Of all places
I wonder how someone managed to bring in a firearm to such a place? California, I believe, still is the state with the strictest gun laws.
What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another? :(
A woman armed with a handgun shot three people at the headquarters of YouTube today, police say. She was later found dead seemingly after turning the gun on herself. The shooting happened just before 1pm Pacific Time at the video-sharing giant's offices in San Bruno, California, the city's cops confirmed to El Reg. San …
One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state. So if the laws are slowing you down just go to the state next door and come back with whatever you need.
It really needs to be regulated at the federal level. And then start making it harder to own guns, make open carry illegal and concealed carry highly restricted. If you want to carry a gun there has to be a real need, not just that you are too much of a coward to go to McDonalds unless you're packing a Glock.
Slowly over time the number of guns will go down. The number of gun owners is already dropping as they die of old age, but we can speed up the process by destroying any weapon used in a crime, whether or not it was obtained legally.
> It really needs to be regulated at the federal level.
It seems unlikely there's enough balls / political willpower to make significant regulation at federal level; even something as simple as raising the minimum age.
But if states make their own rulings, then there's at least a possibility that the status quo can change over time - witness legalisation of pot. I believe different states already have different rules on things like concealed weapons.
California is next door to Arizona, which has pretty lax gun laws. Mass shootings aren't a crime of opportunity, but one of planning, so driving across a state line to get the gun(s) you want isn't a burden since this isn't likely something one decides to do at the spur of the moment.
Another basic misunderstanding of gun laws.
You cannot simply go to another state with "looser laws" and buy a gun.
A California resident can certainly buy a gun in Arizona (or any state), but in order to take possession, the selling dealer must transfer that firearm to a California FFL Dealer, who then performs a background check under California laws before allowing the buyer to pick it up in California.
Since gun dealers do so to make a living, with questionable sales putting their license and livelihood at risk, it would be difficult to find one who would sell a gun to a person who seemed erratic or crazy...just because they pass a background check does not mean they must or will sell the gun... I've seen numerous times where FFLs have declined to sell firearms based on the potential buyer acting "hinky", usually asking them to leave the store, then calling the BATF and reporting suspicious activity.
Like we now see in London, where the knife murder rate exceeds the entire NYC murder rate (all weapons) the lack of firearms does not dissuade a motivated assailant...they just use another tool...knives, acid attacks, bats, screwdrivers, poison, etc.
What must be done is to look at what has changed in society in the last 50 years. When I was in elementary school, kids brought weapons to school for "show and tell" (like a 6th grader who got a .22 for Christmas, or BB Guns that were then used by the entire class during recess), safely, responsibly, and without any malice or intent of harm.
Perhaps the toxic liberalism which has affected and perverted most of what this nation was founded upon, and we once held dear, is now reaping the "rewards" of "defining deviance down" with their "anything goes" and "if it feels good...do it" ethos?
@s2bu
Mass shootings are only the most visible gun problem, the other 10k+ that die each year at the wrong end of a gun are an even bigger problem
This is all part of reducing the overall number of guns in circulation. You can't just go around confiscating everyone's guns, so it has to be made less desirable and more difficult to won one.If you can't carry one and need to have it unloaded and locked up at home with the ammo in a separate locked location then many people will just not bother to own one. If you're a hunter this won't be a problem as you shouldn't be leaving your gun around the house loaded.
Now the NRA nuts are just going to say that this won't help since criminals don't obey laws. Well of course that is a stupid argument as by that logic all laws are pointless. But as guns become more scarce, their value on the street will rise, and so fewer criminals will be able to get their hands on them.
The USA has something like half the guns on the planet, that is the root problem. Though if you are an idiot from the NRA you would say you need more guns because "more guns will make everyone safer". If that were even remotely true then with 300+ million guns the USA would be the safest place on earth.
Let's keep in mind that the NRA isn't a club for all the good ol' guys who have playing with guns as a harmless hobby. It's an industry lobby body primarily representing companies that make more profit the more guns are sold. This made it worth their while, for example, to donate $30M to Trump's campaign. Not, of course, that they would expect to influence future laws by doing so. Of course not. They were just being kind and generous to fellow human beings.
they also educate people on how not to blow their own heads off (assuming that isn't the idea) and educate folks who need it in self-protection. Believe it or not, there are many, many people not living in large cities with dangerous animals or people around and the closest law-enforcement officer(s) at least 30 minutes away.
"...Let's keep in mind that the NRA... ...It's an industry lobby body primarily representing companies that make more profit the more guns are sold. This made it worth their while, for example, to donate $30M to Trump's campaign..."
Well I call B.S. on your $ number for Trump Campaign donations. The various non-partial sources I've found (like Politio/Politifact) show a varying number from $4.7-5.9Million spent across donations to all republican candidates (yes a majority to Trump). What you are confusing is direct donation versus "benefit". They spent over 200 Million in lobbying and other actions which benefited Republican candidates.
I think it should be noted however that of gun owners in the USA, 60% are Republican - so finding that the spending of a Gun safety and legal advocacy organization is primarily on Republicans is not a shock. When you have a bunch or Republicans with decision making power on how their money is going to be spent, you will (feigning shock) find that they spend it on themselves - not Democrats (though they did spend about $10K-USD on Democrats in 2016).
It's also worth noting that the NRA collects most of its funding from individual donors in small amounts - there's just a lot of them (keep in mind not all of the approximately 10 Million donors are registered members). That's still about 4% of the voting age population in the USA, or nearly one person out of 20 adults in the country. This should give you pause if you berate this group publicly when around 20 or more people as you are statistically likely to offend at least one of them - and they probably won't tell you to your face.
Also keep in mind that a lot of NRA members are Cops and professional Soldiers too. Are those really the kind of groups you want and need to upset while not armed yourself? Those are they people everyone says they want to have the guns, I for one don't think they are the perfect prototype for a responsible gun owner however...
All of this is moot however to this story - the NRA didn't demonetize this lady's channel due to some dystopian AI-Algorithm which viciously determines what content is potentially offensive to at least one inconsequential person on the planet (*cough* YouTube), and the first people these S.F. Bay Area geeks called when someone who didn't like them started shooting at them for their totalitarian dictatorship practices, was more people with guns - and those who statistically probably mostly NRA are members...
Cheers.
Joaney is lying: The NRA is 5+millinon people that pay dues, support safe use and laws - not companies. Just like car clubs, they are run by people, not car companies.
Feel free to contact any NRA member or office. But propaganda is pure BS and easy to look up for people that don't want to be played by trolls like "Joaney I've"
"The NRA is 5+millinon people that pay dues, support safe use and laws - not companies"
Since when have the NRA ever supported any safety related or any other restrictive gun law? They exist to support and are controlled by the gun industry.
There was a US study recently that showed that gun related death rates drop during large NRA conferences. Which tends imply (not surprisingly) that they are a bunch of gung-ho red necks who are responsible for many gun related deaths!
There was a US study recently that showed that gun related death rates drop during large NRA conferences.
That study doesn't support your totalitarian agenda, AC:
Nationally, there was a 20 percent reduction in firearm injuries during the convention.In contrast, gun-related crime did not decrease during the conventions.
Nationally, the rate of firearm injury dropped from 1.5 per 100,000 on the dates adjacent to the convention to 1.2 per 100,000 during the convention itself. And in the state where the convention was held, the injury rate went from 1.9 down to 0.7 per 100,000.
A few mostly minor injuries are no excuse to diminish one of Americans' most fundamental rights - a right that citizens of other countries are really starting to wish they had.
"If that were even remotely true then with 300+ million guns the USA would be the safest place on earth."
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In fact, the US is one of the safer places on earth.
Despite airbags, seat-belts, crumple zones, and automatic braking, cars still kill more people than guns... roughly four times as many as are murdered with firearms. So does inadequate medical care.
On the other hand, for every person murdered with a gun, two people commit suicide. Oddly, banning guns demonstrably fails to prevent suicides.
"Oddly, banning guns demonstrably fails to prevent suicides."
Eh, banning pistols does make it harder to commit suicide. Whilst you can deliberately shoot yourself with a long gun, it's a wee bit more fiddly.
While you are broadly correct that roughly two thirds of firearm homicides are self inflicted, it's not always a case of suicide. Those remaining third are not always murder either, since murder is a specific criminal charge depending upon intent, wheras homicide is the generic term for "a human done it".
So a three year old fatally shooting their mother is a homicide, it's not murder. Fatally shooting someone attempting to rape you is also homicide, but may well be legally self defense.
It's one of the reasons you'll see a marked difference between murder rates and homicide rates, since one is based of convictions of perpetrator, the other is based on the victims. So it's possible to have a one to many relationship either way, one person killed by a group may result in several convictions for murder, or a single person committing multiple murders.
Countries with a problem with suicide (such as NZ) do ban or restrict things in order to make it harder. You're not supposed to be able to buy a fatal dose of paracetamol in a single packet there, so you can't buy a pack of 50. Exactly how effective that is is left as an exercise for the reader...
"You're not supposed to be able to buy a fatal dose of paracetamol in a single packet there, so you can't buy a pack of 50. Exactly how effective that is is left as an exercise for the reader..."
Not very, I would venture.
I take it paracetamol is some sort of local trade name for acetaminophen?
I wouldn't suggest acetaminophen for suicide. A friend of mine was an EMT, and had one call where they revived a girl who had taken a fatal dose of acetaminophen. The girl thanked them and said she had changed her mind. My friend couldn't tell her that she should expect to be dead in a couple of weeks from liver failure... left that to the hospital.
Open/concealed carry guarantees that e.g. when people get into arguments that escalate out of control, the guns will come out and there will be at least one serious injury or death instead of a bloody nose. I don't want to see my frequently unaccountable fellow citizens walking around with the means to extinguish my life on a whim readily available.
Also, if there's a shooting incident and you're carrying a gun when the cops show up, please tell me how they will differentiate you from the person carrying out the crime.
"One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state. So if the laws are slowing you down just go to the state next door and come back with whatever you need."
No, the problem with gun laws is that only people who actually respect the law will follow it, the rest will continue to do whatever they like.
I say that because I happen to live in a country (Holland) where weapons are outlawed. Not merely guns, even if you have a baseball bat sitting at a funny spot in your store (for self protection) then you still risk the police fining you because it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law.
Yet that doesn't stop shooting incidents from happening. And decently frequent too. Only last Thursday did the country get shocked (yet again) because a store owner got killed during an intake meeting.
Gun legislation is fun and all, but these kind of shooters didn't care about the law in the first place. Also: take away the guns and people will find something else to use. Not to mention that this also makes it much easier to use fake guns and pretend their real. I mean, if the store you're trying to rob follows up to its reputation of being law abiding then you can be sure that they don't own any guns. Easy taking!
And as this incident shows ones again: there are many fruitcakes roaming the streets. And I, as a regular citizen in Holland, am not allowed to defend myself if I have to. Which I think is messed up.
Is there anything stopping someone legally buying something like an AR-15 (insert over-powered gun of choice instead) in one state then driving to California to use it?
No it's OK to do that, just as long as you don't try and smuggle an apple or peach over the state line you're just fine.
"the problem with gun laws is that only people who actually respect the law will follow it, the rest will continue to do whatever they like."
Making guns hard to get and imprisoning those that own them illegally massively reduces that problem.
"And decently frequent too."
Gun crime in Holland is still way lower than in the US.
"And I, as a regular citizen in Holland, am not allowed to defend myself "
Because statistics show owning a gun makes you MORE likely to die from gun violence! And of course it's ownership of guns that exacerbates the problem in the first place.
"Because statistics show owning a gun makes you MORE likely to die from gun violence!"
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Yet another person without a clue about how to use statistics.
This is very annoying to those of us who actually have a clue about how to understand them. I would really, really like to make an understanding statistics a mandatory requirement for any university degree.
Those 'statistics' are an argument from correlation in a completely uncontrolled situation. Correlation is slippery enough in an experimental setting, let alone the bizarre circumstances around statistics gathered across a myriad of different situations.
Classic example? People who quite smoking are more likely to die within a year or two than smokers. Clearly not smoking can be lethal. If you want to stay safe, keep puffing away!
This claim is as valid as yours.
Both are almost certainly wrong.
The fact that I can show a much higher correlation between stork population and births in a properly chosen city than appears in the data you are quoting does not mean that storks bring babies.
The people most likely to have guns are those that feel that they need them. Drug dealers, gang members, people living in high violent crime areas, etc. Curiously, such people also tend to die from gun violence more often than people living quietly legal lives in quietly peaceful areas... such people are less likely to feel a need to own guns.
The 'high probability gun owner' population is not the same as the 'low probability gun owner' population. Confounding variables are baked in to the selection process for the statistical analysis.
I have never lived in a house without firearms, nor have many of my friends. The number of them killed by guns? Zero. The number wounded? Zero. The number ever shot at? Zero. The number involved in gangs? Zero. Violent crime? Zero. Are we seeing a pattern here?
One of my co-workers has sufficient firearms to equip a platoon... yet he has never shown any tendency to shoot anyone, or to be shot at, except maybe one time sparked by nervous police who were spooked by the firearms database when called by a neighbour reporting his daughter shouting at her boyfriend on the front lawn.
Given the number of times nervous cops shoot people at the wrong address due to firearms registration, the safest thing would be to block real time access to such databases by police. Yes, there is more to this, but it would make police safer too. Think about it and you will figure out why... enough typing.
"... it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law."
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure gun legislation is covered by national, not EU, law. And I think the restrictions in NL are stricter than in the surrounding countries you mention.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure gun legislation is covered by national, not EU, law. And I think the restrictions in NL are stricter than in the surrounding countries you mention.
Both. There is an EU Directive covering firearms. Implementation is left to member states. So the UK for instance is unique in prohibiting pistols. The Czech Republic actually goes as far as to permit concealed carry - but under a sane and rigorous licensing system.
I say that because I happen to live in a country (Holland) where weapons are outlawed. Not merely guns, even if you have a baseball bat sitting at a funny spot in your store (for self protection) then you still risk the police fining you because it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law.
Don't talk nonsense. You can own firearms including rifles, pistols and shotguns in all those countries. The Netherlands hosts one of Europes largest annual airgun shooting competitions.
The International Shooting Sports Federation is headquartered in Munich. Funny place to HQ yourself if weapons are "outlawed" in Germany!
Yes, you will need a licence, but firearms are not "outlawed".
Yet that doesn't stop shooting incidents from happening. And decently frequent too. Only last Thursday did the country get shocked (yet again) because a store owner got killed during an intake meeting.
And that's it. The country is shocked. One gun death.
20 years ago I visited Houston, Texas - the Monday morning news just gave the weekend body count for gang shootings. There were dozens.
17 years ago I visited Los Angeles, CA - again, just a body count for gang violence.
Sure, these are gang-shooting hotspots, but you get the idea. One shooting now and then vs dozens every week. That's a mass shooting every week that everyone just seems to ignore.
(I don't know how things have changed since then. I've been to the USA twice since - first time I was mostly drunk, and second time I was at a wedding so mostly drunk. Ignored the news - watched the Dukes of Hazzard instead.)
Oddly enough the last weapon I bought was from Holland. 4th - 5th Century Germanic spear, semi sharp (easier to get through customs than full razor edge and only takes another couple of hours to bring it up to silk slicing).
I recommend celticwebmerchant for all your weapon needs in Holland, though you can get some real craftsmanship out of some of the Polish artisans.
My name is Omgwtfbbqtime and I am a reenactor...
I quite often have a car full of sharps that are designed purely for causing severe organic damage.
I do not do any period after the Twelfth Century so never bothered to get a shotgun permit - being a reenactor is considered an acceptable reason to be granted a the firearms permit in the UK as the shotgun permit covers black powder weapons.
This does not mean that I do not possess ranged weapons, I have javelins, slings, bows - any and all are lethal with practice.
- and yes, I have been stopped by the Police with a full load on the way to an event, had a good chat and on the way I went no issues.
"Yes violent crime goes through the roof when you remove the Equalizer. Its a fact."
No thats a fictional character. Lots of studies - including in the US - show that when you remove guns from circulation violent crime drops as does the death rate due to violent crime. Of course you still need an efficient armed police option to deal with the now reduced number of criminals with guns, which seems to work just fine in every other industrialised country on the planet.
Purchases and types of gun ownership IS regulated at the federal level. It's the responsibility of the ATF. For example, if you wanted to own a machine gun that was brought home as a trophy from WWII, you would need a Federal Firearms License (FFL). The same for a canon from previous wars. They also regulate gun dealers. States and local regulating entities can require additional requirements. For example, states regulate gun carry requirements (Open and Concealed carry). Some cities regulate what buildings allow people to carry guns, but some states have pushed back against that.
When it comes to dishonorably discharged, felons, and people who are not mentally stable, it is the federal government that controls the background check process that is required to purchase from a gun dealer. Private sales do not, at this time, require a background check.
"One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state"
One of the problems with gun laws is that people who don't know any better think that they are some how causal with respect to gun violence. In fact, rates of gun violence and rates of gun availability are largely unconnected.
Higher availability of assault rifles (real ones, not 'assault weapons') occurs in countries with much lower rates of gun violence, and much higher rates of gun violence occur in countries with many fewer guns and much more draconian gun laws (both compared to the United States).
The problem is the culture, not the guns. Violence is accepted as a solution to any problem, almost, in a highly militarized society that also displays phenomenal rates of incarceration, high rates of execution, major problems with police violence, use of military weapons and equipment, routinely, by police and other similar phenomena.
explosives? Knives? Acid? Automobiles? Semi-trucks?
Probably they should all be outlawed.
Great - next time I go camping I'll just use knitted yoghurt or tofu to split wood, cut cord, or any of the other 100 uses my rather large knife has. The one use it doesn't have is jamming into someone elses guts 'cos dey dissed me yeh. FFS.
Widespread availability of firearms does sort of spring to mind as a remote possibility?
Not really a problem in Finland, the Czech republic or indeed some of the rural states where gun ownership is ~95-100% but gun crime is actually at European levels.
The overwhelming majority of gun crime in the US is committed in the top 10 metro areas and frequently does not involve legally held firearms. Shootings of this nature (and school shootings), whilst terrifyingly frequent, are still very much a minority in the overall firearm-homicide stats.
The majority of America's gun problem is basically the exact same as London's gun problem - gang-on-gang with black-market guns.
Of course they do need to sort out some sort of sane regulatory regime but that will only work if it goes hand-in-hand with some sort of major social welfare and healthcare reforms, particularly targeting the poor inner-city areas and projects which are - in no small part - run by gangs.
"Not really a problem in Finland, the Czech republic or indeed some of the rural states where gun ownership is ~95-100% but gun crime is actually at European levels."
But those places have guns issued as part of compulsory military service, the guns are required to be securely stored in a gun safe, are not for personal use, and dont have ammumition stored with them.
It would be nice if someone would explain how requiring those who have firearms to store them safely and unloaded, and to store the ammunition separately, is going to prevent a spree killing. What prevents an unhinged individual from unstoring the gun and its ammunition, bringing them together, and doing a large scale shooting?
It appears there may be something else going on here for which these sensible rules do not account.
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"As evidenced here and elsewhere, tough gun laws, gun-free zones, etc. won't stop this stuff."
There is in fact lots of evidence that tough gun laws do stop this stuff. For instance Australia made many firearms illegal and removed them from circulation. And there was a substantial reduction in gun crime and gun related homicides. And no more mass shootings to date.
New Zealand on the other hand didn't follow Australia down the retard pants-shitting path after our Port Arthor equivilent. And despite all the AR15s around (and they are readily available to anyone with a basic firearms license), we have ... a lower murder rate than Australia per 100,000 people. Even with Australia sending back to NZ anyone who ever looked cross-eyed at a police officer and wasn't born there.
Wrong. Australia banned (except for a very few limited circumstances) semi-automatic weapons - and regularly engages in pants-shitting over "modern" technology like lever-action.
NZ on the other hand has not banned semi-autos. A basic firearms license (which has always been required) is all that is needed.
"NZ on the other hand has not banned semi-autos. A basic firearms license (which has always been required) is all that is needed."
You're clearly twisting terms here to make your point. I've held a class C licence in NZ, for shooting guns for films, and they where bloody clear on the various rules*. Many of which where introduced after the Aramoana shootings, despite your claims otherwise.
A category A licence (which is what I presume you mean by a basic one) allows you to own shotguns and rifles, which can be semi-automatics. However, they cannot be a MSSA, a military style semi auto. Which an AR-15 is, unless you modify a number of components.
I expect that certain configurations of the AR-15 are not MSSA, mainly if you got rid of the pistol grip and any magazine with the appearance of containing more than 10 rounds. And the expanding stock. So you can have an AR-15, it'll just look and feel like a sporting rifle.
I've never known anyone with a category A to own a AR-15, or anything resembling one. People with a category E, sure, but they are often ex-military. They also tend to have things that are much more potentially dangerous than a semi-auto. The closest was a hunter I knew who used a Dragunov under a cat A, until they reclassified it as a MSSA, at which point she got a category E.
The aussie laws seem pretty much the same, in that people who need guns for work (farmers and hunters) can get semi-auto rifles and shotguns. IIRC it's actually easier to get a pistol licence in OZ than NZ, the NZ cops being paranoid about handguns, even if they where blank firers. So semi-autos are not banned in aussie, they are (tightly) licenced. As compared to the UK, where pistols are flat banned, even for sport.
There is also the point that for many negative purposes, it's irrelevant if a gun is semi-auto or bolt/lever action, or if the shotgun holds 2, 5 or 8 rounds. It'll still serve as a tool for a standover man or for killing a family member.
* in my case, I couldn't use or purchase live ammo for stage guns. Which are mainly modified to only fire blanks anyway.
There seems to be a massive disconnect happening, though it is probably deliberate.
Military style automatic weapons are NOT available almost anywhere without strict licensing; and they are rarely used for massacres. This latest for example was carried out with a "normal" handgun. The recent Florida school incident was pistols and non-military style long guns.
Assault weapon is bullshit speak. If you mean a military looking weapon, the difference is irrelevant if it is not automatic. That is simply wedge politics.
So say what you mean, banning guns means banning hand guns, and be quite clear, what you mean is that you want to make it illegal to have a gun - so only illegals will have them.
"No, Australia banned semi-auto rifles entirely."
But it allowed licences for normal firearms, so yes. All firearms are potentially deadly. Its just that assault rifles have no legitimate civilIan use.
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Semi-automatic rifles are normal firearms.
With a very few exceptions like .50 calibre sniper rifles, military rifles are NOT semi-automatic.
While assault rifles do have legitimate civilian uses, they are very very rare, usually unavailable, and do not figure in the sorts of shootings under discussion.
"And despite all the AR15s around (and they are readily available to anyone with a basic firearms license),"
Licensing firearms is exactly what Australia did. So you did the same and have similar benefits.
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No, Australia banned most modern firearms, leaving only a few relatively archaic types based on principles in use for more than a century.
Excerpts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_licence_(New_Zealand) with comments:
"Licences are issued at the discretion of the police. The possession of firearms is considered a privilege, rather than a right."
So, already far stricter than the USA.
"The "general" (or "type A") licence gives permission to own and use "sporting configuration" firearms. A sporting configuration firearm is a rifle or shotgun that does not meet the legal definition of any of a Military-Style Semi-Automatic (MSSA)"
Directly contradicts your assertion that AR15s are available to anyone with a basic license.
Can any Kiwis around here confirm whether GrumpyKiwi or Wikipedia is right on this?
Excerpts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_licence_(New_Zealand) with comments:
"Licences are issued at the discretion of the police. The possession of firearms is considered a privilege, rather than a right."
That's a broadly similar regime to the UK. If you do not have a criminal record, it is not difficult to get an FAC in the UK.
The fact that NZ licenses are "may issue" not "shall issue" does not imply that the bar for "may" is especially high.
"That's a broadly similar regime to the UK. If you do not have a criminal record, it is not difficult to get an FAC in the UK."
An FAC good for what?
Maybe you can get a shotgun, or a bolt action rifle, but more interesting firearms are difficult or impossible to get.
Even the British Olympic pistol team can't practice in Britain!
They have to go to another country to shoot at paper targets, yet I will wager that not one of them is likely to shoot anyone.
Madness.
Allan George, as an anonymous Kiwi, the AR-15 style weapon is NOT an MSSA which is quite restrictively defined. GrumpyKiwi is far more correct than wiki, which is pretty much the usual state of affairs concerning politicized matters on wiki.
If you have a basic license, you can get an AR15 "style" weapon. I have just that. So wiki is not so much wrong as misleading and no doubt intentionally so.
"If you have a basic license, you can get an AR15 "style" weapon."
What exactly do you mean by that?
The AR-15 is adaptable into pretty much any format, and it's very obvious that in certain configurations it is indeed not a MSSA.
But most people consider a "AR-15 style" to have some distinctive features, such as a pistol grip or a telescopic stock. Either of which will make it a MSSA. Even putting a suppressor on a semi-auto will make it a MSSA, although in practice this is often ignored (depending how much you've pissed of the inspecting officer).
So if the grip does not project lower than the trigger guard, and there is no thumb hole, and your stock is fixed, and you only have 7 round capacity magazines, and no suppressor then you don't really have a "AR-15 style" gun, you have a "hunting rifle" style gun.
But if you've managed to purchase a pistol gripped semi auto on a cat A licence, please let us and your local plod know, since they will want to have words with you and the dealer.
As I said before, never known anyone in NZ who owned a MSSA or had a pistol gripped semi-auto that didn't have a cat E licence.
@ Allen George
For those interestedin exactly what you can and can't own in NZ and under what conditions, the NZ police site is at :
http://www.police.govt.nz/advice/firearms/approved-firearms
The list on the site is out of date, but the excel spreadsheet is fairly up to date.
There are roughly 140 AR-15 rifles listed (and a pistol designated AR15). Of those, there are 2 models that are banned, 2 that require a C licence (performance, one of those is a full auto) and three that can be used with an A class (they conveniently have A class in their description), with the remainder requiring an E class licence.
All the models that I'd recognise as an AR-15 (Colt, Armalite, Bushmaster etc) are E catagory.
What is odd (to me) is that I can't find any images of those A-cat weapons that don't consist of them having a collapsible stock and a pistol grip. Either of which make them a MSSA, as per here:
http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/online-version/important-changes-arms-act-1983-semi-automatic-firearm-air-rifle
Wiki is pretty good here, since it appears to just be straight copy pasta. Despite what certain AC posters might want you to believe....
"MSSA describes a self-loading rifle or shotgun with one or more of the following features:
- Folding or telescopic butt
- Magazine that holds, or is detachable and has the appearance of holding, more than 15 cartridges for .22 rimfire
- Magazine that holds more than 7 cartridges, or is detachable and has the appearance of holding more than 10 cartridges for other than .22 rimfire
- Bayonet lug
- Pistol grip as defined by Order in Council
- Flash suppressor."
Self loading = semi auto. Although a rifle that loaded it's own magazine would be pretty sweet :)
I notice that London's murder rate for a recent period surpassed New York's. Weapon of choice in London seems to be a knife, which limits the ability for mass muder. But it does illustrate that those with murder in their heart will find a way.
It appears that it might be a statistical quirk. I guess time will tell if that's the case.
"Yes, but as you say, the tools limit the awfulness of the outcomes. Someone with a knife may injure or kill a few if they're really determined, but nowhere near as many as they would with an automatic military weapon"
AFAIK, none or almost none of the incidents in question involved automatic military weapons.
This is a confusion deliberately encouraged by gun control advocates, who seem to have no problem lying about important policy issues.
"Weapon of choice in London seems to be a knife, which limits the ability for mass murder."
Does it? Do you have metal detectors every place people gather in large groups? I would think you could kill a lot of people with an ice pick, some place like a crowded club or concert, before anyone even noticed what you were doing. And when does it become 'mass' murder?
And when does it become 'mass' murder?
The FBI definition is here about 20% down the page as contrasted against the definition of serial murder. To save you the time, it states:
"Generally, mass murder was described as a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders."
"gun crimes went down, due to less guns - yep. Violent crime did not, and rapes went up"
Due to fewer guns I think you mean. And the increase in rape was due largely to the increase in immigration at that time. No Australian women are asking for guns to protect against rape. The overwhelming majority of gun owners were always men anyway.
Maybe the solution is to ban fire then?
Because solving the societal problems seems to be out of the question...
Guns dont kill people. They are a power multiplier.
If you remove guns, you WILL reduce deaths, but will still have plenty of murders if you dont fix the problems that society has.
The US is a very violent society, and without guns, would still be. they will then ban knives, as in the UK, and crime will still happen, and since you can ban you having them in the street, but no buying them (as we do need them in the kitchen, etc) they wont go away.
"Er, there have been mass shootings in Australia since. And the mass murder rate is unchanged before and after the big massacre - there are more killings by arson now than before the firearms restriction, and fewer by shooting."
-----------------------------------------------
The most dangerous mass attacks do not use firearms, but rather things like fertilizer (example - Oklahoma City, 168 dead, 680 injured) or trucks (example - Nice, 86 dead, 458 injured), or box cutters (New York city, 2,999 dead, 6,000+ injured).
If you are going to have a mass attack, pray that they limit themselves to a gun, and don't use something worse. Successfully removing guns from the equation would probably increase the casualty count.
You could try banning fertilizer and trucks, but an hour's thought will come up with a number of things more dangerous. New York city took a lot of planning, but you don't even have to buy the truck or SUV, and if you did, there are no federal background checks.
"Lots of evidence"
Really because lots of "facts" prove that it doesnt do one bit of difference.
People in Australia and Britain like to say stuff like that "we havent had an issue since"
Thing is... it was never an issue to start with.
Here in Britain we had ONE incident that was a complete and utter failure of the state (police force) to enforce the rules that were already in place and then everyone else had to loose their rights to defend themselves.
The result was a 20 year peak of violent gun crime in the UK which had never been seen before, to which we are only now just dropped back to where they were before the ban. net result = zero - we are no safer than we were before.
In fact we are probably worse off, since we HAVE to relay on the Benny Hill Police who seem more interested in policing twitter and youtube for wrong think rather than go after actual criminals because their skin might be a different colour.
@ Anonymous Coward
It's still easy to get firearms licence in the UK
I live out in the sticks, all the farming people I know have shotguns (with valid licence) for pest control etc.
Though shotguns are not that useful for "spree" style mass murder as 2 shots then reload needed, short (effective) range, etc.
Well Hungerford and Dunblane spring to mind (thats 100% more than your estimate) so clearly you haven't done your research.... There have been others as well. Also how do you know we're no safer than we were before, not a very logical argument, that assumes that without the changes there wouldn't have been more massacres an interesting premise.
"...For instance Australia made many firearms illegal and removed them from circulation... ...And no more mass shootings to date..."
Funny, my Aussie friends and family say the reason for this is due to politically motivated under-reporting and reclassification of what is labeled a mass shooting - kind of like what we did here in the USA but the other way. Now we call one person shooting three others (rather than 4 or more) a "mass shooting", and the Australians need at least 6 for something to be called a mass shooting. Not exactly a level playing field to declare Job Done IMHO...
Grant Duwe has a study of mass murder from the 1900's on to the 1990's in the USA and (paraphrasing) showed that the rate of mass-murder has not appreciably changed in 100 years, even though the weapons changed (in the 1930's semi-automatic pistols became more common and cheap - thanks WW2 for the weapons development). It basically shows what we have empirically observed from recent international attempts on gun reduction - mass murders are only a small percentage of murder in total, and the weapon used follows a similar distribution between mass and simple murder. Changing access to various killing technology/means has no observable effect on the murder rate in total or the basic fraction of mass-murders relative to simple-murders.
Actually, it was WWI to make the machine gun cheap and available. US had in the 1920s one of the worst periods of violence, facilitated by gangs shooting at each other with machine guns - like the Thompson - not semi-automatic pistols.
Not surprisingly, that lead to the National Firearms Act of 1934.
Also, you have to check at the type of murders. Murders among criminals are far harder to stop. But what makes US apart, is the large number of innocent people shot just because they are in the wrong place in the wrong time. How many countries have people entering offices, hospitals or schools and opening fire on people there?
Take Italy, for example. It has a fairly high rate of murderers among criminals, and crime-related ones. It has no school shootings.
"...Actually, it was WWI to make the machine gun cheap and available. US had in the 1920s one of the worst periods of violence, facilitated by gangs shooting at each other with machine guns - like the Thompson - not semi-automatic pistols..."
Right but you have to separate that surge from the general trend as that spike was due to an obvious cause: prohibition. Make something illegal, and there will be money to be made in selling it illegally anyway, and that caused organized groups to form, who then fought each other. In fact, we learned that lesson so well, that we repealed prohibition and the organized crime stats crashed again. We also got the FBI out of that period, and the beginnings of the CIA.
Duwe did a fabulous job isolating what he terms "mass public shootings" from other types of shootings - if you wanted to lump all types of shootings in there, for example we'd have the Civil War battles (over >600K dead) and the Native American Massacre (millions, estimated, dead - 4K just in ONE Cherokee "death march" along the trail of tears) at the hands of the US Army in the mix - which would make every mass public shooting since 1900 look like a warm gentle Sunday brunch by comparison.
Again, individual murder, and the fraction of that which can be defined as a mass public shooting has not appreciably changed in over 100 years, merely the weapon has - and removing that weapon will have the same effect it had in other locations we've observed empirically - the killings would simply switch back to other means. And you're still statistically likely to know your killer by over 80% if murdered or mass-killed. The biggest effect on spikes over that 100 year sample in the USA was socioeconomic influences.
"...Use your emotions man!..."
Argh!! Anger!! Fury!! (better? ;-) )
I remember once coming upon a severe car crash. I got on the phone to 911 (local emergency number), calmly described the location, and the circumstances of the crash, and began controlling the scene so that there weren't any secondary accidents that might hurt me or the other people who had also stopped to help. When the CHP showed up and the fire department, they took a statement and took over scene control. Right before I was cleared to leave by the officer, I received a comment "You're pretty calm for having just seen all that" - I replied, "Would it have helped if I freaked out?"
If I were to believe in wishes, my only one would be that people stopped and thought a bit before running around screaming and flailing. We humans can be pretty smart if we give ourselves a chance to use our brains...
Cheers ;-)
And no more mass shootings to date.
I thought we were all educated people here. What's the statistical significance of a singular event?
Same as the UK. "We banned pistols and haven't had another school shooting". No, but we hadn't had one in the preceding 150 years either when ownership was widespread.
There is in fact lots of evidence that tough gun laws do stop this stuff.
And there's lots of other evidence that they don't.
Places like Switzerland manage a very low gun crime rate coupled with very high levels of gun ownership [1].
London has, on limited metrics, overtaken New York for murders, despite very low levels of gun ownership in London and comparatively high levels in New York. Yes, the metric used is selective, but the numbers are at the least comparable. [2]
America has about 33k road traffic fatalities per year [3] and about 9k gun related homicides [4]. Only 6% of those homicides were by legally held firearms. [5]
Thus it is far from clear that in America guns are a significant problem and that legally held firearms are not the real problem. Tightening gun laws does literally nothing about the 94% of murders committed with an illegally held firearm. Nothing at all.
This won't be a popular post, but lots of people don't like facts treading all over their emotions. Go read the citations - you're entitled to your own views but not your own facts.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Switzerland#Firearm-related_deaths
2 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43628494
3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
5 - https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-gun-homicides-in-the-US-are-committed-using-legally-owned-firearms
I'm sure that sugar pill taste good, but does it really work?
Rape became much more common, do you have children?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-29/could-australia-learn-from-the-us-on-gun-control/8853380
https://www.mrctv.org/blog/dont-be-fooled-claims-aussie-and-uk-gun-bans-lowered-violent-crime-or-gun-homicides
For instance Australia made many firearms illegal and removed them from circulation. And there was a substantial reduction in gun crime and gun related homicidesFor instance Australia made many firearms illegal and removed them from circulation. And there was a substantial reduction in gun crime and gun related homicides.
Meanwhile there was zero impact on total homicides for a decade after they did that. So no, their gun laws didn't make a bit of difference. Unless you're so foolish as to think being stabbed to death is somehow better than being shot that is.
Also meanwhile there are nations out there with far more gun owners per capita (note:owners, not guns, since American gun owners tend to own several guns) than America with much lower gun crime rates and countries with far fewer gun owners per capita with much higher gun crime rates. The problem in America is NOT guns. It's clearly cultural. And to be clear I'm not blaming violent movies or video games or any such stupidity. Somewhere along the line in the last 50 years or so the American people as a whole have forgotten the value of human lives. THAT is our root problem, and it's the same problem that has plagued the Middle East for hundreds or thousands of years. Taking away the guns won't fix that.
If by some miracle you manage to take the guns away - which might actually be politically possible for the first time ever right now - then we'll just start seeing more mass stabbings (which, statistically, are just as deadly, at least from the research I've done on the subject) and bombings.
Gun control in America is, at best, a stop-gap measure and at worst disarming only the law abiding citizens. There is a root cause of the problem that needs to be dealt with and it is demonstrably NOT guns.
That's not to say that gun control is necessarily a bad idea in the short term, but it is absolutely not going to stop the madness on its own.
>>Well in situations like this it is either a pissed off spouse, or an out-of-sorts employee.
Thats the trigger not the root cause.
The root cause seems to be on here. nasimesabz.com . This is her, the shooter's, website. If you don't have enough courage to look at it, then here's some of her statements.
"My Revenue For 300,000 Views Is $0.10?????" in referring to her mostly vegan, PETA videos over 28 days.
"This video got age restricted after new close-minded youtube employees, got control of my farsi youtube channel last year 2016 & began filtering my videos"
"There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!"
Along with a banner on her channel stating her channel is no longer eligible for monetization, it is not hard to see youtube's direct or indirect actions as the root cause.
But to avoid shallow judgement, let's see if there is anymore follow-up information on the victims' relationship with the shooter, and any attempts from youtube trying to hide the shooter's opinion about youtube.
"it is not hard to see youtube's direct or indirect actions as the root cause."
Are you suggesting this is possibly a reasonable response?
It's also possible to speculate she had a serious, undiagnosed mental illness that was the root cause.
Unfortunately it is going to be a little hard to find out now.
"A third option given that it is YT would be someone aggrieved about the abysmal rates per video stream."
When I first read the above comment in the ealy hours, I thought it just a bit of a dig at youtube. Since then the article has been updated with the following:
"she was, according to her family, "angry" that YouTube had stopped paying her for her online videos and had taken down her material."
:-o
Is America the only country on the entire planet to have these 'root causes'?
Startlingly poor public healthcare, lower life-expectancy than most of Europe, diminishing standards of public education, increasingly militarised Police force.
Not unique to America, but increasingly rare in the OECD and not something that they appear to be making great strides towards fixing.
Combined with a cultural obsession with "prepping", frontier-ship, Second Amendment, etc makes for a heady mix.
"Yes. As The Onion has said: "‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens""
Nonsense. The nearest country to the US where this regularly happens is about zero inches away from the US.... and it is far from the only one.
Mexico has very strict gun laws, with limits on guns, ammunition, calibers, and types.
There is only one gun store in the country, run by the military. The wait to get one can be months, maybe years.
Importation of guns and ammunition is strictly controlled, with severe penalties for violation. Inadvertently importing a single round can land you in prison for five years.
.................................
The murder rate in Mexico> 22.7 per 100,000.
In the US> 4,88 per 100,000.
Nope: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-third-murders/
Interesting link, so thanks for posting it.
I'm genuinely suprised to find the murder rate in the USA only ranks it as 110th highest in the world. Perhaps then, it doesn't have the problem its perceived as having, as its in the bottom half of the world for murder rate, yet has one of the highest rates of gun ownership.
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Ummm...they have snow plows. The freeways are passable much of the winter. The Donner party had conestoga wagons and no heaters.
Reno is not really that far away from the SF area given it's a popular venue for gambling.
There are folks living in the mountains and in the central valley that need firearms to deal with coyotes or mountain lions. In the sierra nevada mountains, while living there, it was common to encounter ne'er-do-wells who counted on the sheriff being 30-50 minutes away.
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Here in Canada you cannot just walk in and buy an assault gun over the counter at your local Walmart store. That seems to solve a lot of problems.
In fact, the Canadian government is currently tightening laws (or may have happened already) to reintroduce licencing registration after the supreme court, for some bizarre reason, shot it down in 2012 (pun intended). Guns seem fun, I would be up for trying them at a shooting range, but as far as I'm concerned they should be something drug gangs (to be used only against other gangs, please), farmers and hunters buy solely.
"...Here in Canada you cannot just walk in and buy an assault gun over the counter at your local Walmart store..."
We can't either here in California, but this was a pistol - so what's your point?
Of course you can't legally call a transgender whatever by whatever pronoun they don't like either - and good luck knowing that beforehand! How am I supposed to know that 6'5" muscular thing in the corner of a bar with a full beard and chest hair expects to be called Mary? Out here in the sane world assuming that is more likely to get your face punched in... I'll stick with the Bill of Rights thanks, keep your flavor of crazy up there. ;-) Cheers.
"but as far as I'm concerned they should be something drug gangs (to be used only against other gangs, please)"
As we are seeing in London, drugs, guns and knives lead to collateral damage. Because drug addled teenagers are not the best shots or the best judges of who is threatening them.
paper, this is Scissors, what do you consider an "assault gun"? Classification in the US is fully auto, which is illegal for 99.99999% of people in the US. The permit to own one takes years, is denied to all but the richest collectors, and so rare they garner very high prices. Much cheaper to buy a dozen 1930's revolvers and just drop them as they empty. Get your head out of your ass.
"In fact, the Canadian government is currently tightening laws (or may have happened already) to reintroduce licencing registration after the supreme court, for some bizarre reason, shot it down in 2012"
+ + + + + + + +
The current Liberal government is currently pushing through stupid legislation that will have zero safety effect... indeed quite the opposite.
The theory seems to be that the more inconvenient you can make things, the more people will think you are doing something useful. Gun control theater is about as useful as other forms of security theater and serves the same purpose - to get votes from the gullible by making it look as is you are doing something useful.
Most of the gun violence is related to gang activity and legislation is not going to stop someone who is already going to murder a rival gang member.
Harassing non criminal gun owners by the million just distracts from dealing with the gang problem, which is in a large part the result of legal prohibitions on other things. Banning drugs and illegal cigarettes doesn't work, so banning important tools of those trades is highly unlikely to be any more useful.
Thanks to the lackwits in the current government, the next time I need to take one of my firearms in for servicing I am going to have to call the gunsmith, set up an appointment, then call the RCMP and request a permit to do so, and when I get it, pack it in with the gun, and take it to the gunsmith. It is not clear if I have to do the same again for the return trip. This makes no one any safer, and if it dissuades people from arranging regular maintenance, it risks causing accidents... not the smartest policy in the name of safety.
This is totally meaningless, and like many Liberal policies, likely to have unintended consequences. I do take some pleasure in contemplating a previous Liberal attempt at unannounced gun control...
In order to discourage gun ownership the Liberals invalidated all the firearms licences in the country, forcing everyone with a firearm to take a new course, a new set of tests, and apply for a new licence. In order to discourage gun ownership, they threw in as many subjects as they could into the course. Fewer than one in a thousand of us, for example, need to know about black powder weapons (which, ironically, may not be classified as firearms at all).
In a moment of ironic justice, the nusiance of having to do that all over gave people with non-restricted licences (long arms) to not only redo the long arm licence, but also do the rest for a handgun licence as well, for little extra motivation. The number of handgun licences skyrocketed, and having gone through the annoyance of re-licensing, many decided to put the new licence to good use. The number of handguns followed the number of licences, and there are now probably about five times as many handguns as there were before, and significantly more owners with such guns, including me.
This massive spike in handgun ownership had the logical result - the number of firearms deaths continued to decline, because it is not the guns that cause the violence. A year or two ago the rate of gun homicides dropped below the rate of knife homicides... and total homicides are still far fewer than many other causes of death.
So, don't worry about the guns. Worry about traffic accidents, health care, literacy (one of the things that actually reduce crime), and rehabilitation of young criminals.
"Here in Canada you cannot just walk in and buy an assault gun over the counter"
I don't know any place you can buy an assault gun over the counter, at least not without totally destroying the counter. The lightest one I can think of ran about 10 tons, and most ran 20+ tons.
When you are talking about a technical subject, ignorance of accurate terminology inevitably leads to doubt about the level of understanding involved.
Confusing an AR15 with an assault gun is like confusing a bicycle with an 18-wheeler.
An AR15 isn't really an assault anything, and in some countries it is still prohibited, not that that would do anything useful.
No. People are unaccountable, guns are amplifiers of their bad behavior. I live in NYC and I cannot tell you how happy I am that our laws make it possible for me to ride the subway knowing that the nutcase sitting across from me (probably) isn't carrying a gun. As evidenced in other countries around the world, strong gun laws and removal of guns and gun-worship from everyday life actually do prevent the sort of gun violence we experience in the US.
For example, violent gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2016:
Japan: 0.04
U.K.: 0.07
USA: 3.85
For example, violent gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2016:
Japan: 0.04
U.K.: 0.07
USA: 3.85
So, for context, Europe is broadly in the 0.2-0.8 bracket:
- Germany: 0.07
- Norway: 0.1
- Czech Republic: 0.16 (despite allowing Concealed Carry!)
- Sweden: 0.19
- France: 0.22
- Italy: 0.35
- Greece: 0.53
- Netherlands: 0.58
- Serbia: 0.61
- Macedonia: 0.91
- Cyprus: 1.02
You don't want to live in NYC. NY State Firearm Homicides are >4 per 100k, greater than the US average of 3.85.
In fact, citing "UK, Japan, US" numbers is utterly meaningless because the US is enormous. You'd be safer in a state with nice, permissive firearms laws like New Hampshire (0.53), South Dakota (0.68), Vermont (0.75) or Hawaii (0.07) which are all on a par or better than the Netherlands.
The US Average of 3.85 firearm homicides per 100k people is towed up by Louisiana (10.16!) but the top spot goes to that wretched hive of scum and villainy you call your capital - the District of Columbia has 12.46 firearm homicides per 100k people.
Honourable mentions also go to Michigan (5.06 - think Detroit), Arkansas (4.39), Missouri (4.64), Georgia (3.93), and California (3.25, despite having some of the strictest firearms regs in the US)
I remember a newspaper cartoon of a vendor at the subway entrance selling Bernard Getz masks which were being eagerly bought by commuters.
The mild mannered Getz had been driven to shooting a few of the thugs who were regularly steaming the carriages. Steaming = mugging everyone in the carriage and moving on to the next.
Strict gun control in one state, one city or a gun-free zone in a country that is awash with guns and where guns are nearly as easy to come by as a cappuccino? Of course gun controls are ineffective when they're about as relevant as a sign saying "Please don't shoot your guns here. Thank you for your cooperation."
I mean, US gun controls are only as good as the weakest link in the system and that isn't California. It will be a neighbouring state with far, far weaker controls.
Of all places??? what a dumb statement.
Cali has quite a lot of guns and quite a lot of gun ranges. Getting a handgun is quite simple, anyone says it isn't obviously hasn't visited. Heck when I was over a couple of years ago I was sihned in as a guest to a club so that I could play - technically that wasn't allowed but it never seemed to worry the club.
So many folk mentioning the AR - and rightly so, but this wasn't a shooting with an AR this was with a hand gun. This person could of been licensed for years before deciding to shoot up youtube.
I know it's an emotive debate amongst some people - the bottom line is guns are fun, they go bang loudly and you don't need to be skilled to operate them. that doesn't make them OK
When I said, "Of all places" I didn't mean California. I meant a big ass corporation headquarters building like Youtube has. Do they have no security to stop people who don't belong there from walking in and blasting away? I'm not sure why I mentioned Cali's strict gun laws, probably a programmed response or something.
To be clear, I haven't owned a firearm in about 20 years, and have served honorably in the US Military. I don't own one to defend myself, because (here it comes) I have faith. Should I be afraid of someone killing me and sending me to heaven? Nah. And if there's no heaven and I just cease to exist, once I'm dead I won't be around to care. So there really isn't anything to fear. Sorry, the whiskey is talking, I better press submit quick!
Except the amendments that have been repealed have all been things that you can't do (eg, prohibition), or making slaves free and such like that.
The Bill of Rights don't give you the rights. The Bill of Rights explicitly state that the rights are something that you're born with. The amendments are to tell the government what they CAN'T do with those rights. So repealing the 2nd doesn't exactly take those rights away. It would unshackle the government though, sure.
"...The US constitution has been amended dozens of times before so no reason why that couldn't happen..."
Well, not recently it hasn't - and the amendment process is littered with failed amendment attempts in the last 100 years alone. Heck, we couldn't make Washington D.C. a "State", have never ratified the Child Labor amendment, or the Equal Rights amendment. The problem is that touching the Constitution requires an essentially undivided national opinion to get passed - 2/3 in The House, 2/3 in The Senate, then 3/4 of the states (38 out of 50) must ratify. Last thing we states agreed on that much was for blocking Congressional pay raises until after they NEXT election (those greedy bastards!!) - and that sat over 200 years before it was ratified... Gun control is not the kind of thing some rabble rouser president with an optimistic agenda is going to "go to Washington to get done"...
"Gun control is not the kind of thing some rabble rouser president with an optimistic agenda is going to "go to Washington to get done"..."
Even from outside, it looks like an impossible struggle to get any sort of Federal lead on gun control since the amendment relating to gun ownership and a "well armed militia" is something the states are supposed to regulate in case of corrupt or otherwise "bad" federal government. It was intended to be a states defence against increased federation, eg Trump declaring himself King of America.
"The US constitution has been amended dozens of times before so no reason why that couldnt (sic) happen."
There is: any amendment requires a 2/3 majority in both houses, followed by ratification of 3/4 of the state legislatures (i.e. 38 states, currently). Those conditions would apply even if you wanted to amend the amending formula, which effort would likely meet with as much opposition as would an attempt to repeal -- or even amend -- the 2nd (e.g. change "shall" to "may"). The second amendment won't ever be repealed. It won't ever be amended. Forget that avenue entirely. It's a lost cause. What you're left with is reason. Apply that. But don't get all shirty if you can't convince individuals to give up their guns. And don't manipulate people with emotion and think-like-the-children. They're on to that tactic.
Then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.
This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
Can one "learn empathy"?
I've always thought empathy was a capacity one either has or lacks. Sociopaths can learn to fake it, but learn it? I'm not sure that makes any more sense than thinking you can legislate better understanding of [insert your favorite hot-button social issue].
">>...Can one "learn empathy"?
>I've always thought empathy was a capacity one either has or lacks. Sociopaths can learn to fake it, but learn it?..."
I also read a study that showed that having Sociopaths around is good for critical/difficult decision making, especially in a crisis requiring triage. If everyone "understood and shared the feelings of" everyone else, we could not ever pass a law that "negatively affects" someone else... Like everything else in life, empathy and sociopathy is good in moderation - logic and reason have to be allowed entry into a discussion between multiple people groups of people and the realization that for the greater good some bad must be allowed to exist/occur.
I'd like to see logic and ethics back in the required course classes for primary and degree diplomas... I feel the absence of that might have had a negative effect on our most recent generations.
Is there anything stopping someone legally buying something like an AR-15 (insert over-powered gun of choice instead) in one state then driving to California to use it? I'm assuming there are a bunch of laws against possession of said weapon in CA, but if they're intending to shoot up people with it, those laws aren't really going to stop them....
"Nothing, but it's really sure of a lot easier to just build one with a drill press"
There speaks someone who presumably has little experience of either metallurgy or working metal. There is quite a big gap between being able to drill a hole in a piece of metal, and being able to make a workable gun.
Give me a proper lathe and a milling machine, and access to some decent steel stock, and I might eventually get there.
"Nothing, but it's really sure of a lot easier to just build one with a drill press than it is to drive the hundreds of miles to another state."
------------------------------
Or you could go to the right bar, and save yourself the gas and the time. As long as drugs are illegal, there will be guns available as a mandatory adjunct to that trade, and the transport and distribution systems to move them where they can be sold.
RE: "Is there anything stopping someone legally buying something like an AR-15 (insert over-powered gun of choice instead) in one state then driving to California to use it? "
I live in Tennessee. Tennessee is known as the state that likes to shoot stuff. I live in a semi rural area and regularly hear what sound to be automatic weapons being fired somewhere in the woods around here. The neighbours shot guns in the air the night that Trump was elected. I have seen the most ridiculous guns being sold at a local flea market, no checks at all being applied. As long as there are states like this no amount of controls in other states will make the slightest difference anywhere. You better not diss me, now: I can git guns!
"We should probably outlaw knives. And explosives. I hear they're dangerous as well. Acid attacks are on the rise. Probably we should outlaw acid as well."
But those things have legitimate uses other than inflicting injury. Assault rifles exist solely to kill rapidly and efficiently.
Carrying a knife in a public place without a lawful reason is already outlawed in the UK. "I'm carrying it to defend myself" is not considered a lawful reason. It is an offence to sell a knife to anyone under 18. There are also plans to restrict the availability of corrosive substances like acids to make it harder to use it for criminal purposes - in much the same way that sale of poisons has been regulated since, I believe, Victorian times.
And before anyone says "Cars kill and injure loads of people....", yes they do, but every vehicle is licensed and registered to its owner. Making motor vehicles more tightly controlled even in the US, than, errr, guns.
Is there anything stopping someone legally buying something like an AR-15 (insert over-powered gun of choice instead) in one state then driving to California to use it? I'm assuming there are a bunch of laws against possession of said weapon in CA, but if they're intending to shoot up people with it, those laws aren't really going to stop them....
Depends where you're from. If you have Californian ID/are a Cali resident, then you can't just hop into another state to buy guns - they won't sell to an out-of-stater (or at least, nothing that would be banned in Cali). Conversely, there is nothing other than the law preventing a Nevadan (for instance) from driving in with their Nevada-legal guns other than the law and the risk of being pulled over on a traffic stop.
YMMV, Federal law only goes so far and the rest depends on state rules and reciprocity agreements.
Correct observation, but incomplete conclusion. Local laws only go so far. Forex, Chicago has strong gun laws, but is surrounded by states that practically encourage gun massacres, and of course people aren't checked at the border when they go from state to state. It's a bit like designating a non-smoking area of a restaurant in the same room where others are smoking.
What's needed is a more comprehensive program on a national level. This has worked in several other countries, and it's needed badly here in the US.
You had to put in the current liberal hate object of the AR-15 which is completely wrong.
She did not use this "bad evil AR-15" you speak of.
California already has more gun control rules (most of them stupid) than most of the Democrats wildest dreams.
If you go to a gun store in another state to buy a gun with California identification, they will most likely deny your purchase.
I'm assuming there are a bunch of laws against possession of said weapon in CA, but if they're intending to shoot up people with it, those laws aren't really going to stop them....
Presently reports show she used a 9mm handgun and there is no reason to believe she bought it out of state (that would be illegal after all). Not that any of it really matters when one of the biggest gun banners in Cali got busted for running guns. I've often wondered if the real goal of gun bans was simply to up the racketeer's profit margin.
What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another? :(
That'll never happen. Humans will always find a reason to kill each other. Whether it is religion, politics or just plain fun we will always kill each other.
We have killed each other since we learned how to thousands of years ago and it is not going to change any time soon.
Sad but true.
Whereas on HackerNews a news title quickly got renamed to "Google maps shows location of San Bruno shooting" and flagged (=hidden): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16749434
Next was a news title "Woman opens fire at YouTube headquarters (www.msn.com)" that got quickly deleted by the admins: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16750944
And another news popped up "Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751608
"What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another?"
Relinquishing US citizenship seems to be one of the things that helps. Being 12th in the world for gun deaths and first in the world for gun ownership (more guns than people) isn't a great start in the "wanting to kill each other" stakes. It's also not gun ownership of itself that's leading to the appalling record in the USA. Norway, for example has one gun for every three people but has a firearm homicide rate (per 100,000) that is just 6% that of the USA. So the real factors in firearm homicide seem to be guns + murrican.
Interestingly most of the top 12 places in firearms deaths are taken by countries in the Americas/Caribbean. The only exception being Swaziland. Y'all need to calm (the fsck) down.
What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another? :(
And I was thinking this was a disgruntled person that had an issue with the demonetization idea that google has pushed lately. Sounds like there are some folks that might have issue with it when they got the notice a few months ago.
With this possibly being a family feud, not sure the whys or wheres that could be behind it.
"What has to happen for people to stop wanting to kill one another?"
Total mandatory cryogenic storage.
Hominins and their ancestors have been killing one another billions of years before homo sapiens evolved.
There is no reason to expect it to stop.
Indeed, it is not clear that total personal pacifism is a survival trait in a species.
"huh odd how you didn't mention female wearing headscarf. almost as if you were afraid of providing description."
We've been providing updates throughout the afternoon as soon as we were able to confirm them, rather than spread rumor and gossip. We've included details of the suspected shooter.
"also. no fatalities as of this time. odd how that wasn't in article either."
One fatality: the gunwoman. And other injuries were reported accurately.
C.
It's the 21st century, we should be, err, humbled to see that we have achieved equal-opportunity gun-mass-shooting perpetrators. We men were starting to look like the bad ones, so it's, err, terrifyingly relieving to have a woman join the league of crazy-people-who-should-not-have-been-allowed-to-buy-guns!
"Wait, animal rights activists... killing people?! Slightly ironic, no?"
Maybe not, in their mind.
I've known animal rights activists (debated with them for years) who were hoping for a pandemic flu to wipe out humans so we would stop bothering the animals.
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> it's not perfect in the UK but shootings are far less common than the US
Shootings might be less common but the murder rate in London is now on a par with New York.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43610936
There seems to be a segment of society who are unable to resolve or defuse disputes at an early stage but inflame them instead, rapidly resulting in one or both sides resorting to violence. I blame video games [1] - too many 1st person shooters and players not getting enough interaction with real people.
[1] I don't - but I'm thinking of becoming a politician.
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Hmmm, not sure about the downvote for correcting your comment. The BBC article referenced by 2+2=5 stated the murder rate for London was higher in both February and March, not just one month, as you wrote.
Aside from this, that the murder rate in London was higher than NY for a couple of months is surely a measure of NY's success, not that London is becoming more violent.
https://www.amny.com/news/nyc-homicides-record-low-1.15725051
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1st person shooters, or video gaming of any type, have no long term impact on violent behaviour. This has been confirmed over an over.
The few studies that have been done that did show a link, usually sponsored by anti-video gaming groups, academics have later said the methodology of the research was deeply flawed, due to for example lack of peer review.
Video games are no more harmful than reading a violent book or watching a Tarantino movie, anyone saying otherwise is just deluded, incorrect, or just making up excuses for failings elsewhere.
Agreed that video games don't cause behavior. On the other hand for somebody that already has that behavior, they make damn good simulators to get proficient at killing! The military even uses them.
I personally blame the increase in shootings on big pharma, especially SSRIs. When Chantix, a stop smoking drug, causes people to wake up somewhere and they have no clue how they got there, what they did along the way, etc, and somehow is deemed perfectly safe by the FDA, you just have the wonder.
You obviously didn't read the full post.
The reference to videogames:
I blame video games [1]...
Contains this highly technical(/s) thing known as a footnote reference. And if you followed that reference to the end of the post (the rest of this final sentence away!), i.e. the 'foot' of the post, you would have see the footnote which provided further clarification on the author's text:
[1] I don't - but I'm thinking of becoming a politician.
Majority of all gun deaths are suicides and accidents (at least in Australia gun control reduced these far more than homicides). NYC also has fairly strict gun laws and a similar heavy police presence as London. NYC is a bit of an outlier of major US cities with a low murder rate. Here is the other extreme.
#1. St. Louis, Missouri
Murder rate per 100k people: 59.29
Number of reported murders (2015): 188
Population: 317,095
Homicide rate varies all over the map depending on your zip code in the US. The one of the 50 states I live in is twice the land size of the England. It really isn't the wild west like many overseas seem to think. With 325 million plus people and a huge country its easy for things to be blown up out of proportion. Most homicides are not mass shootings and occur in very poor neighborhoods. Drunk drivers still scare me far more than guns. Statistically the easiest way to prevent dying by gun death is not own one (suicide, accident and significant other much more likely to kill you than stranger) and live in a nice neighborhood.
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"Majority of all gun deaths are suicides and accidents"
Which wouldnt be in the many thousands without easy access to guns.
Ban guns, suicides shift to the next best option, which is probably asphyxiation or jumping. Which would you prefer? I thought so.
Most US gun deaths occur in 5 or 6 shithole cities. If they were (separate) shithole countries, the USA would have one of the lowest gun death rates in the world, and those shithole countries would all be in the top 10.
Nothing is as easy or effective suicide wise as guns. It would really greatly reduce the suicide success rate but not really a freedom I am going to go after. That said I choose not to have a gun in the house so that is not a worry for me or my loved ones. I don't mind so much people owning guns but this lie that it makes you safer is total bullshit. You enjoy shooting fine. You enjoy hunting fine. You want to own one fine but it doesn't make you safer. By far the most likely gun to kill you is one you or a family member own.
A warm bath, a couple of aspirin and a sharp blade to the femoral is pretty damn easy and effective as a suicide method, plus you dont get the botch where they flinch as they pull the trigger and end up alive but maimed and brain damaged.
Ditto driving a car full of your nearest and dearest* off a cliff.
* For a given value of near and dear.
OK personal anecdote time.
About 6 years ago I was severely depressed and on occasion suicidal, I actually thought out quite a few scenarios.
Walking out into traffic? Not reliable enough, too great a chance of failure.
Overdose? I actually tried this, came to my senses halfway through punching out tablets (hence why pill bottles are banned I guess)
Cut wrists/artery? Too squeamish, can't even get a vaccine or blood test without flinching and going woozy.
Suicide by Cop? Our Police aren't regularly armed and are trained with an emphasis on de-escalation (thankyou Mr Peel).
Jump from a tall building/bridge? The walk to the bridge sobered me up, tall building roofs aren't generally publicly available.
To this day I wonder what would have happened if I'd owned/had easy access to a gun. Suicide can be a surprisingly impulsive decision and I was lucky enough that in my more vulnerable moments I had time to come around before I did anything serious.
"The walk to the bridge sobered me up, tall building roofs aren't generally publicly available."
Who needs a roof? A balcony 20 or 30 stories up is fine.
For that matter, rooftop restaurants are not unknown, and you can start with a few stiff drinks.
"Nothing is as easy or effective suicide wise as guns."
Step off a tall building or a bridge.
Run the car in a garage.
Take a bottle of sleeping pills, or acetomenophen (this last not recommended!!)
Climb a residential power pole, or touch the wire with a metal rod or pipe.
Breath hydrogen sulfide.
Take a large dose of fentanyl.
Drink lots of alcohol fast.
Lie down in the snow and stay there.
Stick yourself almost anywhere with a broadhead arrow.
Blow out the pilot light, then turn the (gas) oven on. Or open a burner but don't light it.
Pick a large cold lake and swim for the center.
Step in front of a train or a large truck or bus.
Drive a motorcycle at speed into a stationary object.
Drink lots and lots of water.
Hyperventilate as much as you can then swim to the bottom of the pool or pond and wait.
... or many other things, easy, and readily available.
Yes, because somebody that wants to kill themselves would go "Dammit, I can't get a gun, oh well!" and not just do suicide by cop, jump off of a building/bridge, jump in front of a bus/train, slash their wrists, etc.
Yes. All of those options result in much lower numbers of suicides than easy access to guns. It is much harder to jump than it is to pull a trigger - and when you don't have guns all over the place, "suicide by cop" is quite tricky because the cops, instead of being murderous thugs who shoot you in the head whilst pinning you to the ground, actually try to talk you down or incapacitate you first so you can get treatment.
Huh, it's harder to jump? How so?
I know bringing actual facts and statistics in to the discussion has no effect, but if you are interested, people actually do do studies on this kind of stuff.
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/9/07-043489/en/
Given that the relationship between the availability of suicide methods and the level of suicide is principally mediated by firearm and pesticide suicide, it could be concluded that these two methods should be the main targets for prevention. In practice, many deaths due to pesticide poisoning and firearm suicide could easily be prevented if progress in public health were to outweigh the inertia of political and economic interests
Who would have thought, when you are suicidal and have a gun under your bed, more people choose the impulse to shoot themselves. When they have to actively prepare for it, many people chicken out.
@Tom 38
"suicide by cop is quite tricky because the cops, instead of being murderous thugs who shoot you in the head whilst pinning you to the ground, actually try to talk you down or incapacitate you first so you can get treatment."
Some might say it depends quite a lot on the attitudes of the local force and the (perceived) ethnicity of the potential suicidee.
"Yes, because somebody that wants to kill themselves would go "Dammit, I can't get a gun, oh well!" and not just do suicide by cop, jump off of a building/bridge, jump in front of a bus/train, slash their wrists, etc."
Yes, that's _exactly_ how it works. Anything that slows you down at the point where you decided to commit suicide gives a chance to get from your sick, suicidal state of mind into a more healthy state of mind and give up on the whole idea.
That's why in the UK they don't sell certain pills in bottles anymore, because the time difference between pouring 50 pills from a bottle compared to popping fifty pills from their individual containers _has_ made.a proven difference.
A family member attempted suicide. Using drugs. He was brought to hospital in time. There was there a girl also who attempt to cut her veins, she was saved as well.
If you shoot yourself in the head or chest, you have far less chances to survive - and if you do, you will be probably if far worse conditions due to the wounds effects.
Again, you can make hurting people very easy or more difficult. Weapons which are designed to kill people are the easiest way.
You will be never able to save everybody who attempts to kill themselves - but you can help to reduce the number of victims, instead of actively trying to increase it.
""Majority of all gun deaths are suicides and accidents"
Which wouldnt be in the many thousands without easy access to guns.
The underyling US gun homicide rate is still competive with active war zones and the worst third world countries."
Definitions, definitions, definitions.
In many statistics, invariably including those used by gun controllers, 'homicide' includes suicide, but it is then compared to 'murder' somewhere else, which does not.
This triples the number associated with guns, which is good for propaganda.
And the idea that people cannot kill themselves without guns is straight out stupid.
The suicide rate in the US is not much different than France, and less than Sweden or Finland or Japan (with incredibly restrictive gun laws), Hungary, Belgium, several Baltic states, or Poland.
"low gun" Australia achieves 85% of the US suicide rate.
Like murder, suicide does not track with the availability of guns.
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I see plenty of downvotes but not one single argument against gun control but hey I'll give you one for and let's see if your red-neck brains can construct a coherent counter argument without grunting.
Change the Constitution to the right to bear cocks so you can have a pissing contest up a wall where the worst thing that can happen is wet shoes rather than dinner plate sized holes, blood everywhere and death.
Guns are specifically designed to kill and have no other purpose.
Not really for or against guns honestly. Am big into research and statistics which the NRA until recently have quashed and for that they can fsck right off. Gun homicides are kind of like rape where 1% of the population is causing most of the problems. If you locate them early and say not allow domestic abusers to own guns (NRA also against this since they represent gun makers and not gun owners) then you don't have to take them anyway from everyone. These mass shootings happen less often than lottery winners (too lazy to look but with so many state lotteries but someone won one this week already) so they are statistical noise but deeply psyche affecting I guess.
The NRA didn't really squash research, except for by the CDC. Yes, the Centers for Disease Control. The people that really should be worrying about the flu pandemic and not gun control. There are plenty of other departments and NGOs that can go study gun control all they want to. Just because the CDC can't do it doesn't mean that everybody else has their hands tied.
That's like saying that the USDA can't study Teslas slamming into concrete barriers, so nobody knows what the problem is!
Guns kill a lot more people than most of the diseases the CDC studies. And my doctor asks about guns in the house as part of the standard set of health questions. So the CDC studying this is perfectly appropriate.
The gun nuts are against it because they claim that any study showing that a gun in the house is far more likely to be used against the owner or a loved one than a mad home invader must be biased against guns.
And so do car accidents, but that doesn't mean that the CDC should be studying those. There are other agencies for that. Hint, the word 'DISEASE' is in the name of the CDC.
Most "gun nuts" could honestly not care what the study shows in the first place, so that argument doesn't even make any sense.
Let's think this through logically. My gun is locked in a safe under my bed. If the invader doesn't know that the safe exists, doesn't know the code to it, and somehow doesn't run off from the alarm, etc. If he comes busting through the bedroom door on the opposite side of the room, how is he going to somehow use my gun against me? How is somebody else going to use it against me? They're not.
Most cases where that is true is when the gun is stored improperly.
>How is somebody else going to use it against me? They're not.
2/3 of all gun deaths are suicides (not to mention accidents when cleaning, etc) so people tend to underestimate who the greatest risk to themselves are. Sure most of them said I would never ever use my gun to kill myself right up until they do or I am always super careful until they are not. Also a lot of people are law abiding gun owners right up until the road rage. Same phenomenon of how everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. For many people they are comfortable managing the risk for the benefits they feel the gun(s) bring them and I accept that. There is no upside to guns for me (granted I could also greatly reduce any risks as well as had significant amount of gun safety training but why bother) in my situation so I choose not to own them any more (have in the past). To each his own.
"If he comes busting through the bedroom door on the opposite side of the room, how is he going to somehow use my gun against me?"
In that scenario, how are you going to use your gun to defend yourself? The intruder sees you trying to open your safe, thinks, "shit, he's going for a gun" and, if he's armed (gun or other weapon) attacks you first; if he's unarmed, then he might run, or might try to wrest the gun from you before you have it ready.
OTOH, if you jump out the window or cower in the corner, unarmed, he's got the option of grabbing a few valuables and leaving. Robberies motivated by greed are more common than psychos wanting to hurt people, the presence of a firearm turns a robbery into a potential life-or-death struggle on both sides.
@ s2bu "If he comes busting through the bedroom door on the opposite side of the room, how is he going to somehow use my gun against me?"
Likewise, if the naughty man comes bursting through your bedroom door, how are you going to protect yourself if you have to unlock a gun safe before he kills you?
Its all a fantasy based on something written a long time ago in a different age; The Constitution. Guns in a modern western world have little, if any, justification, other than you get a thrill from owning, and shooting one. Just be honest and admit it. I'd respect you more.
"Likewise, if the naughty man comes bursting through your bedroom door, how are you going to protect yourself if you have to unlock a gun safe before he kills you?"
There are safes that open in moments with a fingerprint, and if mounted under the bed, drop the gun in your hand.... almost like they thought this issue through.
Another straw man goes up in flames.
Gun homicides are kind of like rape where 1% of the population is causing most of the problems. If you locate them early and say not allow domestic abusers to own guns [..] then you don't have to take them anyway from everyone.
Excellent news. Now give me a complete list of all the people who are domestic abusers or mentally ill...
What works is gun control. What apparently doesn't work are most 2nd amendment hobbyists brains.
Rare city dweller who grew up in rural Iowa (makes Wales look cosmopolitan) so I have seen both sides and it really is two totally different gun cultures. Honestly there are so many guns in the US at this point that its a lost cause. I would gladly let the right have their guns if they would be a little more reasonable about carbon emissions but neither here nor there.
"Honestly there are so many guns in the US at this point that its a lost cause."
There were tens of millions of guns around after say WW2. Most countries dealt with those within a few years. Its easily fixable. You just need the required laws and sensible gun licensing like in the UK where the police vet you and check your gun safe, etc
"...Change the Constitution to the right to bear cocks so you can have a pissing contest up a wall where the worst thing that can happen is wet shoes rather than dinner plate sized holes, blood everywhere and death..."
Until our government who then no longer need fear its people's beliefs does what it pleases and then we have 1930's Germany... Or 1770's England, or more likely China just coming over here as saying it was always part of China and "they want their stuff".
Enshrined in the constitution, the first 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights, which are the things we believe are fundamentally required to support our ability as stated in the Declaration of Independence:
"...that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
Good luck throwing off that government that has become unjust and tyrannical when that government is the only ones with the guns... There are some who say we've about reached the point where we are due for another revolution - one example case being a couple in Missouri who are at risk of 20 years in prison and a ~$200K-USD fine because they didn't plant 50% of their yard in grass (which the home OWNER is allergic to), and it's an ordinance that was passed after the yard was landscaped with a maintained natural garden. The federal judge threw their challenge out as he "didn't see anything wrong with the fine and prison..."
I'd like us to avoid a revolution in my lifetime, but there are some people in this country who just can't help themselves but screw with the laws every year until everything is illegal in some form or another in the interest of changing the country to suit them (rather than all).
Good luck throwing off that government that has become unjust and tyrannical when that government is the only ones with the guns...
I get that. I really do. But if you've imagined yourself into a situation where there is an armed uprising and the government are prepared to use force to put it down (ie pistols, rifles, shotguns) then you've also imagined yourself into a situation where the National Guard are employed in armed conflict against civilians.
They have shit like A10 Warhogs and Apaches. These things are designed to shrug off your small arms fire. They have F16s. They're really not mucking about. So what do you propose? Enshrine in law the right for every US citizen to bear guided surface-to-air missiles? RPGs to attack their armoured personnel carriers?
The simple truth is that the US armed forces (both federal and state) are tooled up so far beyond the civilian population that if they were to stamp down the citizenship then a bunch of gun-owning civvies is not going to be able to stop them. A military coup against the government that ordered the oppression is the thing that'd stop it. And I'd like to hope that's what would happen in that event.
As I say, I understand the sentiment behind the argument, but it only works when both sides have horses and rifles.
"...As I say, I understand the sentiment behind the argument, but it only works when both sides have horses and rifles..."
@defiler: I personally drive an M1009 around as a daily driver in the S.F. Bay Area and I'm not the only one I see around here - not saying that's going up against an A-10, but military grade hardware does get into the hands of civilians in the USA - mostly at DoD auction or through other transactions. There are tank collections in the S.F. Bay area hills, and we have the benefit of home turf advantage.
Also don't underestimate will and ingenuity when it comes to capturing military hardware when necessary - yes there would be a human cost but I'd offer an A-10 pilot might not want to do that strafing run against an unarmed city protesting an overreaching lawn ordinance - they know not to follow unlawful orders. If the USA recalled all 2-Million active and reserve and sent them all to California for instance, that's one service-person for about 15 Californian men women and children. They would have to be split to logistics and command/control (about 50-60%) with the remaining 40% reduced to containment and imprisonment and the limited combat roles - even with force multipliers like jets with high impact munitions, I don't think that's a manageable combat environment personally, just due to physical size and population we're a pretty hard target for our own military.
Further, you can't presume the military in the USA would be 100% behind a tyrannical government, and if the majority of the people are against the government, the military would have reason to be party to a coup against the government in order "...to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..." After all - the military needs money, and the citizens pay for it - and the military is essentially comprised of its citizens.
Somolians demonstrated $50 RPG and enough people shooting will take out a multi-million$ helicopter - FLIR has blind time during the night-day/day-night transitions, C4I systems can be interfered with when FCC regulations no longer apply, night-vision can be countered with fire - think uncontrolled wildland fire... heading right towards your government compound - chemistry still works when you're not the good guy so IEDs could become homegrown. Military action is mostly logistics, and the US military depends on the backing of the US industrial complex - which in the CONUS the civilians own and control the resources in a way the military could not effectively overcome. The people only really need enough hardware to get a foothold and demonstrate their will IMHO, the military would have little choice but to follow.
My brother teaches chess so he's well armed, but I still know enough to make a mess of his plays on a board, and I would only need to keep them busy... ;-)
Further, you can't presume the military in the USA would be 100% behind a tyrannical government, and if the majority of the people are against the government, the military would have reason to be party to a coup against the government in order "...to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..." After all - the military needs money, and the citizens pay for it - and the military is essentially comprised of its citizens.
You buried it in the middle there, but this is the crux of my argument. You're not going to be as well-equipped as the military, and if it came down to some weirdly dystopian extermination of the civilian population then I have no doubt that the combined might of the US armed forces (both state and federal) could handle a 15:1 ratio with aplomb. Aside from everything else, you'd start with the low-hanging fruit and thin the numbers out before taking on the end-of-level boss.
But these military personnel are still people, and they still have families that they wouldn't take kindly to being asked to slaughter. They are the ones who would stop the lunacy. Armed forces of the people, for the people and by the people, if you will...
"...You do realize that the entirety of your commentary means that rampant gun ownership is not required to overthrow a tyrannical government, and is thus a brilliant argument for gun control?..."
Well no, again there is an external muddying happening here regarding the 2nd amendment - what the 2nd amendment essentially says (paraphrasing) is that our government or any other government cannot disarm the American people as that would provide a gateway to becoming tyrannical and oppressive to the American people.
Also @defile but in relation to this comment and for the sake of contextual clarification from my end, one cannot separate the US military's soldiers from the citizenship (aka "the people) as the military is comprised of citizens and those who are in good standing and have through a legal process, obtained Green Cards (the green card soldery thing is an interesting case where you are still subject to Green Card penalties if you are found to have committed a crime, including expulsion from the country). In general the people of the USA are proud to have soldiers as citizens among us (many of my best friends serve/served, my 1st choice best-man only missed out because of an Iraq deployment - my dad was Navy and my father-in-law Air Force). So conversationally we don't separate ourselves from our military service-people. @defile, you caught this subtext I note in a follow-up comment. So, when I say "we" can get organized against a government which has become tyrannical, I never for a moment assume that at least some fraction of the U.S. military (either active or the vast pool of retired, or private contractors would not be involved.
I noted in that last comment after the edit window expired, that I should have also qualified the suggestions as merely "hypothetical" when talking about overthrowing any government - I was simply exercising my mind after the invitation to do so, and have no motivation as of yet to seek any such overthrow. I still believe we can talk things out for now.
Cheers. ;-)
"Guns are specifically designed to kill and have no other purpose."
Let's spare a moment for the reality challenged among us.
Saying excessively stupid things does nothing for one's argument.
And all it takes is one counter-example to falsify an absolute statement.
It gives me great pleasure to own more than one expensive firearm designed solely for the purpose of putting holes in paper targets during sporting competitions.
The Olympic versions can be VERY expensive.
"Guns are specifically designed to kill and have no other purpose."
It gives me great pleasure to own more than one expensive firearm designed solely for the purpose of putting holes in paper targets during sporting competitions.
That's not a purpose, that's a side benefit. You should have gone with animal control. (which admittedly is still killing , but a different ballpark)
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"RE: "What about people that can make bullets and load them themselves. What are you going to do about them?"
Just let them sit in their mountain shack and stay the fuck away from them and all the feds keeping a close eye on them. Weirdos all."
The ones I know are all urban, and eminently rational professionals.
After all, a thousand rounds for a weekend of practice or competition costs a LOT less if you reload.
Oh, and one of them gets the brass for free because the cops practice at his club and they can't be bothered with it - taxpayers keep them stocked up.
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While it should be quite obvious, the fact that you can't legislate evil out of society, seems to escape a large part of society. We have knee-jerk reactions from protesters, the media, elected officials and talking heads all demanding new laws to prevent evil people from killing other people.
For those who don't understand a gun when misused is just a convenient device for those who want to harm other people. If they didn't have easy access to millions of guns imported from the Ukraine and Russia, they'd use a knife, a car, a plane, IEDs, poison or whatever is convenient to impose harm. Do we outlaw cars, knives, box cutters, lawn fertilizer (to make bombs), etc. or do we start to deal with evil, insane, delusional people?
The clueless naïve people expecting new legislation to prevent more human tragedy are wasting their energy hoping for a miracle that will never arrive instead of addressing the root problem. No one has yet been able to explain the logic in trying to legislate evil out of society. Evil people don't care what the law is, all they care about is inflicting harm on other people. It's time these people get out of denial and in touch with reality if they desire to actually do some good.
For those who don't understand a gun when misused is just a convenient device for those who want to harm other people.
Harming other people is the primary function of a handgun, so "misuse" doesn't really fit.
Knives' cars, fertiliser, civilian planes and our bare hands are all meant for and in daily use for non-lethal activities. This is the fundamental difference between a weapon and another object being misused as a weapon.
"...For those who don't understand a gun when misused is just a convenient device for those who want to harm other people.
Harming other people is the primary function of a handgun, so "misuse" doesn't really fit..."
Except you're cherry-picking... >>Legally<< fatally harming other people IS the primary purpose of a described "self defense" weapon, not ILLEGALLY harming people. It is actually legal to shoot and kill someone even as non-law-enforcement in the United States, and as such many guns are sold specifically for that purpose, and so they must be effective at the specified task to be readily sold. Some guns are made for hunting (i.e. semi-automatic rifles with big scopes that are easy to reload), some exclusively for target practice (double barrel shotguns aren't much use in combat). Those are legal activities that don't include murdering people. So shooting a person without a lawful cause, using a hunting rifle to kill people listening to a country concert, or using a trap/skeet shotgun to kill your wife or neighbor is by definition a "misuse".
In this same way, I can't think of a single vehicle which is designed to be driven by a drunk driver or used without insurance, all road-going cars are designed to be driven by a fully alert and properly licensed and insured driver. The act of doing so is illegal, though we enjoy the legal usage of the vehicle more than 99% of the time.
Painting a bike with a can of spray-paint is what a can of spray-paint was designed for, snuffing the propellant to get high is a misuse.
Raising sheep for wool and meat is why we do with animals, having a go at one stuck in a fence because one is unable to get a date is a misuse.
So yes, "misuse" does actually fit, as murder, man slaughter, and maiming is actually illegal without just cause, which would make it not murder, man slaughter or maiming... (as legally defined). I can't honestly recall the last gun ad I saw where they said: "bully whacker 1000! It's the perfect gun for shooting up those b@s+@rd$ at your school!", or "Is your life a B*+c#? Our new brain blaster is your exit to the easy afterlife... and you can take your family with you!"
I know it's distasteful, but I see this avoided all the time in gun control arguments and I need to point it out clearly - killing people can and in several clear and logical cases MUST be legal in order for the vast majority of us to enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness... and unless the existential threats to that belief goes away, you can't get rid of the 2nd Amendment and thus arms/guns have to stay. Heck, even the Met has an armed unit due to that knowledge. If we genuinely believed all threats from all sources were gone, there would be no standing armies or police - or laws for that matter, as their very existence belies that we don't trust everyone do know or do what's "right".
Cheers.
@tim292stro
Except you're cherry-picking... >>Legally<< fatally harming other people IS the primary purpose of a described "self defense" weapon, not ILLEGALLY harming people
You haven't provided an argument against misuse here, you've reinforced it, as the use of a deadly weapon to counter the use of a deadly weapon doesn't change the fact that the thing is designed primarily to harm humans, and the fact that it creates an arms escalation to keep a sort of Mexican stand off balance demonstrates that its primary use is effectively the problem, regardless of which side of the goody-baddy line you stand.
"...@tim292stro: You haven't provided an argument against misuse here, you've reinforced it, as the use of a deadly weapon to counter the use of a deadly weapon doesn't change the fact that the thing is designed primarily to harm humans, and the fact that it creates an arms escalation to keep a sort of Mexican stand off balance demonstrates that its primary use is effectively the problem, regardless of which side of the goody-baddy line you stand..."
I haven't attempted to make a cause for or against misuse, I've merely pointed out that your perception of the definition of misuse apparently includes "all use," and that definition is not inline with written and enforced law even in countries other than the USA. I am more pointing out that you seem to be mad there is a difference between good and evil and that they have it out now and then - I'm not sure about what to do with people like you, except ensure people who think like you don't ever get control/power. Which I suppose is why the NRA fights blanket gun control. Don't misread that comment to imply I respect or think any less of you as a person, you just don't have a future in US politics IMHO...
For the record, I am in general like most people - against misuse, aka what we commonly call "crime". But I'm also totally all for enjoying what we generally call "not crime" or "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
Cheers.
"Harming other people is the primary function of a handgun, so "misuse" doesn't really fit."
It is not legal to own a handgun for that purpose in this country.
The millions of legal handguns here are owned for other purposes, with a statistically insignificant number of illegal handguns contributing to the alarmist news reports.
But you can make it more difficult for then to commit said harm.
By AC's argument, we should let anyone have thermonuclear weapons because they'll kill millions of people with a pointed stick anyway.
It is a lot more difficult to kill someone with a knife than with a gun.
A teacher stands a much better chance of keeping the door closed against a machete-wielding maniac than the same maniac with a semi-automatic rifle.
"A teacher stands a much better chance of keeping the door closed against a machete-wielding maniac than the same maniac with a semi-automatic rifle."
True.
Of course if the person involved is a good problem solver, and the rifle is unavailable, maybe they will think to use a better tool, like a toxic odorless gas. A little bit of planning could go a long way.
Do not assume that removing one possible tool will make danger go away, or even reduce it.
"I don't assume.
I know that making guns more difficult to acquire reduces the incidence of mass shootings to almost (but not quite) zero.
We have a decade of evidence to prove it."
What we have is fifty years of evidence, worldwide, that shows your assumptions are incorrect. I am sure if you dig into your logic deeply enough you will find them.
Don't understand why this post has 10 down votes. Do people really not understand that evil intent is independent of the means to carry out that evil intent?
Because the downvoters believe the OP is simplistic in his view, and that accessibility and access to firearms make "evil intent" into "very evil actions". You cannot change human nature, but you can limit its effects on other people. If it is easy to get guns, any deranged loon can get them. If it is hard, you have to be organized, which is often difficult for deranged loons.
Fortunately, I don't make my living from the platform. Indeed, I've started to switch to Vimeo. (actually, none of my content is monetised, and I actually pay for my Vimeo account out of my own pocket... but that's a different subject)
The problem as I see it, is that YouTube gave people a way to make money from creativity. Some people gave up their day jobs and made their living from the system. However, in a series of moves, YouTUbe took that away. Their bots have been taking down videos that in no way deserve to be either taken down or demonetised.
I had a video taken down, and got a strike, for a video demonstrating how to use a methalated spirit camping stove. The appeal was denied.
In YouTube's rush to appease the advertisers and make the platform totally "Won't somebody please think of the children" safe, they've screwed over so many channels and allowed the bots to run free... and they don't care about the impact that this has had on people's livelihoods. And as it's their platform and their rules, no one has any legal come back when they have had their living ripped from under them by a corporate behemoth that doesn't give a crap about the very people it has made its own living from.
So this, was bound to happen. And I blame YouTube/Google.Alphabet ... for not giving a crap about the people they have pretty much destroyed.
"YouTube are under no obligation to provide anyone except their employees with an income."
And in fact as a publicly traded company, are legally and ethically bound to maximize profit at the expense of their customers and uploaders, which will inevitably be done in a way to ruin many of them once they are in a monopoly position. In other words, YouTube's behavior is the inevitable and perfectly normal result of unfettered capitalism.
Not saying capitalism is bad, and certainly not saying I know of anything better, but this is what its darker side looks like. Well, the true dark side is people defending YouTube's unethical behavior on the basis that "they can do it, and it maximizes profit, therefore it is OK that they do."
"And in fact as a publicly traded company, are legally and ethically bound to maximize profit "
FWIW, that's BS. The directors and/or officers of a company are obliged to run it properly. There is no legal requirement that they must maximise profit. Maximising profit in the short term at the expense of long term profitability or even survival of the company is not good. But sadly that seems to be the way things have been heading for some time now.
And there's nothing in corporate governance law a bout ethics other than abiding by any professional bodies etc they may belong to. Ethics are in the philosophic domain, not generally in the legal domain.
So youtube and google finally paying for it's lack of transprency and how it treats it's users..
Just surprised it was vege commie muslim who went on killing spree after all the shit yt did to harass center and right.
btw the injured ended up in zukerbergs hospital... 'Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital confirming they are receiving patients from Youtube'
"...If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns...
And the police, the armed services... and indeed anyone with a legal purpose for gun ownership..."
And before you think the police and military are never the outlaws, Texas church shooter was ex-Air Force, Lee Harvey Oswald was ex-Army, eight cops in Boston just got arrested for stealing a drug dealers car on going on a crime spree and they tried to pin blame on the arrested dealer, in Texas if they believe you had anything to do with crime they can seize your assets and you must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you never had anything to do with crime (flipped from presumed innocent - its basically government-sanctioned-organized crime), and US Boarder Patrol Agent kidnapped and Raped an illegal immigrant... I could probably write a book on crimes committed by people in a position of trust and power. Which incidentally is why we have the second amendment to start with.
Before you get cocky and give the guns only to "your allies", make sure your allies are actually on your side and can never switch...
If a drug dealer had killed one of the cops coming to rob them, I doubt the other police, DA or other parts of the justice system would care about the justification. No self defence argument would work. They'd make an example of that person, could be riddled with bullets on the spot or spend thirty years on death row but the why would earn them no mercy.
To all you Brits on this thread, which seems to be most of the postings, ever hear some American voice an opinion on some basic fact about the UK or living in the UK, an opinion that was so clueless that it was not even worth contradicting. Because unless you were immersed for a lifetime in UK culture, grew up in the UK, and knew intimately the ins and outs of daily life in UK you could not even begin to comprehend why the voiced opinion was completely and totally wrong.
Well thats how it is when outsiders express opinions on "gun control" in the US. To all you "mainland" Brits, care to express an informed opinion of Northern Irish politics? Thats probably the best political analogy. Two sides with utterly unmovable political worlds, living in two completely worldviews which rarely intersect, talking past each other. Forever.
The best summary of US gun politics is still the Scott Adams one. Democratic voters uses guns to kill each other, and innocent people. Republican voters use guns to hunt, and to protect themselves against Democratic voters. The great unmentionable in the whole debate simple fact that around 70% of gun crime is young black males mostly killing each other. The other great unmentionable is that young black males from an immigrant background dont kill each other.
What I discovered over the years is actually verifiable facts and statistics are not the gun control lobbies strongest point. My position on gun control has changed 180 degrees over the decades mainly due to the fact that over time it turned out that every "fact" and statistic quoted by the gun control lobby proved to be either an exaggeration, deliberately misleading or quite simply untrue. That there was little empirical evidence to support their political position whereas the other side, who just want to be left alone, seem to have both the empirical evidence and history on their side.
The other fact of US gun control politics is that it is almost totally a class thing. Gun control supporters are almost completely middle class, affluent middle class suburbanites or city dwellers. Those who own guns for hunting and protection are overwhelming working class. To a Brit one of the most interesting facets of US culture is just how unwilling Americans are to talk about class. Yet its at the root of pretty much every political dispute in US politics over the last two hundred years. So they use race as a proxy for the Great Unmentionable.
So for middle class Democratic gun control supporters the only guns they are ever likely to meet will be held by other Democratic voters trying to rob them. The fact that the robbers will be most likely black is actually less relevant than the fact that the criminals will be working class poor, from the welfare dependent underclass, mostly created by the Great Society Program.
So you see, its complicated. And actually has little or nothing to do with guns. Gun control is just a proxy for other fundamental political policy failures.
If any of you guys ever get to live in the utterly wonderful place that is normal, average America, which is almost all of it, you will get to discover that the safest places are the most heavily armed. That cities with concealed carry are far far safer than those without. That the old saying - An Armed People is a Polite People - is completely true. And that gun rights people are on the whole open minded in debate on the subject whereas as gun control people tend to be close minded bigots who will bear personal grudges when contradicted even in the mildest way.
Thats just my empirical evidence.
If any of you guys ever get to live in the utterly wonderful place that is normal, average America, which is almost all of it, you will get to discover that the safest places are the most heavily armed. That cities with concealed carry are far far safer than those without.
I'd rather live in a place which doesn't need to be heavily armed to be safe...
> I'd rather live in a place which doesn't need to be heavily armed to be safe...
Oddly enough, every time I'm back in Europe I have to remind myself that I have to start paying more attention to street crims, to ramp up my street smarts, as my chance of getting robbed or mugged is now several time higher than back in the US. Then there is the whole random drunken street violence issue in the British Isles, especially on weekend nights, that is completely unknown in US cities. Or how about the magrebian no go areas in France. I'm actually safer in most of the nastier US big city ghettos than some of the more fun areas of the 92, say around Sarcelles.
How about having your house robbed. Only happened to me once in almost four decades in the US. A laptop stolen. Because of an unsecured window. The guy who did it went to jail. When was the last time you knew anyone in the UK who had the house broken into where the perp went to jail? I've haven't met anyone for several decades. Last time was when Thatcher was still PM.
Funny that, real life not being like what they show on TV. The US is actually a very safe place. And has been for several decades. Almost all the nasty stuff nowadays happens in a very small area to a very small demographic group. Everyone else tends to lead a low stress, low crime life. And dont need to be heavily armed for personal protection if the dont feel the need. And if they feel the need, thats their prerogative.
Which is how it used to be in the UK. Before the widescale gun crime of nowadays. I'm old enough to remember when the yardie thugs first got guns. Its was pretty quiet before that. Oops, sorry, I forgot we cannot talk about the ethnic demographics of gun crime in the UK.
@jmcc
So if I understand correctly you would rather live somewhere safe where people have guns as opposed to somewhere safe where people don't have guns? Do you genuinely not see the problem with that?
edit: Let me rephrase the above
So if I understand correctly you would rather live somewhere safe where people feel the need to have guns as opposed to somewhere safe where people don't feel the need to have guns?
> So if I understand correctly you would rather live somewhere safe where people have guns as opposed to somewhere safe where people don't have guns? Do you genuinely not see the problem with that?
You are making a false equivalence. Strict gun control laws, even attempts at mass confiscation of guns, will not remove guns from the equation. In cities with very strict gun control laws more than half of the people who commit serous crime were already restricted by law from possessing guns.
Well how about I restate the problem. Actually compare like with like. Apples with Apples. Rather than Apples with Pitbulls. When we compare areas of Europe with the less strict gun control laws with areas of the US with *exactly* the same demographic profile we find the gun crime rate is about the same. Give or take. The suicide rates tend to be about the same no matter what the local gun control laws are. The only difference is the mode of suicide.
When we compare areas of the Europe with *exactly* the same demographics as high crime rates areas of the US we find about equivalent murder and serious crime rates. The only difference in Europe between strict and lax gun control controls is the mode of murder / serious assault. You get shot in Brussels, you get stabbed in London or Hamburg.
In the US cites with rigorous proactive policing have far lower crime rates than cities where the local politicians/ special interest groups have eviscerated policing for short term political ends. Chicago, Baltimore shows how this works. St Louis being the control subject over the last few decades,
Ultimately it all boils down to culture. As someone pointed out years ago. Back when Minneapolis had a terrible murder rate. The people of Swedish ancestry in Minneapolis committed murder at about the same rate as their cousins back in Sweden. No matter which socio-economic group they happen to be in.
So to answer you question, if I have to live in an area, anywhere, with exactly the same socio-ethnic / composition as in US urban areas I would much rather live in a place with few gun control laws than with strict gun control laws. Because there is now many decades of evidence that such strict gun control laws do absolutely nothing to reduce the risk of gun crime for the vast majority of law abiding citizens. But actually increase the risk of being a crime victim given the lower risk to the perp due to the victim not being able to defend themselves. If you dont think self defense matters just ask any woman how this works.
Now what does actually work to reduce gun use in less serious crime is charge escalation when a gun is used. When treated as serious crime gun uses collapses for casual robberies. Thirty years ago most muggings were committed with guns. Now few are. For serious gun crime the only thing that works is much longer sentences and Three Strikes. Keep them out of circulation for a long time. In California crime rates collapsed in the mid 1990's once three Strikes kicked in. From highest of any state to about average after a few years. Now that Three Strikes has been effectively reversed crime rates have soared again.
And so it goes.
So basically you say affluent people don't want guns - not even for protecting themselves and their wealth, while poor working class one need one to rob the affluent ones, so it's OK they can find them everywhere?
Many other places have far lower murder rates without guns around, and exactly because of that.
Believe me, your concealed weapon won't save you from a criminal pointing you a gun from behind suddenly.
Who do you believe you are, Wild Bill Hickock, and a criminal will face you from the other side of the road, just to see who is quicker to fire?
Are you going to start a gunfire, especially when you're not alone and maybe your children are with you? Have you ever been under attack? Do you believe you will think clearly, and act accordingly? Even soldiers with training freak out the first time under real fire.
You're concealed gun will just become another illegal gun. It will be interesting to know how many guns are robbed.
Anyway, it looks Americans are living in fear. What a poor life, full of fears about everything... the criminals, the police, the government, the terrorists, the invaders, the aliens, the zombies, the Democrats and even democracy... creating gun bigots who can't really look outside and beyond the gunsight...
Have you ever lived in the US? For any non trivial amount of time? Long enough to get a real feel for the place? Like for a decade or two.
By the tone of your comments it sounds very much like you have zero personal experience of the subject. Just parroting political partisan stuff you have seen in the media. I used the Northern Irish politics example very specifically. Know the place well? Over an extended period of time? Like a few decades.Then your opinion on the subject is basically worthless. An uninformed opinion. Unless you happen to be from Eastern Europe, the Middle East or the Caucuses. Where you would be very familiar with this type of situation and will nod knowingly. I've yet to meet a Swiss person or a South African, to pick two examples from heavily armed nations, who had the slightest problem understanding gun politics in the US.
Here is a simple experiment. Trying walking around (unarmed) at night in a sketchy part of a big US city with no concealed carry. Like the Tenderloin in San Francisco. Over an extended period of time. Then try walking around at night the equivalent areas in a US city with concealed carry. Like Seattle. In this case certain parts Belltown / 1's Ave Downtown. After a while you will notice that the same street crims have a very different behavior in the two cities. In SF they are really blatant and quite open in their tracking and threats but in Seattle they are much more reticent and circumspect. Far less overtly threatening. That's because if the street crims in SF jump someone the probability that the victim or any bystanders is armed is very low. Whereas in Seattle its about 1 in 4. Those odds make a very big difference when it comes to street crime.
Thats just one example. Of many
After all, we know just how accurate film, tv and the media is at reporting and reflecting the daily life of a UK city like London. It always shows accurately and exactly the daily experience you would have when living there.
I think not.
"...So basically you say affluent people don't want guns - not even for protecting themselves and their wealth, while poor working class one need one to rob the affluent ones, so it's OK they can find them everywhere?..."
Well no, the rich pay the upper-middle class to protect them with their guns from other middle class and lower class. Warren Buffet doesn't walk around with a conceal-carry on his hip, but his private security guard's firm who have access to fully automatic weapons that the rest of us can't legally buy and carry...
The rest of the time the rich use guns for sport... hunting or target shooting and sometimes just collecting.
This post has been deleted by its author
"So basically you say affluent people don't want guns - not even for protecting themselves and their wealth"
No, the really affluent ones - like anti-gun crusader Clinton - have half a dozen or more armed men around them at all times so they don't have to actually carry themselves.
And those are probably military grade weapons with magazines that are banned in many states.
The best summary of US gun politics is still the Scott Adams one. Democratic voters uses guns to kill each other, and innocent people. Republican voters use guns to hunt, and to protect themselves against Democratic voters. The great unmentionable in the whole debate simple fact that around 70% of gun crime is young black males mostly killing each other. The other great unmentionable is that young black males from an immigrant background dont kill each other.
So freely available guns are necessary because Republicans need to hunt instead of going to the supermarket and to protect themselves against Democrats who are the enemy because they kill innocent Republicans, and black people are expendable. Nice.
A shame I, as a non-USAn, don't understand the nuanced intricacies of this argument and I am limited to calling you out for a racist with political views which are so warped they mean you hate about half of your own country. I look forward to your "top of the world, ma" moment being live streamed on YouTube before you're brought down by a hail of bullets by Democrat police officers. By the law of averages there should be another one due in about a couple of days if you feel up for it.
> So freely available guns are necessary because Republicans need to hunt instead of going to the supermarket and to protect themselves against Democrats who are the enemy because they kill innocent Republicans, and black people are expendable. Nice.....
Here is a simple question. Why does this subject matter to you? You obviously have no real idea about the subject. Just repeating partisan stuff you read somewhere. Basically a blowhard. You have not actually lived in the country. You have never met, known, worked with, being friends with people over the whole range of the opinion spectrum on the subject. To the people it actually matters to. You have no skin in the game.
As for the "racist" jibe. Always the first resort of the low information types who live in lilly white environments. In my experience. Go read the f***ing statistics. Even better, go live the f***ing statistics. FYI I have lived most of my adult life in minority neighborhoods. Most recently in an 80% non white one. And you? Why do I suspect I'll hear next the - one of my best friends is not white - line. Jeez.. Ever talk to immigrant African or Caribbean black parents about the dysfunction of US black culture and the fears for their kids future?. That would be a real eye opener for you.
Thats real life.
As I said, having the average Brit opine on US gun control is exactly the same as having the average Irish American express an opinion on Irish politics. So utterly clueless at all levels as to only be worth a smile. The gun control "problem" will never be solved because there is no problem to solve. The Dem party only latched onto it about four decades ago as a vote winning wedge issue after ignoring it for many many decades. It seems it was not a problem before the 1970's. And in a few decades time the Dem party will find a better vote winning wedge issue and gun control issue will be dumped. Just like the party dumped States Rights and Segregation back in the mid 1950's when it stopped being the perennial vote winner of the previous 100 years. So it was goodbye Dixiecrats, hello NAACP.
That just the way real world politics works.
So no different from the Labour party and the NHS in the UK. The subject has got to be politicized because it is such a successful vote winning wedge issue. No matter how much this very deliberate politicization might harm the subject. And shorten the life of the patients compared with other, better, systems. Such as everywhere else in northern Europe for starters.
You see, the politics of gun control is really far more complicated than your rather simplistic views expressed so far. Like to try again?
Here is a simple question. Why does this subject matter to you?
Why does it matter to me? I guess really it doesn't. I just don't the like continual human tragedies brought about by a complete lack of control over weapons that kill. Ignoring those and arguing that guns make you safer with this going on in the background is utter stupidity brought about by sheer unthinking dogma. The pro-gun lobby have had years of things their way, and what have we learned played out by these massacres day after day? Look at the empirical evidence: free availability of guns just doesn't work. Why doesn't it matter to you? It should.
As for the "racist" jibe. Always the first resort of the low information types who live in lilly white environments.
Nope, read the original AC post. In a post which argues against gun control, there is a recognition that there is a problem with young black males having access to guns. Therefore they are an acceptable price to pay so other people can have some toys to play with, feel safe in areas which in all probability aren't touched by gun crime, and go out and shoot a few animals.
And comparing access to guns to the NHS is rather... obtuse. Like to try again?
See, that whole Northern Ireland analogy would be more impressive if it didn't so happen that, in this instance, the Brits, and the Irish, had the political courage to go out and fix what was wrong with their society and politics.
Or did you mean that to offer it as inspiration?
Abso-bloody-lutely correct. And who is the individual you see most often, and who is thus the person you most fear?
The Man in the Mirror. And he's out to get you.
Following the wise example of former US Precedent Dubbya Bush, we must take pre-emption to new heights, and shoot the Man in the Mirror first, before he can take his first shot at us!
The NRA must put all factionalism aside and concentrate on teaching people how to make sure the Man in the Mirror doesn't shoot you first, by shooting him first. How else will gun violence be stopped in the US of A?
...if she was getting tired of the adpocalypse and YouTube's recent move to get rid of "bad actors" with few views and subs from the monitisation program which instead just knocked off loads of people that were just trying to start out. Or sick of the YouTube bot that goes round a demonitises a video for "not suitable for advertising" when all it is, is a video watching the sea, only to realise the bots mistake a few days later when it is now to late to make money from the adverts.
From what her dad said, it sounds like it.
Forgetting about the specifics of who this was and what they attacked for a moment, the thing that is worrying me is that there's this pattern of behaviour that's playing out again and again. It's almost become a narrative and a metaphor for expressing anger with the world.
i.e. : Someone is 'angry with the world' and then decides to go out and shoot random innocent people who've nothing to do with anything at all. This time it was YouTube, but it could be a school shooting, it's even somewhat the same with the radicalised, home-grown terrorist incidents.
Every time one of these events happen, the media, particularly in the US, tends to go on, and on, and on, about the 'shooter' and who they were. They were a ver y dysfunctional and utterly deranged asshat with a gun who decided to go out and take other people's lives for some notion they had in their head.
Stop glorifying them and giving them a notoriety and even celebrity that they do not deserve. It's time to just start describing them as they actually are - sick, twisted and extremely strange individuals who really don't deserve any publicity at all. We need to start looking at them in the media in a much colder, dispassionate and even more clinical kind of way.
The narrative needs to be broken!
Some of the most upbuilding documentaries or dialogs are the ones with people who have survived and become stronger and better people after these events.
Those who have then gone on to help others who were attacked or effected.
Why give so much attention and force towards the attacker, when everyone else involved needs much more help.
People have pointed out only a relatively small percentage of the gun crimes in the US are committed by legal gun owners, but having guns so readily available that people can legally purchase them from supermarket etc makes it much easier for criminals to get hold of them also. Either buy stealing them from the legal owners, breaking into stores that sell them and taking them from there or buy simply paying for someone who is desperate for cash to go and buy one for them.
If guns were made illegal then that would at least make it more difficult for criminals to get a gun, and the police could put resources into getting the illegal guns out of the hands of the criminals.
"If guns were made illegal then that would at least make it more difficult for criminals to get a gun, and the police could put resources into getting the illegal guns out of the hands of the criminals."
For professional criminals, a gun is just a 'tool of the trade'.
A chef will have expensive knives. A drug dealer or bank robber will have a gun. Doubling the cost will make little difference. Same for making it a bit more inconvenient to get. Consider all the work for decades to make drugs expensive and hard to get. How's that going?
Then again, once we get fully capable 3D printers - working with metal or something of similar strength - a 'gun' will just be a few megabytes of files waiting to be printed and assembled by following the instructions.
3 people are critically hurt. Instead of focusing on these individuals and their families... everyone wants to provide their political opinion.
This isn't the time for your opinion. The fact you give one without focusing on those who are hurt only proves your heart and brain isn't where it should be. ...and you want the rest of us to believe you have the wisdom and foresight to provide an answer? ...get real.
"The school kids in Parkland called out this bullshit for what it really is."
The school kids in Parkland are useful shills for the gun controllers, who take advantage of their inexperience with the real world to push 'solutions' that don't work.
Time and time again we see this, where victims or their relatives suddenly become 'experts' on a problem that no one has yet solved, focused on a symptom rather than on identifying and dealing with root causes.
They make very passionate talking heads, but that does not suddenly confer superior wisdom.
Most of the people arguing for strict gun control have no idea what they are talking about. Chicago and its suburbs have had some of the strictest gun control laws in the country for decades. For the most recent examples, search for Chicago Tribune articles regarding how Highland Park and Deerfield have just banned so-called assault weapons. Wilmette had banned handguns for decades and rigorously enforced the law against a guy who used one to prevent his family from being attacked by home invaders. Yet Chicago has been a dangerous place for many decades, with the murder rate always being near the top for major cities. Not to mention the neo-Nazis. I could tell you stories from the 1970s when I lived in the area.
If you have an open mind, read Columbine by Dave Cullen, who pointed out that the two psychopaths actually planned on killed 2000 people via propane bombs. Shooting was only their plan-B. In other words, the U.S. has significant social problems that wouldn't magically disappear if guns were banned.
She thought that YouTube was there for her benefit, but the truth is that she was uploading videos for YouTube's benefit ... I can't say that I blame her for getting pissed off although anywhere else in the world except America it would be considered to be a little over the top to drive over and start shooting people.
This is what happens when you spend too much time reading Trump's tweets.
Of course easy access to a firearm was instrumental in this tragedy, but more to the point was the fact that the shooter, aggrieved (rightly or wrongly) , found it more appropriate to escalate to gun usage rather than to seek satisfaction by legal means.
I'm not sure when the expectation that a free hobby video platform should be available as a source of primary income formed in society, and no doubt Google themselves set the stage for that, but the model is not logical nor self-sustaining.
This incident, along with increasing uneasiness over Google's framing of their corporate indifference to people's privacy concerns as "free speech" and the growing public anger at the e-world in general playing fast and free with their "private" information says to me that the ground is shifting under everyone's feet. A paradigm change is in the wind. Smart operators will already be working behind the scenes to prepare for the upheaval.
Managed to salvaged some before the various sources for them were terminated.
She could be mentally ill, and from what I've gathered, she was a vegan zealot activist. She probably was frustrated by Youtube's demonetization of her videos, snapped, and decided to take revenge.
So sad she had to end her life that way, she wasn't too bad looking too. RIP.
The answer is: NONE because you can't legislate evil out of society.
The Austin, TX serial bomber had no problem killing people with basic IEDs which can be made from garden fertilizer. Perhaps outlawing fertilizer and other household chemicals will eliminate the problem... or NOT.
Therefore the obvious solution is to arrest all vegans and YouTube participants and locked them away so they can't harm other people. /s
Google is certainly playing with fire, there are a whole lotta nuts in YouTube land and Google keeps screwing with the heads. Likely this incident will have shattered that wall, that stopped others nuts from striking back as Google remorselessly keeps poking them by changing the rules and screwing with their channel. I dare say, it will not be the last incident
The truth is that if you are posting content on Google Facebook etc you are a digital serf. You are subject to the will of the creator and you can have your earnings cut off at their whim. While a gun was a direct cause of the injuries. The motive was a disagreement about whether the videos should be allowed to make money or not. YouTube decided and basically the creator had no alternative but to accept the result or revolt. There needs to be a way that a creator can appeal a decision and have it adjudged by a neutral third party. Something like a small claims court when the bar to entry is low enough that someone can feel that there is a practical appeals process.
This won't stop everything (crazy is gonna be crazy) but it will help to allow content creators to not feel abused by their digital overlords.
This is just a sad case of a mentally disturbed person with a sense of entitlement, going off the rails.
Honestly, I've felt aggrieved many times in my life, but I've never gone on a killingspree to appease my anger. It seems guns, knives and lorries are the weapon of choice these days (or laser guided bombs if you're a state actor)
While easy access to guns is a problem, there are plenty of other ways to kill people.
The real issue for me, is the desperation this woman felt when her means of living was cut off.
Yes, I am talking about money, and that it is the sole thing that drives most of us. They say it's the root of all evil, I think that analysis is for the most part spot on
Mark Steyn points out how 2018 this is
What happened yesterday is a remarkable convergence of the spirits of the age: mass shootings, immigration, the Big Tech thought-police, the long reach of the Iranian Revolution, the refugee racket, animal rights, vegan music videos… It was the latest mismatched meeting between east and west in the age of the Great Migrations: Nasim Aghdam died two days before her 39th birthday, still living (according to news reports) with either her parents or her grandmother. She came to America at the age of seventeen, and spent two decades in what appears to be a sad and confused search to find something to give her life meaning. But in a cruder sense the horror in San Bruno was also a sudden meeting of two worlds hitherto assumed to be hermetically sealed from each other: the cool, dispassionate, dehumanized, algorithmic hum of High Tech – and the raw, primal, murderous rage breaking through from those on the receiving end.
For a site I usually think has intelligent comments, many of you sound like complete idiots. The gun wasn't the issue here. She had a car. If she wanted to kill indiscriminately she could have run down one or more people going to work, lunch or leaving work. If her car was small she could have rented a truck. If she could get into the building (as she did) she could have even pulled the first alarm, ran back to her car (or truck), and have plenty of people to run down. Someone who is willing to kill themselves could do a lot worse than a gun.
You can't stop people from killing if they want to kill. But YouTube could have stopped this from happening if they didn't lie to their contributors, rely on automated bots, and have a way to speak to a real person when a contributor has a legitimate gripe with them, They hold people's lives in their hands and they act with reckless abandon. The real question was, how did this not happen sooner and when will it happen again because I've seen no evidence YouTube has even considered taking her complaints seriously. I'm not a YT contributor but I hear the horror stories from channels being wrongly shut down and it's a problem that's just getting worse.