine]

(I wish I could post tables....)

You can (http://forums.randi.org/misc.php?do=bbcode#table). :)

Year|UK M|UK W|US M|US W
1991 | 20.95 | 6.69 | 20.07 | 4.66
1992 | 21.07 | 6.70 | 19.53 | 4.59
1993 | 20.48 | 6.48 | 19.70 | 4.58
1994 | 19.90 | 6.13 | 19.58 | 4.44
1995 | 20.22 | 6.11 | 19.48 | 4.35
1996 | 19.19 | 5.99 | 18.97 | 4.29
1997 | 19.00 | 6.10 | 18.35 | 4.34
1998 | 21.10 | 6.24 | 18.16 | 4.29
1999 | 20.72 | 5.99 | 17.15 | 4.04
2000 | 19.92 | 6.20 | 17.11 | 4.00
2001 | 19.30 | 5.80 | 17.61 | 4.10
2002 | 18.68 | 5.83 | 17.95 | 4.26
2003 | 18.14 | 5.78 | 17.63 | 4.25
2004 | 18.08 | 6.03 | 17.70 | 4.61
2005 | 17.51 | 5.83 | 17.75 | 4.47

[Rolfe]

Why do you think that disarming law-abiding citizens will make the crime rate, homicide rate and suicide rate go down when it plainly did not in the UK?


Where did the gun deaths go? If taking away guns saves lives, whey are there the same number of deaths after they took away the guns?


The suicide rate spiked the reporting period AFTER 1997, too, when all of their guns were heavily controlled or confiscated.


.... how safe Britain is because of the gun ban.


Why do you keep doing this?

You have been told several times now that what happened in 1997 was of essentially no significance to ordinary law-abiding citizens. They were not "disarmed", because they were never armed in the first place. Their guns were not "taken away", because they didn't have any.

There has never been any culture of ordinary lawabiding citizens keeping guns at home. The tightening of the law in 1997 affected only a tiny proportion of the population, target shooters who for some reason best known to themselves kept their guns at home. I don't know the number of guns removed from circulation at that time, but as a proportion of the adult population of the country it would inevitably have been insignificant - because only an insignificant percentage of the adult population kept such a weapon at home even before the legislation.

It is therefore completely irrelevant, and indeed intellectually dishonest, to post statistics such as suicide figures as evidence that this "gun ban" had no effect. Since these people had no access to firearms even before 1997, then it's hardly surprising there was no change in the situation.

In spite of being informed differently, you keep referring to this "gun ban", and "disarming lawabiding citizens" in terms that suggest that before 1997 Britain was like the USA, with a high percentage of the adult population owning guns and keeping them at home and even walking around with them, and that in 1997 these guns were "taken away". This is not so. Nobody was walking around the streets (legally, anyway) with a gun even before 1997, and very very few people kept guns in their homes. I don't know the details of the pre-1997 law, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody could legally keep a loaded weapon in their home then either.

The law was introduced to try to reduce even further the chance of something like Dunblane happening again. Thomas Hamilton was a member of a gun club, and, as was legal before 1997, he kept guns in his home. This was extremely rare. It was not usual behaviour at all. Nevertheless, the incident showed that allowing this to happen at all was something that could be exploited by homicidal maniacs.

There was no possibility that this legislation would affect suicide rates, because gun availability was so restricted even before 1997 that any possible change could never show up in statistics. It was intended to affect public massacres by madmen. In this, so far as we can tell with the limited data available, it has been successful.

Rolfe.

[Drudgewire]

Yes, the gun enthusiasts always worry about that... they never worry about the dead people, oddly enough. Every post where guns are mentioned, they come a'running, lest someone think of asking them to keep their guns unloaded and locked up.

It's a right that non-Americans don't seem to be longing for. I wonder why?
They haven't experienced the joy of keeping a loaded gun in their nightstand, and the dreams of sugar plums that come with a secure night's sleep. :)

[Rolfe]

They haven't experienced the joy of keeping a loaded gun in their nightstand, and the dreams of sugar plums that come with a secure night's sleep. :)


That is absolutely true, Drudgewire. Not after 1997 - and not before 1997 either.

Maybe you could explain this to Gagglenash, he doesn't seem to understand this.

Rolfe.

[Darat]

Why do you keep doing this?

...snip...

I don't know the number of guns removed from circulation at that time, but as a proportion of the adult population of the country it would inevitably have been insignificant - because only an insignificant percentage of the adult population kept such a weapon at home even before the legislation.

...snip....



Somewhere in the region of 50,000 people were affected by the change in the law.

To put it into perspective prior to 1997 there were over 3 million legally owned firearms in the UK, after the 1997 legislation there were still over 3 million legally owned firearms in the UK.


...snip...


It is therefore completely irrelevant, and indeed intellectually dishonest, to post statistics such as suicide figures as evidence that this "gun ban" had no effect. Since these people had no access to firearms even before 1997, then it's hardly surprising there was no change in the situation.

In spite of being informed differently, you keep referring to this "gun ban", and "disarming lawabiding citizens" in terms that suggest that before 1997 Britain was like the USA, with a high percentage of the adult population owning guns and keeping them at home and even walking around with them, and that in 1997 these guns were "taken away". This is not so. Nobody was walking around the streets (legally, anyway) with a gun even before 1997, and very very few people kept guns in their homes. I don't know the details of the pre-1997 law, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody could legally keep a loaded weapon in their home then either.


...snip...

That is correct - prior to 1997 all handguns in the home had to kept unloaded and locked away when not required, the ammunition for the gun had to be separately locked away. The police had to approve the storage of all hand guns and ammunition and had the right to spot-inspect the storage of your hand gun in the home at any time.

No member of the public in the UK has legally had a loaded hand gun in their home or on their person in public for over 70 years. The change in legislation in 1997 did not remove one legal gun from "the streets" or any guns kept (unloaded) in the home.

[Drudgewire]

That is absolutely true, Drudgewire. Not after 1997 - and not before 1997 either.

Maybe you could explain this to Gagglenash, he doesn't seem to understand this.

Rolfe.
No way man. People with guns scare me.





;)

[Shaun from Scotland]

Somewhere in the region of 50,000 people were affected by the change in the law.

To put it into perspective prior to 1997 there were over 3 million legally owned firearms in the UK, after the 1997 legislation there were still over 3 million legally owned firearms in the UK.



That is correct - prior to 1997 all handguns in the home had to kept unloaded and locked away when not required, the ammunition for the gun had to be separately locked away. The police had to approve the storage of all hand guns and ammunition and had the right to spot-inspect the storage of your hand gun in the home at any time.

No member of the public in the UK has legally had a loaded hand gun in their home or on their person in public for over 70 years. The change in legislation in 1997 did not remove one legal gun from "the streets" or any guns kept (unloaded) in the home.


Technically, you may have to make that "GB" rather than "UK". If I recall correctly certain people (a very small number) in Northern Ireland were allowed to keep handguns at home. All those collecting tins in New York and Boston went a long way for the IRA....

[articulett]

Yes... they all parrot the same lines courtesy the NRA... they use statistics to convince themselves that the guns aren't the cause of the US's very high homicide rate...

Here are their basic myths and the answers: http://www.guninformation.org/

They imagine that all the gun deaths would have been knife deaths or something else and that other countries have a slew of other kinds of violence that they are protected against. Everyone in American probably knows someone whose life was ruined by a gun; few know anyone whose life was saved by having one at the ready.

The US is a real outlier in youth crime and homicide among other things. The worst problems are in "red states"-- where you see the religious right and the powerful gun lobby...

Although this study shows a correlation between societal dysfunction and religiosity... I suspect the homicide and juvenile crime have more to do with guns and irrationality and general scientific ignorance in general than religion:

http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html

It is a weird hybrid thing because some of the biggest gun supporters are also extreme religious nuts as are the survivalists and other kinds whom one doesn't really want to see armed. Right to life... unless you're on their property. Very paranoid people. The ones jumping in to support guns on this forum are probably among the most rational... I don't know if that makes anyone feel more secure. I have to avoid these threads, because it makes me feel hopeless. Their guns don't make them safer and yet they never imagine their guns being used to cause harm! None of the gun owners do. We have a very, very powerful gun lobby in America and you can see the myths they promote and actual statistics not culled to promote this idea that guns at the ready make people safer.

[Darat]

Technically, you may have to make that "GB" rather than "UK". If I recall correctly certain people (a very small number) in Northern Ireland were allowed to keep handguns at home. All those collecting tins in New York and Boston went a long way for the IRA....

That's why I added the phrase "member of the public". I am sure there were non-legislative and perhaps legislative exceptions made prior to 1997 (as there are undoubtedly today i.e. "Personal Protection Weapon").

ETA: You do remind me of a pertinent fact - the post Dunblane legalisation did not apply to Northern Ireland since that was already covered under even more restrictive gun control legalisation.

[INRM]

Articulette,

It's not really the gun issue I'm worried about. I'm worried about the government using any excess in crime -- and shootings make the headlines -- as justification to spy on the american population more and more to look for anyone who might possibly pose the slightest risk of doing something.

INRM