shooting

[MeleeCrazy]

Can we not go half a year without some nut job killing people?

[Enethier]

Nope.

[inscribed]

People get killed everyday. When it's in a public setting and more than one person gets killed, it just happens to make the news.

[Imoutgoodbye]

Unless it's Detroit or Flint. Then it's just normal and doesn't get coverage.

[f0xx]

That's a good distraction there.

[Kyzarius]

As long as we allow nut jobs the means, they will have the way to do great harm.

[Spark215]

at least they didn't catch him and hold him up in prison for forever and a day further wasting tax dollars that are already irresponsibly spent. Call me crazy, but I'm all for the "take the bad ones outside and shoot em." It's cheap and efficient!

[Pali]

Does a person suffering from insomnia, hearing voices, and who thinks people are attacking him with microwaves count as a "bad one" or a "sick one", Spark?

Calling someone "bad" or "evil", in my experience, has no use beyond absolving one of the need to further examine a tragic situation and it's causes.

[Kyzarius]

Its that with 10 years of mental instability, leading up to even the week before he purchased his weapon, this man was able to buy the weapon that concerns me.

[MeleeCrazy]

I know that when i bought my shotgun there was no background check granted it was pre 9/11 so i hope that has changed

[crackwilly21]

Where did you buy a shotgun without a background check? Also, is it a modern shotgun (made after 1899, and not a replica of one that was)?

[inscribed]

You can purchase online and at gun shows without having to deal with background checks. Background checks are really just a waste of time. Before long, anyone with a 3D printer will be able to print whatever gun and ammo they want anyways. Good luck regulating that.

[Croyvern]

I know that when i bought my shotgun there was no background check granted it was pre 9/11 so i hope that has changed

I live in the Midwest, where every week end someone is holding an auction. I could buy a gun on any given Sunday with absolutely NO back ground check.

That being said, back ground checks and other "gun control" laws only hinder the people who follow the rules anyway. What we need in this country is not more legislation on gun control, we need greater enforcement of laws already on the books.

Example; failure to register a gun in your possession should result in incarceration, and NO amount of crying poor me I did not know should deter the punishment.

In my mind Kid Rock said it best. Sell guns at the dollar store for 99 cents. And charge 5000 dollars for every bullet.

[Kyzarius]

The lack of background checks at auctions, regulation enforcement, weapon capacity and gauge limitations, are all contributors to the problem; psychos can just walk into a tent buy an assault weapon and kill people.

[inscribed]

How would weapon capacity limits or background checks at gun shows affect a guy with a 7 round shotgun from killing people?

There is no magical regulation that would of stopped this. You know where EVERY SINGLE shooting occurs? In a gun-free zone.

[Kyzarius]

How would weapon capacity limits or background checks at gun shows affect a guy with a 7 round shotgun from killing people?

There is no magical regulation that would of stopped this. You know where EVERY SINGLE shooting occurs? In a gun-free zone.

background checks would of, had they been done, and enforced.

Yes because someone who shouldn't have one, carries a gun in and kills innocent people. You know one thing every recent shooter has in common? they all had readily available records showing histories of mental instability and even past infractions.

[Imoutgoodbye]

I love the argument that laws are horrible things that only hurt the people following the rules.

Let's just do away with all laws, shall we? They're obviously all ridiculous.

[inscribed]

I love the argument that laws are horrible things that only hurt the people following the rules.

Let's just do away with all laws, shall we? They're obviously all ridiculous.

All laws? No. Victimless laws? Yes, let's. They are all ridiculous.

[Kyzarius]

All laws? No. Victimless laws? Yes' date=' let's. They are all ridiculous.[/quote']

Except for the ones that are proven in several countries to stop shootings form happening, and reduce violent crime drastically. I would say those have passed the social experiment.

But, here I go again, using successful application and example to support my points.

[inscribed]

Same tired debate. Gun control has no effect on violent crime. Take a trip to Chicago.

[inscribed]

Honestly, even if there was some magical law that removed every single gun from America, I'd still be against it. It's unethical to tell free individuals what they can and cannot own.

[Croyvern]

I love the argument that laws are horrible things that only hurt the people following the rules.

Let's just do away with all laws, shall we? They're obviously all ridiculous.

I am just saying Rev,

Never seen an old western movie with a wacked out gunman killing 30+ kids in some little house on the prairie school yard. Funny how immediate and complete retaliation shortens a criminal's resolve. I know, someone is going to say there weren't crazy people a hundred years ago. But we can ignore the ignorance because we know it is coming.

[Mali]

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1

Here are some key findings from the CDC report, “Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” released in June:

1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

2. Defensive uses of guns are common:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

3. Mass shootings and accidental firearm deaths account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths, and both are declining:

“The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

4. “Interventions” (i.e, gun control) such as background checks, so-called assault rifle bans and gun-free zones produce “mixed” results:

“Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” The report could not conclude whether “passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.”

5. Gun buyback/turn-in programs are “ineffective” in reducing crime:

“There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective, as noted in the 2005 NRC study Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States (Krouse, 2012), but gun buy-back programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns (NRC, 2005). On the local level, buy-backs may increase awareness of firearm violence. However, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides (Kuhn et al., 2002).”

6. Stolen guns and retail/gun show purchases account for very little crime:

“More recent prisoner surveys suggest that stolen guns account for only a small percentage of guns used by convicted criminals. … According to a 1997 survey of inmates, approximately 70 percent of the guns used or possess by criminals at the time of their arrest came from family or friends, drug dealers, street purchases, or the underground market.”

7. The vast majority of gun-related deaths are not homicides, but suicides:

“Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearms related violence in the United States.”

Having lived in a city victimized by serial killings, and having known people that were victims of violent crime, I will continue to exercise my right to own and carry firearms within the scope of the law for the purpose of self-defense. I don't think firearm policy is relevant to the actions of the shooter referenced in the original post. People hurt people, and policy won't change that. I would be in favor of reasonable gun control supported by evidence. However, legislator's in the US have demonstrated an inability to reconcile data with party platforms. The degeneration of intelligent political capital is one of the failings of democracy - the majority are simply not qualified to understand science and to make rational decisions on current issues.

[Pali]

*has no interest in having the same debate we had last time a shooting happened*

Edit: I do, however, find the presentation of quotes Mali gave above to be somewhat selective, in that two of the three I've found in the text thus far are taken without context and that someone on the other side of the argument could easily select plenty of quotes similarly from it to bolster their arguments, such as how the US rate of firearm-related homicide is "19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries" (page 27). Also, the linked report is a report by a committee looking at prior research done and attempting to identify areas that need further research, NOT a report of conclusions that CDC research has made (probably because CDC research into guns that in any way might "advocate or promote gun control" has been effectively banned by NRA lobbying for the last two decades). Of the two above quotes I've thus far located in the first twenty pages of the paper, both fail to include the sentences following those quoted in a way that reminded me of creationist quote-mining. Both quotes, with the statements that follow in italics, are provided below, along with page numbers.

1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies. Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the crime, so further research is needed, both to explore these contingencies and to confirm or discount earlier findings. Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public - concealed or open carry - may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use. Although some early studies were published that relate to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration.”

Page 16

2. Defensive uses of guns are common:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008. On the other hand, some scholars point to radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey. The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”

Page 15-16

I may continue reading the rest of the report later, but thus far, I'm not exactly impressed with your source's ability to be unbiased in presentation, Mali. This report is not a presentation of conclusions based on research (edit: more correctly, not a presentation of conclusions based on research done by the authors, though it certainly includes data from previous studies done by others), it's a presentation of what areas NEED more research. #2 in particular has a HUGE variability in the numbers given... we're talking a change from ~1% of Americans defend themselves with a gun each year to ~.03% in the numbers given. Ignoring the outlier figure of 108k, we're still talking a change from ~1% to ~.17% or so. Acting like we have solid numbers here seems incredibly disingenuous to me, as does presenting the above as if it is the findings of CDC research.

Your quotes under #3 I've located (p. 31-32), and those don't seem to be ignoring much in the way of important context (maybe that 10% of unintentional deaths occur in those under 15, but the first two seem closer to intentional obfuscation that this one to me). Again, I'll read more as I have time and inclination to do so, both of which are fading rapidly. I encourage others to do so if they wish... actually reading reports like this may be a rather dry activity, but it can also be surprisingly mind-opening.

[Imoutgoodbye]

When someone REALLY wants someone else dead, it's going to happen. Law or no law, gun or no gun.

I'm not trying to oversimplify, but guns help. People having access to guns help. 3D printers are coming. Then again, I'm a big fan of regulation. I'm also becoming a big fan of moving to Australia or New Zealand.

As for the Constitution, the writers of that didn't foresee the advances in technology that have come.