Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2018 Thread

[spacejunk]

Demographic shifts are going to render the Republican Party irrelevant before long. I dated a therapist a few years ago and I believe the psychological term for an outburst of bad behaviour (i.e. during a relationship breakup) is an "extinction burst." Donald Trump and the do nothing Congress is the right's extinction burst.

that is such a great expression - one i will certainly be borrowing at some stage.
i've had the same thought about trump - it's like the last push of a bunch of really antiquated ideologies which have no place in the post-globalisation world; ideas like white supremacy, a white america, and contempt for environmental conservation o r regulation of industry. totally batshit suicidal madness.

i'm not talking about guns at all there, so it's a bit off-topic - but it seems like the dinosaur right wing republicans - like the guys who sincerely believe climate change is a hoax and advocate for fossil fuel industries which know they need to be phased out, so they are resisting in any ways they can - like totally debasing democracy.
to me that's what putin's game is too.
they are realising that their only chance of having any influence is to utterly destroy what they can while they still have the ability to form government, because pandering to racist white folk will never be an election winner in future - which is a good thing.

the gun thing is obviously vastly more complicated, but i get a sense that a large part of the generation of kids in school now who have lived through the last 2 to 5 years of school massacres - and the cultural influence of pro and anti gun propaganda - and bizarre disinformation propaganda like alex jones' bullshit about sandy hook - are traumatised by it all.
i imagine it's very different in cities to rural communities - and i'm really only going off what i hear from my pretty narrow range of american friends and family, and what i read online.

perhaps by the time they're all of voting age, that trauma might really change things. i imagine many of their parents share that trauma too, so perhaps it won't take that long for that political sentiment to filter through to even more of the voting public?
just musing really, as i don't have any answers on this issue, and as an australian, the idea of having guns stashed around my house and bedroom is totally outside my realm of experience - in a way that i'm frankly really grateful for. i've never once felt so insecure in my home that i would need much more than a cricket bat for self defence. which is not intended to sound patronising, but i'm pretty happy not to live with such fear.
considering the similarities between australia's history and that of the USA, i feel like we somehow got lucky.
people own guns here, but it's just such a different culture.

 

[invegauser]

@iridescentblack: "patience my young padawan." soon us mentally ill and dangerous types will be in control of this country. mwah ha ha.... err wait, trump is already president. d'oh!

to the room: speaking of trump and extinction bursts. c'mon, you know it's going to happen. just waiting on if it's a grand finale or a disappointing poot like a huge let down at the end. seriously though i wont derail this, i will be a good boy.

@HeadphonesandLSD: extinction burst. that's one of the main reasons people shoot up public places. thanks for bringing this up. you don't have to be mentally ill to have one of these bursts happen either. consciousness and reality are a real pain in the keister sometimes.

nice story and thanks for sharing. can i spend the night at your house if the end of the world comes?! seriously though that is one of the things i like about this country. we have those who own guns and can be responsible and those who don't own them who are responsible. it's the in betweeners who make the rest of americans look bad. hate us for our freedoms fine, haters are going to hate. use our rights as an example of why there are bad eggs in humanity in general, that's a lil off point imho. especially if they ignore people like yourself. gun nut? nah. way of life? sure. choice? yes. it's not for everyone and shouldn't be forced upon them, i don't think your the type and you handle the pressure of others trying to force their way of life on you in a cool handed fashion.

 

[iridescentblack]

^You just made me think...

What if Trump... is meant to be a reality show set up by Russia ??

 

[JessFR]

^You just made me think...

What if Trump... is meant to be a reality show set up by Russia ??

Then like all reality TV, it sucks and is in desperate need of cancelation.

 

[iridescentblack]

...you'd need to get the rights from Russia to cancel it though...

 

[invegauser]

^ i'm thinking more along the lines of movies like idiocracy. think the truman show but with an ending like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind meets 1984 or equilibrium. (<--- trying to stay on topic with that last one hint hint)

@JessFR: such a smartie. agreed.

 

[JessFR]

We don't need the rights... We just need to exercise our rights as the audience. We gotta stop watching.

Shows without enough viewers get canceled.

 

[invegauser]

sometimes nuances and subtleties (especially in jokes) are lost on electronic devices wouldn't you say iridescentblack? trump and political meme and satire thread is a that a way. --->

JessFR brings up another solution.

shows that shouldn't be getting viewers are getting them. sad thing to stink on. much brighter than actual gun debating though.

@CH: what's happenin c'pan? interesting story you bring up. wonder if it will do any good or just be a huge tax write off. sadly i'm not well versed in corporations and expenditures. A for effort on their part.

 

[Escher's Waterfall]

Ironically, my step father who taught me how to hunt/initially got me interested in target shooting became very anti-gun over the last year or so. He lives near Florida and his daughter had just gotten out of high school when the last school shooting happened. I was very surprised when he jumped down my throat when he found out I built a custom AR.

If you look at gun crime, an AR has a statistically low chance of being used. Guns used in crimes (including most murders) tend to be small and easily concealable - that is, handguns.

If one was taking a risk-based approach to firearms, we should seek better checks on handgun owners before we become concerned with long guns.

But since it seems like half the idiot mass shooters like some big, "militarish" (at least in appearance) gun, guess what the conversation is always about?

 

[swilow]

It just seems so absurd that 6 year old children are being taught to shoot with the expectation that they will be ready to "defend" their family. A child of that age is not ready for that at all; and would be hopeless if the situation arose. However, if you are indeed surrounded by guns, teaching children how to handle them safely seems valid but I do not for a second buy the necessity to teach children how to shoot people.

Society is much less violent than its been in the past: the self defence argument is losing relevance.

 

[JessFR]

It just seems so absurd that 6 year old children are being taught to shoot with the expectation that they will be ready to "defend" their family. A child of that age is not ready for that at all; and would be hopeless if the situation arose. However, if you are indeed surrounded by guns, teaching children how to handle them safely seems valid but I do not for a second buy the necessity to teach children how to shoot people.

Society is much less violent than its been in the past: the self defence argument is losing relevance.

Given how idiotic people behave around guns when they've had no safety training, personally I think basic firearm safety training should be at least available to anyone who wants it.

 

[JGrimez]

If you rally for gun control but never discuss homicide rates then you're not helping.

Vox came out a few days ago and told the truth: roughly 60% of all US firearm deaths are suicide.

Disarmament = originally started when black people became citizens because they were scared they'd be able to own firearms.
The history of gun control in the US starts and ends with segregation rhetoric.

Gun deaths statistics are heavily cherry-picked by groups that have an agenda.

"Gun deaths" seem artificially high in the US because we count suicides in that total, not separately.
In Europe they tabulate them separately at first.
If you were to ban guns you'd get a drop in gun-related suicides, but the suicide rate wouldn't drop significantly.

Vox was trying to grandstand on suicide prevention day and inadvertently backed up what the pro-2A crowd are saying.

Take away suicides from total gun deaths.
Then take away accidental shootings, hunting accidents.
What's left (less than 10,000 gun deaths per year nationally) - how many of those are gang shootings, or related to the drug war?
The vast majority.

 

[HeadphonesandLSD]

It just seems so absurd that 6 year old children are being taught to shoot with the expectation that they will be ready to "defend" their family. A child of that age is not ready for that at all; and would be hopeless if the situation arose.

Well, in my day (which is just the late 80s/90s) we weren't being coddled. Plus, consider this: By the time I was 6 my mother was long gone, my father was putting in 14-16 hour days 7 days a week, and I was taking care of my little brother almost all of the time. We also lived miles from any help and the only connection to the outside world was a radio scanner and a landline that barely worked. Oh, and a c-band dish for television. I was expected to defend the house because when my father wasn't around I was the acting adult in that house. My childhood mostly ended by age 5. It wasn't just guns either: By 6 I was already driving a tractor almost daily with the lives of any man working around it in my hands. I was feeding cattle, I was doing any physical labor that I could handle, I was working around all types of machinery that would kill me if I looked at it wrong, I was cooking the meals, I was getting the kids up for school and dressed, I was teaching them how to read. This was expected of me and I had to sacrifice my innocence and play time so my siblings could have theirs. Ask either one of them who had the biggest hand in raising them and they'll answer "big brother" every time. Our parents pretty much taught me everything then I had to pass it on to the rest of them.

The guns were just a minor part of all of that. I was perfectly capable of defending our home with one by 6 and did it several times before I was a teen. It wasn't always people, on one occasion it was a mountain lion and another a coyote. I've never shot anyone but I've put bullets/warning shots over their heads a bunch of times. Anyone training you will tell you warning shots are a horrible idea, and in the city/active shooting situation they probably are but when it's some drunk idiot on your land at 2am beating the shit out of his woman? They become highly effective.

However, if you are indeed surrounded by guns, teaching children how to handle them safely seems valid but I do not for a second buy the necessity to teach children how to shoot people.

Society is much less violent than its been in the past: the self defence argument is losing relevance.

We don't teach them how to shoot people but we do teach them how to shoot targets and animals. Shooting a person or even in the general direction of one is on an entirely other level. Most people, even well trained, can't shoot someone they're looking at in the face. Hence why 99% of the time execution shots are aimed at the back of the head.

 

[FlawedByDesign]

Anyone remember back in 2010 or so when a guy took his 10 year old to one of those places where you can rent fully automatic weapons to shoot at the range and the little guy lost control and shot himself to death? Terrible stuff. I?ve always lurked in this thread as the gun control issue is a question without an answer ultimately leaving me very conflicted. Now days I would totally be for an assault riffle ban but living in the state with the most lax gun laws I honestly feel afraid to be the only person on the block without a 30 shot clip. I would be happy to turn in my AR if everyone else did. Where I live there isn?t even a waiting period for buying a gun, it?s ridiculous. Someone could get in a heated argument, buy a gun, and kill someone all in the same day. No valid argument against a waiting period.

 

[HeadphonesandLSD]

No valid argument against a waiting period.

I have one, there is no reason for the Government or anyone else to know what I do and do not own. The waiting periods only work on honest people and hurt them the most. A criminal isn't buying guns and ammo in a store.

The only "waiting period" I've ever had to deal with was for the purchase of the pistol I use in conjunction with my CCL. Now that I have the CCL there is no waiting period at all. I can buy as many pistols as I want in a gun store, at a gun show, or in a private sale on the same day. I avoid buying pistols though because I don't like doing the paperwork and I don't like the Government knowing about every pistol that I own that I didn't get through inheritance. This is one of the reasons why I tend to buy long guns now.

The restrictions are already too strict in my opinion. I can't buy a quality AK now due to the ban on imports of foreign weapons. I can't build a quality FAL without a mountain of paperwork due to the same bans. I was forced to build ARs instead even though there was tons of guns better suited for the purposes I needed them for. It's insane that I have to pay $15,000 - $50,000 for a full auto rifle on top of a year waiting period for the ATF to approve the purchase because there is such a limited pool of "legal/registered" rifles with fully auto trigger groups. If I _really_ wanted one I could manufacture/modify a semi-auto I currently own in half an afternoon. The only reason I don't already have one is the fear of prison. Meanwhile I know several gang bangers that own them and several former cops that own them from taking them in drug busts. I've shot them several times and they aren't anything special and the cost of ownership is high because they go through so much ammo. Regardless, I feel like it's my right to own one if I please and my reason is simple: I'm part of the militia and if I ever need to help defend the country/state from an outside invader or our own Government going insane I don't want to be out gunned.

As it stands if such a situation ever comes up in my lifetime I'll be forced to kill a soldier, take his rifle, and either use it or modify my own by taking a few parts out of his. Making your run of the mill AK or AR fully auto isn't very hard. All you have to do is drop in a non-neutered bolt and a trigger group or drop in a so-called "bottle opener" in a semi with a non-neutered bolt. I can make those from lawn mower blades and/or scrap metal in a few minutes. Process is pretty similar with an AK too. It's all entry level day one stuff. Even a semi-auto rifle is easy to fire full auto through several methods. The most well known being "bump fire" which is easy enough to do with an unmodified rifle.

I will agree that whomever let a kid with no training near an automatic was stupid but the gun being able to go full auto wasn't the problem. It was the lack of training and supervision.

 

[quiet roar]

I feel like it's my right to own one if I please and my reason is simple: I'm part of the militia and if I ever need to help defend the country/state from an outside invader or our own Government going insane I don't want to be out gunned.

Lol, this why the rest of the world finds americans so weird. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

 

[HeadphonesandLSD]

Lol, this why the rest of the world finds americans so weird. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

Well our country was founded on a militia defeating the largest Army/Navy the world had ever seen. That's why our constitution is written with firearm ownership in mind. I'm not talking about some dumb club of men LARPing as the military. I'm talking about the actual law of the land:

every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age, not a member of the National Guard

That means I'm expected to be able to help defend my town/state/country if called up until I reach the age of 45. I take it serious enough to stay in good shape and practice my skills with a rifle whenever possible. Aside from that being a skilled Marksmans is a skill worth having and practicing. We wouldn't be a country if we didn't have all those decent Marksmen back in the day. I can always feed my family if we ever go poor or the power goes out forever. Every bullet in stock is a possible rabbit or deer I can put on the table.

I'm not concerned over how citizens of other countries view us or our laws. I prefer to stay out of their business and if they stay out of ours. Yes, I'm aware our Government is playing world police force. I don't agree with that. It's possible to hate your Government and love your country. I'm never for private citizens having anything banned. I'm also not a fan of not being allowed to own the same weapons as soldiers. When I look at the examples of countries that gave up private ownership of rifles I just shake my head. If they ever ban them stateside they'll just move on to attempting to ban knives next. Just look at the UK. I carry two knives, sometimes three, at almost all times so I'm going to take as much issue with that as I am with firearms getting banned. They're tools, I'm a working man, I need those things on my person at all times.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

If you rally for gun control but never discuss homicide rates then you're not helping.

Vox came out a few days ago and told the truth: roughly 60% of all US firearm deaths are suicide.

Disarmament = originally started when black people became citizens because they were scared they'd be able to own firearms.
The history of gun control in the US starts and ends with segregation rhetoric.

Gun deaths statistics are heavily cherry-picked by groups that have an agenda.

"Gun deaths" seem artificially high in the US because we count suicides in that total, not separately.
In Europe they tabulate them separately at first.
If you were to ban guns you'd get a drop in gun-related suicides, but the suicide rate wouldn't drop significantly.

Vox was trying to grandstand on suicide prevention day and inadvertently backed up what the pro-2A crowd are saying.

Take away suicides from total gun deaths.
Then take away accidental shootings, hunting accidents.
What's left (less than 10,000 gun deaths per year nationally) - how many of those are gang shootings, or related to the drug war?
The vast majority.

Right to death would reduce gun suicides and consequential deaths but Nope! R?s are for the most part bible thumping morons that want to see us all live to Alzheimer?s age (you won?t know why you vote R anymore or even in the first place)

 

[spacejunk]

why wouldn't you include suicides in gun statistics?
seems like a desire to manipulate statistics, to me. suicides are gun deaths.

a better way of approaching such statistics might be to look at whether suicide is more common in places where guns are more prevalent.
some studies would indicate that it is;

Suicide rates boosted by easy access to guns, researchers say

Strict state gun laws linked to fewer suicides and murders

Why Aren't We Talking About Suicide When We Talk About Gun Violence?

from that third article link:

In 2016, the U.S. had 14,415 firearm homicides and 22,938 firearm suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Gun suicides represent half of all suicides in the U.S., according to CDC data. They?re also the most lethal method: According to an oft-cited 2004 Harvard School of Public Health study, an estimated 91 percent of attempted firearm suicides are fatal. Middle-aged white men are actually the most at-risk population: According to CDC data, the firearm suicide rate for white men (14.3 per 100,000 people) doubled the national average in 2016 (7.1 per 100,000 people).

To further put it into context, roughly the same number of people (about 58) die by firearm suicide each day as the number of people that died during the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting.

another thing that would reduce gun suicides would be for governments to work on improving access to affordable healthcare for more people to help them deal with mental illness and/or the stresses of life (and depression, anxiety, grief, addiction issues and all the other things that can come along with that) which contribute to the suicide.

 

[JGrimez]

I wonder why white men specifically are so high?

Does white privilege include ease of ending one's life?