it’s our collective consciousness .. it’s not guns, it’s the usa .. it’s the nfl, it’s hockey, it’s nascar, it’s pointless invasions of weak countries .. usa loves its violence ..its the mindset of ipo home runs, of rugged individualism, of an education system that ignores humanity .. blame the government, if you need to blame someoneit’s bombing half a dozen countries as we speak, it’s invasions for nothing, coups, cia mindset .. america loves its violenceit’s cop shows, shooter video games .. usa loves its violenceit’s wall st, it’s rape pillage burn, it’s racism, it’s exploit the world for gain .. usa loves its violence
it’s cop shows, shooter video games .. usa loves its violenceVesper Lee Flanagan filmed himself committing his murders in a “first person shooter” view, which was particularly disturbing [images deleted per requests, but you can find them online]. Edit: Tried to delete the images unsuccessfully.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t need you posting those images.
It is particularly disturbing. But it’s also really bad form to post it. I respectfully ask that you remove it. If nothing else, out of respect for this dead woman.
Just tried to delete it, but it looks like Disqus doesn’t let you delete images. Sorry.
If i am not mistaken the shooter was black?
Flanagan? Yes. Also, gay, and an Obama supporter (he got some criticism for wearing an Obama pin on the air during election reporting).
My point was only in reference to the color of the man’s hand in the image. This would mean that the images are not real .
it’s cut and drug medicine, it’s drug your kids, it’s feed lots, it’s clear cuts .. usa loves its violence
If the killer fits the narrative (e.g., Dylan Roof), talk about the killer and his hateful views, as well as guns. If the killer doesn’t fit the narrative, just talk about guns.
What are you saying Dave?
The narrative is the “mania for the Great White Defendant”, particularly one who victimizes nonwhites. In shootings where the killer is black and the victims are white, you either don’t hear as much about it (e.g., Omar Thornton’s massacre), or, as in this case so far, or as in the recent the Vesper Lee Flanagan case (which inspired the Oregon killer), the focus is mainly on guns, rather than the killer’s identity and motivations. I should add: in shootings where the killer is black and the victims are also black, you rarely hear about it at all, except as a statistic (e.g., “x individuals were shot in Chicago last weekend”).
I read about this earlier this morning;http://www.theguardian.com/…”Guns can be carried openly in Oregon. The police in Portland sometimes get calls from alarmed citizens who spot a person with a semiautomatic weapon walking through the city only to be informed that is legal.” – I find this to be quite amazing.Apparently Mercer was born here in England before emigrating to the US as a boy. If he’d stayed here he would have found it much more difficult (although not completely impossible – if some really wants to do something they will probably find a way) to commit this type of crime.The closest we come to this culture of the gun in Europe is in Switzerland, but even there things have tightened up. I believe the ammunition now has to be stored at local police stations and not in private residences.
I wonder sometimes why common sense issues like Gun Control, Mandatory Vaccine Immunization, Police reform and Education / Healthcare reform are trumped by Anti Terrorism Wars, increased Defense Spending, Racist Bigotry, Factionalism, Partisanship and Wall Street Hubris.
BECAUSE BIG MONEY ALWAYS WINS THE DAY !
“There is a gun for roughly every man, woman and child in America”– I’m so glad I don’t live there.
True. Tough genie to stuff back into the bottle. Wondered about buying them back at $10K a pop (average), but that would cost $2,500,000,000,000. ~But I do like living here…
Guns don’t cost anywhere near $10k (on average). Most guns (pistols, rifles, shotguns) are under $1k (yes I know some are more, but the average or median is definitely under $1k).Making it not impossible 300 mil * $1,000 = $300 billion.In fact, the average price paid in Australia’s buyback program in 1997 was $475 per gun ($304 million USD / 640,000 guns) which in 2015 USD is $703.25 per gun. http://www.anao.gov.au/uplo…Using these figures we get USD $210 billion for implementing a similar buyback program (although using modern tech, we could probably get more accurate pricing schedules by gun type) making this achievable, although no small hurdle, at 1.25% of USA GDP.
All my guns were under $1K. Just looking for a 9X return 🙂 Using your prices, Apple could buy all of the guns in America.
Obamas pissed. I don’t understand the mechanics of American politics but it seems bizarre that big changes can’t be made quite quickly in an area which needs it.I’m from the U.K. If I were to be caught trying to buy, sell own carry a gun, I know I’m getting big jail time. I have friends who own shotguns and the process to get a licence is thorough. Complete background checks, in person interviews and you need to show how how it will be kept at all times. I think there are inspections too.I can’t ever recall a mass uk shooting. The last shooting in my city (Cambridge U.K.) that I can remember was roughly 15 years ago. One person shooting another dead. It mostly happens in bigger cities and is related to gangs.Why not have a country vote? We hold referendums on big issues in the UK. Not perfect, but if the whole country majoritedly feels one way, it gets a decision made.I hope Obama concentrates on this issue after his term. Just seems crazy something can be so obviously wrong, yet America is paralysed in taking action.
Bad politics here as the President said
There are no referenda at the federal level in the US, but if there were one on this issue, Obama would lose. Guns are pretty popular nationally. In a lot of exurban and rural parts of the country, local police even recommend homeowners arm themselves, since it’s unlikely the police could get to them quickly in an emergency.But Obama has made “big changes” without going through the fuss of ensuring their legality in the past (e.g., last year’s de facto amnesty for millions of illegal aliens), so it’s possible he’ll attempt something similar on guns.
Yeah I see that’s super tricky. It’s soo far one way already.
Horrified to see this happen again. My thoughts are with the families and community.>I can’t ever recall a mass uk shooting.>I’m from the U.K. If I were to be caught trying to buy, sell own carry a gun, I know I’m getting big jail time.For the record, in the UK, sixteen children (aged 5-6) and their teacher were murdered at Dunblane Primary School on 13th March, 1996 by an intruder with licensed handguns.In response to this tragedy, and after public petitions and the Cullen Inquiry, private ownership of handguns in the UK became effectively illegal in 1997 through the Firearms (Amendment) acts.Many other positive things have emerged from that awful day including a fantastic community centre and an Olympic, Wimbledon and US Open tennis champion.
Mass shootings aside – how is it that your country manages to consistently make it to the top regarding violent crime? What is all that madness about knife control? You take away guns, people revert to other means of harming each other: you’re many times more likely to be knifed on the streets of a UK city than shot on the streets of a US city – big consolation!
It’s endless
as an outsider looking in, few things highlights how broken american society is more than this. shameful.kids being killed has become acceptable collateral damage. these events hardly make the UK press anymore.this really is “a plague on all your houses”
I was so disheartened yesterday – so many angry at the President for his remarks compared to so few angry at the shooter.
media lens distortion?
I don’t think being angry at either one of them accomplishes much. One is dead and the other is a lame duck.
And a great man and a great President
Definitely in the top 44 all-time
Now thats lame lol
Top 18 now and will be top 15 in 20 years
c’mon man he’s at least top 43 (grover cleveland served twice non-consecutively)
That’s a really fun fact. I didn’t realize it was 44th term rather than 44th dude.I’m sticking with top 44 though because I think you gotta include Cheney on the list as honorable puppet-master
He didn’t have a teapot dome scandal
it has to stop. test, license, register, insure; none under 21
I wonder what part of “shall not be infringed” escapes you…
No.Now what do you propose?
at some point it would be great to hear why you are an obama fan. i am genuinely curious as to the supporting logic.
Yep, when is the last time you heard this or any president speak up agaist big tabaco? More than 480,000 deaths annually (including deaths from secondhand smoke)278,544 deaths annually among men (including deaths from secondhand smoke)201,773 deaths annually among women (including deaths from secon
And with guns it’s binary. A gun death is a gun death. With tobacco it’s analog. Because smoking causes way way way way more health and economic issues (that aren’t tied to smoking as a statistic) than the figures you give above (which I will assume are correct [1]) present. There are all sorts of health issues (and the resulting cost) from smoking that don’t result in death.[1] Death certificates and reporting are notoriously wrong in many cases in terms of “cause of death”.
As a side note, immigrants from Mexico and Central America have a lower smoking percentage than any group in the U.S.
There tends to be a lot more choice for those who lose their lives to tobacco use. For those who don’t have a choice (secondhand), the conversation has already been had, but it was pretty heated 15 years ago, obviously.
Really? Try walking down the streets of NY. What about healthcare? ACA could have at least charged smokers a premium. More importantly, He could have single handedly made smoking unacceptable in the African American community.
It does charge them more. Insurers can only price on 3 things now – age, location and smoking status.
Not for the bronze (free) plan
That’s not accurate. Bronze plans aren’t free (they are plans where insurance pays on average of 60% of your costs and you’re responsible for 40%). The average Bronze premium in the US is $205/month for a 40 yr old non smoker with a deductible over $5,000. (https://www.healthcare.gov/….Bronze plans can price the same way as all ACA plans. Based on age, location, smoking status, family size and coverage level (bronze, silver, etc.)
Seven states and Washington, D.C., will not charge smokers higher insurance premiums. The states are: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
How?
It’s more than the smokers and the ones who endure 2ndhand smoke. It’s an economic issue that all of us pay for in healthcare costs. Smoking fucks people up. Full stop. Tons of health issues tied to smoking and the use of tobacco. There really isn’t any question about that.
Let’s be real, It is “the” gateway drug, check any bar, check any rehab, check any group of HS drop outs….
Agree. Otoh if they didn’t smoke what would replace the smoking habit?
A run, a walk, a book. They would be forced to deal with the underlying issues head on.
There are plenty of people who love running, walking, and reading with huge underlying issues and who use those healthier addictions to ignore them as well.
Exactly, but the are not smoking!
Who cares? As long as they don’t hurt me, more power to ’em. Who am I to say what they can and cannot inhale? Are they a tax burden? Sure. But that’s life in our society. Some are harder on the system than others.
They are hurting “you” that’s the point, my gf is a soon to be oncology fellow, think the poor don’t compete for healthcare, think again. bigger point is as a group smoking hurts African Americans and Obama did virtually nothing to change that
Hmmm. I think the jury is still out on gateway drugs. Correlation vs causation is a popular debate. It’s the same thing we’re arguing about guns right now though, ha
At least there is a sin tax on Tobacco. Are you going to start taxing sugar more heavily? Carbs? How about people who put more mileage on the roads than others?
smoking is the number 1 cause of preventable illness. Need not go to number 189
I always view the comments the next day. Actually if you look at smoking from a selfish purely non smoking economic perspective it is great.You die quick and early. Pension and medicare low, taxes you pay to smoke super high.
Slave lives don’t matter, welcome to the NWO (Agenda 21), it’s been 23 years ongoing, where have you been ?
Completely agree – Obama is a great President. I appreciate the job he has done, what has been accomplished during his term, his intelligence, his demeanor, and his leadership. I’m proud that he is our President.
is he great for fast and furious or his droning? or is it for too big to fail? or is it for fining a company that killed 124 people less than 1 billion? Or is it for working to empower a country that still beheads gays? If that is your definition of great well then…wow
obama pretending to be all mad about gun violence now while covering up fast and furious is too much hypocrisy, and only fuels the viewpoint that the gun control agenda is more about grabbing rights than about protecting people.as for obama defending usage of drones that continue to kill civilians…..well, that speaks for itself, unfortunately.but i think most americans aren’t too familiar with these topics, and are influenced more by a well-delivered speech with some singing than by a detached analysis of the situation.
most americans aren’t too familiar with these topics, and are influenced more by a well-delivered speech with some singing than by a detached analysis of the situationNo !Most Americans are influenced by the visceral fear that is caused by the immediacy of the direct risk to their own children as forcefully articulated by the president. You obviously have no children ?That would be ATTACHED analysis by the way, ATTACHED to their well grounded fear of harm to their loved ones.And if most American were more”familiar with these topics”they just might start to develop a more proportional gauge between homeland-secuity-$cost vs civil-rights-forfeiture and the much lower gun registration $costs vs the civil-rights constaint/inconvenience of an effect restoration process.
you’re only illustrating my point, by commenting on anything but the fast and furious stuff and the drone stuff that i was referring to. (it could be argued rationally that perhaps both of them endanger americans more than firearms)
.It is difficult to imagine upon what objective criteria that one could suggest that President Obama is not one of the worst Presidents to have ever served when one fairly considers domestic policy, foreign policy, race relations, immigration, military preparedness, energy policy, the state of America’s alliances and reputation in the world, the economy, integrity, transparency, unfulfilled promises, and a number of other measurable standards.I would honestly be interested to hear the case for his being anything other than an exceedingly mediocre leader and a horrifically failed presidency.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
He’ll be marked in history as being successful as well
What is your suggestion then?
Here one that the tech space would never agree on. Have google fB build predictive models and mine all messages of kids under 18.
Isn’t that basically the pre-crime division from Minority Report? Would you arrest people before they commit a crime?
They are under 18, why not?
Then what? Put them in jail for life for online comments?
Provide counseling, meditation, check for physical abuse at home …………….
His comments on 4chan were anonymous. So you’d have to remove all privacy laws to find people’s identities. Also, they were made the day before the shooting, which would leave no time to find him before it happened.
Nothing is anonymous
So you don’t believe in privacy? Are you American?
Kids under 18 have very little privacy rights. I didn’t say I was for this, I just gave you a solution that the tech community would never consider.
This guy was 26. Most of these shooters aren’t under 18.
True but if we had tracked this kid in his teen years, pretty good chance we could catch issues early
But what would you be tracking him for at that point? Would you be mining to detect character flaws that after another decade of failure and alienation might lead to a mental collapse and a violent act? And even if you were able to detect those that you had some reason to believe were vulnerable down the line, what would you really do about it? It is hard enough getting funds to pay for therapy etc now, good luck trying to get money to help young people for years to get them off a bad track that in rare cases results in these events. I sympathize with your desire to catch it early but I don’t buy it, Rick. I think all you end up with is a massive invasion of privacy and the early detection of a gigantic need for therapy and social support that we will never be ready to pay for. We don’t deal with widespread mental health problems very well now. Expand the scope of that problem and potential spend by catching it earlier and watch politicians run.
Best I can tell these shooters are white middle class and likely insured
We can dream :)But I can’t help feeling that a policy requiring mass invasion of privacy in the hope that catching white middle class kids (who are insured) so they can be treated and counselled at no cost to the public purse in the hope that they won’t commit a heinous crime in ten years time to be a bit of a stretch.
Agreed, but let be real, there s not chance of amedning the constitution on gun rights.
I agree. In fact if you take a look at my main post today you’ll see that I don’t think there’s much chance of changing anything through the democratic process if it conflicts with monied interests.
You gave a solution that no one who believes in Constitutional rights would consider.
Where does it say that Google can’t track kids speech in constitution? Ok, shoulder parents with responsibility and liability.
That sort of exists already
I’m not encouraging anger against either. It just surprises me that discussion is centered around what he did and not the tragedy itself.Yeah, I know some would blame that on him. I get it. I don’t agree, but I get it.
How bind can a really bright gay be !ZOOM OUT !
You were disheartened? He said “we” were numb to this kind of thing. Which is it? The guy that gave guns to criminals that were then used to kill Americans does not have a leg to stand on when talking about guns.
Yes, I was disheartened.Second question – both. I am anything but numb to this, so the President’s “we” doesn’t include me.I’m disheartened and apparently some group of people that includes the President, but not me, is numb.
Going to wait till evidence on the Oregon shooting surfaces, as so many hoaxes have recently. “…we must brainwash them to think in a whole different way about guns…”, “Let no opportunity go unexploited.”. They are doing just that by setting up these hoaxes in many cases with no victims & no perpetrators, like the Virginia anchor “shooting” that turned out a Hoax. With ever repeating actor names like: Adam, West, Parker, etc…
While the average police response time in my 17th largest city in the US is 16 minutes, I’ll be hanging onto my gun. Several years ago I managed to scare away a home invader in the early AM by simply pointing and ejecting a unused shell from my shotgun. 16+ minutes would have been a long time to deal with a knife weilding drug addict and my family.I have a trigger lock and a single key to ensure it will only be used by me.
Sounds like owning a gun is important to you. What do you think are reasonable requirements for gun ownership/purchase?Background check? Registration? License? Training? Titling of guns?
Yes to all. Make it hard work to get a weapon, but don’t take it away. It is that important to me to be a lawful citizen, responsible, and a provider of safety to my family.
Do you feel that the conversation around what to do isn’t represtative of this oropinion your reality of somescarsomeone out a gwith ub
As a Canadian living in NYC, the American concept of the “right” to a gun is one I will never truly understand. How does the calculus add up to a social good?
As a European, I just can’t wrap my mind around this right either. Just the fact that someone insists on preserving this right, is already suspicious.I am glad Fred posted about this today. Same like good education for everyone. The people who could act for change, don’t have an incentive because their families are protected and have access to good education etc.. So it’s big business as usual going fwd. Sad but obvious.
If it’s any consolation, for all intents and purposes, you don’t have that right in NYC (unless you are celebrity given a rare carrying permit).
One of the many reasons I love NYC
YES
If you love that it’s because you live in a city where the population makes you susceptible to the negative effects of guns and gun violence.In many places that people live that is not an issue. Where I am we don’t live in fear like you do. For that matter I am sure that in the somewhat sparsely populated Hamptons (the wealthy parts) nobody really gives much thought to guns and violence in that community. My guess is (and I have never been there so this is a guess) they feel pretty safe. And if they call the cops the are there in record time.Where I live? We recently called the state animal control phone number after killing a bat. And within 10 minutes maybe 15 the cops showed up to make sure everything was ok. We didn’t even call the cops. Otoh, neighbor making noise? Call the cops, they are there. My guess is that in NYC that type of response doesn’t happen for mundane issues like that. But then again you don’t pay shit high property taxes like we do here. (And they are obscenely high compared to NYC).
You have the right here in NYC, it’s just prohibitively expensive at $400 a year for the license (not a carry–open or otherwise–just a license to own and have in your home). In two years, it costs more than the gun would have.I agree that it is smart policy.
Air Farce member Dave Proudfoot did a great job on this topic @ Just For Laughs one year.Historically, the right to bear arms was included in the constitution because the Founding Fathers of America believed that Britain intended to return and invade.Dave’s point was, obviously, that the invasion has likely been called off, at this point.
It is lame to blame mental health for these mass shootings, and not gun control as the issue. There has been 294 mass shootings where 4 or more are killed, this year. It is weird to watch the President of the US almost powerless to make changes on this issue, and having to beg for changes of opinion and policy.And it is shocking to hear the NRA continuing to say: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
On this we agree 100% my friend.
Not nitpicking, but its 294 where 4 or more are “INJURED”, not killed. For what its worth (and still obviously a major problem) those 294 have led to about 380 deaths, so substantially less than if 4+ had been killed (which would be 1,200 plus). Main reason I point out is both sides of this issue with throw out more false numbers today and stats than almost any other time. It is even harder to get better policy when the welll is poisoned by even more wrong figures. But 75% less deaths than your statement implies is a pretty important distinction
You’re basically saying these shootings are OK because the stats say so. I can’t understand this type of reasoning.
Nope, that is a hystrionics based response. Not what I said at all. You are basically saying that the difference between 380 dead vs 1,200 + dead is not important. That is insane. Every death sucks, and some solutions are needed, but if there is no difference between 380 and 1,200+ then again we are not dealing with actual figures, but just raw emotions. Probably my last response to this, because this is basically a fact free discussion on both sides, pretty much had that confirmed here.
So if they didn’t die (and were lucky), that’s not a mass shooting? It still is.
‘Histrionics’. Nevertheless, you’re both correct and a great writer. Thank you.
I’m all for statistical pedantry and I welcome you correcting the record. However, I have a hard time seeing the importance of the distinction given you don’t dispute that 294 times this year some twit with a firearm injured 4 or more people. Irrespective of the number fatally injured, there is no possible world in which that is ok.
Again, saying it is “ok” is insane. It is not ok. It is also 80x smaller than those killed in traffic accidents each year. And it also a very small % of overall gun deaths. Majority of gun deaths happen in poor socioecconomic areas in the country (from a murder / homicide. Majority are usually suicide related – north of 50% in the US). And those deaths have much more to do with cyclical poverty than gun control. Selective outrage at what gathers headlines will allow people to be self-righteous sounding off today, but will do little to actually change policy that matters. For the record I would mostly support the gun background checks that Obama and the democrats support, but they would do rather little to stop the current statistics. Just really annoying when very little logic is actually come to pass on these issues
It is precisely selective outrage that changes policy. Not always for the better.
Eh not usually. Selective outrage only works if it is girded by underlying factual arguments. Once your statistics are misleading, it becomes easier to drown out. And to reiterate, I am fine with tougher background checks. Maybe even “assault rifle” bans. But they still are unlikely to change the overall numbers much. But the broader point is using accurate terms / statistics matters.
We quite obviously operate in different political spheres.
curious. how so? i am curious if you disagree on factual analysis (accurate facts being important) or effectiveness of policy changes?
(Hopefully this analogy does not come off as minimizing the importance of this discussion)Matt, would you agree injured vs. death is kind of like the randomness around who recovers a fumble (http://www.footballoutsider….The key isn’t who recovers the fumble (i.e., if the victims perish), but how can you prevent the initial fumble from happening in the first place (i.e., the shooting to take place).If you see the gun issue this way, then I would argue that death is not the metric to use but casualty/injury is. So many things determine if a victim perishes (are they near a hospital? do they get a good doctor? where on their body are they shot?), but those things are luck/noise to the question at hand which is what stops people from getting shot in the first place?
There is a gulf of at least 8000 miles between us. I’m quite fond of accurate facts, but most evidence based policy works as follows: a) determine an ideologically tenable policy, b) produce the evidence to support it. Changes to policy are driven by selective outrage, be it that of the pubic, caucus or lobby.
train, test, license, register, insure, for starters; no guns under 21.personally, i think it’s dangerous and crazy for anyone to have a gun.chris rock: make bullets expensive; all bullets should cost $5k — because if a bullet cost $5k, there would be no more innocent bystanders.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I agree, treat guns like cars. They are just as dangerous. Train, test, license, register, insure. That’s the way forward.It’s unfortunate that the gun-control folks get wrapped up in silly measures like ‘assualt’ weapons bans and clip limits.
i loathe guns. i distrust the average person walking down the street to have one and not cause harm.
This is one of his best of all time! What a classic.
there is one argument and one argument along for having guns: “**** off, i like guns.””protection … what the **** are you talking about?”https://www.youtube.com/wat…
This is very well thought out, watched it several months ago.Funny too.
there is a theory about american history that says the well-regulated militias in the second amendment were slave patrols, and the amendment was a compromise to let them continue to exist.makes sense to mehttp://www.truth-out.org/ne…
There is a theory, you’re right. And the man who came up with it has been shown the facts. Some of them use your Atlantic fantasy, others have used the VA ratification convention. None are accurate, and NONE are able to tie the 2d Amendment to “slave patrols”! In fact, the VA Convention more clearly shows the troubled feelings of participants, regarding slavery, with a full understanding that slavery would, under the new Constitution, be ended (and the sooner the better, for some). NONE of our Founders referred to such nonsense as “slave patrols” in their writings. Therefore, any such theory has no grounding in fact.Semper fi
Yep…. a debunked theory. It comes from Carl Bogus. He lies.
you are free to disagree. that is one of our american freedoms.the standards of this community frown on namecallingprofessor bogus is a noted legal scholar, and is distinguished in his fieldhttp://law.rwu.edu/carl-t-b…Prof. Carl T. BogusRoger Williams University School of LawProfessor Bogus has achieved national prominence in two areas — (1) tort law, and especially, products liability; and (2) gun control, including issues involving the Second Amendment.His work in the first area includes Why Lawsuits Are Good for America: Disciplined Democracy, Big Business and the Common Law (NYU Press).His Constitutional Law research proposes the thesis that James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to ensure that the federal government could not subvert the slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. Professor Bogus has testified before Congress and spoken about and debated these subjects at many venues across the country, including at Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, and Vanderbilt law schools, and his writings on these subjects have been published by law reviews, as well as opinion journals such as The Nation and The American Prospect, and newspapers including USA Today, Boston Globe, Washington Times, and the Providence Journal. Most recently, he was interviewed by National Public Radio. One of his interests is how ideology influences the law, and he is presently at work on a biography of William F. Buckley, Jr. and the conservative movement
You do realize that HE wrote this, right?
http://www.theatlantic.com/…The idea that citizens have an unfettered constitutional right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor…. As early as 1840, antebellum historian Richard Hildreth observed that violence was frequently employed in the South both to subordinate slaves and to intimidate abolitionists. In the South, violence also was an approved way to avenge perceived insults to manhood and personal status. According to Hildreth, duels “appear but once an age” in the North, but “are of frequent and almost daily occurrence at the [S]outh.” Southern men thus carried weapons both “as a protection against the slaves” and also to be prepared for “quarrels between freemen.” Two of the most feared public-carry weapons in pre-Civil War America, the “Arkansas toothpick” and “Bowie knife,” were forged from this Southern heritage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…State laws regulate the ownership, possession and use of firearms in Australia. These laws were largely aligned in 1996 by the National Firearms Agreement. Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a firearms licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.Before 1996, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia had different laws, in Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania long guns were not registered; owners of firearms were required to be licenced from 1988, and licences were introduced for long guns in Tasmania in 1991. Western Australia and the Northern Territory had tight restrictions, especially on centrefire semi-automatic firearms.Since 1996 all States subscribe to the National Firearms Agreement, which was instituted through the Australian Police Ministers Council (APMC) with the cooperation of all states. Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number except firearms manufactured before 1 Jan 1901 which in some cases are exempt from a serial number registration or exempt from registration altogether. Some states allow an owner to store or borrow another person’s registered firearm of the same category.
http://nymag.com/daily/inte…Australia’s and Britain’s efforts to reduce gun violence in the ’90s are often cited by advocates and opponents of stricter US. gun control. Here’s a look at how those nations addressed mass shootings, and whether the same policies could work in the U.S.
I’d say the media is to blame as much as anyone.
Agree. This is an interesting point — and one I don’t see made that often. The analogy I think about is professional sports. The broadcasters have all agreed not to show a fan who runs onto the field. And it helps to deter that kind of behavior. No fame or notoriety in it when you are not on TV.Not sure how you rally the media around this idea with mass shootings, however. They will all point to each other and say, if I don’t cover the story, that guy will, and I will lose.
i loathe guns. i distrust the average person walking down the street to have one and not cause harm.
.Federal law currently requires all licensed gun shops to either contact the FBI directly (the NICS — national instant criminal backbround check system) or to allow the states themselves (point of contact state) to conduct background checks.The only exception to this is if a buyer has a handgun license issued by a state — for which a background investigation was conducted.This has been the law for some considerable time so your analogy is pure nonsense.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
the oregon murderer was stopped by a police officer with a gun.
Of course he was.And if you take that argument to its logical end point, then every adult in the country should carry loaded weapons so that, at a moments notice, they can stop a violent aggressor.That doesn’t sound like the right answer.
why doesn’t it sound like the right answer? while it may not sound like the right answer *to you*, that is part of the sentiment of the 2nd amendment.
Apologies for the “logical endpoint” tangent. That’s my fault, and that is not what this is about.This is about whether gun restrictions would reduce the number of mass shootings in this country. Simple. And given the evidence around the world, it seems pretty clear that it would.But when we ask the question, it’s funny how the opponents rarely answer “no, it wouldn’t.” Instead, they answer “you can’t.” Because the 2nd Amendment says so.Well, actually, yes we can. The 2nd Amendment is an amendment, after all. So let’s amend the damn thing again.
sure, people can push for an amendment if they want. that would certainly be the more honest approach, rather than just trying to ignore it and legislate through it anyway.
Actually, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, they were referred to as “Articles”, not Amendments. And the Preamble to the Bill of Rights specifically places the 10 Articles off-limits to the government. So, no, it cannot be amended.Semper fi
Actually it is not. Interesting interpretation from a constitutional scholar, i.e. a Supreme Court Justice https://www.washingtonpost….
the link states that guns are for the purpose of militias. militias are for the purpose of self-organized local defense. that assumes a population that is far more armed than we have today. what they should be arming themselves with, i.e. what is militia appropriate, is what the article you cited is about. i don’t see how it contradicts a viewpoint that the spirit of the 2nd amendment is compatible with widespread ownership of firearms.
Statistically that outcome seems to be the exception ?SO WHAT”S YOUR POINT 🙂
i don’t think statistically that’s an exception. usually the cops or an armed individual stops a mass shooter.my comment was in reply to william, so my point was to refute his point.
Just to amplify on that:NRA continuing to say: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”SILLINESSMaybe every American student should be issued a gun so that the good guys with guns will always out number the bad guys with guns ?Just saying 🙂
Just read the comments on this threat among those who don’t live in the good ole USA. We postulate that we’re the greatest nation but our behavior and response, or lack thereof, to these frequent events certainly belies that fact. How we continue to let these tragic events occur, with even greater frequency no less, is simply Byzantine. Does anyone here truly believe this is what framers of our constitution had in mind w/ respect to the right to bear arms? This is shameful, barbaric and downright disgusting. This morning I’m truly ashamed to be an American.
It is shameful, barbaric and downright disgusting. Especially when we all know this is only about money.I will try to be understanding to anyone in the comments trying to rationalize this ‘right’, only because that’s all they heard since they were born. I wish all Americans visiting this blog could read the news through the eyes of a European or any citizen of a country where this right doesn’t exist.
It was interesting hear POTUS challenging news outlets to post the number of people who died from mass shootings vs terrorist attacks……The Amount of $$$ we spend fighting terrorism, new departments within US Government to fight terrorism.I am OK with the fight we are doing to fight terrorism, I wish we had the same focus to deal with this problem
I don’t understand why there isn’t a task force.
Interesting to see that we are still spending a ton of $$$ and time to investigate the four people that lost their life in 2012 with the Benghazi attacks,It would be nice if we had the same government focus on the innocent 10 people that last their life on Oct 1, 2015.
in the age of the internet of things the home ‘gun safe’ (mandatory for the ownership of a gun) with encryption keys and multi party agreement protocols might be a solution worth exploring. held on the blockchain with at two unaffiliated parties needing to agree to the release of the key to open the safe. consensus home security.if smartphones can have password security and gps location then put that tech and more in guns and create access and use protocols.
A landlock between two seemingly impossible extremes is an invitation into what is called trialectics, or non-duality. The hallmark of the human condition is that our mundane egoic life is set in binary pairs. For example, boys vs girls, light vs dark, the superego vs the id, democrat vs republican. The human ego can only place an argument in the context of a polarity, so naturally, it is contrasted to the other side of the argument. This disparity can be considered as the base of an equilateral triangle- our two extreme opinions on gun control. To create the top point of the triangle, the higher level of consciousness in the triangle, requires a bit of a mindfulness practice. We need to take a breath- feel the tension in our bodies that the rage from the opposing arguments create- in our neck, torso, arms, chest. The body (or in ancient Egyptian imagery- the trachea and lungs) is the medium that the polarities exist in, that provides the third neutralizing force, through which the higher level of consciousness (resolution) is attained. The back and forth between the two arguments could go on forever otherwise.
A very nice, non threatening way of putting this. Thank you :)Are we all smart people here or just a bunch of mindless minions rooting for our “team”?
I cal that We solving, vs Us and Them fighting. Us and Them never solve anything.
Sure, but I guess the nuance that breaks the deadlock is the attention to how the different sides affect us in the body. Without attention to the body and the breath, we’re disassociated from presence (being in the moment). Presence is the transformational “third force” missing in the conversation.
OK, so: a task force of diverse problem-solvers from different disciplines who all agree to meditate at least five minutes a day and then set to work on eliminating gun massacres in the U.S.Also, adding meditation to the education curriculum.Tax breaks for people who can demonstrate they’re participating in daily meditation sessions.Meditation saves lives!
Are you proposing a task force among AVC readers?Actually, there was a conference at the White House for American Buddhist leaders this past May. They had a few world peace-related things on their agenda- probably gun control was on there. As to your point that meditation saves lives, it is scientifically proven that when there is a meditation conference, or similar type of gathering where meditation happens, the crime rate lowers in the host city for the duration of the event.Meditation is increasingly being practiced in elementary and high schools, and it’s becoming more and more popular each month. Obstacles to progress are Christians and teachers who just present the material without having a cultivated practice themselves. But overall, it is having an effect on young lives, even if it just means there gets to be silence in the classroom for 5 minutes a day.A tax break for meditators- I love your vision!
I had not heard about that phenom of cities experiencing lower crime rates while meditation conferences were going on there! Fascinating!Can you recommend any resources for getting younger kids started with meditation (like 6 yrs old, 8yrs old). I’m having no luck in my searching.I wonder if they’d do better in schools using videos or even just pre-recorded audio guidance instead.
Well, having your own practice and simply modelling it in your daily life is by far the biggest way to have an impact. I took the first two courses at mindfulschools.org and they were just fantastic, with an equal emphasis on practice and the science behind it.The only children’s book about mindfulness I know about is Sitting Still Like a Frog. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the godfather of American Buddhism wrote the foreward, so it’s bound to be good.I’m the administrative assistant of an elementary school, and behind my desk on the whiteboard, I’ve written in big letters, “Take a deep breath.” It’s a neutral way of creating a space between stimulus and reaction.
Yes – nice visceral metaphor !That and formally educating high school kid to basic epistemological techniques especially the use of Sublation over Polemics.
Yes, Heglian triads, and the dynamic, non-dual Law of Three triad. I do believe they’re distinct. I’m reading a book on the subject at the moment, so I hope to understand this better soon.
thanks for posting this; I hope President Obama makes this issue his number one priority for the remainder of his term
Disagree. It’s a big country, there are many things that need to be done. This one isn’t the Manhattan Project. The deaths are unfortunate but there are other issues that have more significance and impact and they need to be dealt with as well.
We can be numb or we can act.Here is something I put together recently. 30 simple actions you can take on #guncontrol now http://www.30guncontrolactionsyouc...
Thank you for posting this Fred!
Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country. It doesn’t stop gun violence. As the Chief of Police here said, Until you actually enforce laws, and the people in the neighborhoods hold them accountable nothing will happen.I don’t know what the answer is, but I sure don’t agree with Obama.Maybe the answer is to put everyone through gun safety training. When you learn gun safety, you learn a healthy respect for weapons. You see how dangerous they are and most people that go through rarely abuse them. I notice the people that have concealed carry permits don’t do any mass killing.
I’m trying to understand what you said. What would “gun safety training” have done to this killer in preventing him from doing what he did?
Nothing would have stopped this killer. You can’t stop crazy people. But, knowledge is power.Game theory it. If the probability of everyone having a concealed gun goes up, the crazies might not commit the crimes they do. You don’t hear it a lot in the news because it doesn’t fit the agenda, but there are people that stop these things from happening-and they generally have concealed carry permits.Gun violence gets a lot of play on the news. It fits their agenda. The reality is it isn’t that prevalent-except in certain neighborhoods of the country. Those neighborhoods are generally inner city, poor, and black and the gun violence is a result of other bad policies-not gun policy.I’d also caution against generalizing. I know a lot of women when they bike ride in the country carry a weapon. Not to protect them from the animals but to protect themselves against being raped.In this case, Oregon had background checks and the litany of other things, This person was crazed, got a gun and did what he did. The most unnerving thing to me is he asked people’s religion and killed Christians, and only wounded non-Christians. Lot of hate in that guy.
I’d caution people in using Chicago as the argument against gun control. Chicago’s issues exist in part to systemic inequality of redlining and housing policies.
No, more about the War on Drugs, education and other issues.
Those are the results of housing discrimination which dates back to the 1920s in ChiTown. Where you live determines the quality of your school. And the war on drugs didn’t happen til the 80s.
War on drugs, 1972, Richard Nixon. Milton Friedman told him it would fail. The real discrimination in Chicago housing happened in the first Daley administration. He built the expressways based on where he wanted everyone to go. Today there is little discrimination when it comes to housing. Want to live in Lincoln Park, as long as you can afford it, you want that mansion and want to pay those taxes move to Lincoln Park. Agree, there was certainly redlining etc in the past and there are a lot of problems-but the way Chicago has gone about trying to solve them the last 50 years hasn’t worked.
Simply not true.
What’s not true?
The sheriff has been vocal in opposing state and federal gun-control legislation. In 2013, Hanlin sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden after the shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school, declaring that he and his deputies would refuse to enforce new gun-control restrictions “offending the constitutional rights of my citizens.”
We have become a country that glorifies individual rights to the detriment of the good of the society as a whole. Organizations and people will distort facts and evidence to prove whatever point best fits their individual viewpoints. This applies not only to gun law, but to everything: workers/minimum wage, healthcare, natural hazard planning/climate change, etc.I don’t know the answer. I live near Newtown. Vicki Soto and her family is from my neighborhood. We see a lot more pink flamingos (Vicki’s favorite) and green ribbons here than other communities. Those are not enough.There is a republican first selectman that I know who lives in a town near Newtown. He always calls out metal health issues as the true crisis whenever gun control issues surface, which I find offensive. I call him out on it even though he is a friend of mine. I see people on Facebook drawing their lines in the sand for their position, creating a dichotomy between gun control and mental health advocacy. The true answer is that they are not mutually exclusive. BOTH are challenges in our country.Interestingly, both are issues due to republican agendas. It was 30 year ago that Reagan and other lawmakers eliminated support for people who have mental health issues and republicans have been slowly eroding and eliminating support in the years since. Gun control has never been our strong point but it’s been republican agendas that have driven the second amendment into the ground. I talk with many people who don’t even understand what the second amendment actually says or what it really means. So, education might be another part of the solution.We must be relentless in our advocacy to our legislators. What’s so hard about enacting laws for guns that are similar to laws for drivers licenses and car ownership? We should have proper training, licensing, insurance requirements for gun ownership. There should be a tax on ammunition that funds public awareness campaigns.That’s only a start.
Knowing that another mass shooting is a probable event and that it could happen in your community, and in fact, impact you directly and there is nothing being done….boggles the mind.
So… nothing has changed in the Constitution since 1789 (226 years ago) created by people (imperfect beings)? The hypocrisy of the arguments in this debate..Profits for a thriving industry and the regular Joe feeling like he’s the guy from the Marlborough commercial
It’s time for all of us to check our agendas at the door. This crisis is too important.We all need to stop trying to prove our own beliefs and approach this as anthropologists.While I personally would be perfectly happy with outlawing everything down to pellet guns in this country, it would be wrong of me to use this crisis in our country as the vehicle for achieving that end if it isn’t the solution to the problem.Anyone here who claims to know enough about why this is happening is delusional. Yes, I personally believe that easy access to guns is a factor. But it would be immoral of me to focus on that, and only that, as a solution knowing as little as I do about the DATA.Let’s all please ban together against this common enemy. Let’s gather all the data worldly possible and find solutions.I know that to many of us it seems obvious that if the shooter couldn’t get a gun, a lot of people would probably still be alive today. But there is no doubt that the media play a role as well. As does the pathetic state of access to mental health care in this country. As does the disgusting fear mongering peddled by the NRA to help the guns industry sell more guns (sales are way up).We must all focus on our shared goal: no more of these massacres. Let’s stop trying to win the argument and get to work.
As the President said, “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.”If we do nothing, nothing will change.If we want this to change, we must do something.But what should we do so many people ask. The answer is many things.To find the many things, we need to understand the core problems. I’d start with these, but the list goes on from here.- The feelings of youth in terms of their world view and their view of where they stand in that world- The availability of guns make acting out with deadly force easier. The US is #1 in the world in terms of guns per person (88.8 guns per 100 people)- 1st party shooting games train our youth to learn how to plot, seek, and destroy. Not all people act out on that training, but it is training them nonetheless.Understanding the root problems is the first step to changing the outcome. Every day like yesterday is a very sad day, I wish we could have a collective agreement that we should have less sad days like yesterday and do something about it, because just thinking about it and praying about it is not enough.
Lame ducks have the luxury of being bold. I hope the president leverages that opportunity to make this issue #1. He clearly has a point of view, but a task force of the world’s best data scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists would be a great start.
Hi Kirsten, there is no need to spend the time of world’s best data scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists to find out what the rest of world knows – civilians shouldn’t be entrusted with guns.Now, back to reality, your president will need to make a living after his mandate is over, and for this reason, even today, I would label his speech as balanced (vs upset) and nothing will change. Money over general good, guess what will win
Look, I may agree with you. But my opinion is garbage and so is yours.This is worth it to me to put my agenda, opinion, and even strongly held beliefs aside. It’s too important.You’re probably right about the president, though. While I agree with everything he said, he has the power to push this forward as an issue and educate the public. If he doesn’t do that, his words are empty b.s.
I don’t know what the right answer is but its not the one we have now.But like anything in the USA the answer has to an American one.
Thank you Andy (@andyswan) for making the conversation on AVC a true reflexion of the debate in the US. It’s very enlightening to us living somewhere else to see both side debating live.
my opinion is – there is nothing to debate in the first place.If US wants to maintain this right, they should also accept the consequences.
That’s…..what the debate is about…..
🙂
I’m willing to bet that most who argue most strongly for the current status quo have never had a child gunned down.My aunt and uncle live in Newtown (Sandy Hook) and we have a family in my town in MA whose son was killed at Sandy Hook.It makes me sick we we continue to allow our children to be collateral damage.
I live in UK, to me the idea of access to guns is insane, it is a non-topic. It is for Americans with different points of view to have the courage to answer your post
I’m sorry Fred. As has been stated already in the comments, the facts simply to not support any notion that stronger gun laws will stop this. This is just another case were Liberals use emotion over fact to try to push an agenda. The guy completely cherry-picks the stories that fit his agenda and goes to the podium. Where the hell was he when Russia started bombing in Syria? Where was he when Christians were being tortured in Iraq? The entire world power structure is changing against us while he plays golf.Many of these shootings are now motivated by Radical Islam. It is here, now. But that doesn’t fit Obama’s narrative so he ignores it – calling it “workplace” violence. Obama embraces Islam. When bombs are going off in shopping malls, people will look around and say – “How did this happen?”I know you love the guy – but he’s gotta go! He’s done enough already for most of us.
Oh, please do not accuse the Left of “using emotion over fact to try to push an agenda” as if is unique to their side of the aisle. They both do it absolutely unapologetically. I mean, in your own comment, you posit that “the entire world power structure is changing against us while he plays golf”, when in fact, Bush took WAY more vacation than Obama. I’m not arguing that he’s right, but the additional partisan commentary is sickening, given the issue at hand.Source: http://www.factcheck.org/20…
BTW – Thanks for teeing up a nice lively discussion for a Friday! (Get’s the blood pumping.)
This narrative gets quite tiresome. You think the families of the dead care much about political affiliation?
The discussion reminds me of a Colbert “know a district” segment when they interviewed a woman who was campaigning for “drunk driving Fridays” where in her town/area you’d be able to drunk drive on Friday legally. She said all the other people would know to stay off the roads and in their homes to be safe and yet the drunks would get their “freedom” to drive on that one day a week while being three sheets to the wind. Of course it was crazy funny. Cars we have no problem recognizing the “right to drive” as a privilege but with guns we can’t seem to think this way. As a gun owner I believe you should have a license based on your training, knowledge, testing and good behavior. Like cars they should be registered too.
Obama is a great man and a great leader. I believe you can see in this clip that he speaking directly from his own views, not that of the party of some speechwriter.And while some may (I cannot see clearly how) disagree with his statements, the real tragedy is that he waited 6 years to be THIS president. To speak clearly, form the heart and away from the machine.Having said that there are some issues that Obama and his administration is still pursuing that do concern me, e.g. http://wolfstreet.com/2015/…
I know; I know; NYC is a Democrat town so that in business in NYC need to get along with the Democrats.Yup, gun violence is a problem.And in the video clip Obama sounds good and sincere.But I can’t forget some history of Obama and list five such points:(1) I saw:http://www.youtube.com/v/hU…There he hated the US. A POTUS who hates the US? Not good.(2) I looked at his Iran deal and read and liked the response of Senator Schumer. So Obama just made a tinsy, winsy little mistake-y and sat down on the wrong side of the negotiating table, was really pleased at how well the negotiations went, and was happy with the deal.Now Iran is in line to grab half of Iraq and most of Syria, pinch the Iraqi Sunnis between Baghdad and Syria and, thus, have power from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean (just look at a map), threaten all the rest of the Mideast with nuclear weapons, grab control over a much larger fraction of the oil, and, in particular, be able to use Syria as a base for its goal of destroying Israel (and I’m Presbyterian), e.g., as in Ayatollah Kockamamie’s favorite “Death to Israel”.That’s even worst hate talk than Hitler used. But, then, Hitler was from some of the Eastern European culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and Kockamamie is from some of the worst Mideast culture of, what, the 11th century? Heck, Christianity was much better 2000 years ago; Islam was a really big step backwards.Then yesterday Obama had Kerry and Power walk out on the Netanyahu UN speech. So, which side is Obama on here? I’ve decided.Of course, Obama was not the only cause of our disaster in the Mideast: The really big causes were, and the candidates are — W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Bremer. May I have the envelope, please? And the winner is, drum roll, please, right, W! He was going to get the WMDs! He believed that “The Iraqi people are perfectly capable of governing themselves.”. He was going to dump the cruel Saddam, and he really was cruel, and bring a secular, constitutional, parliamentary democracy to Iraq and where the Iraqi people would greet us as “liberators”. Some of what I noticed were bodies of US citizens strung up from the super structure of a bridge.Instead, as was fully clear long before Gulf War II, W just removed the cap, Saddam, on an Iraqi three-way, religious civil war, upset the balance of power between Iraq and Iran, let Iran grab half of Iraq, enabled ISIS with beheadings, drowning in cages, crucifixions, and sex slave auctions for women and girls, cost the US, NPV, maybe $2-3 trillion, thousands of lives, and tens of thousands of casualties.So, Iraq went from cruel Saddam who tortured dissidents in Abu Ghraib and killed some thousands of Iraqis a year to ISIS who beheads, etc. all the males who don’t sign up for jihad duty and makes sex slaves, right, on a slave market with auctions, out of all the non-Sunni women and girls. Now we know from that semi-civilized culture the curious fact in anatomy that if an mature man has sexual intercourse with a seven year old girl, then the girl’s uterus can rupture and she can bleed to death. Some culture.Now ISIS wants a Caliphate from Portugal, North Africa, especially Libya with its oil, much of the Mideast, to Chechnya, with its oil, Akrapistan, Pukistan, etc.W, General Shinseki told you we’d need an occupying force in Iraq, and you fired him. He was right; you were wrong, and that was fully clear at the time.W, where’d you and Dick get that really strong funny stuff you had to be smoking?And the situation was clear to nearly every thug, criminal, fired Saddam soldier, gang leader, international opportunist, power hungry religious leader, Iran, etc. for a radius of 1000 miles. Still, W failed to get it.Great progress there W. “Heck of a job” W!So, as inhttps://www.youtube.com/wat…we can see part of what this is about and that the Muslim call to prayer is “the sweetest sound on earth”? That’s over the screams of the pre-teen girls sold at slave auctions and being raped while their fathers are screaming from crucifixion?Obama, W gave you a really good start, and you built on that for an even bigger disaster.(3) I sawhttp://arabiangazette.com/w…andhttp://www.richardcyoung.co…with two more that are similar for Japan and France.(4) Refuse to support the US laws on immigration as an attempt to flood the US with people to vote against US citizens of Western European descent and to vote for Obama’s views of socialism.”Fundamentally transform”. Right. All just by doing some little things like ignoring US laws on immigration, refusing to prosecute illegal immigrant criminals, and more.Obama, want to do something about absurd violence in the US? Okay, how about gangs of illegals? Drug dealers? Etc.? Those drug dealers, they won’t have any guns, either, right? Nope: Now I remember: Your AG wants them to have guns via his program Fast and Furious.Now Obama wants to let in nearly 200,000 Mideast Muslim men. I mean, what could go wrong there? I mean, Obama doesn’t want us to admit holders of good Ph.D. degrees in the STEM fields but right away, no long thinking about it, rush right ahead, does want to admit that 200,000.He wants to admit to the US 200,000 WHAT?Uh, Mr. President, not nearly all the 200,000 are suffering, deserving, Christian families from Assad’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons in Syria, or even from Syria at all.Besides, Mideast 101, the civil war in Syria is mostly just yet another chapter of the 500+ year old Shiite-Sunni war with Assad on the Shiite side and, right, much of the Sunni side ISIS in Syria. Tough to know which side we want to win. As Kissinger said, “Too bad they can’t both lose.”. Well, now they are. Let them.I know; I know; you have said that Assad should go. But what then? Barry, baby, can you understand the “lesser of two evils” and “the evil we know”?You’ve wanted Assad to leave and for the US to support some Syrian rebels of some mysterious goals, loyalties, and competence, with a $500 million program that resulted in, what was it, four trained rebels? Then, meanwhile, back at reality, ISIS is taking over much of Syria, maybe 70% Sunni, and Assad is letting in the Shiites of Iran and also Russia. Bummer.You also said that ISIS was “the JV”. Okay, there’s a point there. But ISIS has a leader, totally wacko Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who apparently thinks that he is the “True Mahdi” or some such demented delusions. Uh, is this wacko really difficult to track via intelligence and, then, attack with a bomb at the right GPS coordinates? I mean, if we can’t see him on radar, maybe with some chemical sensors we could smell him?Here’s an approach: In any ISIS area, if it is not desert, a tent, or a camel, then level it until ISIS is gone and we get to help some Sunnis push back against Shiites and restore a balance of power?Uh, ISIS recently asserted that they want to nuke the US. Heck, that’s a worse threat than Hitler, Tojo, Mao, or Stalin did. Obama, we need to take such a threat fully seriously. Like right NOW.But definitely don’t import the Sunni side; remember 9/11? That was Saudi Sunni. Remember ISIS? That’s Iraqi and Syrian Sunni. Understand now?Mr. President, we don’t like gun violence, but how about commercial airplane violence, IED violence, car bomb violence, suitcase nuke violence, big nuke bomb in the hold of a cargo ship violence, chem-bio WMD violence?(5) He has been pushing hard on the wacko, cooked-up, flim-flam fraud of human caused global warming and climate change.The science? Okay, we can settle that here and now in just a few words: In science, one of the pillars is to make predictions and have those come true. Else we drop the candidate science in the toilet and pull the chain.So, for comparison of predictions and reality, seehttp://online.wsj.com/artic…http://wattsupwiththat.com/…Done. Stick a fork in that fraud — it’s DONE.That was fast. Gee, I do like science!Yes, I know: Obama wants to measure fleeting, transient, evanescent, so far unpredictable, seemingly random temperature changes of less than 1 degree F by looking at pictures of polar bears. Really good science, there Barry. I wouldn’t be able to make this stuff up! Uh, how about using a thermometer; we have some really accurate ones. When I was at the NIST, we routinely measured temperature to within 0.01 C.Mr. President, yes, I understand the claims that the Arctic is warming, that the ice is melting, etc. So, for more first-hand evidence, how about a trip up there starting in a month or so? Dress lightly for the balmy tropic breezes, maybe 50 MPH winds at -60 F. In the spring, let us know how all the ice melted. And if some day up there it is -59 F, then don’t worry: That won’t cause all the ice to melt or NYC to flood this year, as ABC News predicted in 2008, as in,http://newsbusters.org/blog…for, right, 2015. Fred, please have someone rush outside to Union Square and check on the water level so far!E.g., as inhttp://www.youtube.com/watc…he admits that with his plan of cap and trade, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”. Right. No thanks.Then, with this fraud, Obama has the US EPA obsessively running around shooting important parts of the US economy in the gut. That HURTS the US, seriously, apparently deliberately. That effort has nothing to do with global warming, global cooling, or climate change and apparently everything to do with just hurting the US.Global cooling? Right: I mean, who could forget that pillar of responsible journalism Newsweek and their 1975 cover story on “global cooling” as inhttp://denisdutton.com/news…But don’t expect to see any of this debunking of global warming or human-caused climate change in the NYT that is and long has been totally in the tank on the flim-flam fraud and that has the ability to suppress or cover over with absurd excuses nearly anything that Obama does.It appears that, in addition, Obama wants to join with the UN to collect carbon taxes as a way to have world economic redistribution of wealth from the richer nations to the poorer ones, etc.Here in the fraud, Obama is not trying to do anything about climate but apparently wants to stick it to the US and send US money to poor countries, at least. No thanks.He said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” the US, and now we can see some of what he had in mind.In addition to (1) — (5), there is a long list of more of the same.To me (A) Obama hates the US and wants to stick it to the US; (B) Obama has no credibility as someone genuinely interested in the good of the US; and (C) has a hidden agenda otherwise.For gun violence, such as in Oregon, that is a problem, but I have to guess that Obama is just using that to further his hidden agenda.If we are to change our gun laws, i.e., push against the Second Amendment, then I want that effort with people I can believe have the best interests of the US at heart. We shouldn’t rush to judgment on this issue, and we shouldn’t have Obama involved in the effort.My take on Obama is that some huge majority in the US has concluded:(A) We elected Obama, and now we have to accept that the consequences are our fault.(B) From a lot of evidence about his background, e.g., some of the URLs I’ve given here, we had to suspect what we were getting; now we have it.(C) We elected him to pursue the goal of diversity and as redemption from retribution, for past transgressions and because somehow the US bleeding heart, liberal mass media was 110% behind him; the NYT got what it wanted. Since we elected him knowing what his background was, it was our fault, but now we have achieved our redemption.Luckily so far we have gotten by for about seven years without a real president; we shouldn’t press our luck.(D) We have now achieved a stalemate with what Obama had in mind with “change” and “fundamentally transform”. We won’t try to impeach Obama, e.g., for failing to enforce our laws on immigration — that would embarrass all of us, including the NYT and people who voted for him.Instead, we will just let Obama serve out his term, try to limit any further damage, write off the damage he did cause as the price of redemption, start to repair the damage with our next president, and then say “Never again.”.Thankfully, yet again, our Founding Fathers seemed to have seen the imperfections in human character, behavior, and understanding, tried to build a reliable system out of very unreliable people, and did one heck of a good job in automatic error detection and correction. Thus, we have a chance of getting through this until we can get a competent president to repair the damage and get us back on track.Apparently some of what has helped Obama is that he is so bad, and the NYT is so good at covering up, that it can be tough to believe the truth.
(whoops, copied over other notes; serves me right for copy-pasting a post this long. Fixed.)Re 1: hate, or cultural oversight? Sure, everyone else might know which fork is is the salad fork, but if you’ve been raised where they’re interchangeable, it’s not even going to occur to you to be picky about that.Although true, you might end up hating the rule that says you have to use that particular fork for salads.Re 2: I’d actually go with ‘tough call’ on this one; and, due to the necessities of politics these days and leadership in general, it has to look as if it isn’t a tough call to him.Okay, though, but why is it a tough call? Why not just keep saying “nope, those twenty million people (not an exact figure) in Iran must remain prisoners of their genocidally-inclined brethren in order to prevent said brethren from wiping both themselves and Israel off the map”?Broadly, the justification in favor is simple: isolation gives the power to exactly the wrong people.Re 3: See 1; just replace “hate” with the adjective you’re thinking of.Re 4: There’s a fundamental disagreement over the kind of crime illegal immigration is. For a stereotypical Republican, it’s a “gateway” to further lawbreaking; for a stereotypical Democrat, it’s a mere misdemeanor. There’s some truth to both: illegal immigration is, in a sense, the national equivalent of trespassing (or party-crashing), but throwing someone out of the country is rather a more involved process than throwing them out of your yard. As it stands, the more effective solution may be to give them documentation (and an entry into facial-recognition software) rather than throwing them out entirely.Or, to look at it another way – if the bureaucracy around legal immigration is to separate the “good” immigrants from the “bad” immigrants, why not apply those same tests to the immigrants who skipped the queue? It’s a point against them that they skipped, yes, but it’s rather less clear that this alone should be enough to make them fail the course… hence that fundamental disagreement.Re 5: Not going to argue one way or another on the weather, but a lot of our infrastructure could use the attention regardless. Air conditioning is a lovely, lovely thing.
Re 2.I’m for making a deal with Iran, but I don’t want Obama doing it — he gets confused about which side of the table to sit on.Currently we haven’t done an effective negotiation with Iran; instead, Iran got everything they could have hoped for. We gained nothing.You have a good point, but only until then next US President in 2017. Then we let the next President do an effective negotiation with Iran.Re 4.On the illegal immigrants, the mainline Republican position is to have them work but not vote, and the mainline Democrat position is to have them vote but not work.My view is that, for the strength of our country, we don’t want a non-citizen, exploited underclass. Net, for our society, in too many ways, such an underclass is too darned expensive.By now we should have learned well the high costs of an exploited underclass.As far as I can tell, bluntly, one of Obama’s main goals — as part of his “fundamentally transform” the US — is to have such illegals as underclass voters to dilute the voting power of the non-poor whites. Obama wants to stick it to Whitey.Solution: Use eVerify as part of employment screening. Then the illegals won’t be able to get normal work in the economy and will leave. A large fraction that are left will be criminals, and as we catch them we deport them. That combination should solve 99 44/100% of the problem.Then on the way back home, the illegals can file to be accepted to return. Then they will be treated like all applicants for immigration. The ones we really want we will let return.Re 5.For Obama, tough to believe that he’s really concerned about the weather. Instead his agenda in part is to have carbon taxes to transfer money from the wealthy countries to the poor ones.No thanks.
it’s an issue of personal choice, and so give people that choice.in the US perhaps a state or two should utterly outlaw the possession of guns of any kind in any circumstances (and that includes regular neighbourhood policing), with the penalty for illegal possession being mandatory life imprisonment and no parole. in time people would be able to see which environment is safer, one with guns or one without guns, and then decide in which they want to live.this requires a transitional period (an amnesty scheme and/ or selling off guns to gun states), and the retention of special armed police units for extreme incidents (no society foregoes that option).
If you don’t want crazy people owning guns you need to screen gun owners for craziness.
because there is a definite description available of what craziness is…surely ‘healthy’ people use guns too
Except “sane” people have momentary lapses and nervous breakdowns all the time. (Frankly, I know lots of “sane” people whom I really wish couldn’t access even a slingshot because they’re jackasses who think might is right.)The problem is much more complex than that, and the solution will have to be more sophisticated.
Are they sane or are they undiagnosed?
Just under enlightened 😉
Ok. What do you propose? Be specific. I’d love to hear how your ideas square with judicial precedent.
See my other comments. I don’t feign to have any answers here today.I admit I don’t know what’s the right answer.I don’t believe you know the right answer.I am willing to make sacrifices to find and implement the answer. Are you?
“Those who would give up essentialLiberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”I’m going to go with Ben on this one.I gave you a perfectly viable solution. It may not work 100% of the time, but it’s damn sight better than “gun free zones” and “sheltering in place”.
So you’re for arming everyone. What are your prime examples of places where this works?In response to your liberty quote: You believe that no one in the U.S. should ever have to compromise on anything? I should be able to drive a car without a license, or fly on an airline without proving who I am or having my luggage x-rayed? I should be able to yell “Fire!!!” in a crowded theater?
As I said elsewhere, not quite. I do believe everyone should be ABLE to be armed.As for your questions…1. People do drive cars without licenses. I fail to see the harm.2. I think that the TSA is a gestapo organization that has no place in a free society. Terrorist attacks agains aircraft are far rarer than mass shootings. They would be even less so if the airports were not “gun free” zones. (and no, firing a handgun inside an aircraft is not “dangerous”, modern ammunition can’t pierce the hull and doesn’t ricochet.)3. You CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. No law physically prevents you from abusing your right to free speech. In fact, that famous court case that used that logical fallacy was overturned in the 60s. You are well within your rights to yell anything you want anywhere you want. You are just responsible for the direct results. Same way you should be well within your rights to carry any weapon you want, anywhere you want. Again, being responsible for the direct results.
Good idea if possible and practical. But not. And never going to happen. To many in between cases, to much gray area, this is an analog issue not “pregnancy”. Plus there are all sorts of people taking all sorts of meds and they are in positions of power to block this type of thing. It’s really a non-starter. You’d have an easier time easing up the laws on certain types pornography. You’d also have the obvious unintended consequences. People deciding not to seek care for fear that it would then prevent them from owning a gun (or prevent them from some other thing down the line that they don’t know about). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we brand a 18 year old that has sex with his 15 year old girlfriend a sex offender for life and put him on a list so that he has a scarlet letter forever. Makes total sense!!!!
Finally President Obama brings his whole self to work. Just wish it happened sooner.
I’ll be more impressed when he starts making this the only thing he’s willing to talk about, even when there hasn’t been a massacre in the last 24 hours.
Why? These incidents are statistically irrelevant. Ten times more people died in car accidents yesterday than in this incident.
So there is no problem, then?
Not really, no. Crazy people do crazy things. You can’t really stop them, you can just mitigate the damage. A shooter is far easier to stop than a bomber.
What’s with all of the “deleted” comments today.In particular this one which I was replying to (from Andy) which was deleted by “moderator”….
I deleted them. I had the conversations I wanted to have.
It’s too bad Andy. Your take on the founders intent was interesting. I was hoping you would read Stevens take on their intent here (forgetting about his 5 words which I know you’ll disagree with) https://www.washingtonpost….
Ya that makes no sense at all.
And other deleted comments such as the following, looks like dozens of deleted comments by “guest” that people seemed to reply to (don’t know what the comments were but it wasn’t advertising spam):…
They’re Andy’s comments. I hope it is an overzealous algorithm, not mod.
I deleted them.
Fair enough.
Fred- Thank you for posting I have a few thoughts.This dialog isn’t only about mass shootings, but also about gun related homicide and suicide. Everyone should Include those when they cite the statistics about gun violence.The NRA has totally poisoned the well in terms of any reasonable dialog. When 85% of Americans favor background checks for private and gun show sales, and WE CANNOT pass that, then we are allowing 1 lobbying group to block the will of the people. It’s insane.Why do we not regulate Internet gun sales and sales across state lines?Those who cite the second amendment and “freedom” are clearly missing the fact that we have changed, amended, and interpreted different parts of the Constitution based on changing technology, norms, opinions and factors. The 2nd Amendment was conceived and written when we had muskets.Obama is right about this part: “This is a political choice that we make- to allow this to happen every few months in America.” As someone with family in Newtown, I cannot understand that we have chosen to allow our children to become collateral damage. The FF never could have envisioned such a thing.
The 85% number is a myth. It has been throughly debunked and vivisected.In reality most voters rate gun rights as more important than gun control.http://www.usnews.com/news/…What’s even worse, is that you seem to be ignorant of how gun sales work. Nowhere in the country is it legal to sell a gun across state lines without a background check. This has been true for decades. If you buy a gun online, it has to be shipped to a licensed gun dealer who is required to run a background check before transferring it to you.If you want to change the CotUS, there is a process for that. “Reinterpreting” is not it. Go ahead and get your congressman to file an amendment and work it through the process.The reason we “allow” our children to be collateral damage is that gun control causes homicide to RISE, not fall. Take a look at the UK or Jamaica for outstanding examples of the utter failure of what you propose.http://www.cato.org/publica…You might want to educate yourself before you get on the bully pulpit. You might sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Given that it lumps suicides (which are irrelevant to the conversation) in with homicides. Yes, yes they are.Also, VOX is not a source. It’s a propaganda page.But please. Tell me what SPECIFIC action would have had any impact on this incident. I’ll wait.
Oh but a 15 year old Cato study is gospel? Cato? Funded by the Koch brothers? Sorry…
When it cites dozens of sources? Yes. Yes it is. It’s not a source in and of itself. It’s a compilation.
Strange, I hit reply to you, but my post went up as a normal post instead.I have a layperson’s specific idea that is feasible. Would you read it and tell me potential problems with it? Sorry, it’s long, so I don’t want to post it here again.
I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.What do you think about guns having visual and sound surveillance as part of the gun itself? Sort of like a smartphone or black box.In other words, whenever any gun is shot anywhere in the US, the police can immediately see and hear the shooting situation in real time.That way, the police immediately knows who shot the gun, who got shot, and GPS immediately pinpoints where this gun is in real time. A madman can be instantly pinpointed in a building after only one shot, so police can quarantine him. All victim smartphones in that building could be texted to guide them to safety in real time. No more low tech guessing who the shooter might be, where he might be, etc.Any tampering of the gun’s camera or speakers gives the police the legal right to lock your trigger, such that your gun cannot be fired. Tampering with the trigger lock results in gun confiscation.So for example, if you owned a gun for shooting range or hunting, then you just text the police your shooting plans, say an hour ahead of time, before you are able to legally shoot your gun. When you actually shoot your gun, the police can check anytime to see that you are indeed at a shooting range.That may help address one of the primary NRA concerns of self-protection. If your family actually is attacked, and you fire your gun in self-defense, then obviously you didn’t message your shooting plans to the police ahead of time.So then there’s an instant visual and sound recording in real time, such that the police can instantly see, hear, and communicate with you and your attacker through your gun.So there would only be a violation of privacy for the gun owner – only if he tampered with the surveillance capabilities on the gun, or if he refused to report his plans to shoot his gun ahead of time. An honest gun owner has no reason to violate either.If the NRA’s concerns of self-protection are sincere, then they should strongly support that since 85% of Americans want gun control, then all American taxpayers would now be taxed heavily to fund gun surveillance for gun owners’ safety only – a high tech benefit for gun owners only. If 85% of Americans are sincere, then they should strongly support being taxed heavily for gun control.If non-gun owners are attacked in their house out of the blue, then tough luck, you defend yourself with the low tech bedside lamp, since you don’t own a gun with police surveillance. That lack of protection for non-gun owners is fair, since non-gun owners never believed they needed a gun for protection anyway.Is that a stupid idea? Thoughts?
Would you be ok with having such a box on your car? How about your house? It’s a gross violation of privacy simply by nature of its existence. Rights are not subject to regulation, registration, legislation, or the democratic process. Not to mention that it gives overwhelming authority to the very government that the 2nd amendment is supposed to protect us from.Please quit repeating that 85% bull. I’ve already cited several sources that debunked it.I will, however, address the concept form an engineering point of view… Good luck. The device you describe cannot be built and made reliable with anything remotely approaching modern technology. Complex electronics and guns don’t mix. Recoil tends to destroy anything more complicated than a few lights. Then you have the data management issue. The devices you describe would generate millions of reports every day. Do you honestly think that there exists a database that can store that much data? How are you going to retrofit the half a billion guns in private hands already?Your idea is not so much stupid as it is a well intentioned but poorly thought out fantasy that’s impossible to actually implement. The biggest hole in your plan is actually the simplest one.This time ten years from now, I will be able to print more of less all the parts to any modern firearm in the privacy of my home. Laser sintering has come a long way in the past decade and the progress of the technology is exponential. A printed gun made out of steel has already been made and tested to be just as reliable as its machined counterpart.Quite simply. Gun control is already effectively dead. You can’t stop the signal.
“I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.””I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.”I want to compliment you on saying that. You are a rare person that understands themselves. So many concerned with guns and gun control, that support more gun control of some sort……ignore this.
I’m sure I read somewhere that the Supreme Court put restrictions on the right to free speech. And a few of the other elements of the Constitution. The document gets interpreted all the time.
Um… [CITATION NEEDED] There are almost NO restrictions on free speech. There are consequences for ABUSING free speech. Same way there should be almost NO restrictions on gun ownership, just consequences for abusing the right to own guns. But wait, last I heard, murder and assault are still illegal.
Please help educate me since I’m ignorant. Post the link to the law that regulates the private sale of firearms, including over the Internet.
It’s called the Gun Control Act of 1968. It regulates ALL intestate commerce for firearms. That covers internet sales as well. While private transactions between individuals within the same state may be legal, (depending on the state) all interstate commerce in firearms in covered by GCA68.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…It has been illegal to sell a gun across state lines without a Federal Dealer involved for almost 50 years. The “internet sales loophole” is a work of fiction.Fun fact, in OR, it is illegal to sell ANY gun to ANYBODY without a federal background check. Has been for several months. The “Universal Background Checks” that gun control activists tout will do NOTHING to stop mass shooters. There has yet to be a single mass shooter who purchased his guns privately. None of them have had disqualifying criminal or medical histories and so were able to buy the guns from a dealer. The only recent exception was Sandy Hook, where the shooter simply murdered a family member and took THEIR guns.I would absolutely love to hear what specific proposal you would have that would have affected THIS incident.
I think it’s time you state your specific proposal(s). I don’t accept your “challenge” in another comment because I don’t claim to have answers. I DO want to find them.
Simple. Constitutional cary. In this incident a veteran was shot seven times and survived. If he had had a gun, like other veterans on the campus, this would have ended much quicker.What’s interesting is that one of the few people on campus who was armed was prevented from interfering by stupid “shelter in place” policies.https://youtu.be/b2I93N6H_eM
So: everyone carries a gun at all times. The more people carrying guns, the less gun violence we’ll have in the U.S. Does that capture it?
Everyone should have the option to carry any weapon they choose in any place they are legally allowed to be. Nobody is forcing a gun into your hands, but preventing people from carrying is just plain stupid. In this case a veteran had to charge the gunman unarmed. Me thinks he would have been slightly more effective with a pistol.Lawful carry seems to be quite effective. Every state that has got rid of bans on legal carry saw a massive drop in the homicide rate. Correlation is not causation, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Oregon is an open carry state. And per your video example also allows licensed concealed carry.But, granted, you probably have a better handle on all these states than I do. What is one state that has seen dramatic drop in gun deaths since banning legal carry?
Other way around. No state in the union bans carry now thanks to years of legislative action and lawsuits. Florida is the best example. Their homicide rate fell almost 50% over 10 years after they started issuing carry permits.As for OR being an “open carry” state. That’s true, but this campus had banned firearms. Which is why very few people were armed. (Basically people who had the moral integrity to tell the University to shove their “rules” where the sun don’t shine.) Unfortunately, none of those people were in a position to readily intervene or were prevented from doing so by stupid school policies.
Ball’s in your court Rob. Give me a SPECIFIC policy change that has not been ruled against by the courts that would have affected this incident.Still waiting.
“we are allowing 1 lobbying group to block the will of the people”With all due respect let’s shoot(no pun intended) at the coals not the flames here.THE REAL PROBLEM !You are allowing all your politicians to carry on with massive influence peddling as if that was an acceptable democratic political norm.
Shot 7 times trying to stop it. I’ll be focused on people like him the rest of the weekend.
If he’d had a gun, he probably would have been able to stop it. Too bad he didn’t.
Yes but then it wouldn’t be news…just another person killed by “gun violence” in a “school shooting” incident.
Perhaps his best “bully pulpit” moment. Unfortunately, there will be no changes as a result of the speech or the event. Shameful.
What specifically would you change that would have had any impact on this incident? SPECIFICALLY.The shooter had no criminal record or any other disqualifying condition. That means that “universal background checks” would have done jack. (Oh wait, OR already has those, so they did do jack.)The guns used were hardly “dangerous assault weapons” (Three out of four were common handguns that the SCotUS has already ruled you can’t ban.)So… Again… What SPECIFICALLY would you change?
I’m not an expert on the subject matter, but I think we need to do more than we are doing.It’s hard to say specifically what will work, but I feel strongly that this is not as good as it gets.
My point is, I think there are two opinions on this subject.1) We’ve done all we can to prevent violence. Gun control doesn’t work. This is as good as it gets.2) We can do more to prevent gun violence.My opinion is the second, non-argument or not.You keep asking for specific recommendations for what would have had an impact on yesterday’s shooting. I am inferring that this puts you in the first opinion. I can’t promise what specifically would have helped yesterday, but I believe we haven’t done all we can.One suggestion: we could fund the CDC to study the roots of gun violence.http://www.pri.org/stories/…
You do realize that #1 is a straw man? Right?That’s not the argument. The argument is to get rid of “gun free” zones and absurd obstacles to people exercising their rights.I think my position can be best reflected in the following quote:”don’t you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill ’em right back.” My first thought when I get shot at is not “gun control” it’s “shoot back”. That works. Pearl clutching does not.
When I read about what happened yesterday, the problems are 1) there’s a mentally ill person that didn’t get the help he needs, and 2) he was able to legally purchase guns. My first thought on how to solve these problems are 1) increase mental health services, and 2) make guns harder to acquire. If the shooter was treated, or was unable to acquire guns, yesterday might not have happened.
There is nothing you could do to make guns harder to acquire for people who have committed no crime that would not also deny that right to people in the most need of them. That’s the reason why poll taxes are illegal.
Thanks for a spirited debate. One last comment from me. You could amend the second amendment as suggested by Justice Stevens:“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”Full article: http://wpo.st/35Ie0
No. What’s more, f8ck no. That was clearly not the intent of the framers and would destroy the individual right to bear arms. It is basically no better than a repeal.Stevens is a statist cretin. The second amendment is not about shooting deer, it’s about shooting tyrants. Tyrants that would take away your individual right to defend yourself against any person who seeks to do you harm. I used to work the Uncle Sam. I know better than to trust him.
On a side note, Stevens’ proposal is also a logical absurdity.A militia is different from a draft in that militia members bring their own weapons in the us of which they are already proficient. How can a militia be formed when the individual people (who are not members of a militia until it is called) have no right to keep and bear arms. Where would they get the weapons or the training?That’s why I find calls for the ban on “military weapons” by advocates of the “militia clause” to be disingenuous. The whole point of the militia clause is to guarantee individual access to weapons suitable for service in a militia. I have to break it to them, but these days, that means anything on the equipment lists of a light infantry company. That includes M16/M4 rifles, M203 grenade launchers, AT4 light anti-tank weapons, M249/M240G machine guns, and M224 mortars. Interestingly 3/5 of the weapons listed are still legal for civilians to buy in most states and are never used in violent crime.
Personally, I’d be satisfied with foiling them nonlethally; guns simply don’t have effective, economically competitive nonlethal counterparts at the moment.
Well, that’s you. If someone tries to kill me, one of us is leaving this incident in a bag.
Why doesn’t he pledge right now today within the next hour to pursue mental health workers in every school by the end of this school year. They were able to bail out the Too big to fail banks with over 1 trillion dollars almost OVERNIGHT. Make the commitment today to get counselors in every school Mr President.Do something besides clamor for freedom to be taken away. Maybe he doesn’t do it because he is “numb” to it
let’s remember society loses in the long term when folks become victims of mass shootings.How many Fredrick Cook’s of Moveline have we missed out on ? http://dcinno.streetwise.co…
How many more will we miss out on if gun control makes it impossible fore people to effectively defend themselves? Don’t forget that defensive gun uses prevent Between 2,000,000 and 500,000 crimes per year.
I am not advocating a ban or repealing the 2nd amendment. However, Just shrugging our shoulders, saying how awful it is and moving on is not working.
True, however, repealing carry bans seems to have an effect. Take a look at the massive drop in Florida after they eliminated most restrictions on licensed carry.I think people are unduly pessimistic about the crime rates in this country. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that the US is, statistically, safer than it has been in almost a century. While mass shootings are horrible, they are not really a nationwide problem and, in my opinion, can be better dealt with by making it easier for people to shoot back. Clearly, background checks and “gun free” zones aren’t working.What’s the definition of insanity?Repeating the same action expecting different results.Gun control has never had the advertised results that its proponents claim. I think we might want to come at this from a different angle.
Obama is absolutely correct when he points out that no matter how he feels about the situation he can’t address it by himself. And it is natural that he suggests that voters who care about the issue should take their concerns to the ballot box and only when Congress is composed of those supportive of the issue, by the exercise of our right to vote, will there be a political situation that is conducive to meaningful change.However…here’s the problem:The operation of our political system is not a history of elected officials serving the interests of those who elected them. The true history is one of politicians serving the interests of monied interests. I do not say this lightly. A recent Princeton study went back decades analyzing situations in which there was a clear conflict between the popular will (generally around 60-70% of the electorate) and powerful monied interests. The results are not encouraging for our democracy. Monied interests won the day almost every time. Ironically, one of the issues they discussed was gun control which is a paradigmatic case. The last time a shooting of this kind took place there was a general consensus of the public that some basic gun control be put in place – nothing whatosever was passed despite Presidential support.Hence I am not optimistic that even if the public were to take up the cause and try to hold their elected officials accountable that it would make a whit of difference.
Except that the majority of the public not puts gun rights as more important than gun control. So sorry, but the elected officials are doing EXACTLY what their constituents want.http://www.usnews.com/news/…
Other things the public wants (from the same research group).
Different survey. Unsurprisingly, knee-jerk reactions tend to calm down after a few months pass and common sense kicks in.
I hadn’t seen that most recent study.I would however point out that it doesn’t obviate my point at all because for the previous two DECADES they hadn’t done what the public wanted. Futhermore, as the Princeton study made plain, this is by no means the only issue where the public will is ignored. Indeed, to ignore the public will and follow the interests of the monied interests is the norm. Hence all that this recent study does is result in what is presently a happy coincidence of interests for the gun lobby.
You do remember that we live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy? Right? The will of the public is irrelevant against the protected rights of the individual. The reason nobody wanted to tackle gun control is because they got reamed for it politically and got slapped down by the courts the last time they tried. (Or did you forget how quickly the DNC lost Congress after their little “assault weapons” ban back in 1994?)
I am aware of that. I am also aware of the fact that monied interests have so corrupted our constitutional republic that the will of the people – no matter how expressed – is pretty insignificant in cases where monied interests diverge from the interests, no matter how forcibly expressed, of those monied interests. I find that to be a serious cause for concern. The argument about ‘the protected rights of the individual’ isn’t particularly convincing because whilst this is indeed an important plank of our system it is far from being the only important such plank. Individual liberties and rights can be curtailed in the ‘greater good.’ My experience has been that even those who hold pretty extreme libertarian views tend to moderate their position when something ghastly starts intruding on their world. The most fervent proponent of not having government in his life doesn’t want a convicted paedophile living next door to him and his family. He can’t wait to pass laws banishing such offenders to an offshore island and f**k their rights. 🙂 So the idea that we can impose some order isn’t inconsistent with individual rights. Such rights aren’t inalienable under all circumstances. I think the thing that people often lose sight of is the any social system is one that has been arrived at through historical conflict and compromise. Such systems aren’t laws of nature like gravity or the conservation of energy. They were constructed and can be reconstructed. They advantage some people over others and have always done so. Those who benefit the most from the status quo will always emphasize the sacred nature of current rights and laws. Not so long ago it was the ‘right of kings’ bestowed by god and to be challenged by no man. La plus ca change…
I think we’ll need to agree to disagree.I happen to be a borderline libertarian conservative and happen to think that scarlet letter laws are absurd, and are only needed because we refuse to deal with people as their crimes deserve.The way I see it, you sexually assault a child, you should get a bullet to the back of the head and tossed in a convenient ditch. There’s no libertarian inconsistency there as the rapist initiated the force. I happen to think that we are too squeamish about executing criminals who have committed acts that make them unfit to keep breathing. (and yes, the “right to life” can be waived by a person whose actions are atrocious enough.)That would be the root cause of our high homicide rate, our revolving door “criminal justice” system. (Or do you think that it’s a coincidence that the majority of murderers have prior felony convictions?)
I think you keep latching onto what you like or don’t like in a particular example rather than addressing the core point. :)My point is nothing to do with what you feel about such people, or indeed what punishment you feel appropriate. You may or may not be right about recidivism and it wouldn’t alter my key point.We live in a society of laws and those laws exist for a purpose. We can have different feelings about whether they serve a meaningful purpose or whether we think they serve any purpose more or less well. But despite such differences the state and the laws have historically done a better job of maintaining order for large numbers of people than the horrors that have been endured by societies without such institutions and control of force. (see ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ by Pinker for a historical analysis of this point)http://www.amazon.com/Bette… So given that we are going to have such institutions the key question, as was recognized centuries ago by Plato, is who shall our rulers be accountable to? The point I was making is that there is a huge dissonance between what most people believe to be the way the system works and the way it actually works. For all the talk of democratic values and our our beloved constitutional republic, the reality is that monied interests hold sway and the system serves their interests time after time. This core point is what I’m addressing, not whether you would like to shoot people who assault children. Policies on how to punish such offenders, not matter how harsh, aren’t going to make our leaders more accountable.
True. However, giving said leaders MORE authority to control you seems like a losing proposition. If we agree that any government is an inherently corrupt institution, then we must also agree that we want any such government to have as little influence on our lives as possible.
I think all governments have always been corrupt. IMHO to fondly imagine that they will ever have little influence on our lives is a fantasy. Their whole point of being is precisely to be able to have lots of influence on behalf of their paymasters. Ironically, the things that most people worry about are just sideshows. The big money that corrupts government doesn’t give a shit about many of the concerns that people get worked up about. They are just noise that is useful for confusing the signal. What really matters is that big money can continue extracting big money from as many of us as possible. It is truly remarkable how effective ideology is at confusing that very simple fact. 🙂
The whole discussion makes me tired and a little depressed. Ugh.
Yup… No facts, no information. Who wants to bet that this guy got his guns just like every other mass shooter? Legally and after passing several background checks. Is Obama insisting that we ban guns outright or that we create some sort of “pre-crime” department?
Is owning a gun more critical to the daily life of the average American than driving a car? That it’s more difficult to operate the less deadly of the two is asinine. That no one’s claiming the regulations for operating a car are ‘stifling their freedom’ amplifies the idiocy of this conversation.
We need more checks for a vehicle that requires more than physical aptitude to operate. We don’t need regulations on weapons as they are constitutionally guaranteed as a primary means to removing tyranny.
There are a bunch of deleted comments in this thread. I want to be clear that I am not deleting any comments in this thread nor are the other two mods. Though we may find certain comments distasteful, we only delete spam and, on very rare occasions, personal attacks.We prefer to let the community set the norms and manage the conversations here
It is why this is one of the few places where great conversations appear to happen on political topics. I find people I disagree with but I respect both the passion and methods by which they make their arguments.
I would challenge anybody who is rallying for “gun control” in this thread to post SPECIFIC policy changes that would have had any impact on this incident. I will be more than happy to debate their merits.
What you’ve asked for is impossible. It’s a ridiculous standard.Imagine a different scenario…A car pulls out into traffic from a stop sign onto a road at an intersection where there is no traffic light, and is struck by another car. Someone proposes putting a traffic light at this intersection. If the standard for installing a traffic light at this intersection is proving that it would have stopped this one particular incident, the light would never be installed.
That’s a logical fallacy. If your proposed actions have no logically predictable effect on the incidents you are trying to prevent then it has no rational basis.Your example is also faulty.If a traffic light had been installed, then both cars would not have been in the intersection simultaneously. Therefore, logically, the chances of this incident occurring would have been drastically reduced.I’ll take it one step further. I challenge any gun control activist to provide and example a single similar incident that would have been prevented or at least affected by the specific actions they are calling for.
See, now you’re changing the rules on me. You didn’t write specific policy changes that have logically predictable effects on the incident, you wrote …SPECIFIC policy changes that would have had any impact on this incident.emphasis mine.An impossible task, as I’ve already stated.Then you wrote this…If a traffic light had been installed, then both cars would not have been in the intersection simultaneously.You’ve got to be kidding me. The very point I was trying to make was that installing a light does NOT prevent cars from being in the intersection at the same time ( because people sometimes ignore lights ). Therefore, one should debate the merits of installing a light based on data, not on the ability to predict one particular incident.BTW, I am not a gun control activist. Previous comments should make that clear.
Actually, in normal occurrences, it would. That’s the point. If something should logically work 99% of the time, it is logical to say that it will have an impact. Gun control activists can’t even claim that.
So, is that the new standard? Should the gun control activists in this thread propose legislation that would have had a 99% chance of impacting this incident?
How about logical probability? Can we agree that closing the “gun show loophole” is irrelevant when no mass shooter has ever gotten their gun at a “gun show”?
If “we” means mean and you, then no. I can’t agree to that. One doesn’t follow from the other.Firstly, I don’t know if I believe there is a loophole, so I’m not necessarily in favor of closing something I don’t’ believe exists.Secondly, the fact that a mass shooter has never gotten their gun at a gun show ( even if you could prove that ( none of these shooters has owned any gun they bought at a show? ) ), has zero to do with regulations of gun shows.Perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to talking about the loophole after every one of these shootings is illogical. I might agree with that. The topic of looking more closely at regulations of gun shows, though, is wholly independent of how many gun-show-purchased guns may or may not have been used in mass shootings.
If you use something as cover for your tyrannical power grab, it would at least behove you to make sure that said grab was related to said thing.
How about the policies that are working everywhere else in the world !Or is it a “not invented here” problem ?
Show me that they have had a measurable before / after impact.No such policy has ever been shown to have a measurable positive before / after affect on overall homicides. You can’t use “mass shootings” as a metric because the definition is fluid and the events are inherently irrelevant statistical abnormalities. You have to use overall homicides as your metric.The reality is that European countries tend to have a very consistent mono-culture and a lack of a welfare supported criminal underclass. Those have far more of an effect than firearm availability as shown by the example of Switzerland smack dab in the middle of the EU with almost American gun laws and virtually no crime. That’s why I insist on a before / after study as the above variables make crossectional studies irrelevant.
As to removing comments, I have had a comment about free thinkers removed from the discuss troubleshooting channel.
How awful of you FRED WILSON to turn this into politics. Jerk.
Its Fred’s fault this is political is it ?Or maybe that is just the bedrock reality of it all !
Justice Stevens’ thoughts on how to fix the second amendment.http://wpo.st/YVGe0
Thank you for posting that – a properly heartfelt and considered position.In the UK in took Hungerford to start gun controls and then Dunblane, whenprimary school children were shot, for us to properly clamp down. We are asafer and better place as a result, yet we still can shoot for leisure and hunting(really who needs an automatic rifle??).President Obama made the comment that the US is a developed nation that seessuch atrocities more often than others. Well I hope you can aspire to be likethe UK where most of our police do not have guns because gun control works -its a long long way from where you are but like any business trying to changethe world you need to take those first steps.Good luck in the journey and congratulations to those prepared to take the firststeps.
Actually, no. No you’re not. Your national homicide rate was far higher than it was before Hungerford well into the 2000s. It wasn’t until you cranked up your policing that you saw the drop observed post 2003. (Note that your last gun control law went into effect in 1997.) Can we at least try to keep our arguments grounded in evidence and reality?http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/r…
Evidence and reality: homicides have many causes from guns, knives, and more, but since gun control in UK we’ve had no mass killings, our ordinary police on the streets do not carry guns, homicide by gun is low level (but not zero) and largely confined to Intra drug conflict. Key point is that undeniably gun control reduces massively homicide by gun and mass shootings in particular, whilst not stopping sporting and hunting use. I recognise that UK and US start from different positions and what worked here will not work as simply in U.S. because of the provenance of guns, but it must be clear to most people that proliferation of guns leads to more gun crime – if that is not an issue then so be it; if it is an issue then you have to reduce/control gun availability.
Since mass shootings are inherently unpredictable statistic anomalies they are therefore not relevant to the discussion.The UK has always been a relatively safe country. Claiming that your gun control laws made it more so is inherently disingenuous and not backed by the data.I like to use the homicide rate as a benchmark because dead is dead. It does not matter if the victim was shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. If gun control was effective, you would see an appreciable drop in homicides.The proliferation of guns vs homicide is a hotly debated topic.1. Criminal use of firearms is rarely tied to gun control. (Criminals, being criminals, tend to be able to get their hands on guns regardless. You need look no further than most American countries for examples.)2. The positive effect of civilian gun ownership is difficult to discount. In the US between several million and several hundred thousand crimes are prevented by defensive gun uses. (The exact statistics are hotly debated and difficult to track, but even the most conservative estimates put them north of 100,000.)I would point you towards Switzerland for a European example. Their gun ownership is second only to the US amongst developed nations, and yet they have one of the lowest homicide and violent crime rates in Europe. (They have an average of 0.6 homicides per 100,000 people, almost half of the UK’s 1.0) Clearly the issue is not the rate of gun ownership, but also the society that those guns are present in.I will be the first to admit that the US has serious problems, but given the example of Switzerland, gun control may not be the best and least intrusive solution to them.
I suspect there are more than enough statistics to “prove” the point either way. I am sure it comes down to gut feel in the end – in my gut and most of the UK it doesn’t make sense to proliferate guns; there is no requirement for them(we don’t worry about overthrowing our Government) and sporting & hunting purposes can be met within legislation. When sufficient people in the US have the same gut feel something will change; until then it probably won’t – statistics won’t really come in to play either way.
You do realize that gun owners make up at least half the US population? Right? You do realize that there are more privately owned guns in the US than people? The day when your prediction could have happened has already passed.In fact, even if it did, they would still fail. Why? Because those of us who do own guns would tell you to come and try to take them. Good luck with that. We’ve got you clowns out trained, out gunned, and out manned. (HINT: Cops aren’t going to line up to get shot and the military is more likely to shoot you than cary out a tyrannical order.)Fun fact limey. Within a decade, every single person in the western world will be able to print out a handgun or rifle of their choice in the privacy of their own homes. Metal printing technology exists and has been used to make firearms. Polymer printing is commonplace. Even your gun control is on its last legs as the British people are realizing that they live in an Orwellian surveillance state that still fails to do anything positive for their lives.You’ve already lost. You’re a fish flapping on the bottom of the boat wondering where the water went. You can’t stop the signal.
Interesting statement: “asthe British people are realizing that they live in an Orwellian surveillancestate that still fails to do anything positive for their lives.” I’d have to question this as we really don’t think that at all – not even 1% of us. I can see your logic IF you do think that, but I would question why you have to be so afraid of your State that your vote for – but I suspect that is a whole different topic!Thank you for the debate though which has made me think deeper about the views underpinning the current state of play in the US, albeit that I don’t think either of us are going to persuade the other any time soon.
To true.I’ll give you a hint. The core foundation of the united states is based around the scariest words in the English language.”I’m with the government, and I’m here to help you.”This country was founded on the idea that the government should have as little power as we can get away with. That way, we won’t have a repeat of the unpleasantness involved in kicking your countrymen out of the colonies. Democracy is important, but the founding fathers knew that every system of government is ultimately corruptible. The idea then, is to limit the government so much that corrupting it serves little purpose.Their final fallback was the 2nd amendment. A Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the institution. While some may question the idea of an effective armed uprising by the citizenry, they do so only due to a lack of experience in modern, asymmetrical warfare. Look to the Taliban for an example. At no point after 2001 were they able to put more than a few hundred men into the field for a single operation, and yet here we are almost fifteen years later and they are still a significant force in the region despite the efforts of the largest military on earth.Now let’s apply that to the United States. The hypothetical American insurgent force would be far larger, far better trained, and far better armed. (Don’t forget, the Taliban is mostly running around with WWII era antiques or early Soviet era castoffs.) Add to that a lack of secure supply sources and the fact that you’re talking about a Civil War and no US government can ever feasibly oppress even a small minority of the people.I think that given the examples of the totalitarian dictatorships of the 20th century, a little collateral damage from the occasional crazy and criminal on criminal warfare is a small price to pay for our little insurance policy.Fun fact: In the US, if you have not committed a felony. Your statistical chances of dying to violence are actually far lower than Europe. We may have a higher homicide rate, but it is concentrated in a certain stratum of society. A stratum that has virtually no interaction with the daily lives of most Americans and, frankly, we would be better off without anyway.
.The AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) of 1994 was originally passed with a ten year expiration provision. When it expired in 2004, it was not renewed, in great part, because less than 2% of all crimes in the US involved an “assault” weapon.An assault weapon is defined as a weapon that features two or more of the following elements:For rifles:1. A stock that folds or telescopes;2. A pistol grip from which to operate a trigger;3. A bayonet mount;4. A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; or,5. A grenade launcher mount.For semiautomatic pistols with detachable magazines:1. Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip;2. Threaded barrel which can mount a barrel extender, a flash suppressor, a handgrip, or a suppressor (silencer);3. A barrel shroud (burn preventer);4. An unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more; or5. Any semiautomatic version of a fully automatic firearm.As it turns out, there is almost no crime which is attributable to this class of weapons.The other big FAIL of the AWB of 1994 was the failure to follow through on the development of the CRAZY PERSON LIST which was supposed to create a national DB of all persons who were subject to “further scrutiny” of suitability to own a firearm.This was to include persons who had committed felonies with a particular emphasis on gun related felonies, violent criminals, domestic abusers, persons using a certain regimen of treatment including specific psychotic drugs and a number of other objective criteria.Big point — this didn’t get you disqualified, it got you additional scrutiny.Some states, like Texas, produced their lists but other states didn’t and the ACLU opposed the idea. It never ended up getting done.Automatic weapons are and have been banned for a long time.Weapons that are the semiautomatic versions of automatic weapons are banned.Weapons that are “easily converted” to automatic fire are banned.George W Bush banned Norinco, Mithcell, AKs, Uzis, Galils, Beretta AR-70s, three different series of FN weapons and Steyrs. This was done in 1989 under the criteria identified above.When one looks at gun crime, it is not being committed by assault weapons.The AWB of 1994 disallowed the manufacture of such weapons and the ownership of such weapons after its effective date.While many consider it to have been good legislation, tens of studies found that in 2004, there was no discernible impact on crime or any change in the makeup of the weapons used to commit violent crimes.It did nothing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
.When Candidate Obama ran for office in 2008, one of his promises was to reinstate the AWB of 1994. During his first term, he had control of the House and Senate at various times during which he could have re-enacted that legislation.He chose not to.Eric Holder, Attorney General, promised the same initiative — the reinstatement of the AWB.He never advanced any initiative during his entire tenure as AG.It is not important what the current speech of the President is in reaction to an atrocity. What is important is the legislative work being done which amounts to NOTHING.If the President were sincere in his interest in proposing common sense, legislation which stood a chance of making it through Congress, he would have done something.He has consistently chosen to give speeches while failing to advance or champion any legislation even when he would have been assured of its passage.One could fairly suggest that President Obama is not a serious advocate of common sense gun regulation as he has missed several opportunities to effect just that.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
“less than 2% of all crimes in the US involved an “assault” weapon.”More than 50% of mass shootings involved an assault weapon, a high capacity magazine, or both, in the last three decades. The 2013 AWB would have banned those.Trying to dilute assault weapon stats by throwing it down the “all crime” well is obvious maneuvering to make AWB legislation look less useful. Not honest.”CRAZY PERSON LIST” – A ban lists, like the No-Fly List? I’m sure that’d go REAL WELL. Besides which, gun show sales is a loophole you can pilot a container ship through.The point is eliminating weapons that enable a higher kill-rate. That you’re defending them the day after Chris Mercer walked into an Oregon school WITH AN ASSAULT RIFLE and killed nine or ten people?Creepy, dude. Real creepy. Shame on you.
.You make my point well.As it turns out, the gunman had six weapons — five handguns and a long rifle (not an assault rifle as defined by my post).He secreted the long rifle in a classroom with additional ammunition and committed all of the murders with handguns.My point was simply this — ineffective, knee jerk legislation is not going to solve the problem. Had the AWB been extended in 2004 or a new version approved in 2013, it would not have stopped this murder.[BTW, not to get too technical but every AWB enacted or contemplated is a ban on the MANUFACTURE of such weapons and does not have any provision to confiscate such weapons. Even read at its most stringent, it is not an effective piece of legislation.]I am not aware of a single mass murder which has been the exclusive result of using an assault weapon and every single such mass murder has involved hand guns. The problem is hand guns not assault weapons.I am on record as being in favor of abolishing the gun show loophole as well as the compilation of the aforementioned CRAZY PERSON LIST as well as the use of big data solutions to prod law enforcement to investigate the purchase of inordinate amounts of weapons or ammunition.If that initiative had been enacted, when the Oregon shooter acquired 14 weapons and a bullet proof vest — he would have gotten a visit from law enforcement and he would have come up on their radar. Note that every one of his weapons was purchased legally, so it would take something like I am suggesting to bubble him out.In the case of the crazy person list, which certain states like Texas have in fact implemented, almost every single recent mass murderer would have appeared as a product of domestic violence, assault conviction, user of certain drugs, commitment to a mental institution, and other suitable criteria.Assault weapons is not the problem.It is people and the sooner we decide to scrutinize people who are obviously not suitable for gun ownership, the better.That will not happen if we play to our own biases — if I called you a “liar,” as an example, for falsely stating that the Oregon shooter used an assault weapon. It will only happen when we take baby steps together to build trust.It is really not important what the President says after each atrocity. What is important is what is done BETWEEN each atrocity — which right now is nothing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Again, you cheat the stats by creating a distinct and different category. You move the goalposts to make assault weapons look clean and guilt-free.”I am not aware of a single mass murder which has been the exclusive result of using an assault weapon” -goalposts moved.Your message is indeed confusing. It appears carefully crafted to argue against bans, yet propose nothing concrete. You don’t appear to be interested in changing things, otherwise you’d propose something concrete.Bans tend to grandfather in existing weapons. There’s over 150 million firearms in the hands of private owners. I don’t think gun mass murders will go away, they happen randomly. We’re stuck with a permissive gun culture in a country that was mostly wild frontier for centuries.Arming, or allowing self-arming, at schools is probably not such a good idea, at least according to one student- “The Swat team wouldn’t know who we were, and if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think we were bad guys.”from- http://www.theguardian.com/…
.Reading comp problem?I am in favor of the AWB but not because it will ban weapons but because it will create the CRAZY PERSON LIST — which states like Texas have, in fact, enacted to great value.You go on to make my exact point: “I don’t think that gun mass murders will go away…”There are a number of common sense gun regulation actions which can improve the odds — the crazy person list on a national basis (which, again, would have caught 90% of the recent shitheads), closing the gun show exemption to background checks (where the crazy person list would be particularly effective), and big data pursuit of mass purchases of guns/ammo.This does NOT include the enactment of the AWB ban as it is not effective.Pick one side of the argument and stick to it. Use real facts and sprinkle in a bit of fact based logic.Assault weapons are not what is being used in mass murders. It is handguns and it has always been so.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Um… No mass shooter has ever gotten his gun through a legal loophole.
I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.What do you think about guns having visual and sound surveillance as part of the gun itself? Sort of like a smartphone or black box.In other words, whenever any gun is shot anywhere in the US, the police can immediately see and hear the shooting situation in real time.That way, the police immediately knows who shot the gun, who got shot, and GPS immediately pinpoints where this gun is in real time. A madman can be instantly pinpointed in a building after only one shot, so police can quarantine him. All victim smartphones in that building could be texted to guide them to safety in real time. No more low tech guessing who the shooter might be, where he might be, etc.Any tampering of the gun’s camera or speakers gives the police the legal right to lock your trigger, such that your gun cannot be fired. Tampering with the trigger lock results in gun confiscation.So for example, if you owned a gun for shooting range or hunting, then you just text the police your shooting plans, say an hour ahead of time, before you are able to legally shoot your gun. When you actually shoot your gun, the police can check anytime to see that you are indeed at a shooting range.That may help address one of the primary NRA concerns of self-protection. If your family actually is attacked, and you fire your gun in self-defense, then obviously you didn’t message your shooting plans to the police ahead of time.So then there’s an instant visual and sound recording in real time, such that the police can instantly see, hear, and communicate with you and your attacker through your gun.So there would only be a violation of privacy for the gun owner – only if he tampered with the surveillance capabilities on the gun, or if he refused to report his plans to shoot his gun ahead of time. An honest gun owner has no reason to violate either.If the NRA’s concerns of self-protection are sincere, then they should strongly support that since 85% of Americans want gun control, then all American taxpayers would now be taxed heavily to fund gun surveillance for gun owners’ safety only – a high tech benefit for gun owners only. If 85% of Americans are sincere, then they should strongly support being taxed heavily for gun control.If non-gun owners are attacked in their house out of the blue, then tough luck, you defend yourself with the low tech bedside lamp, since you don’t own a gun with police surveillance. That lack of protection for non-gun owners is fair, since non-gun owners never believed they needed a gun for protection anyway.Is that a stupid idea? Thoughts?
Two main problems besides the R&D costs (less of an issue with 3D printing these days, hm?) – one, mandatory retrofitting would be a royal pain (would, e.g., paintball guns count?), and two, the usual “who watches the watchers” question. The quality of local police is …patchy. Kinda like the neighborhoods they’re protecting.Maybe we can change that patchiness with the Internet (hey, isn’t that what the blockchain is for?)… but I’d like to see that in place first.
The technology has been around since the late 90s early 2000s. It’s called shotspotter. http://www.shotspotter.com/…
Except for the part where shot spotter has proven to be a gigantic waste of money.http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Reposted. Thank You. Proud to be able to share without editorial preface.
That last part raises the fundamental question: why do you have to own a firearm to protect your family?Well, in the simplest scenario, what if you’re a woman alone with your child, and a man (or men) come around who want to rob or rape you? That’s not just a hypothetical scenario: http://abcnews.go.com/US/ok…Unless you’re Rhonda Rousey, and the man isn’t too big, you’re not going to be able to fight him off with your bare hands.
Paul, this is certainly a portion of the issue that is rarely discussed.Shooting people is an American thing to do, its part of the national mythology.
If you have to own a firearm to protect your family, it’s because you live in a country with huge inequality, low trust, and a culture in which both the strong and the desperate resort to violence to achieve their objectives. The US has more in common with Brazil than with the UK.True, and the immigration policy the President and his party support increases inequality and lowers trust. We will have even more in common with Brazil in the years to come, if current trends continue.
This has all the data that’s needed: http://shootingtracker.com/…There is a huge difference between protecting yourself from a burglar and making it easy for mass shooting criminals to perform their hideous acts.Stop hiding behind this “protecting yourself” thinking. It’s a vicious circle.
“single parenthood” – do you have any data to back this up as a link?
But these contributing factors that you list also occur in Australia, where they have effectively erased mass shootings after a single horrific incident.And those contributing factors also occur here in Canada, where our levels of gun violence are vastly lower.It seems that America needs to change the culture regarding guns. Gun control (and a public shaming of the hypocrisy of the NRA – they are merely a gun manufacturing lobbyist) would be a good start, wouldn’t it?
Last 30 years: A succession of cynical lobbyists and politicians convincing an angry minority that their enemy is a tyrannical government. Convincing them to vote against their interests. Convincing them to fear a country that is diverse. I have watched members of my immediate family consumed by this stuff. I keep thinking how can I bemoan lack of legislative action when I can’t even confront my own family. Then I remember. They have an arsenal. And every piece is loaded.
Spending money to properly take care and support people helps counter this – but are “you” willing to pay? If people were supporting others fully then you likely wouldn’t need much gun policy.
You list all these other factors. But other countries have an increase in single parenthood, violent music/games, internet addiction, etc., too. They don’t have a massacre every quarter.I happen to agree that our culture of fear and violence is a major factor here. I also don’t think anyone needs to own an automatic weapon. But I *also* think we’re not going to get very far without addressing the fact that fear is peddled in this country in order to sell shit. We are indeed driving people crazy. But people who’ve been pushed over the edge shouldn’t be able to get a weapon intended for a war zone. If that means you can’t get one, either, that seem like a fair trade off.
I understand the point you’re making here. Changes in levels of gun ownership is not the cause of mass shootings. Fair enough, agreed, stipulated.But that point is irrelevant.Because it’s clear from the evidence, based on correlating gun regulation and shooting deaths with legal frameworks across U.S. states and across countries, that changes in gun regulation are a viable *solution*.Cars don’t *cause* auto accidents. But we regulate their use to find the optimal mix of limiting fatalities without limiting their utility. And as we learn more about how people use and misuse cars, we change those laws accordingly in a common sense way.Should we not be able to do the same with guns?The answer is obvious to people who who get no utility from guns themselves — tighter regulations on gun ownership and usage would have absolutely no impact on them. They don’t have brothers-in-law who excitedly text them the latest photos from their trail cam. They don’t have beautiful memories of conversations with their grandfather, because sitting on a deer stand was the only time he ever stopped farming and grew quiet and reflective. And they’ve never seen their son beam with pride the whole ride home after hitting his first clay pigeon.I’m someone who has all those things, so the answer is not as obvious to me. And that’s precisely where Obama’s video above speaks directly to me. Because he’s exactly right when he says this is a political choice. We choose this. When we argue against reasonable gun regulation, we are essentially saying that preventing small or even moderate inconveniences to me as a responsible gun owner are more important than preventing the deaths of many, many innocent people.And the truth is that our current political stalemate prevents *even a conversation* about trying to find a more optimal balance between regulation and utility. How can that be reasonable? How can that be moral? How can that be just?
If you don’t believe these numbers, then it’s better that you directly take issue with that website that seems to be the reference point being used by the US media.The issue is gun control, and the bigger issue is people seeing these mass shootings as an accepting consequence for something that’s “OK”. Would you be able to tell the parents and relatives of these innocent dead victims that “this is OK, and it was worse 30 years ago.”?If gun control is not the root of the issue here, then what is?If it looked like a gun, shot and killed like a gun, then it’s a gun.
There’s been talk for a while about the success Australia has hadhttp://www.theguardian.com/…Why not try the things that worked there?
OK, so I asked the question first:If gun control is not the root of the issue here, then what is?
I can’t find the study anymore, but I crossed one that showed that untrained owners of firearms ended up having their own weapons used against them, more often than not.They introduced the gun to the situation, to their own detriment.
You don’t understand this? Seriously? What incentive to people have to pay benefit of training when it’s not required?
Mental health and our ability to tolerate difference.
I think it’s weird to believe a single law or policy will prevent a particular event. Policies are enacted to have a general impact. The question isn’t whether a policy is going to eliminate and prevent an entire sort of threat, but whether it can reduce that sort of thing overall compared to not having the policy. You don’t stop locking your house after hearing the neighbor’s door got kicked in.
unaffiliated in the familial sense. one could be an independent person of official standing, a law enforcement official, or similar.
no, it didn’t help.what point are you making about single parenthood in the context of the theme of today’s post and William’s comment?on single parenthood in general try this;http://www.theguardian.com/…
Fair enough, my thought still stands, I guess it just stands in agreement with you on that now.
Ok.. so lets say all those things are to blame. Lets say we could prove that its tied to violent video games. The problem then becomes, violent video games AND access to guns. Or… hatred of religion AND access to guns.There is a reason why we are talking about mass SHOOTINGs and GUN violence.If we had these national conversations about mass stabbings or mass hammer-hittings, we would be talking about knives and hammers.But we are not. We are talking about shootings. Every time. So all the things you mentioned may be a cause, but to deny that statistically, access to guns is not relevant here, is absurd.
So let’s move forward with your argument. If those are, in fact, the contributing factors, how do you deal with them? As far as I can see, countering all of those issues is as liberal of a move as gun control, and you would therefore argue against any of the initiatives. Sure, you can say that we shouldn’t legislate and should make this shift happen on a cultural basis, but let’s stick with realistic possibilities. Here’s how the public would suggest fixing the issues that you listed:Single Motherhood – Easier access to abortion? Free contraception? Increased welfare?Violent, realistic games – So are we going to start legislating what artists can and cannot make or sell? Violent music/media – Should we limit freedom of speech here? Or just limit freedom of press?Prescriptions of psychotropic drugs to boys – Ah, so the government needs to interfere more in healthcare?Addiction to indoor, isolate activities – Yeah, you can’t force anyone to go outside, even if they should.Hatred of religion – I don’t see how that’s going to change at allInstant fame of mass killers – Always has been the case, always will be. Not a uniquely American problem.Self vs Forced Medication: Which one are you advocating for here?War on Drugs: I’m with you on this. It needs to stop. You’re unique as a conservative for viewing this as a problem, though.Full disclosure: I’m not a Democrat, either, just sick of this circle.
Right… and its clear our society has changed and can no longer be trusted with the same access to guns we used to have. So we can either change everything else in our society, or change our access to guns.
Culture of fear. It sells stuff really really well.
So join a militia, like the FF intended.
Poor analogy. It cost nothing to buckle a seat belt. How much is fire arms training and ammo?
Training, testing, licencing, registering, insurance. Seems to keep auto fatalities down.
Single parenthood is increasing in every developed countries. How d you then explained the difference in the frequency of mass shooting between the US and the other developed countries other than by a difference in gun law?
Would you say that gun violence is a problem in the US? If not, why not? If so, what is the body count required to consider regulation? If not regulation, what other solutions do you have, since you seem to have a lot of opinions on the matter.
Oh man… must be a typo in the 2nd amendment then.”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Where is this free training? All the gun ranges I’ve been to have cost money. My Dad’s time he took to teach me how to shoot was not ‘free’ either.Are we talking about shooting Budweiser cans in the back yard?
Those quotes make it clear the gun ownership comes with responsibilities. Gun ownership was a tool against tyranny, it still is.It’s also a tool against our neighbors, strangers, and kids. We have removed all responsibility from gun ownership in defense of threat of tyranny, which most gun owners do not subscribe to anymore.The people I MOST trust with guns are those who understand the responsibility, and threat from tyranny.The people I LEAST trust with guns are those the FF could never have even imagined. The dummies with an extra few hundred bucks.
Curious: What’s the point of being in the NRA? I don’t personally own a gun but have plenty of friends who do. If I did own a gun, and I was worried about them being taken away or legislated against my will, I probably wouldn’t want my name in a giant database of all gun owners. What’s the benefit?
such changing data points are common to many societies. it is not the absence of guns in those societies that accounts for the absence of mass shootings in those societies?i wonder how many people are legitimately killed in the US each year by gun owners in self defence?my concern is that if an analysis of changing data points came to no clear conclusion guns would still be out there and mass shootings would still continue.
I understand, but many of the data points your are suggested are current issues in other current countries: violent video game being one. However, we don’t see the same type of mass shooting as often.Do you honestly believe that stricter gun law would not have prevented at least one of these shootings this year? And if even just one could be prevented every year, would not that be a sufficient to justify a law in itself.I understand the many in the US are afraid of making a concession on that point because they don’t know how far the government will go in the future in restricting gun. IT’s the country of freedom. But if this is not one of the best example where public good outweighed personal freedom, then I am baffled.
Ok so there area bout 11,000 gun related homicides a year. Ending the war on drugs would reduce that by… what? a few thousand?What else you got? we got 33,000 gun related deaths a year to tackle here.Im listening…
Ending the war without legalizing drugs makes no sense. Legalizing drugs makes no sense.
My issue with this is that I don’t think it’s very realistic. With a car, there’s a chance that you’ll get busted for not following these rules because it’s in plain site and you could always get pulled over. Guns are easily hidden, transported, manufactured, and cost significantly less than a car. That’s the pessimist in me though, I suppose.
“Oh man.. that sounds like SO. MUCH. WORK.” – Typical American.
WTF are automatic and semiautomatic weapons intended for, then??? I’m not cursing AT you. I just can’t picture why they’re necessary except in a war setting.
Unless you discharge the weapon.. then its pretty hard to keep it hidden.If someone breaks into your house and you discharge your weapon, you better believe there is going to be some paperwork involved.And there is a preventative effect. You can’t get a drivers liscence if you are blind, and you shouldn’t get a gun licence if you have violent mental health issues and/or a violence record.
Lots of ways to address the issues you raise, but we spend zero time on them because we can’t get past the issue of should we have tougher laws.
Fair enough. With that being the case, though, you would still be opposed to most of the “Solutions” that I laid out. Ending the welfare state would likely lead to even more single-parent scenarios. There is a lot of evidence that increased poverty = increased birth rate. My real issue with your argument, (and the issue I have with most political discussion) is that if one is going to argue against something, I feel that they should thus argue for an alternative. Without doing so, we don’t make progress. So, solutions are necessary as part of the discussion. Ending the war on drugs would be a great start. Unfortunately, I stand by my point that it would be argued against by the very people who are in favor of easy gun ownership. Catch 22, in a way.
They are fun to shoot.Thats not a good answer, but its the right one.
Eh, automatics aren’t legal in the US……
Good (sad) share. Thank you.
lol no doubt!
Like I said, enlightening
Think it’s time to reexamine that balance.
Nice try dismissing guns deaths by suicide. Studies show that someone with access to guns is three times more likely to commit suicide. For men its four times more likely. Sorry, those are still on your plate.
Of course, though, it’s more nuanced than, “revolvers are semi-automatic.”The weapon that did the most lethal damage at Columbine HS was an Intratec TEC-DC9 9mm submachine pistol, with 52-, 32- & 28-round magazines. Originally a fully-automatic handgun designed for the Apartheid South African government to compete with the Israeli Uzi, it became a semi-automatic pistol manufactured by its Swedish designer and an expatriate Cuban living in Little Havanna, Miami, Florida in the early 1980s. Twice banned by the ATF, first because of its easy conversion to fully automatic and then because it included a two-hand “assault grip” designed for easy spraying of bullets, the manufacturer kept tweaking the design to stay just within the legal boundaries.So, yeah. Banning revolvers sounds extreme. But we need to look at things that are easily converted, etc.
If someone breaks into my house and I discharge my weapon, sure, there will be paperwork. But those aren’t really the people I’m worried about. The kid who gets away with a drive-by (most of them) isn’t filling out any paperwork. Cars are just so much different from guns. I can’t get a driver’s license if I’m blind…but I could probably get a car. Just buy it off Craigslist. Easy. And a gun would be even easier to purchase illegally because there is a larger volume/concentration of shady people who sell them and they’re easy to hide. Love them or hate them, guns are more like drugs than cars.
Thank you for the straw man. It’s cute! I never said that.I am not advocating for *anything* specific at this point. Except finding out what the hell is going on and why and how we can stop it.Let’s stop interpreting each other through a lens here and take each other’s words at face value. Right now you are coming across as someone who is wholly unwilling to compromise. No restrictions on any weapons of any kind? Is that your position? Or am I wrong?What would you be willing to give up if it meant a meaningful reduction in gun massacres in the U.S.?
I love suggestions (that people take seriously) from comedians and other entertainment professionals (such as Bruce Springsteen or for that matter, the Pope) that are grounded in their immaturity and lack of knowledge of both the practical and human nature. It’s kind of scary actually. Let’s start with “what happens to bullet sales the minute a proposal like this is even discussed or tweeted?”. “Andy” goes out and stocks up on bullets. Infact, even LE, who doesn’t own a gun goes out and buys bullets. He then arbitrages those bullets and makes a profit. Comedian: “Ok well then we will just outlaw bullet sales”. (Just another deadline to make sure all of the inventory is unloaded before that law goes into force. And so on.)
…from”tyranny”.
Yeah, if all gun owners were like you, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
There was a lot of discussion about outlawing the AR-15 not long ago – I believe it was after the Newtown shooting. I recall reading that sales went up by more than 100% for the year immediately following that discussion….
It’s standup comedy !We all get that it not meant to a practical solution 🙂
As do gun sales in general I have heard after a mass shooting.
Oh I see your point. I don’t think they should be able to get them easier than they can get their drivers license.
Yep – I just did some reading on it a minute ago. Firearms sales continue to increase. The AR-15 just had a particularly strong year, given that it was singled-out. https://www.nraila.org/arti…
it does?
Yes. Totes. I haven’t seen your statements to that effect here up to now. Apologies if I missed.http://www.newnownext.com/w…
And those contributing factors also occur here in Canada, where our levels of gun violence are vastly lower.Well I am sure I will be labeled a racist for saying this however in the US I believe that most gun violence occurs in black communities? From my quick check (and I don’t know if these figures are correct or not I am just quoting what I just found) here is the racial makeup:Canada – 2.9%United States – 13.2%UK – 2.7%Australia – (Can’t find the number)I have to say of course that you can make numbers say anything that you want. So I would typically almost never tie any points that I am making to numbers which to me are always suspect and can be massaged to make any point. (I’d rather use human behavior and common sense..) However I will use this to counter your point and add that Canada is a vastly different country than the US. As is the UK which has been “no gun” for so many years that it is not comparable to the US which already has guns that aren’t going anywhere. Different society, different specifics.
Yeah.. same with Muslims. It’s the outliers that make the difference tho.
that seems to be the reference point being used by the US media.Shootings always go up after a publicized shooting. It’s no “boating accident” (Jaws reference, Richard Dryfuss character). As such perhaps it might be an idea to not make every mass shooting a glorified media event? Of course that will never happen because the press is as entrenched in our country as guns are. Same with assassinations (although much easier to protect the target there). Or the Pope’s visit. Look how much security we felt we needed as a result of other incidents which were in themselves copycat incidents.But think about it for a second. Think about all of the killings that happen because of media coverage of previous shootings.
I think that detected comments should retain the users screen identity !
The shooter didn’t like any religious organizations from what I have read? Perhaps if indeed it was only Christians that got shot it was because that was just happenstance of who was living there?
How many gun massacres *per year* in Germany? In Scotland?I have no idea what on earth the killer’s twisted motives has to do with how many gun massacres we have every year here. Each shooter is unique in many ways, aside from being armed and unhinged.Seems to me you’re the one doing the politicizing.
You seem to be forgetting Sandy Hook.Virginia Tech was not k-12 so it doesnt fit your stats (32 killed).What’s your point?America has way more mass killings than Europe.
The Killer was a ‘Conservative Republican’. Interesting you should be so very defensive. K-12 is the name given to high schools in the US, so it is a flawed comparison even if you do not take into account populations. Check out the stats for mass shootings in the US since the tragedy at Sandy Hook and then do your comparison. It isn’t the guns which kill, it is the lust of men for power and money. #poxonthenra #adoublepoxonthenra
was just saying that’s what i saw as a reference in the media, and i checked it, and it looked like a credible source of data.
I’m sure this has been brought up elsewhere, but what about working on nonlethal (or less-lethal) alternatives to guns for self-defense? Guns right now are used in that capacity on account of their range, recognizability, cost, and ease of (ab)use. Tasers are probably closest on three of the four fronts, but I don’t think they can compete on cost – at least, not in the neighborhoods where the threat of violence is most prevalent, and thus where self-defense is most necessary. Knives just don’t have the range, and don’t really meet the “less lethal” criterion either. Sedative darts don’t have recognizability or ease of use… but maybe this could be worked around.Again, what we’re looking for is a cheap, ranged, nonlethal equalizer to compete with guns.Actually, dart guns could make sense here – so, not changing the fact that these are guns so much, but making the ‘bullets’ less lethal.So, tangent. The main reason bullets are lethal is their velocity – anything is dangerous if it’s going fast enough. So, how do we reduce the speed of the bullet (i.e.: its lethality) without reducing its stopping power? Well, less gunpowder will make it move slower, but will also reduce its effective range and stopping power; the projectile end of the bullet’s not generally all that intricate, though. Room for compensation on the stopping power there.
I meant blame him for the shift in focus ( by inserting himself ) – not the tragedy.The debate over guns is more nuanced than many will admit. “Common sense regulation” seems like such a good idea, but I understand why people don’t want the government to have a registry of all guns, etc.Sam Harris has written a few times on this topic and his point, if I am allowed to paraphrase, is that both sides of this debate have a claim to the truths on this issue.http://www.samharris.org/bl…
Let me preface by saying that I don’t own guns and don’t intend to buy any guns. I guess there is a circumstance that I might need to have a gun but so far I haven’t and have no intention to do so.Getting that out of the way, I don’t think it’s my business to decide that someone can’t buy an automatic weapon to have fun and go to a firing range. Or to hunt. Even though I have no interest at all in hunting I can fully understand that to other people it is fun and enjoyment. [1]Just like I don’t watch sports and others get enjoyment with sports so it’s ok. And sports among young people and older people does cause injury and does impact me (in terms of higher health care costs). My point is it’s not all about what is good for me or what I like.So when you say “I also don’t think anyone needs to own an automatic weapon” you are saying “not something I care about so nobody should care about it either”. Very parental in a way, right?Look I own a car that can drive fast. I am sure many people, including my mother, think that is a waste of money simply because it’s not important to them. You like what you like. I like what I like.Likewise, to me, going to church or synanagogue every week is a useless activity that I don’t understand (or appreciate). But hey, others do. And I know why. But that is them, it’s not me.Does this make sense? My point: You will never get to the promised land if you don’t understand the motivations of “the enemy” that is the other party that you are trying to “defeat” or change. The best you can do therefore is understand the other sides point of view and work from there to create a solution that works for both parties. This is really the art of selling and negotiation. You never start without acknowledging the other sides point of view.The other sides point of view to me seems to be “slippery slope” plus some other negotiating ploys and political and power factors. Not impossible but very difficult to change. However one thing that will never get someone to change is simply by saying “what you want is stupid just be like me”.[1] I knew a guy at one point, a mentor, who bought a gun and said “I like the look and feel of a gun”. Being raised the way I was that didn’t make much sense to me. A gun to me has no positive halo at all. Anymore than a nice watch has no positive halo to me.
Nice thinking outside the box 🙂 Makes me think about Customs at our borders and how we have to declare what we’re doing when going in and out, and why.Maybe to own an armed weapon, I need a license. And maybe to get that license, I have to declare what it’s for and where and when I’ll use it. And that declaration will determine what type of arm I am allowed to obtain with my license. If I want a weapon that uses deadly bullets, then I have to put up with the fact that I’m on a list or something.Not sure. Just playing with concepts and comps.I can guess what the opposition to your suggestion is going to be. In a way, it will be interesting to see just how important it is to people that they are able to kill someone else.
You could also steal a car or borrow one from a friend.
Yes, thank you. And it’s the political parties and profiteers who are putting a wedge between us and our common goal.
That is a great article. The only thing I would add is that people feel it is like what happened with smoking. I certainly am not going to argue that you should, but when a logical first step was taken: not inside where people had no choice but to consume second hand smoke, and now we have all the laws and taxes. People rightfully worry that once we get the “logical first step” it will go to an extreme.
Not outside the box so much as inside a different, overlapping box :PA gun without bullets is about as dangerous as a rock. It’s the gunpowder – essentially, a small-time explosive – that makes the bullet, and the gun it’s inside, dangerous. So, bullets that rely less on velocity (from the gunpowder) and more on sedative effects (from the “payload”) could be that third way out of this impasse. And maybe this is something an entrepreneur could try… fittingly enough for here.
Unfortunately and ironically we are getting much better at keeping people alive. I would argue that the ongoing and end of life cost is truly astronomical. Otoh, if we are talking about dangerous activities that people undertake that kill people early and young, I would agree it’s a net gain (in jest of course).
I don’t say this too often, but you are (0k I’ll be polite) ignorant
This isn’t even an issue today, keeping your head in the sand won’t change this
You are foolisly ignorant.
Pointing out Ignorance is not a personal attack.
I’ll put in the time is you agree to donate 10k to cancer research
The operative word is “offset” and definitely not in U.S.
You are quoting something from 1981. When smoking inside someone else’s house that didn’t smoke and driving home drunk were both acceptable. You should probably find some new research.
Ok, Prove it and factor in all costs! Start with the CDCs website. For every person who smokes, it effects the health of 30 people.
This kind of comment is interesting. Not because it is ‘wrong’ but because despite the fact that is is ‘right’ it is missing the point. For us to use such facts to delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t have worse problems with gun violence in the US than in Europe is an unfortunate distortion of reality. I suppose it can make a certain set of US citizens feel better about themselves, but it’s a fantasty.
Disingenuous conflation to support your ideological agenda !And that’s me giving you the benefit of the doubt 🙂
a peanut weighs about .4 grams and sells in bulk for about $4/lbs, if you donated 10,000 peanuts that’d be worth about $35 USD. by many standards that’s actually a helpful donation.
Oh, you linguists 😉 I think you illustrate, though, what we could be benefiting from if more people with diverse problem-solving skillsets were thinking about this.
Bri – if you want to carry around a musket – go aheadBut please turn in your assault weapon
The Constitution was drafted with the ability to self correct and amend. Regardless of what one’s belief is today about what was intended during a time where automatic assault weapons didn’t exist, the realities of our current times require us to act.
There is an open historical debate about whether the second amendment more officially has to do with the ability for a state to raise it’s own national Guard to prevent an ultra strong central government. its pretty obvious as to why this debate exists (revolutionary war,plus the fact that clause wise, the right to bear arms is directly tied to the right to be part of a militia.)Reading the Constitution in that sort of original vein wwould open a banning of arms unless you participate in the national Guard, military, or police.There is plenty of room, in other words, for hewing to the second amendment and regulating the possession of guns
And armed. But not Muslim, or Christian, or black or white. I am accusing you of having as much of an agenda as you say our president does.
This is a perfect illustration of how a single phrase can have completely different connotations – and, thus, moral demands – to people ostensibly speaking the same language.Using only the words in question is like writing only a headline and expecting your readers to fill in the story themselves: the only people who will agree with you already understood the phrase in the same way in the first place.But of course, no one has time to read all the relevant essays either. So, if we don’t have time to fill in all the details, and the headline phrases trigger different meanings in different people, then what?Maybe we have to go in the other direction – even-bigger-picture to start with, and only after establishing where the common ground exists move back to the contentious phrase. …Or maybe we’re just stuck with the essays (like the miniature one I’ve just written :P).
Oh really? So a #blacklivesmatter shill is now a “conservative Republican”? Really?
If the person was anti-religion — I don’t see why it would matter if he reported it or not. It’s perhaps a moot point. If he had mentioned it then he could have perhaps rallied all religions – except the whole idea of freedom of religion in part is that you can have the freedom to not believe in religion either. It comes down to someone who had lost heart and felt disconnected and not enough reason or connection to live. There are so many variables in that that we don’t know that you can’t really dive into deeper analysis of it. If that person was engage with people, learned compassion – perhaps through learning how to manage anger from anything that bothered them then it wouldn’t have happened. The main problem is that we don’t try or allow opportunity for everyone in a community to easily connect with others – we just don’t, and we should – and it’s not easy to do, to give the time to strangers or people who maybe agitate you with their thinking and behaviour and try to help them shift in a non-aggressive way their behaviours.
I believe citizens with assault weapons (or even fully automatic weapons) would do little damage against a trillion dollar military with drones, tanks, satellites and everything else they might have. (Forgive me, but I am not a military buff).If the Founders’ intention was to keep the citizenry on the same playing field as the government from an arms perspective in order to keep the threat of uprising and thus keep the government honest then I believe their wishes have not been held.But maybe I miss your point…
Aka be in a militia. Most people who bear arms do not participate in the national Guard.
Actually, the SCotUS has never upheld a ban on automatic weapons. In fact, the 1930s era Miller ruling stated that weapons “suitable for militia use” are expressly protected by the 2nd amendment.
Where have the worst K–12 school shootings occurred? Nearly all of them in Europe.That sounded like a comparison more that an it-happen-there-too ?
sell ’em on ebay
Comedy used to be comedy. Unfortunately in this day an age some people take what entertainment professionals say way to seriously. That’s what I am reacting to.For example, John Stewart or Stephen Colbert:http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Conflation – Conflation – Conflation !I’ll not even waste our time running all the possible comparative numbers here.I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on the racism thing at worst case I’m sure it is just a sub-conscious thing :-)See what I did there ?Maybe talking socio-economic categories would have served your augment better ?
TThank you. We should be proactive in discussing what to do, not how the other person is wrong
My kitchen knife is plenty sharp.. A noise rustling doesn’t equal gun
Hmmm…..Why don’t you ask veterans of the Afghanistan Wars. Both Soviets and U.S. I think they have a different viewpoint.
comments like this are funny. Maybe you didn’t follow the war in Afghanistan? Is the Taliban gone yet? For nearly 40 years the world’s greatest militaries tried to remove them. How did that turn out? And freedom loving people in the US are not the Taliban they are for superior in all regards.Plus do not forget that many in that trillion dollar army agree with Bri.
Given the history of modern asymmetrical warfare, your belief has been proven wrong time and time again. Just look at how effective a fairly small insurgency was in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you honestly think our military would be better at fighting a native uprising with no secure supply chain than they were when they were fighting foreign insurgents from secure bases with ample supplies?
Holy smokes. I didnt say Bush wasn’t a loser as well. Bush Obama they are one in the same. Your still having the wool pulled over your eyes with that false dichotomy?
How about: Will likely die of cancer, heart disease, or stroke sooner or later. If smoke, then sooner. Done.Okay?BTW: My father proved that smoking cures heart disease, and my mother proved that it cures lung cancer — now neither have either medical problem, or any medical problems anymore.
You’re not clear on what a militia is, are you? In reality, a militia is an armed force raised from the body of the citizenry which is expected to be proficient in weapons the provide themselves. Strictly speaking, any person who has ever registered for selective service is a member of the militia. Furthermore, since a militia is, by definition, expected to provide their own personal weapons and is expected to be proficient in the use of said weapons, it cannot exist without the inherent right to own and practice with weapons suitable for militia service. Today, that would include more or less any weapon you would see issued at the company level to an infantry unit. (That includes, machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers.) In colonial times, the only weapons used by militias that were drawn from government armories were regimental level assets such as artillery. (So, in theory, the 2nd amendment would not protect your right to own a 155mm howitzer or an M1A2 tank.)
I am a veteran of the US war in Afghanistan and my family includes veterans of the Soviet campaign. I can tell you that the Taliban were quite effective. In fact, their continued existence almost 15 years after the initial US invasion is proof of that fact.
There is no such “historical debate”. Nor is there any Supreme Court case that may set such a tone. In fact, the few cases that actually touch on the 2d Amendment make it clear that the Bill of Rights is untouchable, and a bar to government interference. As a moderator, it behooves you to know the subject. Take a look at the Cruikshank decision (1879) or the Presser decision (about 9 years later, but which only affirms Cruikshank. Also look at the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, which makes it clear that the Bill of Rights forms additional constraints on the government’s potential infringement of our Rights.Lastly, government has no Rights. It has Powers, and duties. It needs no Right to arms, having the duty and Power to raise and arm the Army and Navy.Semper fi
There is no debate.No historical document or court decision presents that view.The “debate” is wholly an invention of gun control advocates.
The Bill of Rights is NOT within the purview of such amendment. The Bill of Rights is additional restriction on government action.Semper fi
Their fig leaf is that they didn’t actually “ban” them so much as refuse to issue tax stamps required to sell new ones. That’s being challenged right now in at least two cases working their way through the courts. Unfortunately, the gun rights community had bigger fish to fry in the past few decades. Now that we have concealed carry legal in every state, we are almost ready to start tackling the stupid “evil gun” laws. I think that after we get mandatory concealed carry reciprocity passed, attacking bans on short barreled weapons and suppressors will be the next priority. Sadly, machine guns are fairly low on the totem pole given the brainwashing of the general public. (Fun fact, between the start of the National Firearms Act in 1934 which first regulated the sale of machine guns and the ban on selling new ones in 1986, exactly two legally purchased machine guns were used in violent crime, one of those was a cop with his issued MP5.) What most people don’t understand is that a mass shooter would actually be less dangerous with an automatic weapon than with a handgun or semi-automatic rifle. Being able to fire accurately is far more important than being able to fire fast.
If by problem you mean b) should come before a), I agree.Otherwise, it is no big problem: You can get any result you desire for a price.
We agree. But I suspect my broader point escapes you. No foul.
If you can show that driving a car is a protected, enumerated, Right, then I’ll help you eliminate all government requirements that govern it. But it isn’t a Right, unless you include it within the 4th, 5th, or 10th Amendments. I doubt you’ll go with the 10th, of course.Semper fi
So… you’re promoting gun training in the schools? Great!
Please get off of the internet. Your freedom of speech is protected only on a printing press, pen and paper, or voice.
I have to disagree. Looked at this, they go down hard and fast. Really healthy people hang on and go to the doctor all of the time.
there haven’t been tons of supreme court cases related to the second amendment in the first place. In contrast, look at the 14th amendment and its use around corporate personhood.
You are correct. There haven’t been tons of supreme court cases. There has no debate about the interpretation until the late 20th century. Until the 2nd was incorporated, the states were allowed to write laws infringing upon the right. The right to keep and bear, however, was still understood. Even Justice Taney, of Dred Scott infamy, used the right as a reason to deny black people their citizenship.There is only the individual right. For instance…women were never part of the organized militia, but there was no question about their ability to keep and bear arms.
Comments (Archived):
it’s our collective consciousness .. it’s not guns, it’s the usa .. it’s the nfl, it’s hockey, it’s nascar, it’s pointless invasions of weak countries .. usa loves its violence ..its the mindset of ipo home runs, of rugged individualism, of an education system that ignores humanity .. blame the government, if you need to blame someoneit’s bombing half a dozen countries as we speak, it’s invasions for nothing, coups, cia mindset .. america loves its violenceit’s cop shows, shooter video games .. usa loves its violenceit’s wall st, it’s rape pillage burn, it’s racism, it’s exploit the world for gain .. usa loves its violence
it’s cop shows, shooter video games .. usa loves its violenceVesper Lee Flanagan filmed himself committing his murders in a “first person shooter” view, which was particularly disturbing [images deleted per requests, but you can find them online]. Edit: Tried to delete the images unsuccessfully.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t need you posting those images.
It is particularly disturbing. But it’s also really bad form to post it. I respectfully ask that you remove it. If nothing else, out of respect for this dead woman.
Just tried to delete it, but it looks like Disqus doesn’t let you delete images. Sorry.
If i am not mistaken the shooter was black?
Flanagan? Yes. Also, gay, and an Obama supporter (he got some criticism for wearing an Obama pin on the air during election reporting).
My point was only in reference to the color of the man’s hand in the image. This would mean that the images are not real .
it’s cut and drug medicine, it’s drug your kids, it’s feed lots, it’s clear cuts .. usa loves its violence
If the killer fits the narrative (e.g., Dylan Roof), talk about the killer and his hateful views, as well as guns. If the killer doesn’t fit the narrative, just talk about guns.
What are you saying Dave?
The narrative is the “mania for the Great White Defendant”, particularly one who victimizes nonwhites. In shootings where the killer is black and the victims are white, you either don’t hear as much about it (e.g., Omar Thornton’s massacre), or, as in this case so far, or as in the recent the Vesper Lee Flanagan case (which inspired the Oregon killer), the focus is mainly on guns, rather than the killer’s identity and motivations. I should add: in shootings where the killer is black and the victims are also black, you rarely hear about it at all, except as a statistic (e.g., “x individuals were shot in Chicago last weekend”).
I read about this earlier this morning;http://www.theguardian.com/…”Guns can be carried openly in Oregon. The police in Portland sometimes get calls from alarmed citizens who spot a person with a semiautomatic weapon walking through the city only to be informed that is legal.” – I find this to be quite amazing.Apparently Mercer was born here in England before emigrating to the US as a boy. If he’d stayed here he would have found it much more difficult (although not completely impossible – if some really wants to do something they will probably find a way) to commit this type of crime.The closest we come to this culture of the gun in Europe is in Switzerland, but even there things have tightened up. I believe the ammunition now has to be stored at local police stations and not in private residences.
I wonder sometimes why common sense issues like Gun Control, Mandatory Vaccine Immunization, Police reform and Education / Healthcare reform are trumped by Anti Terrorism Wars, increased Defense Spending, Racist Bigotry, Factionalism, Partisanship and Wall Street Hubris.
BECAUSE BIG MONEY ALWAYS WINS THE DAY !
“There is a gun for roughly every man, woman and child in America”– I’m so glad I don’t live there.
True. Tough genie to stuff back into the bottle. Wondered about buying them back at $10K a pop (average), but that would cost $2,500,000,000,000. ~But I do like living here…
Guns don’t cost anywhere near $10k (on average). Most guns (pistols, rifles, shotguns) are under $1k (yes I know some are more, but the average or median is definitely under $1k).Making it not impossible 300 mil * $1,000 = $300 billion.In fact, the average price paid in Australia’s buyback program in 1997 was $475 per gun ($304 million USD / 640,000 guns) which in 2015 USD is $703.25 per gun. http://www.anao.gov.au/uplo…Using these figures we get USD $210 billion for implementing a similar buyback program (although using modern tech, we could probably get more accurate pricing schedules by gun type) making this achievable, although no small hurdle, at 1.25% of USA GDP.
All my guns were under $1K. Just looking for a 9X return 🙂 Using your prices, Apple could buy all of the guns in America.
Obamas pissed. I don’t understand the mechanics of American politics but it seems bizarre that big changes can’t be made quite quickly in an area which needs it.I’m from the U.K. If I were to be caught trying to buy, sell own carry a gun, I know I’m getting big jail time. I have friends who own shotguns and the process to get a licence is thorough. Complete background checks, in person interviews and you need to show how how it will be kept at all times. I think there are inspections too.I can’t ever recall a mass uk shooting. The last shooting in my city (Cambridge U.K.) that I can remember was roughly 15 years ago. One person shooting another dead. It mostly happens in bigger cities and is related to gangs.Why not have a country vote? We hold referendums on big issues in the UK. Not perfect, but if the whole country majoritedly feels one way, it gets a decision made.I hope Obama concentrates on this issue after his term. Just seems crazy something can be so obviously wrong, yet America is paralysed in taking action.
Bad politics here as the President said
There are no referenda at the federal level in the US, but if there were one on this issue, Obama would lose. Guns are pretty popular nationally. In a lot of exurban and rural parts of the country, local police even recommend homeowners arm themselves, since it’s unlikely the police could get to them quickly in an emergency.But Obama has made “big changes” without going through the fuss of ensuring their legality in the past (e.g., last year’s de facto amnesty for millions of illegal aliens), so it’s possible he’ll attempt something similar on guns.
Yeah I see that’s super tricky. It’s soo far one way already.
Horrified to see this happen again. My thoughts are with the families and community.>I can’t ever recall a mass uk shooting.>I’m from the U.K. If I were to be caught trying to buy, sell own carry a gun, I know I’m getting big jail time.For the record, in the UK, sixteen children (aged 5-6) and their teacher were murdered at Dunblane Primary School on 13th March, 1996 by an intruder with licensed handguns.In response to this tragedy, and after public petitions and the Cullen Inquiry, private ownership of handguns in the UK became effectively illegal in 1997 through the Firearms (Amendment) acts.Many other positive things have emerged from that awful day including a fantastic community centre and an Olympic, Wimbledon and US Open tennis champion.
Mass shootings aside – how is it that your country manages to consistently make it to the top regarding violent crime? What is all that madness about knife control? You take away guns, people revert to other means of harming each other: you’re many times more likely to be knifed on the streets of a UK city than shot on the streets of a US city – big consolation!
It’s endless
as an outsider looking in, few things highlights how broken american society is more than this. shameful.kids being killed has become acceptable collateral damage. these events hardly make the UK press anymore.this really is “a plague on all your houses”
I was so disheartened yesterday – so many angry at the President for his remarks compared to so few angry at the shooter.
media lens distortion?
I don’t think being angry at either one of them accomplishes much. One is dead and the other is a lame duck.
And a great man and a great President
Definitely in the top 44 all-time
Now thats lame lol
Top 18 now and will be top 15 in 20 years
c’mon man he’s at least top 43 (grover cleveland served twice non-consecutively)
That’s a really fun fact. I didn’t realize it was 44th term rather than 44th dude.I’m sticking with top 44 though because I think you gotta include Cheney on the list as honorable puppet-master
He didn’t have a teapot dome scandal
it has to stop. test, license, register, insure; none under 21
I wonder what part of “shall not be infringed” escapes you…
No.Now what do you propose?
at some point it would be great to hear why you are an obama fan. i am genuinely curious as to the supporting logic.
Yep, when is the last time you heard this or any president speak up agaist big tabaco? More than 480,000 deaths annually (including deaths from secondhand smoke)278,544 deaths annually among men (including deaths from secondhand smoke)201,773 deaths annually among women (including deaths from secon
And with guns it’s binary. A gun death is a gun death. With tobacco it’s analog. Because smoking causes way way way way more health and economic issues (that aren’t tied to smoking as a statistic) than the figures you give above (which I will assume are correct [1]) present. There are all sorts of health issues (and the resulting cost) from smoking that don’t result in death.[1] Death certificates and reporting are notoriously wrong in many cases in terms of “cause of death”.
As a side note, immigrants from Mexico and Central America have a lower smoking percentage than any group in the U.S.
There tends to be a lot more choice for those who lose their lives to tobacco use. For those who don’t have a choice (secondhand), the conversation has already been had, but it was pretty heated 15 years ago, obviously.
Really? Try walking down the streets of NY. What about healthcare? ACA could have at least charged smokers a premium. More importantly, He could have single handedly made smoking unacceptable in the African American community.
It does charge them more. Insurers can only price on 3 things now – age, location and smoking status.
Not for the bronze (free) plan
That’s not accurate. Bronze plans aren’t free (they are plans where insurance pays on average of 60% of your costs and you’re responsible for 40%). The average Bronze premium in the US is $205/month for a 40 yr old non smoker with a deductible over $5,000. (https://www.healthcare.gov/….Bronze plans can price the same way as all ACA plans. Based on age, location, smoking status, family size and coverage level (bronze, silver, etc.)
Seven states and Washington, D.C., will not charge smokers higher insurance premiums. The states are: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
How?
It’s more than the smokers and the ones who endure 2ndhand smoke. It’s an economic issue that all of us pay for in healthcare costs. Smoking fucks people up. Full stop. Tons of health issues tied to smoking and the use of tobacco. There really isn’t any question about that.
Let’s be real, It is “the” gateway drug, check any bar, check any rehab, check any group of HS drop outs….
Agree. Otoh if they didn’t smoke what would replace the smoking habit?
A run, a walk, a book. They would be forced to deal with the underlying issues head on.
There are plenty of people who love running, walking, and reading with huge underlying issues and who use those healthier addictions to ignore them as well.
Exactly, but the are not smoking!
Who cares? As long as they don’t hurt me, more power to ’em. Who am I to say what they can and cannot inhale? Are they a tax burden? Sure. But that’s life in our society. Some are harder on the system than others.
They are hurting “you” that’s the point, my gf is a soon to be oncology fellow, think the poor don’t compete for healthcare, think again. bigger point is as a group smoking hurts African Americans and Obama did virtually nothing to change that
Hmmm. I think the jury is still out on gateway drugs. Correlation vs causation is a popular debate. It’s the same thing we’re arguing about guns right now though, ha
At least there is a sin tax on Tobacco. Are you going to start taxing sugar more heavily? Carbs? How about people who put more mileage on the roads than others?
smoking is the number 1 cause of preventable illness. Need not go to number 189
I always view the comments the next day. Actually if you look at smoking from a selfish purely non smoking economic perspective it is great.You die quick and early. Pension and medicare low, taxes you pay to smoke super high.
Slave lives don’t matter, welcome to the NWO (Agenda 21), it’s been 23 years ongoing, where have you been ?
Completely agree – Obama is a great President. I appreciate the job he has done, what has been accomplished during his term, his intelligence, his demeanor, and his leadership. I’m proud that he is our President.
is he great for fast and furious or his droning? or is it for too big to fail? or is it for fining a company that killed 124 people less than 1 billion? Or is it for working to empower a country that still beheads gays? If that is your definition of great well then…wow
obama pretending to be all mad about gun violence now while covering up fast and furious is too much hypocrisy, and only fuels the viewpoint that the gun control agenda is more about grabbing rights than about protecting people.as for obama defending usage of drones that continue to kill civilians…..well, that speaks for itself, unfortunately.but i think most americans aren’t too familiar with these topics, and are influenced more by a well-delivered speech with some singing than by a detached analysis of the situation.
most americans aren’t too familiar with these topics, and are influenced more by a well-delivered speech with some singing than by a detached analysis of the situationNo !Most Americans are influenced by the visceral fear that is caused by the immediacy of the direct risk to their own children as forcefully articulated by the president. You obviously have no children ?That would be ATTACHED analysis by the way, ATTACHED to their well grounded fear of harm to their loved ones.And if most American were more”familiar with these topics”they just might start to develop a more proportional gauge between homeland-secuity-$cost vs civil-rights-forfeiture and the much lower gun registration $costs vs the civil-rights constaint/inconvenience of an effect restoration process.
you’re only illustrating my point, by commenting on anything but the fast and furious stuff and the drone stuff that i was referring to. (it could be argued rationally that perhaps both of them endanger americans more than firearms)
.It is difficult to imagine upon what objective criteria that one could suggest that President Obama is not one of the worst Presidents to have ever served when one fairly considers domestic policy, foreign policy, race relations, immigration, military preparedness, energy policy, the state of America’s alliances and reputation in the world, the economy, integrity, transparency, unfulfilled promises, and a number of other measurable standards.I would honestly be interested to hear the case for his being anything other than an exceedingly mediocre leader and a horrifically failed presidency.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
He’ll be marked in history as being successful as well
What is your suggestion then?
Here one that the tech space would never agree on. Have google fB build predictive models and mine all messages of kids under 18.
Isn’t that basically the pre-crime division from Minority Report? Would you arrest people before they commit a crime?
They are under 18, why not?
Then what? Put them in jail for life for online comments?
Provide counseling, meditation, check for physical abuse at home …………….
His comments on 4chan were anonymous. So you’d have to remove all privacy laws to find people’s identities. Also, they were made the day before the shooting, which would leave no time to find him before it happened.
Nothing is anonymous
So you don’t believe in privacy? Are you American?
Kids under 18 have very little privacy rights. I didn’t say I was for this, I just gave you a solution that the tech community would never consider.
This guy was 26. Most of these shooters aren’t under 18.
True but if we had tracked this kid in his teen years, pretty good chance we could catch issues early
But what would you be tracking him for at that point? Would you be mining to detect character flaws that after another decade of failure and alienation might lead to a mental collapse and a violent act? And even if you were able to detect those that you had some reason to believe were vulnerable down the line, what would you really do about it? It is hard enough getting funds to pay for therapy etc now, good luck trying to get money to help young people for years to get them off a bad track that in rare cases results in these events. I sympathize with your desire to catch it early but I don’t buy it, Rick. I think all you end up with is a massive invasion of privacy and the early detection of a gigantic need for therapy and social support that we will never be ready to pay for. We don’t deal with widespread mental health problems very well now. Expand the scope of that problem and potential spend by catching it earlier and watch politicians run.
Best I can tell these shooters are white middle class and likely insured
We can dream :)But I can’t help feeling that a policy requiring mass invasion of privacy in the hope that catching white middle class kids (who are insured) so they can be treated and counselled at no cost to the public purse in the hope that they won’t commit a heinous crime in ten years time to be a bit of a stretch.
Agreed, but let be real, there s not chance of amedning the constitution on gun rights.
I agree. In fact if you take a look at my main post today you’ll see that I don’t think there’s much chance of changing anything through the democratic process if it conflicts with monied interests.
You gave a solution that no one who believes in Constitutional rights would consider.
Where does it say that Google can’t track kids speech in constitution? Ok, shoulder parents with responsibility and liability.
That sort of exists already
I’m not encouraging anger against either. It just surprises me that discussion is centered around what he did and not the tragedy itself.Yeah, I know some would blame that on him. I get it. I don’t agree, but I get it.
How bind can a really bright gay be !ZOOM OUT !
You were disheartened? He said “we” were numb to this kind of thing. Which is it? The guy that gave guns to criminals that were then used to kill Americans does not have a leg to stand on when talking about guns.
Yes, I was disheartened.Second question – both. I am anything but numb to this, so the President’s “we” doesn’t include me.I’m disheartened and apparently some group of people that includes the President, but not me, is numb.
Going to wait till evidence on the Oregon shooting surfaces, as so many hoaxes have recently. “…we must brainwash them to think in a whole different way about guns…”, “Let no opportunity go unexploited.”. They are doing just that by setting up these hoaxes in many cases with no victims & no perpetrators, like the Virginia anchor “shooting” that turned out a Hoax. With ever repeating actor names like: Adam, West, Parker, etc…
While the average police response time in my 17th largest city in the US is 16 minutes, I’ll be hanging onto my gun. Several years ago I managed to scare away a home invader in the early AM by simply pointing and ejecting a unused shell from my shotgun. 16+ minutes would have been a long time to deal with a knife weilding drug addict and my family.I have a trigger lock and a single key to ensure it will only be used by me.
Sounds like owning a gun is important to you. What do you think are reasonable requirements for gun ownership/purchase?Background check? Registration? License? Training? Titling of guns?
Yes to all. Make it hard work to get a weapon, but don’t take it away. It is that important to me to be a lawful citizen, responsible, and a provider of safety to my family.
Do you feel that the conversation around what to do isn’t represtative of this oropinion your reality of somescarsomeone out a gwith ub
As a Canadian living in NYC, the American concept of the “right” to a gun is one I will never truly understand. How does the calculus add up to a social good?
As a European, I just can’t wrap my mind around this right either. Just the fact that someone insists on preserving this right, is already suspicious.I am glad Fred posted about this today. Same like good education for everyone. The people who could act for change, don’t have an incentive because their families are protected and have access to good education etc.. So it’s big business as usual going fwd. Sad but obvious.
If it’s any consolation, for all intents and purposes, you don’t have that right in NYC (unless you are celebrity given a rare carrying permit).
One of the many reasons I love NYC
YES
If you love that it’s because you live in a city where the population makes you susceptible to the negative effects of guns and gun violence.In many places that people live that is not an issue. Where I am we don’t live in fear like you do. For that matter I am sure that in the somewhat sparsely populated Hamptons (the wealthy parts) nobody really gives much thought to guns and violence in that community. My guess is (and I have never been there so this is a guess) they feel pretty safe. And if they call the cops the are there in record time.Where I live? We recently called the state animal control phone number after killing a bat. And within 10 minutes maybe 15 the cops showed up to make sure everything was ok. We didn’t even call the cops. Otoh, neighbor making noise? Call the cops, they are there. My guess is that in NYC that type of response doesn’t happen for mundane issues like that. But then again you don’t pay shit high property taxes like we do here. (And they are obscenely high compared to NYC).
You have the right here in NYC, it’s just prohibitively expensive at $400 a year for the license (not a carry–open or otherwise–just a license to own and have in your home). In two years, it costs more than the gun would have.I agree that it is smart policy.
Air Farce member Dave Proudfoot did a great job on this topic @ Just For Laughs one year.Historically, the right to bear arms was included in the constitution because the Founding Fathers of America believed that Britain intended to return and invade.Dave’s point was, obviously, that the invasion has likely been called off, at this point.
It is lame to blame mental health for these mass shootings, and not gun control as the issue. There has been 294 mass shootings where 4 or more are killed, this year. It is weird to watch the President of the US almost powerless to make changes on this issue, and having to beg for changes of opinion and policy.And it is shocking to hear the NRA continuing to say: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
On this we agree 100% my friend.
Not nitpicking, but its 294 where 4 or more are “INJURED”, not killed. For what its worth (and still obviously a major problem) those 294 have led to about 380 deaths, so substantially less than if 4+ had been killed (which would be 1,200 plus). Main reason I point out is both sides of this issue with throw out more false numbers today and stats than almost any other time. It is even harder to get better policy when the welll is poisoned by even more wrong figures. But 75% less deaths than your statement implies is a pretty important distinction
You’re basically saying these shootings are OK because the stats say so. I can’t understand this type of reasoning.
Nope, that is a hystrionics based response. Not what I said at all. You are basically saying that the difference between 380 dead vs 1,200 + dead is not important. That is insane. Every death sucks, and some solutions are needed, but if there is no difference between 380 and 1,200+ then again we are not dealing with actual figures, but just raw emotions. Probably my last response to this, because this is basically a fact free discussion on both sides, pretty much had that confirmed here.
So if they didn’t die (and were lucky), that’s not a mass shooting? It still is.
‘Histrionics’. Nevertheless, you’re both correct and a great writer. Thank you.
I’m all for statistical pedantry and I welcome you correcting the record. However, I have a hard time seeing the importance of the distinction given you don’t dispute that 294 times this year some twit with a firearm injured 4 or more people. Irrespective of the number fatally injured, there is no possible world in which that is ok.
Again, saying it is “ok” is insane. It is not ok. It is also 80x smaller than those killed in traffic accidents each year. And it also a very small % of overall gun deaths. Majority of gun deaths happen in poor socioecconomic areas in the country (from a murder / homicide. Majority are usually suicide related – north of 50% in the US). And those deaths have much more to do with cyclical poverty than gun control. Selective outrage at what gathers headlines will allow people to be self-righteous sounding off today, but will do little to actually change policy that matters. For the record I would mostly support the gun background checks that Obama and the democrats support, but they would do rather little to stop the current statistics. Just really annoying when very little logic is actually come to pass on these issues
It is precisely selective outrage that changes policy. Not always for the better.
Eh not usually. Selective outrage only works if it is girded by underlying factual arguments. Once your statistics are misleading, it becomes easier to drown out. And to reiterate, I am fine with tougher background checks. Maybe even “assault rifle” bans. But they still are unlikely to change the overall numbers much. But the broader point is using accurate terms / statistics matters.
We quite obviously operate in different political spheres.
curious. how so? i am curious if you disagree on factual analysis (accurate facts being important) or effectiveness of policy changes?
(Hopefully this analogy does not come off as minimizing the importance of this discussion)Matt, would you agree injured vs. death is kind of like the randomness around who recovers a fumble (http://www.footballoutsider….The key isn’t who recovers the fumble (i.e., if the victims perish), but how can you prevent the initial fumble from happening in the first place (i.e., the shooting to take place).If you see the gun issue this way, then I would argue that death is not the metric to use but casualty/injury is. So many things determine if a victim perishes (are they near a hospital? do they get a good doctor? where on their body are they shot?), but those things are luck/noise to the question at hand which is what stops people from getting shot in the first place?
There is a gulf of at least 8000 miles between us. I’m quite fond of accurate facts, but most evidence based policy works as follows: a) determine an ideologically tenable policy, b) produce the evidence to support it. Changes to policy are driven by selective outrage, be it that of the pubic, caucus or lobby.
train, test, license, register, insure, for starters; no guns under 21.personally, i think it’s dangerous and crazy for anyone to have a gun.chris rock: make bullets expensive; all bullets should cost $5k — because if a bullet cost $5k, there would be no more innocent bystanders.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I agree, treat guns like cars. They are just as dangerous. Train, test, license, register, insure. That’s the way forward.It’s unfortunate that the gun-control folks get wrapped up in silly measures like ‘assualt’ weapons bans and clip limits.
i loathe guns. i distrust the average person walking down the street to have one and not cause harm.
This is one of his best of all time! What a classic.
there is one argument and one argument along for having guns: “**** off, i like guns.””protection … what the **** are you talking about?”https://www.youtube.com/wat…
This is very well thought out, watched it several months ago.Funny too.
there is a theory about american history that says the well-regulated militias in the second amendment were slave patrols, and the amendment was a compromise to let them continue to exist.makes sense to mehttp://www.truth-out.org/ne…
There is a theory, you’re right. And the man who came up with it has been shown the facts. Some of them use your Atlantic fantasy, others have used the VA ratification convention. None are accurate, and NONE are able to tie the 2d Amendment to “slave patrols”! In fact, the VA Convention more clearly shows the troubled feelings of participants, regarding slavery, with a full understanding that slavery would, under the new Constitution, be ended (and the sooner the better, for some). NONE of our Founders referred to such nonsense as “slave patrols” in their writings. Therefore, any such theory has no grounding in fact.Semper fi
Yep…. a debunked theory. It comes from Carl Bogus. He lies.
you are free to disagree. that is one of our american freedoms.the standards of this community frown on namecallingprofessor bogus is a noted legal scholar, and is distinguished in his fieldhttp://law.rwu.edu/carl-t-b…Prof. Carl T. BogusRoger Williams University School of LawProfessor Bogus has achieved national prominence in two areas — (1) tort law, and especially, products liability; and (2) gun control, including issues involving the Second Amendment.His work in the first area includes Why Lawsuits Are Good for America: Disciplined Democracy, Big Business and the Common Law (NYU Press).His Constitutional Law research proposes the thesis that James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to ensure that the federal government could not subvert the slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. Professor Bogus has testified before Congress and spoken about and debated these subjects at many venues across the country, including at Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, and Vanderbilt law schools, and his writings on these subjects have been published by law reviews, as well as opinion journals such as The Nation and The American Prospect, and newspapers including USA Today, Boston Globe, Washington Times, and the Providence Journal. Most recently, he was interviewed by National Public Radio. One of his interests is how ideology influences the law, and he is presently at work on a biography of William F. Buckley, Jr. and the conservative movement
You do realize that HE wrote this, right?
http://www.theatlantic.com/…The idea that citizens have an unfettered constitutional right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor…. As early as 1840, antebellum historian Richard Hildreth observed that violence was frequently employed in the South both to subordinate slaves and to intimidate abolitionists. In the South, violence also was an approved way to avenge perceived insults to manhood and personal status. According to Hildreth, duels “appear but once an age” in the North, but “are of frequent and almost daily occurrence at the [S]outh.” Southern men thus carried weapons both “as a protection against the slaves” and also to be prepared for “quarrels between freemen.” Two of the most feared public-carry weapons in pre-Civil War America, the “Arkansas toothpick” and “Bowie knife,” were forged from this Southern heritage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…State laws regulate the ownership, possession and use of firearms in Australia. These laws were largely aligned in 1996 by the National Firearms Agreement. Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a firearms licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.Before 1996, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia had different laws, in Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania long guns were not registered; owners of firearms were required to be licenced from 1988, and licences were introduced for long guns in Tasmania in 1991. Western Australia and the Northern Territory had tight restrictions, especially on centrefire semi-automatic firearms.Since 1996 all States subscribe to the National Firearms Agreement, which was instituted through the Australian Police Ministers Council (APMC) with the cooperation of all states. Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number except firearms manufactured before 1 Jan 1901 which in some cases are exempt from a serial number registration or exempt from registration altogether. Some states allow an owner to store or borrow another person’s registered firearm of the same category.
http://nymag.com/daily/inte…Australia’s and Britain’s efforts to reduce gun violence in the ’90s are often cited by advocates and opponents of stricter US. gun control. Here’s a look at how those nations addressed mass shootings, and whether the same policies could work in the U.S.
I’d say the media is to blame as much as anyone.
Agree. This is an interesting point — and one I don’t see made that often. The analogy I think about is professional sports. The broadcasters have all agreed not to show a fan who runs onto the field. And it helps to deter that kind of behavior. No fame or notoriety in it when you are not on TV.Not sure how you rally the media around this idea with mass shootings, however. They will all point to each other and say, if I don’t cover the story, that guy will, and I will lose.
i loathe guns. i distrust the average person walking down the street to have one and not cause harm.
.Federal law currently requires all licensed gun shops to either contact the FBI directly (the NICS — national instant criminal backbround check system) or to allow the states themselves (point of contact state) to conduct background checks.The only exception to this is if a buyer has a handgun license issued by a state — for which a background investigation was conducted.This has been the law for some considerable time so your analogy is pure nonsense.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
the oregon murderer was stopped by a police officer with a gun.
Of course he was.And if you take that argument to its logical end point, then every adult in the country should carry loaded weapons so that, at a moments notice, they can stop a violent aggressor.That doesn’t sound like the right answer.
why doesn’t it sound like the right answer? while it may not sound like the right answer *to you*, that is part of the sentiment of the 2nd amendment.
Apologies for the “logical endpoint” tangent. That’s my fault, and that is not what this is about.This is about whether gun restrictions would reduce the number of mass shootings in this country. Simple. And given the evidence around the world, it seems pretty clear that it would.But when we ask the question, it’s funny how the opponents rarely answer “no, it wouldn’t.” Instead, they answer “you can’t.” Because the 2nd Amendment says so.Well, actually, yes we can. The 2nd Amendment is an amendment, after all. So let’s amend the damn thing again.
sure, people can push for an amendment if they want. that would certainly be the more honest approach, rather than just trying to ignore it and legislate through it anyway.
Actually, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, they were referred to as “Articles”, not Amendments. And the Preamble to the Bill of Rights specifically places the 10 Articles off-limits to the government. So, no, it cannot be amended.Semper fi
Actually it is not. Interesting interpretation from a constitutional scholar, i.e. a Supreme Court Justice https://www.washingtonpost….
the link states that guns are for the purpose of militias. militias are for the purpose of self-organized local defense. that assumes a population that is far more armed than we have today. what they should be arming themselves with, i.e. what is militia appropriate, is what the article you cited is about. i don’t see how it contradicts a viewpoint that the spirit of the 2nd amendment is compatible with widespread ownership of firearms.
Statistically that outcome seems to be the exception ?SO WHAT”S YOUR POINT 🙂
i don’t think statistically that’s an exception. usually the cops or an armed individual stops a mass shooter.my comment was in reply to william, so my point was to refute his point.
Just to amplify on that:NRA continuing to say: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”SILLINESSMaybe every American student should be issued a gun so that the good guys with guns will always out number the bad guys with guns ?Just saying 🙂
Just read the comments on this threat among those who don’t live in the good ole USA. We postulate that we’re the greatest nation but our behavior and response, or lack thereof, to these frequent events certainly belies that fact. How we continue to let these tragic events occur, with even greater frequency no less, is simply Byzantine. Does anyone here truly believe this is what framers of our constitution had in mind w/ respect to the right to bear arms? This is shameful, barbaric and downright disgusting. This morning I’m truly ashamed to be an American.
It is shameful, barbaric and downright disgusting. Especially when we all know this is only about money.I will try to be understanding to anyone in the comments trying to rationalize this ‘right’, only because that’s all they heard since they were born. I wish all Americans visiting this blog could read the news through the eyes of a European or any citizen of a country where this right doesn’t exist.
It was interesting hear POTUS challenging news outlets to post the number of people who died from mass shootings vs terrorist attacks……The Amount of $$$ we spend fighting terrorism, new departments within US Government to fight terrorism.I am OK with the fight we are doing to fight terrorism, I wish we had the same focus to deal with this problem
I don’t understand why there isn’t a task force.
Interesting to see that we are still spending a ton of $$$ and time to investigate the four people that lost their life in 2012 with the Benghazi attacks,It would be nice if we had the same government focus on the innocent 10 people that last their life on Oct 1, 2015.
in the age of the internet of things the home ‘gun safe’ (mandatory for the ownership of a gun) with encryption keys and multi party agreement protocols might be a solution worth exploring. held on the blockchain with at two unaffiliated parties needing to agree to the release of the key to open the safe. consensus home security.if smartphones can have password security and gps location then put that tech and more in guns and create access and use protocols.
A landlock between two seemingly impossible extremes is an invitation into what is called trialectics, or non-duality. The hallmark of the human condition is that our mundane egoic life is set in binary pairs. For example, boys vs girls, light vs dark, the superego vs the id, democrat vs republican. The human ego can only place an argument in the context of a polarity, so naturally, it is contrasted to the other side of the argument. This disparity can be considered as the base of an equilateral triangle- our two extreme opinions on gun control. To create the top point of the triangle, the higher level of consciousness in the triangle, requires a bit of a mindfulness practice. We need to take a breath- feel the tension in our bodies that the rage from the opposing arguments create- in our neck, torso, arms, chest. The body (or in ancient Egyptian imagery- the trachea and lungs) is the medium that the polarities exist in, that provides the third neutralizing force, through which the higher level of consciousness (resolution) is attained. The back and forth between the two arguments could go on forever otherwise.
A very nice, non threatening way of putting this. Thank you :)Are we all smart people here or just a bunch of mindless minions rooting for our “team”?
I cal that We solving, vs Us and Them fighting. Us and Them never solve anything.
Sure, but I guess the nuance that breaks the deadlock is the attention to how the different sides affect us in the body. Without attention to the body and the breath, we’re disassociated from presence (being in the moment). Presence is the transformational “third force” missing in the conversation.
OK, so: a task force of diverse problem-solvers from different disciplines who all agree to meditate at least five minutes a day and then set to work on eliminating gun massacres in the U.S.Also, adding meditation to the education curriculum.Tax breaks for people who can demonstrate they’re participating in daily meditation sessions.Meditation saves lives!
Are you proposing a task force among AVC readers?Actually, there was a conference at the White House for American Buddhist leaders this past May. They had a few world peace-related things on their agenda- probably gun control was on there. As to your point that meditation saves lives, it is scientifically proven that when there is a meditation conference, or similar type of gathering where meditation happens, the crime rate lowers in the host city for the duration of the event.Meditation is increasingly being practiced in elementary and high schools, and it’s becoming more and more popular each month. Obstacles to progress are Christians and teachers who just present the material without having a cultivated practice themselves. But overall, it is having an effect on young lives, even if it just means there gets to be silence in the classroom for 5 minutes a day.A tax break for meditators- I love your vision!
I had not heard about that phenom of cities experiencing lower crime rates while meditation conferences were going on there! Fascinating!Can you recommend any resources for getting younger kids started with meditation (like 6 yrs old, 8yrs old). I’m having no luck in my searching.I wonder if they’d do better in schools using videos or even just pre-recorded audio guidance instead.
Well, having your own practice and simply modelling it in your daily life is by far the biggest way to have an impact. I took the first two courses at mindfulschools.org and they were just fantastic, with an equal emphasis on practice and the science behind it.The only children’s book about mindfulness I know about is Sitting Still Like a Frog. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the godfather of American Buddhism wrote the foreward, so it’s bound to be good.I’m the administrative assistant of an elementary school, and behind my desk on the whiteboard, I’ve written in big letters, “Take a deep breath.” It’s a neutral way of creating a space between stimulus and reaction.
Yes – nice visceral metaphor !That and formally educating high school kid to basic epistemological techniques especially the use of Sublation over Polemics.
Yes, Heglian triads, and the dynamic, non-dual Law of Three triad. I do believe they’re distinct. I’m reading a book on the subject at the moment, so I hope to understand this better soon.
thanks for posting this; I hope President Obama makes this issue his number one priority for the remainder of his term
Disagree. It’s a big country, there are many things that need to be done. This one isn’t the Manhattan Project. The deaths are unfortunate but there are other issues that have more significance and impact and they need to be dealt with as well.
We can be numb or we can act.Here is something I put together recently. 30 simple actions you can take on #guncontrol now http://www.30guncontrolactionsyouc...
Thank you for posting this Fred!
Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country. It doesn’t stop gun violence. As the Chief of Police here said, Until you actually enforce laws, and the people in the neighborhoods hold them accountable nothing will happen.I don’t know what the answer is, but I sure don’t agree with Obama.Maybe the answer is to put everyone through gun safety training. When you learn gun safety, you learn a healthy respect for weapons. You see how dangerous they are and most people that go through rarely abuse them. I notice the people that have concealed carry permits don’t do any mass killing.
I’m trying to understand what you said. What would “gun safety training” have done to this killer in preventing him from doing what he did?
Nothing would have stopped this killer. You can’t stop crazy people. But, knowledge is power.Game theory it. If the probability of everyone having a concealed gun goes up, the crazies might not commit the crimes they do. You don’t hear it a lot in the news because it doesn’t fit the agenda, but there are people that stop these things from happening-and they generally have concealed carry permits.Gun violence gets a lot of play on the news. It fits their agenda. The reality is it isn’t that prevalent-except in certain neighborhoods of the country. Those neighborhoods are generally inner city, poor, and black and the gun violence is a result of other bad policies-not gun policy.I’d also caution against generalizing. I know a lot of women when they bike ride in the country carry a weapon. Not to protect them from the animals but to protect themselves against being raped.In this case, Oregon had background checks and the litany of other things, This person was crazed, got a gun and did what he did. The most unnerving thing to me is he asked people’s religion and killed Christians, and only wounded non-Christians. Lot of hate in that guy.
I’d caution people in using Chicago as the argument against gun control. Chicago’s issues exist in part to systemic inequality of redlining and housing policies.
No, more about the War on Drugs, education and other issues.
Those are the results of housing discrimination which dates back to the 1920s in ChiTown. Where you live determines the quality of your school. And the war on drugs didn’t happen til the 80s.
War on drugs, 1972, Richard Nixon. Milton Friedman told him it would fail. The real discrimination in Chicago housing happened in the first Daley administration. He built the expressways based on where he wanted everyone to go. Today there is little discrimination when it comes to housing. Want to live in Lincoln Park, as long as you can afford it, you want that mansion and want to pay those taxes move to Lincoln Park. Agree, there was certainly redlining etc in the past and there are a lot of problems-but the way Chicago has gone about trying to solve them the last 50 years hasn’t worked.
Simply not true.
What’s not true?
The sheriff has been vocal in opposing state and federal gun-control legislation. In 2013, Hanlin sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden after the shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school, declaring that he and his deputies would refuse to enforce new gun-control restrictions “offending the constitutional rights of my citizens.”
We have become a country that glorifies individual rights to the detriment of the good of the society as a whole. Organizations and people will distort facts and evidence to prove whatever point best fits their individual viewpoints. This applies not only to gun law, but to everything: workers/minimum wage, healthcare, natural hazard planning/climate change, etc.I don’t know the answer. I live near Newtown. Vicki Soto and her family is from my neighborhood. We see a lot more pink flamingos (Vicki’s favorite) and green ribbons here than other communities. Those are not enough.There is a republican first selectman that I know who lives in a town near Newtown. He always calls out metal health issues as the true crisis whenever gun control issues surface, which I find offensive. I call him out on it even though he is a friend of mine. I see people on Facebook drawing their lines in the sand for their position, creating a dichotomy between gun control and mental health advocacy. The true answer is that they are not mutually exclusive. BOTH are challenges in our country.Interestingly, both are issues due to republican agendas. It was 30 year ago that Reagan and other lawmakers eliminated support for people who have mental health issues and republicans have been slowly eroding and eliminating support in the years since. Gun control has never been our strong point but it’s been republican agendas that have driven the second amendment into the ground. I talk with many people who don’t even understand what the second amendment actually says or what it really means. So, education might be another part of the solution.We must be relentless in our advocacy to our legislators. What’s so hard about enacting laws for guns that are similar to laws for drivers licenses and car ownership? We should have proper training, licensing, insurance requirements for gun ownership. There should be a tax on ammunition that funds public awareness campaigns.That’s only a start.
Knowing that another mass shooting is a probable event and that it could happen in your community, and in fact, impact you directly and there is nothing being done….boggles the mind.
So… nothing has changed in the Constitution since 1789 (226 years ago) created by people (imperfect beings)? The hypocrisy of the arguments in this debate..Profits for a thriving industry and the regular Joe feeling like he’s the guy from the Marlborough commercial
It’s time for all of us to check our agendas at the door. This crisis is too important.We all need to stop trying to prove our own beliefs and approach this as anthropologists.While I personally would be perfectly happy with outlawing everything down to pellet guns in this country, it would be wrong of me to use this crisis in our country as the vehicle for achieving that end if it isn’t the solution to the problem.Anyone here who claims to know enough about why this is happening is delusional. Yes, I personally believe that easy access to guns is a factor. But it would be immoral of me to focus on that, and only that, as a solution knowing as little as I do about the DATA.Let’s all please ban together against this common enemy. Let’s gather all the data worldly possible and find solutions.I know that to many of us it seems obvious that if the shooter couldn’t get a gun, a lot of people would probably still be alive today. But there is no doubt that the media play a role as well. As does the pathetic state of access to mental health care in this country. As does the disgusting fear mongering peddled by the NRA to help the guns industry sell more guns (sales are way up).We must all focus on our shared goal: no more of these massacres. Let’s stop trying to win the argument and get to work.
As the President said, “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.”If we do nothing, nothing will change.If we want this to change, we must do something.But what should we do so many people ask. The answer is many things.To find the many things, we need to understand the core problems. I’d start with these, but the list goes on from here.- The feelings of youth in terms of their world view and their view of where they stand in that world- The availability of guns make acting out with deadly force easier. The US is #1 in the world in terms of guns per person (88.8 guns per 100 people)- 1st party shooting games train our youth to learn how to plot, seek, and destroy. Not all people act out on that training, but it is training them nonetheless.Understanding the root problems is the first step to changing the outcome. Every day like yesterday is a very sad day, I wish we could have a collective agreement that we should have less sad days like yesterday and do something about it, because just thinking about it and praying about it is not enough.
Lame ducks have the luxury of being bold. I hope the president leverages that opportunity to make this issue #1. He clearly has a point of view, but a task force of the world’s best data scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists would be a great start.
Hi Kirsten, there is no need to spend the time of world’s best data scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists to find out what the rest of world knows – civilians shouldn’t be entrusted with guns.Now, back to reality, your president will need to make a living after his mandate is over, and for this reason, even today, I would label his speech as balanced (vs upset) and nothing will change. Money over general good, guess what will win
Look, I may agree with you. But my opinion is garbage and so is yours.This is worth it to me to put my agenda, opinion, and even strongly held beliefs aside. It’s too important.You’re probably right about the president, though. While I agree with everything he said, he has the power to push this forward as an issue and educate the public. If he doesn’t do that, his words are empty b.s.
I don’t know what the right answer is but its not the one we have now.But like anything in the USA the answer has to an American one.
Thank you Andy (@andyswan) for making the conversation on AVC a true reflexion of the debate in the US. It’s very enlightening to us living somewhere else to see both side debating live.
my opinion is – there is nothing to debate in the first place.If US wants to maintain this right, they should also accept the consequences.
That’s…..what the debate is about…..
🙂
I’m willing to bet that most who argue most strongly for the current status quo have never had a child gunned down.My aunt and uncle live in Newtown (Sandy Hook) and we have a family in my town in MA whose son was killed at Sandy Hook.It makes me sick we we continue to allow our children to be collateral damage.
I live in UK, to me the idea of access to guns is insane, it is a non-topic. It is for Americans with different points of view to have the courage to answer your post
I’m sorry Fred. As has been stated already in the comments, the facts simply to not support any notion that stronger gun laws will stop this. This is just another case were Liberals use emotion over fact to try to push an agenda. The guy completely cherry-picks the stories that fit his agenda and goes to the podium. Where the hell was he when Russia started bombing in Syria? Where was he when Christians were being tortured in Iraq? The entire world power structure is changing against us while he plays golf.Many of these shootings are now motivated by Radical Islam. It is here, now. But that doesn’t fit Obama’s narrative so he ignores it – calling it “workplace” violence. Obama embraces Islam. When bombs are going off in shopping malls, people will look around and say – “How did this happen?”I know you love the guy – but he’s gotta go! He’s done enough already for most of us.
Oh, please do not accuse the Left of “using emotion over fact to try to push an agenda” as if is unique to their side of the aisle. They both do it absolutely unapologetically. I mean, in your own comment, you posit that “the entire world power structure is changing against us while he plays golf”, when in fact, Bush took WAY more vacation than Obama. I’m not arguing that he’s right, but the additional partisan commentary is sickening, given the issue at hand.Source: http://www.factcheck.org/20…
BTW – Thanks for teeing up a nice lively discussion for a Friday! (Get’s the blood pumping.)
This narrative gets quite tiresome. You think the families of the dead care much about political affiliation?
The discussion reminds me of a Colbert “know a district” segment when they interviewed a woman who was campaigning for “drunk driving Fridays” where in her town/area you’d be able to drunk drive on Friday legally. She said all the other people would know to stay off the roads and in their homes to be safe and yet the drunks would get their “freedom” to drive on that one day a week while being three sheets to the wind. Of course it was crazy funny. Cars we have no problem recognizing the “right to drive” as a privilege but with guns we can’t seem to think this way. As a gun owner I believe you should have a license based on your training, knowledge, testing and good behavior. Like cars they should be registered too.
Obama is a great man and a great leader. I believe you can see in this clip that he speaking directly from his own views, not that of the party of some speechwriter.And while some may (I cannot see clearly how) disagree with his statements, the real tragedy is that he waited 6 years to be THIS president. To speak clearly, form the heart and away from the machine.Having said that there are some issues that Obama and his administration is still pursuing that do concern me, e.g. http://wolfstreet.com/2015/…
I know; I know; NYC is a Democrat town so that in business in NYC need to get along with the Democrats.Yup, gun violence is a problem.And in the video clip Obama sounds good and sincere.But I can’t forget some history of Obama and list five such points:(1) I saw:http://www.youtube.com/v/hU…There he hated the US. A POTUS who hates the US? Not good.(2) I looked at his Iran deal and read and liked the response of Senator Schumer. So Obama just made a tinsy, winsy little mistake-y and sat down on the wrong side of the negotiating table, was really pleased at how well the negotiations went, and was happy with the deal.Now Iran is in line to grab half of Iraq and most of Syria, pinch the Iraqi Sunnis between Baghdad and Syria and, thus, have power from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean (just look at a map), threaten all the rest of the Mideast with nuclear weapons, grab control over a much larger fraction of the oil, and, in particular, be able to use Syria as a base for its goal of destroying Israel (and I’m Presbyterian), e.g., as in Ayatollah Kockamamie’s favorite “Death to Israel”.That’s even worst hate talk than Hitler used. But, then, Hitler was from some of the Eastern European culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and Kockamamie is from some of the worst Mideast culture of, what, the 11th century? Heck, Christianity was much better 2000 years ago; Islam was a really big step backwards.Then yesterday Obama had Kerry and Power walk out on the Netanyahu UN speech. So, which side is Obama on here? I’ve decided.Of course, Obama was not the only cause of our disaster in the Mideast: The really big causes were, and the candidates are — W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Bremer. May I have the envelope, please? And the winner is, drum roll, please, right, W! He was going to get the WMDs! He believed that “The Iraqi people are perfectly capable of governing themselves.”. He was going to dump the cruel Saddam, and he really was cruel, and bring a secular, constitutional, parliamentary democracy to Iraq and where the Iraqi people would greet us as “liberators”. Some of what I noticed were bodies of US citizens strung up from the super structure of a bridge.Instead, as was fully clear long before Gulf War II, W just removed the cap, Saddam, on an Iraqi three-way, religious civil war, upset the balance of power between Iraq and Iran, let Iran grab half of Iraq, enabled ISIS with beheadings, drowning in cages, crucifixions, and sex slave auctions for women and girls, cost the US, NPV, maybe $2-3 trillion, thousands of lives, and tens of thousands of casualties.So, Iraq went from cruel Saddam who tortured dissidents in Abu Ghraib and killed some thousands of Iraqis a year to ISIS who beheads, etc. all the males who don’t sign up for jihad duty and makes sex slaves, right, on a slave market with auctions, out of all the non-Sunni women and girls. Now we know from that semi-civilized culture the curious fact in anatomy that if an mature man has sexual intercourse with a seven year old girl, then the girl’s uterus can rupture and she can bleed to death. Some culture.Now ISIS wants a Caliphate from Portugal, North Africa, especially Libya with its oil, much of the Mideast, to Chechnya, with its oil, Akrapistan, Pukistan, etc.W, General Shinseki told you we’d need an occupying force in Iraq, and you fired him. He was right; you were wrong, and that was fully clear at the time.W, where’d you and Dick get that really strong funny stuff you had to be smoking?And the situation was clear to nearly every thug, criminal, fired Saddam soldier, gang leader, international opportunist, power hungry religious leader, Iran, etc. for a radius of 1000 miles. Still, W failed to get it.Great progress there W. “Heck of a job” W!So, as inhttps://www.youtube.com/wat…we can see part of what this is about and that the Muslim call to prayer is “the sweetest sound on earth”? That’s over the screams of the pre-teen girls sold at slave auctions and being raped while their fathers are screaming from crucifixion?Obama, W gave you a really good start, and you built on that for an even bigger disaster.(3) I sawhttp://arabiangazette.com/w…andhttp://www.richardcyoung.co…with two more that are similar for Japan and France.(4) Refuse to support the US laws on immigration as an attempt to flood the US with people to vote against US citizens of Western European descent and to vote for Obama’s views of socialism.”Fundamentally transform”. Right. All just by doing some little things like ignoring US laws on immigration, refusing to prosecute illegal immigrant criminals, and more.Obama, want to do something about absurd violence in the US? Okay, how about gangs of illegals? Drug dealers? Etc.? Those drug dealers, they won’t have any guns, either, right? Nope: Now I remember: Your AG wants them to have guns via his program Fast and Furious.Now Obama wants to let in nearly 200,000 Mideast Muslim men. I mean, what could go wrong there? I mean, Obama doesn’t want us to admit holders of good Ph.D. degrees in the STEM fields but right away, no long thinking about it, rush right ahead, does want to admit that 200,000.He wants to admit to the US 200,000 WHAT?Uh, Mr. President, not nearly all the 200,000 are suffering, deserving, Christian families from Assad’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons in Syria, or even from Syria at all.Besides, Mideast 101, the civil war in Syria is mostly just yet another chapter of the 500+ year old Shiite-Sunni war with Assad on the Shiite side and, right, much of the Sunni side ISIS in Syria. Tough to know which side we want to win. As Kissinger said, “Too bad they can’t both lose.”. Well, now they are. Let them.I know; I know; you have said that Assad should go. But what then? Barry, baby, can you understand the “lesser of two evils” and “the evil we know”?You’ve wanted Assad to leave and for the US to support some Syrian rebels of some mysterious goals, loyalties, and competence, with a $500 million program that resulted in, what was it, four trained rebels? Then, meanwhile, back at reality, ISIS is taking over much of Syria, maybe 70% Sunni, and Assad is letting in the Shiites of Iran and also Russia. Bummer.You also said that ISIS was “the JV”. Okay, there’s a point there. But ISIS has a leader, totally wacko Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who apparently thinks that he is the “True Mahdi” or some such demented delusions. Uh, is this wacko really difficult to track via intelligence and, then, attack with a bomb at the right GPS coordinates? I mean, if we can’t see him on radar, maybe with some chemical sensors we could smell him?Here’s an approach: In any ISIS area, if it is not desert, a tent, or a camel, then level it until ISIS is gone and we get to help some Sunnis push back against Shiites and restore a balance of power?Uh, ISIS recently asserted that they want to nuke the US. Heck, that’s a worse threat than Hitler, Tojo, Mao, or Stalin did. Obama, we need to take such a threat fully seriously. Like right NOW.But definitely don’t import the Sunni side; remember 9/11? That was Saudi Sunni. Remember ISIS? That’s Iraqi and Syrian Sunni. Understand now?Mr. President, we don’t like gun violence, but how about commercial airplane violence, IED violence, car bomb violence, suitcase nuke violence, big nuke bomb in the hold of a cargo ship violence, chem-bio WMD violence?(5) He has been pushing hard on the wacko, cooked-up, flim-flam fraud of human caused global warming and climate change.The science? Okay, we can settle that here and now in just a few words: In science, one of the pillars is to make predictions and have those come true. Else we drop the candidate science in the toilet and pull the chain.So, for comparison of predictions and reality, seehttp://online.wsj.com/artic…http://wattsupwiththat.com/…Done. Stick a fork in that fraud — it’s DONE.That was fast. Gee, I do like science!Yes, I know: Obama wants to measure fleeting, transient, evanescent, so far unpredictable, seemingly random temperature changes of less than 1 degree F by looking at pictures of polar bears. Really good science, there Barry. I wouldn’t be able to make this stuff up! Uh, how about using a thermometer; we have some really accurate ones. When I was at the NIST, we routinely measured temperature to within 0.01 C.Mr. President, yes, I understand the claims that the Arctic is warming, that the ice is melting, etc. So, for more first-hand evidence, how about a trip up there starting in a month or so? Dress lightly for the balmy tropic breezes, maybe 50 MPH winds at -60 F. In the spring, let us know how all the ice melted. And if some day up there it is -59 F, then don’t worry: That won’t cause all the ice to melt or NYC to flood this year, as ABC News predicted in 2008, as in,http://newsbusters.org/blog…for, right, 2015. Fred, please have someone rush outside to Union Square and check on the water level so far!E.g., as inhttp://www.youtube.com/watc…he admits that with his plan of cap and trade, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”. Right. No thanks.Then, with this fraud, Obama has the US EPA obsessively running around shooting important parts of the US economy in the gut. That HURTS the US, seriously, apparently deliberately. That effort has nothing to do with global warming, global cooling, or climate change and apparently everything to do with just hurting the US.Global cooling? Right: I mean, who could forget that pillar of responsible journalism Newsweek and their 1975 cover story on “global cooling” as inhttp://denisdutton.com/news…But don’t expect to see any of this debunking of global warming or human-caused climate change in the NYT that is and long has been totally in the tank on the flim-flam fraud and that has the ability to suppress or cover over with absurd excuses nearly anything that Obama does.It appears that, in addition, Obama wants to join with the UN to collect carbon taxes as a way to have world economic redistribution of wealth from the richer nations to the poorer ones, etc.Here in the fraud, Obama is not trying to do anything about climate but apparently wants to stick it to the US and send US money to poor countries, at least. No thanks.He said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” the US, and now we can see some of what he had in mind.In addition to (1) — (5), there is a long list of more of the same.To me (A) Obama hates the US and wants to stick it to the US; (B) Obama has no credibility as someone genuinely interested in the good of the US; and (C) has a hidden agenda otherwise.For gun violence, such as in Oregon, that is a problem, but I have to guess that Obama is just using that to further his hidden agenda.If we are to change our gun laws, i.e., push against the Second Amendment, then I want that effort with people I can believe have the best interests of the US at heart. We shouldn’t rush to judgment on this issue, and we shouldn’t have Obama involved in the effort.My take on Obama is that some huge majority in the US has concluded:(A) We elected Obama, and now we have to accept that the consequences are our fault.(B) From a lot of evidence about his background, e.g., some of the URLs I’ve given here, we had to suspect what we were getting; now we have it.(C) We elected him to pursue the goal of diversity and as redemption from retribution, for past transgressions and because somehow the US bleeding heart, liberal mass media was 110% behind him; the NYT got what it wanted. Since we elected him knowing what his background was, it was our fault, but now we have achieved our redemption.Luckily so far we have gotten by for about seven years without a real president; we shouldn’t press our luck.(D) We have now achieved a stalemate with what Obama had in mind with “change” and “fundamentally transform”. We won’t try to impeach Obama, e.g., for failing to enforce our laws on immigration — that would embarrass all of us, including the NYT and people who voted for him.Instead, we will just let Obama serve out his term, try to limit any further damage, write off the damage he did cause as the price of redemption, start to repair the damage with our next president, and then say “Never again.”.Thankfully, yet again, our Founding Fathers seemed to have seen the imperfections in human character, behavior, and understanding, tried to build a reliable system out of very unreliable people, and did one heck of a good job in automatic error detection and correction. Thus, we have a chance of getting through this until we can get a competent president to repair the damage and get us back on track.Apparently some of what has helped Obama is that he is so bad, and the NYT is so good at covering up, that it can be tough to believe the truth.
(whoops, copied over other notes; serves me right for copy-pasting a post this long. Fixed.)Re 1: hate, or cultural oversight? Sure, everyone else might know which fork is is the salad fork, but if you’ve been raised where they’re interchangeable, it’s not even going to occur to you to be picky about that.Although true, you might end up hating the rule that says you have to use that particular fork for salads.Re 2: I’d actually go with ‘tough call’ on this one; and, due to the necessities of politics these days and leadership in general, it has to look as if it isn’t a tough call to him.Okay, though, but why is it a tough call? Why not just keep saying “nope, those twenty million people (not an exact figure) in Iran must remain prisoners of their genocidally-inclined brethren in order to prevent said brethren from wiping both themselves and Israel off the map”?Broadly, the justification in favor is simple: isolation gives the power to exactly the wrong people.Re 3: See 1; just replace “hate” with the adjective you’re thinking of.Re 4: There’s a fundamental disagreement over the kind of crime illegal immigration is. For a stereotypical Republican, it’s a “gateway” to further lawbreaking; for a stereotypical Democrat, it’s a mere misdemeanor. There’s some truth to both: illegal immigration is, in a sense, the national equivalent of trespassing (or party-crashing), but throwing someone out of the country is rather a more involved process than throwing them out of your yard. As it stands, the more effective solution may be to give them documentation (and an entry into facial-recognition software) rather than throwing them out entirely.Or, to look at it another way – if the bureaucracy around legal immigration is to separate the “good” immigrants from the “bad” immigrants, why not apply those same tests to the immigrants who skipped the queue? It’s a point against them that they skipped, yes, but it’s rather less clear that this alone should be enough to make them fail the course… hence that fundamental disagreement.Re 5: Not going to argue one way or another on the weather, but a lot of our infrastructure could use the attention regardless. Air conditioning is a lovely, lovely thing.
Re 2.I’m for making a deal with Iran, but I don’t want Obama doing it — he gets confused about which side of the table to sit on.Currently we haven’t done an effective negotiation with Iran; instead, Iran got everything they could have hoped for. We gained nothing.You have a good point, but only until then next US President in 2017. Then we let the next President do an effective negotiation with Iran.Re 4.On the illegal immigrants, the mainline Republican position is to have them work but not vote, and the mainline Democrat position is to have them vote but not work.My view is that, for the strength of our country, we don’t want a non-citizen, exploited underclass. Net, for our society, in too many ways, such an underclass is too darned expensive.By now we should have learned well the high costs of an exploited underclass.As far as I can tell, bluntly, one of Obama’s main goals — as part of his “fundamentally transform” the US — is to have such illegals as underclass voters to dilute the voting power of the non-poor whites. Obama wants to stick it to Whitey.Solution: Use eVerify as part of employment screening. Then the illegals won’t be able to get normal work in the economy and will leave. A large fraction that are left will be criminals, and as we catch them we deport them. That combination should solve 99 44/100% of the problem.Then on the way back home, the illegals can file to be accepted to return. Then they will be treated like all applicants for immigration. The ones we really want we will let return.Re 5.For Obama, tough to believe that he’s really concerned about the weather. Instead his agenda in part is to have carbon taxes to transfer money from the wealthy countries to the poor ones.No thanks.
it’s an issue of personal choice, and so give people that choice.in the US perhaps a state or two should utterly outlaw the possession of guns of any kind in any circumstances (and that includes regular neighbourhood policing), with the penalty for illegal possession being mandatory life imprisonment and no parole. in time people would be able to see which environment is safer, one with guns or one without guns, and then decide in which they want to live.this requires a transitional period (an amnesty scheme and/ or selling off guns to gun states), and the retention of special armed police units for extreme incidents (no society foregoes that option).
If you don’t want crazy people owning guns you need to screen gun owners for craziness.
because there is a definite description available of what craziness is…surely ‘healthy’ people use guns too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi… is a decent starting point.
Except “sane” people have momentary lapses and nervous breakdowns all the time. (Frankly, I know lots of “sane” people whom I really wish couldn’t access even a slingshot because they’re jackasses who think might is right.)The problem is much more complex than that, and the solution will have to be more sophisticated.
Are they sane or are they undiagnosed?
Just under enlightened 😉
Ok. What do you propose? Be specific. I’d love to hear how your ideas square with judicial precedent.
See my other comments. I don’t feign to have any answers here today.I admit I don’t know what’s the right answer.I don’t believe you know the right answer.I am willing to make sacrifices to find and implement the answer. Are you?
“Those who would give up essentialLiberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”I’m going to go with Ben on this one.I gave you a perfectly viable solution. It may not work 100% of the time, but it’s damn sight better than “gun free zones” and “sheltering in place”.
So you’re for arming everyone. What are your prime examples of places where this works?In response to your liberty quote: You believe that no one in the U.S. should ever have to compromise on anything? I should be able to drive a car without a license, or fly on an airline without proving who I am or having my luggage x-rayed? I should be able to yell “Fire!!!” in a crowded theater?
As I said elsewhere, not quite. I do believe everyone should be ABLE to be armed.As for your questions…1. People do drive cars without licenses. I fail to see the harm.2. I think that the TSA is a gestapo organization that has no place in a free society. Terrorist attacks agains aircraft are far rarer than mass shootings. They would be even less so if the airports were not “gun free” zones. (and no, firing a handgun inside an aircraft is not “dangerous”, modern ammunition can’t pierce the hull and doesn’t ricochet.)3. You CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. No law physically prevents you from abusing your right to free speech. In fact, that famous court case that used that logical fallacy was overturned in the 60s. You are well within your rights to yell anything you want anywhere you want. You are just responsible for the direct results. Same way you should be well within your rights to carry any weapon you want, anywhere you want. Again, being responsible for the direct results.
Good idea if possible and practical. But not. And never going to happen. To many in between cases, to much gray area, this is an analog issue not “pregnancy”. Plus there are all sorts of people taking all sorts of meds and they are in positions of power to block this type of thing. It’s really a non-starter. You’d have an easier time easing up the laws on certain types pornography. You’d also have the obvious unintended consequences. People deciding not to seek care for fear that it would then prevent them from owning a gun (or prevent them from some other thing down the line that they don’t know about). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we brand a 18 year old that has sex with his 15 year old girlfriend a sex offender for life and put him on a list so that he has a scarlet letter forever. Makes total sense!!!!
Finally President Obama brings his whole self to work. Just wish it happened sooner.
I’ll be more impressed when he starts making this the only thing he’s willing to talk about, even when there hasn’t been a massacre in the last 24 hours.
Why? These incidents are statistically irrelevant. Ten times more people died in car accidents yesterday than in this incident.
So there is no problem, then?
Not really, no. Crazy people do crazy things. You can’t really stop them, you can just mitigate the damage. A shooter is far easier to stop than a bomber.
What’s with all of the “deleted” comments today.In particular this one which I was replying to (from Andy) which was deleted by “moderator”….
I deleted them. I had the conversations I wanted to have.
It’s too bad Andy. Your take on the founders intent was interesting. I was hoping you would read Stevens take on their intent here (forgetting about his 5 words which I know you’ll disagree with) https://www.washingtonpost….
Ya that makes no sense at all.
And other deleted comments such as the following, looks like dozens of deleted comments by “guest” that people seemed to reply to (don’t know what the comments were but it wasn’t advertising spam):…
They’re Andy’s comments. I hope it is an overzealous algorithm, not mod.
I deleted them.
Fair enough.
Fred- Thank you for posting I have a few thoughts.This dialog isn’t only about mass shootings, but also about gun related homicide and suicide. Everyone should Include those when they cite the statistics about gun violence.The NRA has totally poisoned the well in terms of any reasonable dialog. When 85% of Americans favor background checks for private and gun show sales, and WE CANNOT pass that, then we are allowing 1 lobbying group to block the will of the people. It’s insane.Why do we not regulate Internet gun sales and sales across state lines?Those who cite the second amendment and “freedom” are clearly missing the fact that we have changed, amended, and interpreted different parts of the Constitution based on changing technology, norms, opinions and factors. The 2nd Amendment was conceived and written when we had muskets.Obama is right about this part: “This is a political choice that we make- to allow this to happen every few months in America.” As someone with family in Newtown, I cannot understand that we have chosen to allow our children to become collateral damage. The FF never could have envisioned such a thing.
The 85% number is a myth. It has been throughly debunked and vivisected.In reality most voters rate gun rights as more important than gun control.http://www.usnews.com/news/…What’s even worse, is that you seem to be ignorant of how gun sales work. Nowhere in the country is it legal to sell a gun across state lines without a background check. This has been true for decades. If you buy a gun online, it has to be shipped to a licensed gun dealer who is required to run a background check before transferring it to you.If you want to change the CotUS, there is a process for that. “Reinterpreting” is not it. Go ahead and get your congressman to file an amendment and work it through the process.The reason we “allow” our children to be collateral damage is that gun control causes homicide to RISE, not fall. Take a look at the UK or Jamaica for outstanding examples of the utter failure of what you propose.http://www.cato.org/publica…You might want to educate yourself before you get on the bully pulpit. You might sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Yes I’m sure 100% of these charts and correlations are incorrect. http://www.vox.com/policy-a…
Given that it lumps suicides (which are irrelevant to the conversation) in with homicides. Yes, yes they are.Also, VOX is not a source. It’s a propaganda page.But please. Tell me what SPECIFIC action would have had any impact on this incident. I’ll wait.
Oh but a 15 year old Cato study is gospel? Cato? Funded by the Koch brothers? Sorry…
When it cites dozens of sources? Yes. Yes it is. It’s not a source in and of itself. It’s a compilation.
Strange, I hit reply to you, but my post went up as a normal post instead.I have a layperson’s specific idea that is feasible. Would you read it and tell me potential problems with it? Sorry, it’s long, so I don’t want to post it here again.
I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.What do you think about guns having visual and sound surveillance as part of the gun itself? Sort of like a smartphone or black box.In other words, whenever any gun is shot anywhere in the US, the police can immediately see and hear the shooting situation in real time.That way, the police immediately knows who shot the gun, who got shot, and GPS immediately pinpoints where this gun is in real time. A madman can be instantly pinpointed in a building after only one shot, so police can quarantine him. All victim smartphones in that building could be texted to guide them to safety in real time. No more low tech guessing who the shooter might be, where he might be, etc.Any tampering of the gun’s camera or speakers gives the police the legal right to lock your trigger, such that your gun cannot be fired. Tampering with the trigger lock results in gun confiscation.So for example, if you owned a gun for shooting range or hunting, then you just text the police your shooting plans, say an hour ahead of time, before you are able to legally shoot your gun. When you actually shoot your gun, the police can check anytime to see that you are indeed at a shooting range.That may help address one of the primary NRA concerns of self-protection. If your family actually is attacked, and you fire your gun in self-defense, then obviously you didn’t message your shooting plans to the police ahead of time.So then there’s an instant visual and sound recording in real time, such that the police can instantly see, hear, and communicate with you and your attacker through your gun.So there would only be a violation of privacy for the gun owner – only if he tampered with the surveillance capabilities on the gun, or if he refused to report his plans to shoot his gun ahead of time. An honest gun owner has no reason to violate either.If the NRA’s concerns of self-protection are sincere, then they should strongly support that since 85% of Americans want gun control, then all American taxpayers would now be taxed heavily to fund gun surveillance for gun owners’ safety only – a high tech benefit for gun owners only. If 85% of Americans are sincere, then they should strongly support being taxed heavily for gun control.If non-gun owners are attacked in their house out of the blue, then tough luck, you defend yourself with the low tech bedside lamp, since you don’t own a gun with police surveillance. That lack of protection for non-gun owners is fair, since non-gun owners never believed they needed a gun for protection anyway.Is that a stupid idea? Thoughts?
Would you be ok with having such a box on your car? How about your house? It’s a gross violation of privacy simply by nature of its existence. Rights are not subject to regulation, registration, legislation, or the democratic process. Not to mention that it gives overwhelming authority to the very government that the 2nd amendment is supposed to protect us from.Please quit repeating that 85% bull. I’ve already cited several sources that debunked it.I will, however, address the concept form an engineering point of view… Good luck. The device you describe cannot be built and made reliable with anything remotely approaching modern technology. Complex electronics and guns don’t mix. Recoil tends to destroy anything more complicated than a few lights. Then you have the data management issue. The devices you describe would generate millions of reports every day. Do you honestly think that there exists a database that can store that much data? How are you going to retrofit the half a billion guns in private hands already?Your idea is not so much stupid as it is a well intentioned but poorly thought out fantasy that’s impossible to actually implement. The biggest hole in your plan is actually the simplest one.This time ten years from now, I will be able to print more of less all the parts to any modern firearm in the privacy of my home. Laser sintering has come a long way in the past decade and the progress of the technology is exponential. A printed gun made out of steel has already been made and tested to be just as reliable as its machined counterpart.Quite simply. Gun control is already effectively dead. You can’t stop the signal.
“I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.””I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.”I want to compliment you on saying that. You are a rare person that understands themselves. So many concerned with guns and gun control, that support more gun control of some sort……ignore this.
I’m sure I read somewhere that the Supreme Court put restrictions on the right to free speech. And a few of the other elements of the Constitution. The document gets interpreted all the time.
Um… [CITATION NEEDED] There are almost NO restrictions on free speech. There are consequences for ABUSING free speech. Same way there should be almost NO restrictions on gun ownership, just consequences for abusing the right to own guns. But wait, last I heard, murder and assault are still illegal.
Please help educate me since I’m ignorant. Post the link to the law that regulates the private sale of firearms, including over the Internet.
It’s called the Gun Control Act of 1968. It regulates ALL intestate commerce for firearms. That covers internet sales as well. While private transactions between individuals within the same state may be legal, (depending on the state) all interstate commerce in firearms in covered by GCA68.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…It has been illegal to sell a gun across state lines without a Federal Dealer involved for almost 50 years. The “internet sales loophole” is a work of fiction.Fun fact, in OR, it is illegal to sell ANY gun to ANYBODY without a federal background check. Has been for several months. The “Universal Background Checks” that gun control activists tout will do NOTHING to stop mass shooters. There has yet to be a single mass shooter who purchased his guns privately. None of them have had disqualifying criminal or medical histories and so were able to buy the guns from a dealer. The only recent exception was Sandy Hook, where the shooter simply murdered a family member and took THEIR guns.I would absolutely love to hear what specific proposal you would have that would have affected THIS incident.
I think it’s time you state your specific proposal(s). I don’t accept your “challenge” in another comment because I don’t claim to have answers. I DO want to find them.
Simple. Constitutional cary. In this incident a veteran was shot seven times and survived. If he had had a gun, like other veterans on the campus, this would have ended much quicker.What’s interesting is that one of the few people on campus who was armed was prevented from interfering by stupid “shelter in place” policies.https://youtu.be/b2I93N6H_eM
So: everyone carries a gun at all times. The more people carrying guns, the less gun violence we’ll have in the U.S. Does that capture it?
Everyone should have the option to carry any weapon they choose in any place they are legally allowed to be. Nobody is forcing a gun into your hands, but preventing people from carrying is just plain stupid. In this case a veteran had to charge the gunman unarmed. Me thinks he would have been slightly more effective with a pistol.Lawful carry seems to be quite effective. Every state that has got rid of bans on legal carry saw a massive drop in the homicide rate. Correlation is not causation, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Oregon is an open carry state. And per your video example also allows licensed concealed carry.But, granted, you probably have a better handle on all these states than I do. What is one state that has seen dramatic drop in gun deaths since banning legal carry?
Other way around. No state in the union bans carry now thanks to years of legislative action and lawsuits. Florida is the best example. Their homicide rate fell almost 50% over 10 years after they started issuing carry permits.As for OR being an “open carry” state. That’s true, but this campus had banned firearms. Which is why very few people were armed. (Basically people who had the moral integrity to tell the University to shove their “rules” where the sun don’t shine.) Unfortunately, none of those people were in a position to readily intervene or were prevented from doing so by stupid school policies.
Ball’s in your court Rob. Give me a SPECIFIC policy change that has not been ruled against by the courts that would have affected this incident.Still waiting.
“we are allowing 1 lobbying group to block the will of the people”With all due respect let’s shoot(no pun intended) at the coals not the flames here.THE REAL PROBLEM !You are allowing all your politicians to carry on with massive influence peddling as if that was an acceptable democratic political norm.
Shot 7 times trying to stop it. I’ll be focused on people like him the rest of the weekend.
If he’d had a gun, he probably would have been able to stop it. Too bad he didn’t.
Yes but then it wouldn’t be news…just another person killed by “gun violence” in a “school shooting” incident.
Perhaps his best “bully pulpit” moment. Unfortunately, there will be no changes as a result of the speech or the event. Shameful.
What specifically would you change that would have had any impact on this incident? SPECIFICALLY.The shooter had no criminal record or any other disqualifying condition. That means that “universal background checks” would have done jack. (Oh wait, OR already has those, so they did do jack.)The guns used were hardly “dangerous assault weapons” (Three out of four were common handguns that the SCotUS has already ruled you can’t ban.)So… Again… What SPECIFICALLY would you change?
I’m not an expert on the subject matter, but I think we need to do more than we are doing.It’s hard to say specifically what will work, but I feel strongly that this is not as good as it gets.
That’s a non-argument. It’s no more constructive than “think of the children”.https://youtu.be/Qh2sWSVRrmo
My point is, I think there are two opinions on this subject.1) We’ve done all we can to prevent violence. Gun control doesn’t work. This is as good as it gets.2) We can do more to prevent gun violence.My opinion is the second, non-argument or not.You keep asking for specific recommendations for what would have had an impact on yesterday’s shooting. I am inferring that this puts you in the first opinion. I can’t promise what specifically would have helped yesterday, but I believe we haven’t done all we can.One suggestion: we could fund the CDC to study the roots of gun violence.http://www.pri.org/stories/…
You do realize that #1 is a straw man? Right?That’s not the argument. The argument is to get rid of “gun free” zones and absurd obstacles to people exercising their rights.I think my position can be best reflected in the following quote:”don’t you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill ’em right back.” My first thought when I get shot at is not “gun control” it’s “shoot back”. That works. Pearl clutching does not.
When I read about what happened yesterday, the problems are 1) there’s a mentally ill person that didn’t get the help he needs, and 2) he was able to legally purchase guns. My first thought on how to solve these problems are 1) increase mental health services, and 2) make guns harder to acquire. If the shooter was treated, or was unable to acquire guns, yesterday might not have happened.
There is nothing you could do to make guns harder to acquire for people who have committed no crime that would not also deny that right to people in the most need of them. That’s the reason why poll taxes are illegal.
Thanks for a spirited debate. One last comment from me. You could amend the second amendment as suggested by Justice Stevens:“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”Full article: http://wpo.st/35Ie0
No. What’s more, f8ck no. That was clearly not the intent of the framers and would destroy the individual right to bear arms. It is basically no better than a repeal.Stevens is a statist cretin. The second amendment is not about shooting deer, it’s about shooting tyrants. Tyrants that would take away your individual right to defend yourself against any person who seeks to do you harm. I used to work the Uncle Sam. I know better than to trust him.
On a side note, Stevens’ proposal is also a logical absurdity.A militia is different from a draft in that militia members bring their own weapons in the us of which they are already proficient. How can a militia be formed when the individual people (who are not members of a militia until it is called) have no right to keep and bear arms. Where would they get the weapons or the training?That’s why I find calls for the ban on “military weapons” by advocates of the “militia clause” to be disingenuous. The whole point of the militia clause is to guarantee individual access to weapons suitable for service in a militia. I have to break it to them, but these days, that means anything on the equipment lists of a light infantry company. That includes M16/M4 rifles, M203 grenade launchers, AT4 light anti-tank weapons, M249/M240G machine guns, and M224 mortars. Interestingly 3/5 of the weapons listed are still legal for civilians to buy in most states and are never used in violent crime.
Personally, I’d be satisfied with foiling them nonlethally; guns simply don’t have effective, economically competitive nonlethal counterparts at the moment.
Well, that’s you. If someone tries to kill me, one of us is leaving this incident in a bag.
Why doesn’t he pledge right now today within the next hour to pursue mental health workers in every school by the end of this school year. They were able to bail out the Too big to fail banks with over 1 trillion dollars almost OVERNIGHT. Make the commitment today to get counselors in every school Mr President.Do something besides clamor for freedom to be taken away. Maybe he doesn’t do it because he is “numb” to it
let’s remember society loses in the long term when folks become victims of mass shootings.How many Fredrick Cook’s of Moveline have we missed out on ? http://dcinno.streetwise.co…
How many more will we miss out on if gun control makes it impossible fore people to effectively defend themselves? Don’t forget that defensive gun uses prevent Between 2,000,000 and 500,000 crimes per year.
I am not advocating a ban or repealing the 2nd amendment. However, Just shrugging our shoulders, saying how awful it is and moving on is not working.
True, however, repealing carry bans seems to have an effect. Take a look at the massive drop in Florida after they eliminated most restrictions on licensed carry.I think people are unduly pessimistic about the crime rates in this country. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that the US is, statistically, safer than it has been in almost a century. While mass shootings are horrible, they are not really a nationwide problem and, in my opinion, can be better dealt with by making it easier for people to shoot back. Clearly, background checks and “gun free” zones aren’t working.What’s the definition of insanity?Repeating the same action expecting different results.Gun control has never had the advertised results that its proponents claim. I think we might want to come at this from a different angle.
Obama is absolutely correct when he points out that no matter how he feels about the situation he can’t address it by himself. And it is natural that he suggests that voters who care about the issue should take their concerns to the ballot box and only when Congress is composed of those supportive of the issue, by the exercise of our right to vote, will there be a political situation that is conducive to meaningful change.However…here’s the problem:The operation of our political system is not a history of elected officials serving the interests of those who elected them. The true history is one of politicians serving the interests of monied interests. I do not say this lightly. A recent Princeton study went back decades analyzing situations in which there was a clear conflict between the popular will (generally around 60-70% of the electorate) and powerful monied interests. The results are not encouraging for our democracy. Monied interests won the day almost every time. Ironically, one of the issues they discussed was gun control which is a paradigmatic case. The last time a shooting of this kind took place there was a general consensus of the public that some basic gun control be put in place – nothing whatosever was passed despite Presidential support.Hence I am not optimistic that even if the public were to take up the cause and try to hold their elected officials accountable that it would make a whit of difference.
Except that the majority of the public not puts gun rights as more important than gun control. So sorry, but the elected officials are doing EXACTLY what their constituents want.http://www.usnews.com/news/…
Other things the public wants (from the same research group).
Different survey. Unsurprisingly, knee-jerk reactions tend to calm down after a few months pass and common sense kicks in.
I hadn’t seen that most recent study.I would however point out that it doesn’t obviate my point at all because for the previous two DECADES they hadn’t done what the public wanted. Futhermore, as the Princeton study made plain, this is by no means the only issue where the public will is ignored. Indeed, to ignore the public will and follow the interests of the monied interests is the norm. Hence all that this recent study does is result in what is presently a happy coincidence of interests for the gun lobby.
You do remember that we live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy? Right? The will of the public is irrelevant against the protected rights of the individual. The reason nobody wanted to tackle gun control is because they got reamed for it politically and got slapped down by the courts the last time they tried. (Or did you forget how quickly the DNC lost Congress after their little “assault weapons” ban back in 1994?)
I am aware of that. I am also aware of the fact that monied interests have so corrupted our constitutional republic that the will of the people – no matter how expressed – is pretty insignificant in cases where monied interests diverge from the interests, no matter how forcibly expressed, of those monied interests. I find that to be a serious cause for concern. The argument about ‘the protected rights of the individual’ isn’t particularly convincing because whilst this is indeed an important plank of our system it is far from being the only important such plank. Individual liberties and rights can be curtailed in the ‘greater good.’ My experience has been that even those who hold pretty extreme libertarian views tend to moderate their position when something ghastly starts intruding on their world. The most fervent proponent of not having government in his life doesn’t want a convicted paedophile living next door to him and his family. He can’t wait to pass laws banishing such offenders to an offshore island and f**k their rights. 🙂 So the idea that we can impose some order isn’t inconsistent with individual rights. Such rights aren’t inalienable under all circumstances. I think the thing that people often lose sight of is the any social system is one that has been arrived at through historical conflict and compromise. Such systems aren’t laws of nature like gravity or the conservation of energy. They were constructed and can be reconstructed. They advantage some people over others and have always done so. Those who benefit the most from the status quo will always emphasize the sacred nature of current rights and laws. Not so long ago it was the ‘right of kings’ bestowed by god and to be challenged by no man. La plus ca change…
I think we’ll need to agree to disagree.I happen to be a borderline libertarian conservative and happen to think that scarlet letter laws are absurd, and are only needed because we refuse to deal with people as their crimes deserve.The way I see it, you sexually assault a child, you should get a bullet to the back of the head and tossed in a convenient ditch. There’s no libertarian inconsistency there as the rapist initiated the force. I happen to think that we are too squeamish about executing criminals who have committed acts that make them unfit to keep breathing. (and yes, the “right to life” can be waived by a person whose actions are atrocious enough.)That would be the root cause of our high homicide rate, our revolving door “criminal justice” system. (Or do you think that it’s a coincidence that the majority of murderers have prior felony convictions?)
I think you keep latching onto what you like or don’t like in a particular example rather than addressing the core point. :)My point is nothing to do with what you feel about such people, or indeed what punishment you feel appropriate. You may or may not be right about recidivism and it wouldn’t alter my key point.We live in a society of laws and those laws exist for a purpose. We can have different feelings about whether they serve a meaningful purpose or whether we think they serve any purpose more or less well. But despite such differences the state and the laws have historically done a better job of maintaining order for large numbers of people than the horrors that have been endured by societies without such institutions and control of force. (see ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’ by Pinker for a historical analysis of this point)http://www.amazon.com/Bette… So given that we are going to have such institutions the key question, as was recognized centuries ago by Plato, is who shall our rulers be accountable to? The point I was making is that there is a huge dissonance between what most people believe to be the way the system works and the way it actually works. For all the talk of democratic values and our our beloved constitutional republic, the reality is that monied interests hold sway and the system serves their interests time after time. This core point is what I’m addressing, not whether you would like to shoot people who assault children. Policies on how to punish such offenders, not matter how harsh, aren’t going to make our leaders more accountable.
True. However, giving said leaders MORE authority to control you seems like a losing proposition. If we agree that any government is an inherently corrupt institution, then we must also agree that we want any such government to have as little influence on our lives as possible.
I think all governments have always been corrupt. IMHO to fondly imagine that they will ever have little influence on our lives is a fantasy. Their whole point of being is precisely to be able to have lots of influence on behalf of their paymasters. Ironically, the things that most people worry about are just sideshows. The big money that corrupts government doesn’t give a shit about many of the concerns that people get worked up about. They are just noise that is useful for confusing the signal. What really matters is that big money can continue extracting big money from as many of us as possible. It is truly remarkable how effective ideology is at confusing that very simple fact. 🙂
The whole discussion makes me tired and a little depressed. Ugh.
Yup… No facts, no information. Who wants to bet that this guy got his guns just like every other mass shooter? Legally and after passing several background checks. Is Obama insisting that we ban guns outright or that we create some sort of “pre-crime” department?
Is owning a gun more critical to the daily life of the average American than driving a car? That it’s more difficult to operate the less deadly of the two is asinine. That no one’s claiming the regulations for operating a car are ‘stifling their freedom’ amplifies the idiocy of this conversation.
We need more checks for a vehicle that requires more than physical aptitude to operate. We don’t need regulations on weapons as they are constitutionally guaranteed as a primary means to removing tyranny.
There are a bunch of deleted comments in this thread. I want to be clear that I am not deleting any comments in this thread nor are the other two mods. Though we may find certain comments distasteful, we only delete spam and, on very rare occasions, personal attacks.We prefer to let the community set the norms and manage the conversations here
It is why this is one of the few places where great conversations appear to happen on political topics. I find people I disagree with but I respect both the passion and methods by which they make their arguments.
I would challenge anybody who is rallying for “gun control” in this thread to post SPECIFIC policy changes that would have had any impact on this incident. I will be more than happy to debate their merits.
What you’ve asked for is impossible. It’s a ridiculous standard.Imagine a different scenario…A car pulls out into traffic from a stop sign onto a road at an intersection where there is no traffic light, and is struck by another car. Someone proposes putting a traffic light at this intersection. If the standard for installing a traffic light at this intersection is proving that it would have stopped this one particular incident, the light would never be installed.
That’s a logical fallacy. If your proposed actions have no logically predictable effect on the incidents you are trying to prevent then it has no rational basis.Your example is also faulty.If a traffic light had been installed, then both cars would not have been in the intersection simultaneously. Therefore, logically, the chances of this incident occurring would have been drastically reduced.I’ll take it one step further. I challenge any gun control activist to provide and example a single similar incident that would have been prevented or at least affected by the specific actions they are calling for.
See, now you’re changing the rules on me. You didn’t write specific policy changes that have logically predictable effects on the incident, you wrote …SPECIFIC policy changes that would have had any impact on this incident.emphasis mine.An impossible task, as I’ve already stated.Then you wrote this…If a traffic light had been installed, then both cars would not have been in the intersection simultaneously.You’ve got to be kidding me. The very point I was trying to make was that installing a light does NOT prevent cars from being in the intersection at the same time ( because people sometimes ignore lights ). Therefore, one should debate the merits of installing a light based on data, not on the ability to predict one particular incident.BTW, I am not a gun control activist. Previous comments should make that clear.
Actually, in normal occurrences, it would. That’s the point. If something should logically work 99% of the time, it is logical to say that it will have an impact. Gun control activists can’t even claim that.
So, is that the new standard? Should the gun control activists in this thread propose legislation that would have had a 99% chance of impacting this incident?
How about logical probability? Can we agree that closing the “gun show loophole” is irrelevant when no mass shooter has ever gotten their gun at a “gun show”?
If “we” means mean and you, then no. I can’t agree to that. One doesn’t follow from the other.Firstly, I don’t know if I believe there is a loophole, so I’m not necessarily in favor of closing something I don’t’ believe exists.Secondly, the fact that a mass shooter has never gotten their gun at a gun show ( even if you could prove that ( none of these shooters has owned any gun they bought at a show? ) ), has zero to do with regulations of gun shows.Perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to talking about the loophole after every one of these shootings is illogical. I might agree with that. The topic of looking more closely at regulations of gun shows, though, is wholly independent of how many gun-show-purchased guns may or may not have been used in mass shootings.
If you use something as cover for your tyrannical power grab, it would at least behove you to make sure that said grab was related to said thing.
How about the policies that are working everywhere else in the world !Or is it a “not invented here” problem ?
Show me that they have had a measurable before / after impact.No such policy has ever been shown to have a measurable positive before / after affect on overall homicides. You can’t use “mass shootings” as a metric because the definition is fluid and the events are inherently irrelevant statistical abnormalities. You have to use overall homicides as your metric.The reality is that European countries tend to have a very consistent mono-culture and a lack of a welfare supported criminal underclass. Those have far more of an effect than firearm availability as shown by the example of Switzerland smack dab in the middle of the EU with almost American gun laws and virtually no crime. That’s why I insist on a before / after study as the above variables make crossectional studies irrelevant.
As to removing comments, I have had a comment about free thinkers removed from the discuss troubleshooting channel.
How awful of you FRED WILSON to turn this into politics. Jerk.
Its Fred’s fault this is political is it ?Or maybe that is just the bedrock reality of it all !
Justice Stevens’ thoughts on how to fix the second amendment.http://wpo.st/YVGe0
Thank you for posting that – a properly heartfelt and considered position.In the UK in took Hungerford to start gun controls and then Dunblane, whenprimary school children were shot, for us to properly clamp down. We are asafer and better place as a result, yet we still can shoot for leisure and hunting(really who needs an automatic rifle??).President Obama made the comment that the US is a developed nation that seessuch atrocities more often than others. Well I hope you can aspire to be likethe UK where most of our police do not have guns because gun control works -its a long long way from where you are but like any business trying to changethe world you need to take those first steps.Good luck in the journey and congratulations to those prepared to take the firststeps.
Actually, no. No you’re not. Your national homicide rate was far higher than it was before Hungerford well into the 2000s. It wasn’t until you cranked up your policing that you saw the drop observed post 2003. (Note that your last gun control law went into effect in 1997.) Can we at least try to keep our arguments grounded in evidence and reality?http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/r…
Evidence and reality: homicides have many causes from guns, knives, and more, but since gun control in UK we’ve had no mass killings, our ordinary police on the streets do not carry guns, homicide by gun is low level (but not zero) and largely confined to Intra drug conflict. Key point is that undeniably gun control reduces massively homicide by gun and mass shootings in particular, whilst not stopping sporting and hunting use. I recognise that UK and US start from different positions and what worked here will not work as simply in U.S. because of the provenance of guns, but it must be clear to most people that proliferation of guns leads to more gun crime – if that is not an issue then so be it; if it is an issue then you have to reduce/control gun availability.
Since mass shootings are inherently unpredictable statistic anomalies they are therefore not relevant to the discussion.The UK has always been a relatively safe country. Claiming that your gun control laws made it more so is inherently disingenuous and not backed by the data.I like to use the homicide rate as a benchmark because dead is dead. It does not matter if the victim was shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. If gun control was effective, you would see an appreciable drop in homicides.The proliferation of guns vs homicide is a hotly debated topic.1. Criminal use of firearms is rarely tied to gun control. (Criminals, being criminals, tend to be able to get their hands on guns regardless. You need look no further than most American countries for examples.)2. The positive effect of civilian gun ownership is difficult to discount. In the US between several million and several hundred thousand crimes are prevented by defensive gun uses. (The exact statistics are hotly debated and difficult to track, but even the most conservative estimates put them north of 100,000.)I would point you towards Switzerland for a European example. Their gun ownership is second only to the US amongst developed nations, and yet they have one of the lowest homicide and violent crime rates in Europe. (They have an average of 0.6 homicides per 100,000 people, almost half of the UK’s 1.0) Clearly the issue is not the rate of gun ownership, but also the society that those guns are present in.I will be the first to admit that the US has serious problems, but given the example of Switzerland, gun control may not be the best and least intrusive solution to them.
I suspect there are more than enough statistics to “prove” the point either way. I am sure it comes down to gut feel in the end – in my gut and most of the UK it doesn’t make sense to proliferate guns; there is no requirement for them(we don’t worry about overthrowing our Government) and sporting & hunting purposes can be met within legislation. When sufficient people in the US have the same gut feel something will change; until then it probably won’t – statistics won’t really come in to play either way.
You do realize that gun owners make up at least half the US population? Right? You do realize that there are more privately owned guns in the US than people? The day when your prediction could have happened has already passed.In fact, even if it did, they would still fail. Why? Because those of us who do own guns would tell you to come and try to take them. Good luck with that. We’ve got you clowns out trained, out gunned, and out manned. (HINT: Cops aren’t going to line up to get shot and the military is more likely to shoot you than cary out a tyrannical order.)Fun fact limey. Within a decade, every single person in the western world will be able to print out a handgun or rifle of their choice in the privacy of their own homes. Metal printing technology exists and has been used to make firearms. Polymer printing is commonplace. Even your gun control is on its last legs as the British people are realizing that they live in an Orwellian surveillance state that still fails to do anything positive for their lives.You’ve already lost. You’re a fish flapping on the bottom of the boat wondering where the water went. You can’t stop the signal.
Interesting statement: “asthe British people are realizing that they live in an Orwellian surveillancestate that still fails to do anything positive for their lives.” I’d have to question this as we really don’t think that at all – not even 1% of us. I can see your logic IF you do think that, but I would question why you have to be so afraid of your State that your vote for – but I suspect that is a whole different topic!Thank you for the debate though which has made me think deeper about the views underpinning the current state of play in the US, albeit that I don’t think either of us are going to persuade the other any time soon.
To true.I’ll give you a hint. The core foundation of the united states is based around the scariest words in the English language.”I’m with the government, and I’m here to help you.”This country was founded on the idea that the government should have as little power as we can get away with. That way, we won’t have a repeat of the unpleasantness involved in kicking your countrymen out of the colonies. Democracy is important, but the founding fathers knew that every system of government is ultimately corruptible. The idea then, is to limit the government so much that corrupting it serves little purpose.Their final fallback was the 2nd amendment. A Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the institution. While some may question the idea of an effective armed uprising by the citizenry, they do so only due to a lack of experience in modern, asymmetrical warfare. Look to the Taliban for an example. At no point after 2001 were they able to put more than a few hundred men into the field for a single operation, and yet here we are almost fifteen years later and they are still a significant force in the region despite the efforts of the largest military on earth.Now let’s apply that to the United States. The hypothetical American insurgent force would be far larger, far better trained, and far better armed. (Don’t forget, the Taliban is mostly running around with WWII era antiques or early Soviet era castoffs.) Add to that a lack of secure supply sources and the fact that you’re talking about a Civil War and no US government can ever feasibly oppress even a small minority of the people.I think that given the examples of the totalitarian dictatorships of the 20th century, a little collateral damage from the occasional crazy and criminal on criminal warfare is a small price to pay for our little insurance policy.Fun fact: In the US, if you have not committed a felony. Your statistical chances of dying to violence are actually far lower than Europe. We may have a higher homicide rate, but it is concentrated in a certain stratum of society. A stratum that has virtually no interaction with the daily lives of most Americans and, frankly, we would be better off without anyway.
.The AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) of 1994 was originally passed with a ten year expiration provision. When it expired in 2004, it was not renewed, in great part, because less than 2% of all crimes in the US involved an “assault” weapon.An assault weapon is defined as a weapon that features two or more of the following elements:For rifles:1. A stock that folds or telescopes;2. A pistol grip from which to operate a trigger;3. A bayonet mount;4. A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; or,5. A grenade launcher mount.For semiautomatic pistols with detachable magazines:1. Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip;2. Threaded barrel which can mount a barrel extender, a flash suppressor, a handgrip, or a suppressor (silencer);3. A barrel shroud (burn preventer);4. An unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more; or5. Any semiautomatic version of a fully automatic firearm.As it turns out, there is almost no crime which is attributable to this class of weapons.The other big FAIL of the AWB of 1994 was the failure to follow through on the development of the CRAZY PERSON LIST which was supposed to create a national DB of all persons who were subject to “further scrutiny” of suitability to own a firearm.This was to include persons who had committed felonies with a particular emphasis on gun related felonies, violent criminals, domestic abusers, persons using a certain regimen of treatment including specific psychotic drugs and a number of other objective criteria.Big point — this didn’t get you disqualified, it got you additional scrutiny.Some states, like Texas, produced their lists but other states didn’t and the ACLU opposed the idea. It never ended up getting done.Automatic weapons are and have been banned for a long time.Weapons that are the semiautomatic versions of automatic weapons are banned.Weapons that are “easily converted” to automatic fire are banned.George W Bush banned Norinco, Mithcell, AKs, Uzis, Galils, Beretta AR-70s, three different series of FN weapons and Steyrs. This was done in 1989 under the criteria identified above.When one looks at gun crime, it is not being committed by assault weapons.The AWB of 1994 disallowed the manufacture of such weapons and the ownership of such weapons after its effective date.While many consider it to have been good legislation, tens of studies found that in 2004, there was no discernible impact on crime or any change in the makeup of the weapons used to commit violent crimes.It did nothing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
.When Candidate Obama ran for office in 2008, one of his promises was to reinstate the AWB of 1994. During his first term, he had control of the House and Senate at various times during which he could have re-enacted that legislation.He chose not to.Eric Holder, Attorney General, promised the same initiative — the reinstatement of the AWB.He never advanced any initiative during his entire tenure as AG.It is not important what the current speech of the President is in reaction to an atrocity. What is important is the legislative work being done which amounts to NOTHING.If the President were sincere in his interest in proposing common sense, legislation which stood a chance of making it through Congress, he would have done something.He has consistently chosen to give speeches while failing to advance or champion any legislation even when he would have been assured of its passage.One could fairly suggest that President Obama is not a serious advocate of common sense gun regulation as he has missed several opportunities to effect just that.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
“less than 2% of all crimes in the US involved an “assault” weapon.”More than 50% of mass shootings involved an assault weapon, a high capacity magazine, or both, in the last three decades. The 2013 AWB would have banned those.Trying to dilute assault weapon stats by throwing it down the “all crime” well is obvious maneuvering to make AWB legislation look less useful. Not honest.”CRAZY PERSON LIST” – A ban lists, like the No-Fly List? I’m sure that’d go REAL WELL. Besides which, gun show sales is a loophole you can pilot a container ship through.The point is eliminating weapons that enable a higher kill-rate. That you’re defending them the day after Chris Mercer walked into an Oregon school WITH AN ASSAULT RIFLE and killed nine or ten people?Creepy, dude. Real creepy. Shame on you.
.You make my point well.As it turns out, the gunman had six weapons — five handguns and a long rifle (not an assault rifle as defined by my post).He secreted the long rifle in a classroom with additional ammunition and committed all of the murders with handguns.My point was simply this — ineffective, knee jerk legislation is not going to solve the problem. Had the AWB been extended in 2004 or a new version approved in 2013, it would not have stopped this murder.[BTW, not to get too technical but every AWB enacted or contemplated is a ban on the MANUFACTURE of such weapons and does not have any provision to confiscate such weapons. Even read at its most stringent, it is not an effective piece of legislation.]I am not aware of a single mass murder which has been the exclusive result of using an assault weapon and every single such mass murder has involved hand guns. The problem is hand guns not assault weapons.I am on record as being in favor of abolishing the gun show loophole as well as the compilation of the aforementioned CRAZY PERSON LIST as well as the use of big data solutions to prod law enforcement to investigate the purchase of inordinate amounts of weapons or ammunition.If that initiative had been enacted, when the Oregon shooter acquired 14 weapons and a bullet proof vest — he would have gotten a visit from law enforcement and he would have come up on their radar. Note that every one of his weapons was purchased legally, so it would take something like I am suggesting to bubble him out.In the case of the crazy person list, which certain states like Texas have in fact implemented, almost every single recent mass murderer would have appeared as a product of domestic violence, assault conviction, user of certain drugs, commitment to a mental institution, and other suitable criteria.Assault weapons is not the problem.It is people and the sooner we decide to scrutinize people who are obviously not suitable for gun ownership, the better.That will not happen if we play to our own biases — if I called you a “liar,” as an example, for falsely stating that the Oregon shooter used an assault weapon. It will only happen when we take baby steps together to build trust.It is really not important what the President says after each atrocity. What is important is what is done BETWEEN each atrocity — which right now is nothing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Again, you cheat the stats by creating a distinct and different category. You move the goalposts to make assault weapons look clean and guilt-free.”I am not aware of a single mass murder which has been the exclusive result of using an assault weapon” -goalposts moved.Your message is indeed confusing. It appears carefully crafted to argue against bans, yet propose nothing concrete. You don’t appear to be interested in changing things, otherwise you’d propose something concrete.Bans tend to grandfather in existing weapons. There’s over 150 million firearms in the hands of private owners. I don’t think gun mass murders will go away, they happen randomly. We’re stuck with a permissive gun culture in a country that was mostly wild frontier for centuries.Arming, or allowing self-arming, at schools is probably not such a good idea, at least according to one student- “The Swat team wouldn’t know who we were, and if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think we were bad guys.”from- http://www.theguardian.com/…
.Reading comp problem?I am in favor of the AWB but not because it will ban weapons but because it will create the CRAZY PERSON LIST — which states like Texas have, in fact, enacted to great value.You go on to make my exact point: “I don’t think that gun mass murders will go away…”There are a number of common sense gun regulation actions which can improve the odds — the crazy person list on a national basis (which, again, would have caught 90% of the recent shitheads), closing the gun show exemption to background checks (where the crazy person list would be particularly effective), and big data pursuit of mass purchases of guns/ammo.This does NOT include the enactment of the AWB ban as it is not effective.Pick one side of the argument and stick to it. Use real facts and sprinkle in a bit of fact based logic.Assault weapons are not what is being used in mass murders. It is handguns and it has always been so.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Um… No mass shooter has ever gotten his gun through a legal loophole.
I respect that you have a rational thought process that forms your opinions on guns.I am not well-informed enough about guns to agree or disagree with you, or to have any non-emotional opinion about them.What do you think about guns having visual and sound surveillance as part of the gun itself? Sort of like a smartphone or black box.In other words, whenever any gun is shot anywhere in the US, the police can immediately see and hear the shooting situation in real time.That way, the police immediately knows who shot the gun, who got shot, and GPS immediately pinpoints where this gun is in real time. A madman can be instantly pinpointed in a building after only one shot, so police can quarantine him. All victim smartphones in that building could be texted to guide them to safety in real time. No more low tech guessing who the shooter might be, where he might be, etc.Any tampering of the gun’s camera or speakers gives the police the legal right to lock your trigger, such that your gun cannot be fired. Tampering with the trigger lock results in gun confiscation.So for example, if you owned a gun for shooting range or hunting, then you just text the police your shooting plans, say an hour ahead of time, before you are able to legally shoot your gun. When you actually shoot your gun, the police can check anytime to see that you are indeed at a shooting range.That may help address one of the primary NRA concerns of self-protection. If your family actually is attacked, and you fire your gun in self-defense, then obviously you didn’t message your shooting plans to the police ahead of time.So then there’s an instant visual and sound recording in real time, such that the police can instantly see, hear, and communicate with you and your attacker through your gun.So there would only be a violation of privacy for the gun owner – only if he tampered with the surveillance capabilities on the gun, or if he refused to report his plans to shoot his gun ahead of time. An honest gun owner has no reason to violate either.If the NRA’s concerns of self-protection are sincere, then they should strongly support that since 85% of Americans want gun control, then all American taxpayers would now be taxed heavily to fund gun surveillance for gun owners’ safety only – a high tech benefit for gun owners only. If 85% of Americans are sincere, then they should strongly support being taxed heavily for gun control.If non-gun owners are attacked in their house out of the blue, then tough luck, you defend yourself with the low tech bedside lamp, since you don’t own a gun with police surveillance. That lack of protection for non-gun owners is fair, since non-gun owners never believed they needed a gun for protection anyway.Is that a stupid idea? Thoughts?
Two main problems besides the R&D costs (less of an issue with 3D printing these days, hm?) – one, mandatory retrofitting would be a royal pain (would, e.g., paintball guns count?), and two, the usual “who watches the watchers” question. The quality of local police is …patchy. Kinda like the neighborhoods they’re protecting.Maybe we can change that patchiness with the Internet (hey, isn’t that what the blockchain is for?)… but I’d like to see that in place first.
The technology has been around since the late 90s early 2000s. It’s called shotspotter. http://www.shotspotter.com/…
Except for the part where shot spotter has proven to be a gigantic waste of money.http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Reposted. Thank You. Proud to be able to share without editorial preface.
A few more interesting topical reads:http://talkingpointsmemo.co…http://www.newyorker.com/ne…http://www.newyorker.com/ne…
That last part raises the fundamental question: why do you have to own a firearm to protect your family?Well, in the simplest scenario, what if you’re a woman alone with your child, and a man (or men) come around who want to rob or rape you? That’s not just a hypothetical scenario: http://abcnews.go.com/US/ok…Unless you’re Rhonda Rousey, and the man isn’t too big, you’re not going to be able to fight him off with your bare hands.
Paul, this is certainly a portion of the issue that is rarely discussed.Shooting people is an American thing to do, its part of the national mythology.
If you have to own a firearm to protect your family, it’s because you live in a country with huge inequality, low trust, and a culture in which both the strong and the desperate resort to violence to achieve their objectives. The US has more in common with Brazil than with the UK.True, and the immigration policy the President and his party support increases inequality and lowers trust. We will have even more in common with Brazil in the years to come, if current trends continue.
This has all the data that’s needed: http://shootingtracker.com/…There is a huge difference between protecting yourself from a burglar and making it easy for mass shooting criminals to perform their hideous acts.Stop hiding behind this “protecting yourself” thinking. It’s a vicious circle.
“single parenthood” – do you have any data to back this up as a link?
But these contributing factors that you list also occur in Australia, where they have effectively erased mass shootings after a single horrific incident.And those contributing factors also occur here in Canada, where our levels of gun violence are vastly lower.It seems that America needs to change the culture regarding guns. Gun control (and a public shaming of the hypocrisy of the NRA – they are merely a gun manufacturing lobbyist) would be a good start, wouldn’t it?
Last 30 years: A succession of cynical lobbyists and politicians convincing an angry minority that their enemy is a tyrannical government. Convincing them to vote against their interests. Convincing them to fear a country that is diverse. I have watched members of my immediate family consumed by this stuff. I keep thinking how can I bemoan lack of legislative action when I can’t even confront my own family. Then I remember. They have an arsenal. And every piece is loaded.
Spending money to properly take care and support people helps counter this – but are “you” willing to pay? If people were supporting others fully then you likely wouldn’t need much gun policy.
You list all these other factors. But other countries have an increase in single parenthood, violent music/games, internet addiction, etc., too. They don’t have a massacre every quarter.I happen to agree that our culture of fear and violence is a major factor here. I also don’t think anyone needs to own an automatic weapon. But I *also* think we’re not going to get very far without addressing the fact that fear is peddled in this country in order to sell shit. We are indeed driving people crazy. But people who’ve been pushed over the edge shouldn’t be able to get a weapon intended for a war zone. If that means you can’t get one, either, that seem like a fair trade off.
I understand the point you’re making here. Changes in levels of gun ownership is not the cause of mass shootings. Fair enough, agreed, stipulated.But that point is irrelevant.Because it’s clear from the evidence, based on correlating gun regulation and shooting deaths with legal frameworks across U.S. states and across countries, that changes in gun regulation are a viable *solution*.Cars don’t *cause* auto accidents. But we regulate their use to find the optimal mix of limiting fatalities without limiting their utility. And as we learn more about how people use and misuse cars, we change those laws accordingly in a common sense way.Should we not be able to do the same with guns?The answer is obvious to people who who get no utility from guns themselves — tighter regulations on gun ownership and usage would have absolutely no impact on them. They don’t have brothers-in-law who excitedly text them the latest photos from their trail cam. They don’t have beautiful memories of conversations with their grandfather, because sitting on a deer stand was the only time he ever stopped farming and grew quiet and reflective. And they’ve never seen their son beam with pride the whole ride home after hitting his first clay pigeon.I’m someone who has all those things, so the answer is not as obvious to me. And that’s precisely where Obama’s video above speaks directly to me. Because he’s exactly right when he says this is a political choice. We choose this. When we argue against reasonable gun regulation, we are essentially saying that preventing small or even moderate inconveniences to me as a responsible gun owner are more important than preventing the deaths of many, many innocent people.And the truth is that our current political stalemate prevents *even a conversation* about trying to find a more optimal balance between regulation and utility. How can that be reasonable? How can that be moral? How can that be just?
If you don’t believe these numbers, then it’s better that you directly take issue with that website that seems to be the reference point being used by the US media.The issue is gun control, and the bigger issue is people seeing these mass shootings as an accepting consequence for something that’s “OK”. Would you be able to tell the parents and relatives of these innocent dead victims that “this is OK, and it was worse 30 years ago.”?If gun control is not the root of the issue here, then what is?If it looked like a gun, shot and killed like a gun, then it’s a gun.
There’s been talk for a while about the success Australia has hadhttp://www.theguardian.com/…Why not try the things that worked there?
OK, so I asked the question first:If gun control is not the root of the issue here, then what is?
I can’t find the study anymore, but I crossed one that showed that untrained owners of firearms ended up having their own weapons used against them, more often than not.They introduced the gun to the situation, to their own detriment.
You don’t understand this? Seriously? What incentive to people have to pay benefit of training when it’s not required?
Mental health and our ability to tolerate difference.
I think it’s weird to believe a single law or policy will prevent a particular event. Policies are enacted to have a general impact. The question isn’t whether a policy is going to eliminate and prevent an entire sort of threat, but whether it can reduce that sort of thing overall compared to not having the policy. You don’t stop locking your house after hearing the neighbor’s door got kicked in.
unaffiliated in the familial sense. one could be an independent person of official standing, a law enforcement official, or similar.
no, it didn’t help.what point are you making about single parenthood in the context of the theme of today’s post and William’s comment?on single parenthood in general try this;http://www.theguardian.com/…
Fair enough, my thought still stands, I guess it just stands in agreement with you on that now.
Ok.. so lets say all those things are to blame. Lets say we could prove that its tied to violent video games. The problem then becomes, violent video games AND access to guns. Or… hatred of religion AND access to guns.There is a reason why we are talking about mass SHOOTINGs and GUN violence.If we had these national conversations about mass stabbings or mass hammer-hittings, we would be talking about knives and hammers.But we are not. We are talking about shootings. Every time. So all the things you mentioned may be a cause, but to deny that statistically, access to guns is not relevant here, is absurd.
So let’s move forward with your argument. If those are, in fact, the contributing factors, how do you deal with them? As far as I can see, countering all of those issues is as liberal of a move as gun control, and you would therefore argue against any of the initiatives. Sure, you can say that we shouldn’t legislate and should make this shift happen on a cultural basis, but let’s stick with realistic possibilities. Here’s how the public would suggest fixing the issues that you listed:Single Motherhood – Easier access to abortion? Free contraception? Increased welfare?Violent, realistic games – So are we going to start legislating what artists can and cannot make or sell? Violent music/media – Should we limit freedom of speech here? Or just limit freedom of press?Prescriptions of psychotropic drugs to boys – Ah, so the government needs to interfere more in healthcare?Addiction to indoor, isolate activities – Yeah, you can’t force anyone to go outside, even if they should.Hatred of religion – I don’t see how that’s going to change at allInstant fame of mass killers – Always has been the case, always will be. Not a uniquely American problem.Self vs Forced Medication: Which one are you advocating for here?War on Drugs: I’m with you on this. It needs to stop. You’re unique as a conservative for viewing this as a problem, though.Full disclosure: I’m not a Democrat, either, just sick of this circle.
Right… and its clear our society has changed and can no longer be trusted with the same access to guns we used to have. So we can either change everything else in our society, or change our access to guns.
Culture of fear. It sells stuff really really well.
So join a militia, like the FF intended.
Poor analogy. It cost nothing to buckle a seat belt. How much is fire arms training and ammo?
Training, testing, licencing, registering, insurance. Seems to keep auto fatalities down.
Single parenthood is increasing in every developed countries. How d you then explained the difference in the frequency of mass shooting between the US and the other developed countries other than by a difference in gun law?
Would you say that gun violence is a problem in the US? If not, why not? If so, what is the body count required to consider regulation? If not regulation, what other solutions do you have, since you seem to have a lot of opinions on the matter.
Oh man… must be a typo in the 2nd amendment then.”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Where is this free training? All the gun ranges I’ve been to have cost money. My Dad’s time he took to teach me how to shoot was not ‘free’ either.Are we talking about shooting Budweiser cans in the back yard?
Those quotes make it clear the gun ownership comes with responsibilities. Gun ownership was a tool against tyranny, it still is.It’s also a tool against our neighbors, strangers, and kids. We have removed all responsibility from gun ownership in defense of threat of tyranny, which most gun owners do not subscribe to anymore.The people I MOST trust with guns are those who understand the responsibility, and threat from tyranny.The people I LEAST trust with guns are those the FF could never have even imagined. The dummies with an extra few hundred bucks.
Curious: What’s the point of being in the NRA? I don’t personally own a gun but have plenty of friends who do. If I did own a gun, and I was worried about them being taken away or legislated against my will, I probably wouldn’t want my name in a giant database of all gun owners. What’s the benefit?
such changing data points are common to many societies. it is not the absence of guns in those societies that accounts for the absence of mass shootings in those societies?i wonder how many people are legitimately killed in the US each year by gun owners in self defence?my concern is that if an analysis of changing data points came to no clear conclusion guns would still be out there and mass shootings would still continue.
I understand, but many of the data points your are suggested are current issues in other current countries: violent video game being one. However, we don’t see the same type of mass shooting as often.Do you honestly believe that stricter gun law would not have prevented at least one of these shootings this year? And if even just one could be prevented every year, would not that be a sufficient to justify a law in itself.I understand the many in the US are afraid of making a concession on that point because they don’t know how far the government will go in the future in restricting gun. IT’s the country of freedom. But if this is not one of the best example where public good outweighed personal freedom, then I am baffled.
Ok so there area bout 11,000 gun related homicides a year. Ending the war on drugs would reduce that by… what? a few thousand?What else you got? we got 33,000 gun related deaths a year to tackle here.Im listening…
Ending the war without legalizing drugs makes no sense. Legalizing drugs makes no sense.
My issue with this is that I don’t think it’s very realistic. With a car, there’s a chance that you’ll get busted for not following these rules because it’s in plain site and you could always get pulled over. Guns are easily hidden, transported, manufactured, and cost significantly less than a car. That’s the pessimist in me though, I suppose.
“Oh man.. that sounds like SO. MUCH. WORK.” – Typical American.
WTF are automatic and semiautomatic weapons intended for, then??? I’m not cursing AT you. I just can’t picture why they’re necessary except in a war setting.
One reason gun violence and its sources aren’t studied.http://www.pri.org/stories/…
Unless you discharge the weapon.. then its pretty hard to keep it hidden.If someone breaks into your house and you discharge your weapon, you better believe there is going to be some paperwork involved.And there is a preventative effect. You can’t get a drivers liscence if you are blind, and you shouldn’t get a gun licence if you have violent mental health issues and/or a violence record.
Lots of ways to address the issues you raise, but we spend zero time on them because we can’t get past the issue of should we have tougher laws.
Fair enough. With that being the case, though, you would still be opposed to most of the “Solutions” that I laid out. Ending the welfare state would likely lead to even more single-parent scenarios. There is a lot of evidence that increased poverty = increased birth rate. My real issue with your argument, (and the issue I have with most political discussion) is that if one is going to argue against something, I feel that they should thus argue for an alternative. Without doing so, we don’t make progress. So, solutions are necessary as part of the discussion. Ending the war on drugs would be a great start. Unfortunately, I stand by my point that it would be argued against by the very people who are in favor of easy gun ownership. Catch 22, in a way.
They are fun to shoot.Thats not a good answer, but its the right one.
Eh, automatics aren’t legal in the US……
Good (sad) share. Thank you.
lol no doubt!
Like I said, enlightening
Think it’s time to reexamine that balance.
Nice try dismissing guns deaths by suicide. Studies show that someone with access to guns is three times more likely to commit suicide. For men its four times more likely. Sorry, those are still on your plate.
Of course, though, it’s more nuanced than, “revolvers are semi-automatic.”The weapon that did the most lethal damage at Columbine HS was an Intratec TEC-DC9 9mm submachine pistol, with 52-, 32- & 28-round magazines. Originally a fully-automatic handgun designed for the Apartheid South African government to compete with the Israeli Uzi, it became a semi-automatic pistol manufactured by its Swedish designer and an expatriate Cuban living in Little Havanna, Miami, Florida in the early 1980s. Twice banned by the ATF, first because of its easy conversion to fully automatic and then because it included a two-hand “assault grip” designed for easy spraying of bullets, the manufacturer kept tweaking the design to stay just within the legal boundaries.So, yeah. Banning revolvers sounds extreme. But we need to look at things that are easily converted, etc.
If someone breaks into my house and I discharge my weapon, sure, there will be paperwork. But those aren’t really the people I’m worried about. The kid who gets away with a drive-by (most of them) isn’t filling out any paperwork. Cars are just so much different from guns. I can’t get a driver’s license if I’m blind…but I could probably get a car. Just buy it off Craigslist. Easy. And a gun would be even easier to purchase illegally because there is a larger volume/concentration of shady people who sell them and they’re easy to hide. Love them or hate them, guns are more like drugs than cars.
Thank you for the straw man. It’s cute! I never said that.I am not advocating for *anything* specific at this point. Except finding out what the hell is going on and why and how we can stop it.Let’s stop interpreting each other through a lens here and take each other’s words at face value. Right now you are coming across as someone who is wholly unwilling to compromise. No restrictions on any weapons of any kind? Is that your position? Or am I wrong?What would you be willing to give up if it meant a meaningful reduction in gun massacres in the U.S.?
I love suggestions (that people take seriously) from comedians and other entertainment professionals (such as Bruce Springsteen or for that matter, the Pope) that are grounded in their immaturity and lack of knowledge of both the practical and human nature. It’s kind of scary actually. Let’s start with “what happens to bullet sales the minute a proposal like this is even discussed or tweeted?”. “Andy” goes out and stocks up on bullets. Infact, even LE, who doesn’t own a gun goes out and buys bullets. He then arbitrages those bullets and makes a profit. Comedian: “Ok well then we will just outlaw bullet sales”. (Just another deadline to make sure all of the inventory is unloaded before that law goes into force. And so on.)
…from”tyranny”.
Yeah, if all gun owners were like you, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
https://media.giphy.com/med…
There was a lot of discussion about outlawing the AR-15 not long ago – I believe it was after the Newtown shooting. I recall reading that sales went up by more than 100% for the year immediately following that discussion….
It’s standup comedy !We all get that it not meant to a practical solution 🙂
As do gun sales in general I have heard after a mass shooting.
Oh I see your point. I don’t think they should be able to get them easier than they can get their drivers license.
Yep – I just did some reading on it a minute ago. Firearms sales continue to increase. The AR-15 just had a particularly strong year, given that it was singled-out. https://www.nraila.org/arti…
it does?
Yes. Totes. I haven’t seen your statements to that effect here up to now. Apologies if I missed.http://www.newnownext.com/w…
And those contributing factors also occur here in Canada, where our levels of gun violence are vastly lower.Well I am sure I will be labeled a racist for saying this however in the US I believe that most gun violence occurs in black communities? From my quick check (and I don’t know if these figures are correct or not I am just quoting what I just found) here is the racial makeup:Canada – 2.9%United States – 13.2%UK – 2.7%Australia – (Can’t find the number)I have to say of course that you can make numbers say anything that you want. So I would typically almost never tie any points that I am making to numbers which to me are always suspect and can be massaged to make any point. (I’d rather use human behavior and common sense..) However I will use this to counter your point and add that Canada is a vastly different country than the US. As is the UK which has been “no gun” for so many years that it is not comparable to the US which already has guns that aren’t going anywhere. Different society, different specifics.
Yeah.. same with Muslims. It’s the outliers that make the difference tho.
that seems to be the reference point being used by the US media.Shootings always go up after a publicized shooting. It’s no “boating accident” (Jaws reference, Richard Dryfuss character). As such perhaps it might be an idea to not make every mass shooting a glorified media event? Of course that will never happen because the press is as entrenched in our country as guns are. Same with assassinations (although much easier to protect the target there). Or the Pope’s visit. Look how much security we felt we needed as a result of other incidents which were in themselves copycat incidents.But think about it for a second. Think about all of the killings that happen because of media coverage of previous shootings.
I think that detected comments should retain the users screen identity !
The shooter didn’t like any religious organizations from what I have read? Perhaps if indeed it was only Christians that got shot it was because that was just happenstance of who was living there?
How many gun massacres *per year* in Germany? In Scotland?I have no idea what on earth the killer’s twisted motives has to do with how many gun massacres we have every year here. Each shooter is unique in many ways, aside from being armed and unhinged.Seems to me you’re the one doing the politicizing.
You seem to be forgetting Sandy Hook.Virginia Tech was not k-12 so it doesnt fit your stats (32 killed).What’s your point?America has way more mass killings than Europe.
The Killer was a ‘Conservative Republican’. Interesting you should be so very defensive. K-12 is the name given to high schools in the US, so it is a flawed comparison even if you do not take into account populations. Check out the stats for mass shootings in the US since the tragedy at Sandy Hook and then do your comparison. It isn’t the guns which kill, it is the lust of men for power and money. #poxonthenra #adoublepoxonthenra
was just saying that’s what i saw as a reference in the media, and i checked it, and it looked like a credible source of data.
I’m sure this has been brought up elsewhere, but what about working on nonlethal (or less-lethal) alternatives to guns for self-defense? Guns right now are used in that capacity on account of their range, recognizability, cost, and ease of (ab)use. Tasers are probably closest on three of the four fronts, but I don’t think they can compete on cost – at least, not in the neighborhoods where the threat of violence is most prevalent, and thus where self-defense is most necessary. Knives just don’t have the range, and don’t really meet the “less lethal” criterion either. Sedative darts don’t have recognizability or ease of use… but maybe this could be worked around.Again, what we’re looking for is a cheap, ranged, nonlethal equalizer to compete with guns.Actually, dart guns could make sense here – so, not changing the fact that these are guns so much, but making the ‘bullets’ less lethal.So, tangent. The main reason bullets are lethal is their velocity – anything is dangerous if it’s going fast enough. So, how do we reduce the speed of the bullet (i.e.: its lethality) without reducing its stopping power? Well, less gunpowder will make it move slower, but will also reduce its effective range and stopping power; the projectile end of the bullet’s not generally all that intricate, though. Room for compensation on the stopping power there.
I meant blame him for the shift in focus ( by inserting himself ) – not the tragedy.The debate over guns is more nuanced than many will admit. “Common sense regulation” seems like such a good idea, but I understand why people don’t want the government to have a registry of all guns, etc.Sam Harris has written a few times on this topic and his point, if I am allowed to paraphrase, is that both sides of this debate have a claim to the truths on this issue.http://www.samharris.org/bl…
Let me preface by saying that I don’t own guns and don’t intend to buy any guns. I guess there is a circumstance that I might need to have a gun but so far I haven’t and have no intention to do so.Getting that out of the way, I don’t think it’s my business to decide that someone can’t buy an automatic weapon to have fun and go to a firing range. Or to hunt. Even though I have no interest at all in hunting I can fully understand that to other people it is fun and enjoyment. [1]Just like I don’t watch sports and others get enjoyment with sports so it’s ok. And sports among young people and older people does cause injury and does impact me (in terms of higher health care costs). My point is it’s not all about what is good for me or what I like.So when you say “I also don’t think anyone needs to own an automatic weapon” you are saying “not something I care about so nobody should care about it either”. Very parental in a way, right?Look I own a car that can drive fast. I am sure many people, including my mother, think that is a waste of money simply because it’s not important to them. You like what you like. I like what I like.Likewise, to me, going to church or synanagogue every week is a useless activity that I don’t understand (or appreciate). But hey, others do. And I know why. But that is them, it’s not me.Does this make sense? My point: You will never get to the promised land if you don’t understand the motivations of “the enemy” that is the other party that you are trying to “defeat” or change. The best you can do therefore is understand the other sides point of view and work from there to create a solution that works for both parties. This is really the art of selling and negotiation. You never start without acknowledging the other sides point of view.The other sides point of view to me seems to be “slippery slope” plus some other negotiating ploys and political and power factors. Not impossible but very difficult to change. However one thing that will never get someone to change is simply by saying “what you want is stupid just be like me”.[1] I knew a guy at one point, a mentor, who bought a gun and said “I like the look and feel of a gun”. Being raised the way I was that didn’t make much sense to me. A gun to me has no positive halo at all. Anymore than a nice watch has no positive halo to me.
Nice thinking outside the box 🙂 Makes me think about Customs at our borders and how we have to declare what we’re doing when going in and out, and why.Maybe to own an armed weapon, I need a license. And maybe to get that license, I have to declare what it’s for and where and when I’ll use it. And that declaration will determine what type of arm I am allowed to obtain with my license. If I want a weapon that uses deadly bullets, then I have to put up with the fact that I’m on a list or something.Not sure. Just playing with concepts and comps.I can guess what the opposition to your suggestion is going to be. In a way, it will be interesting to see just how important it is to people that they are able to kill someone else.
You could also steal a car or borrow one from a friend.
Yes, thank you. And it’s the political parties and profiteers who are putting a wedge between us and our common goal.
That is a great article. The only thing I would add is that people feel it is like what happened with smoking. I certainly am not going to argue that you should, but when a logical first step was taken: not inside where people had no choice but to consume second hand smoke, and now we have all the laws and taxes. People rightfully worry that once we get the “logical first step” it will go to an extreme.
Not outside the box so much as inside a different, overlapping box :PA gun without bullets is about as dangerous as a rock. It’s the gunpowder – essentially, a small-time explosive – that makes the bullet, and the gun it’s inside, dangerous. So, bullets that rely less on velocity (from the gunpowder) and more on sedative effects (from the “payload”) could be that third way out of this impasse. And maybe this is something an entrepreneur could try… fittingly enough for here.
Unfortunately and ironically we are getting much better at keeping people alive. I would argue that the ongoing and end of life cost is truly astronomical. Otoh, if we are talking about dangerous activities that people undertake that kill people early and young, I would agree it’s a net gain (in jest of course).
I don’t say this too often, but you are (0k I’ll be polite) ignorant
This isn’t even an issue today, keeping your head in the sand won’t change this
You are foolisly ignorant.
Pointing out Ignorance is not a personal attack.
I’ll put in the time is you agree to donate 10k to cancer research
The operative word is “offset” and definitely not in U.S.
You are quoting something from 1981. When smoking inside someone else’s house that didn’t smoke and driving home drunk were both acceptable. You should probably find some new research.
Ok, Prove it and factor in all costs! Start with the CDCs website. For every person who smokes, it effects the health of 30 people.
This kind of comment is interesting. Not because it is ‘wrong’ but because despite the fact that is is ‘right’ it is missing the point. For us to use such facts to delude ourselves into thinking that we don’t have worse problems with gun violence in the US than in Europe is an unfortunate distortion of reality. I suppose it can make a certain set of US citizens feel better about themselves, but it’s a fantasty.
Disingenuous conflation to support your ideological agenda !And that’s me giving you the benefit of the doubt 🙂
a peanut weighs about .4 grams and sells in bulk for about $4/lbs, if you donated 10,000 peanuts that’d be worth about $35 USD. by many standards that’s actually a helpful donation.
Oh, you linguists 😉 I think you illustrate, though, what we could be benefiting from if more people with diverse problem-solving skillsets were thinking about this.
Bri – if you want to carry around a musket – go aheadBut please turn in your assault weapon
The Constitution was drafted with the ability to self correct and amend. Regardless of what one’s belief is today about what was intended during a time where automatic assault weapons didn’t exist, the realities of our current times require us to act.
There is an open historical debate about whether the second amendment more officially has to do with the ability for a state to raise it’s own national Guard to prevent an ultra strong central government. its pretty obvious as to why this debate exists (revolutionary war,plus the fact that clause wise, the right to bear arms is directly tied to the right to be part of a militia.)Reading the Constitution in that sort of original vein wwould open a banning of arms unless you participate in the national Guard, military, or police.There is plenty of room, in other words, for hewing to the second amendment and regulating the possession of guns
And armed. But not Muslim, or Christian, or black or white. I am accusing you of having as much of an agenda as you say our president does.
This is a perfect illustration of how a single phrase can have completely different connotations – and, thus, moral demands – to people ostensibly speaking the same language.Using only the words in question is like writing only a headline and expecting your readers to fill in the story themselves: the only people who will agree with you already understood the phrase in the same way in the first place.But of course, no one has time to read all the relevant essays either. So, if we don’t have time to fill in all the details, and the headline phrases trigger different meanings in different people, then what?Maybe we have to go in the other direction – even-bigger-picture to start with, and only after establishing where the common ground exists move back to the contentious phrase. …Or maybe we’re just stuck with the essays (like the miniature one I’ve just written :P).
Oh really? So a #blacklivesmatter shill is now a “conservative Republican”? Really?
If the person was anti-religion — I don’t see why it would matter if he reported it or not. It’s perhaps a moot point. If he had mentioned it then he could have perhaps rallied all religions – except the whole idea of freedom of religion in part is that you can have the freedom to not believe in religion either. It comes down to someone who had lost heart and felt disconnected and not enough reason or connection to live. There are so many variables in that that we don’t know that you can’t really dive into deeper analysis of it. If that person was engage with people, learned compassion – perhaps through learning how to manage anger from anything that bothered them then it wouldn’t have happened. The main problem is that we don’t try or allow opportunity for everyone in a community to easily connect with others – we just don’t, and we should – and it’s not easy to do, to give the time to strangers or people who maybe agitate you with their thinking and behaviour and try to help them shift in a non-aggressive way their behaviours.
I believe citizens with assault weapons (or even fully automatic weapons) would do little damage against a trillion dollar military with drones, tanks, satellites and everything else they might have. (Forgive me, but I am not a military buff).If the Founders’ intention was to keep the citizenry on the same playing field as the government from an arms perspective in order to keep the threat of uprising and thus keep the government honest then I believe their wishes have not been held.But maybe I miss your point…
Aka be in a militia. Most people who bear arms do not participate in the national Guard.
Actually, the SCotUS has never upheld a ban on automatic weapons. In fact, the 1930s era Miller ruling stated that weapons “suitable for militia use” are expressly protected by the 2nd amendment.
Where have the worst K–12 school shootings occurred? Nearly all of them in Europe.That sounded like a comparison more that an it-happen-there-too ?
sell ’em on ebay
Comedy used to be comedy. Unfortunately in this day an age some people take what entertainment professionals say way to seriously. That’s what I am reacting to.For example, John Stewart or Stephen Colbert:http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Conflation – Conflation – Conflation !I’ll not even waste our time running all the possible comparative numbers here.I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on the racism thing at worst case I’m sure it is just a sub-conscious thing :-)See what I did there ?Maybe talking socio-economic categories would have served your augment better ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
TThank you. We should be proactive in discussing what to do, not how the other person is wrong
My kitchen knife is plenty sharp.. A noise rustling doesn’t equal gun
Hmmm…..Why don’t you ask veterans of the Afghanistan Wars. Both Soviets and U.S. I think they have a different viewpoint.
comments like this are funny. Maybe you didn’t follow the war in Afghanistan? Is the Taliban gone yet? For nearly 40 years the world’s greatest militaries tried to remove them. How did that turn out? And freedom loving people in the US are not the Taliban they are for superior in all regards.Plus do not forget that many in that trillion dollar army agree with Bri.
Given the history of modern asymmetrical warfare, your belief has been proven wrong time and time again. Just look at how effective a fairly small insurgency was in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you honestly think our military would be better at fighting a native uprising with no secure supply chain than they were when they were fighting foreign insurgents from secure bases with ample supplies?
Holy smokes. I didnt say Bush wasn’t a loser as well. Bush Obama they are one in the same. Your still having the wool pulled over your eyes with that false dichotomy?
How about: Will likely die of cancer, heart disease, or stroke sooner or later. If smoke, then sooner. Done.Okay?BTW: My father proved that smoking cures heart disease, and my mother proved that it cures lung cancer — now neither have either medical problem, or any medical problems anymore.
You’re not clear on what a militia is, are you? In reality, a militia is an armed force raised from the body of the citizenry which is expected to be proficient in weapons the provide themselves. Strictly speaking, any person who has ever registered for selective service is a member of the militia. Furthermore, since a militia is, by definition, expected to provide their own personal weapons and is expected to be proficient in the use of said weapons, it cannot exist without the inherent right to own and practice with weapons suitable for militia service. Today, that would include more or less any weapon you would see issued at the company level to an infantry unit. (That includes, machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers.) In colonial times, the only weapons used by militias that were drawn from government armories were regimental level assets such as artillery. (So, in theory, the 2nd amendment would not protect your right to own a 155mm howitzer or an M1A2 tank.)
I am a veteran of the US war in Afghanistan and my family includes veterans of the Soviet campaign. I can tell you that the Taliban were quite effective. In fact, their continued existence almost 15 years after the initial US invasion is proof of that fact.
There is no such “historical debate”. Nor is there any Supreme Court case that may set such a tone. In fact, the few cases that actually touch on the 2d Amendment make it clear that the Bill of Rights is untouchable, and a bar to government interference. As a moderator, it behooves you to know the subject. Take a look at the Cruikshank decision (1879) or the Presser decision (about 9 years later, but which only affirms Cruikshank. Also look at the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, which makes it clear that the Bill of Rights forms additional constraints on the government’s potential infringement of our Rights.Lastly, government has no Rights. It has Powers, and duties. It needs no Right to arms, having the duty and Power to raise and arm the Army and Navy.Semper fi
There is no debate.No historical document or court decision presents that view.The “debate” is wholly an invention of gun control advocates.
The Bill of Rights is NOT within the purview of such amendment. The Bill of Rights is additional restriction on government action.Semper fi
Their fig leaf is that they didn’t actually “ban” them so much as refuse to issue tax stamps required to sell new ones. That’s being challenged right now in at least two cases working their way through the courts. Unfortunately, the gun rights community had bigger fish to fry in the past few decades. Now that we have concealed carry legal in every state, we are almost ready to start tackling the stupid “evil gun” laws. I think that after we get mandatory concealed carry reciprocity passed, attacking bans on short barreled weapons and suppressors will be the next priority. Sadly, machine guns are fairly low on the totem pole given the brainwashing of the general public. (Fun fact, between the start of the National Firearms Act in 1934 which first regulated the sale of machine guns and the ban on selling new ones in 1986, exactly two legally purchased machine guns were used in violent crime, one of those was a cop with his issued MP5.) What most people don’t understand is that a mass shooter would actually be less dangerous with an automatic weapon than with a handgun or semi-automatic rifle. Being able to fire accurately is far more important than being able to fire fast.
If by problem you mean b) should come before a), I agree.Otherwise, it is no big problem: You can get any result you desire for a price.
We agree. But I suspect my broader point escapes you. No foul.
If you can show that driving a car is a protected, enumerated, Right, then I’ll help you eliminate all government requirements that govern it. But it isn’t a Right, unless you include it within the 4th, 5th, or 10th Amendments. I doubt you’ll go with the 10th, of course.Semper fi
So… you’re promoting gun training in the schools? Great!
Please get off of the internet. Your freedom of speech is protected only on a printing press, pen and paper, or voice.
I have to disagree. Looked at this, they go down hard and fast. Really healthy people hang on and go to the doctor all of the time.
there haven’t been tons of supreme court cases related to the second amendment in the first place. In contrast, look at the 14th amendment and its use around corporate personhood.
You are correct. There haven’t been tons of supreme court cases. There has no debate about the interpretation until the late 20th century. Until the 2nd was incorporated, the states were allowed to write laws infringing upon the right. The right to keep and bear, however, was still understood. Even Justice Taney, of Dred Scott infamy, used the right as a reason to deny black people their citizenship.There is only the individual right. For instance…women were never part of the organized militia, but there was no question about their ability to keep and bear arms.