US Politics Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2021
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JessFR
Bluelight Crew
List of massacres in Australia - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I didn't ask if you were especially worried about it. I asked you if you think the modern incarnation of gatling guns / chain guns should be legal for any civilian to own in the US and you're still not answering the question... Should any civilian be legally permitted to own grenades? What about napalm? A tank? A nuclear warhead? I'm being silly obviously. My point is, you must draw the line somewhere...?
Just to be super clear: I'm not suggesting that chain guns pose a significant threat statistically. I'm intentionally choosing absurd weaponry to make a point.
Wikipedia isn't very good data, and the fact that you're pointing to it suggests to me you may have run into the same problem I did. Nobody has actually been tracking mass shootings in Australia, And coming up with a definition that allows you to actually do analysis is extremely hard if not impossible.
Anyway no... I likely wouldn't ban miniguns under my hypothetical system. If you can get a license and can afford their astronomical cost you can buy one.
If what you're asking for is where I draw the line... ok, that's a fair question.
Lethal grenades... Intuitively it seems like they couldn't possibly add enough benefit to the civilian world as to warrant risking their legality. In fact their only benefit that I can think of would be for gun nuts setting them off at ranges.
An argument could be made that if you have legal guns, you have legal gun powder, which means explosives could be made anyway that could be as lethal if not more so than a grenade. But on balance I don't find that argument especially persuasive. Gunpowders aren't the same as the explosives in grenades, and more importantly. People who make pipe bombs have a good chance of blowing themselves up. That wouldn't happen if they could just buy grenades. Well, assuming they got through my licensing system.
So on balance I tend to say no, they should probably be illegal.
As for a tank? A tank would be extremely hard to stop in the wrong hands so it should probably be illegal too.
Nuclear weapons on the other hand would greatly improve the MAD doctrine and make the world safer for all, noone would dare kill each other if we all had nukes......
I am of course kidding :D Yes they're out too.
As I said I'm talking about small arms... stuff that shoots bullets. Everything else has to be worked out individually.
I appreciate you conceding that.
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birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
I posted the wikipedia source because I'm lazy. Scrolling through it, there certainly appears to be a reduction in the number of mass shootings but not as significant a reduction as I remembered. In terms of definition (as it applies to gun control) I would remove the family massacres. You don't need a high capacity mag to kill your wife and a bunch of kids. There is no way to prevent these type of incidents. I'd also remove arson incidents, but then are there more arson incidents after the amnesty? I don't know. Like I said, I'm lazy. Too much to do and too little time to do it.
Let's just agree that I'm mostly right and leave it at that.
Let's just agree that I'm mostly right and leave it at that.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
But I'm far more mostly right than you are! :D
Yeah family massacres are horrible. I think one of the worst examples I can remember that shows how hard it is to prevent is that guy who built a whole piping system on his house to introduce pure carbon monoxide into his home killing himself and his family.
Horrible way to die. I mean maybe not for them, but as someone thinking about it...
I know what it's like to be depressed but like.. I've never once had it cross my mind that I should take anybody with me. I find it hard to understand.
Yeah family massacres are horrible. I think one of the worst examples I can remember that shows how hard it is to prevent is that guy who built a whole piping system on his house to introduce pure carbon monoxide into his home killing himself and his family.
Horrible way to die. I mean maybe not for them, but as someone thinking about it...
I know what it's like to be depressed but like.. I've never once had it cross my mind that I should take anybody with me. I find it hard to understand.
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
We live in a world where we need gun training to buy milk. How are we a first world country again?
Remember, it's not a weapon that makes you a hero.
'Hero' student describes how he, 2 classmates thwarted suspect in Colorado school shooting
One of three students who thwarted a gunman in a Colorado school shooting described how they were able to combine their efforts to disarm the suspected shooter.
SKL
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2007
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I liked this article. Highlights how much attention is focused in the wrong directions. It quiet accurately expresses my view for the most part.
As the macabre spectacle of mass shootings returns to America at the end of our pandemic, Matthew Walther argues that the problem is the cult of the AR-15. “The United States should ban the manufacture of these weapons and related accessories designed to make them more lethal,” writes the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic journal, “and severely restrict ownership of those already in circulation, beginning with a voluntary gun-buyback program.”
The occasion for this is the mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., allegedly by Ahmad al-Issa. The shooter used an AR-15 and killed ten people. For Walther, AR-15s are “dangerous toys” unlike the firearms carried by his hunter father or the pistol used by his mother-in-law in need of self-defense. In a counterintuitive way, he argues precisely because millions of AR-15 owners are law-abiding, banning the gun is a “no-brainer” because “no one’s hobby matters more than another person’s life.” Its only imaginable use, for Walther, is terror and insurrection.
Like Walther, I find the number of violent gun deaths in America appalling and embarrassing. And I agree with him that guns of stunning lethality are too often in the hands of unsteady men. But, we have to be clear. Ahmad al-Issa was not a member of the AR-15 cult. AR-15s are not used in the majority of gun crimes or even in mass shootings. The mass shooter in Atlanta earlier this month killed eight people with a pistol. Banning AR-15s would not have an appreciable effect on gun deaths. And if one does want to stop violence done with AR-15s, the answer is not to abolish the cult of the AR-15, but to get more AR-15 owners into it. On inspection it’s one of the healthiest parts of gun culture. It’s precisely the “cult” that makes it a culture, that is, a place where people can grow and be held accountable.
The AR-15 is not even a single gun, but a kind of firearm platform. AR-15s often can (and often are) configured in such a way that they aren’t lethal enough for deer hunting. They can be optimized for various home-defense scenarios by being made shorter, and outfitted with quieter calibers of ammunition. They can be configured for long-range target competition. The accessories, gear, or simple features that are held to make AR-15s more deadly or that qualify it as an “assault weapon” are accessories, gear, and features that often make the gun itself safer to fire anywhere. Those are features like a pistol grip, or the shroud that covers a hot rifle barrel. In New York, the lethality of a banned AR-15 “assault weapon” may be no different or significantly less than the Ruger Mini-14, another semiautomatic rifle, but without a pistol grip. But the Mini-14 can be perfectly legal in New York.
New York’s anti-assault-weapons legislation forbids large magazines under the somewhat plausible theory that a mass shooter can inflict more damage by quickly spraying a large magazine and reloading another one. But mass shooters rarely do this. The Boulder shooter may not have even reloaded, and in the horrifying videos, he fires methodically and slowly. Other mass killers such as those at Columbine High School did the same. They too used pistols, shotguns, a carbine, and bombs.
Walther cites some embarrassing ad copy as evidence of the AR-15 cult corrupting its adherents. That there is much gimcrack and embarrassing hype around the AR-15 is not surprising. This is America, and people are trying to sell you things. Ad copy about the Ford F-150 truck, or Dolce & Gabbana cologne, or garage floor tiles is just as silly and embarrassing to cite to people who buy these things. People sell lawn-care products with promises that you will “dominate” your neighbors.
The AR-15’s versatility and adaptability has made it the rifle of America’s militia, which is nothing more or less than America’s responsible gun owners. It is within the AR-15 cult that gun owners are likeliest to get the best education in gun safety, the best training for being a responsible gun owner at home, traveling, or on a range. It’s there that they may get the best understanding of where the gun fits into America’s tradition of republicanism. A country of determined men who have arms like the AR-15, or even significantly less-capable rifles, is almost impossible to rule without consent. Just take a look over at Afghanistan.
Attempting to ban the AR-15 will just mean that the ad copy is written for Ruger Mini-14s, or for Shockwave-style shotguns. The space in magazines and message boards that are vacated of the AR-15 will fill up with something else, and suddenly we’ll fret about the “cult of Glocks” or the “cult of the SIG Sauer P365” when those are used in mass shootings. They already are used in them.
The dangerous gun owners are the ones who don’t make their gun ownership an occasion for socializing and interacting with other gun owners. It is the loners and paranoiacs. Or the people who inherit a gun and never learn how to use it, or buy a handgun during a period when they feel in danger, but then forget about it until they’ve fallen into a dangerous depression. America’s gun laws are an outlier; that is true. So are the laws and norms that prevent the mentally ill from getting the interventions and supervision they need.
The Second Amendment’s protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, but its reference to a militia does indeed point to the social nature of arms ownership. We should want gun owners to join their local ranges, to meet people from their message boards in real life and build each other up in institutions devoted to the mastery of their weapons and themselves. Ahmad al-Issa wasn’t warped by a cult; he was self-radicalized. A community of AR-15 enthusiasts, if they had met him, may well have red-flagged him under Colorado’s existing laws.
And besides, if it is the devoted enthusiasm the AR-15 generates that bothers you, just watch what happens when you do ban it.
MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY is a senior writer at National Review Online. @michaelbd
In Defense of the AR-15 Cult
By MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTYAs the macabre spectacle of mass shootings returns to America at the end of our pandemic, Matthew Walther argues that the problem is the cult of the AR-15. “The United States should ban the manufacture of these weapons and related accessories designed to make them more lethal,” writes the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic journal, “and severely restrict ownership of those already in circulation, beginning with a voluntary gun-buyback program.”
The occasion for this is the mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., allegedly by Ahmad al-Issa. The shooter used an AR-15 and killed ten people. For Walther, AR-15s are “dangerous toys” unlike the firearms carried by his hunter father or the pistol used by his mother-in-law in need of self-defense. In a counterintuitive way, he argues precisely because millions of AR-15 owners are law-abiding, banning the gun is a “no-brainer” because “no one’s hobby matters more than another person’s life.” Its only imaginable use, for Walther, is terror and insurrection.
Like Walther, I find the number of violent gun deaths in America appalling and embarrassing. And I agree with him that guns of stunning lethality are too often in the hands of unsteady men. But, we have to be clear. Ahmad al-Issa was not a member of the AR-15 cult. AR-15s are not used in the majority of gun crimes or even in mass shootings. The mass shooter in Atlanta earlier this month killed eight people with a pistol. Banning AR-15s would not have an appreciable effect on gun deaths. And if one does want to stop violence done with AR-15s, the answer is not to abolish the cult of the AR-15, but to get more AR-15 owners into it. On inspection it’s one of the healthiest parts of gun culture. It’s precisely the “cult” that makes it a culture, that is, a place where people can grow and be held accountable.
The AR-15 is not even a single gun, but a kind of firearm platform. AR-15s often can (and often are) configured in such a way that they aren’t lethal enough for deer hunting. They can be optimized for various home-defense scenarios by being made shorter, and outfitted with quieter calibers of ammunition. They can be configured for long-range target competition. The accessories, gear, or simple features that are held to make AR-15s more deadly or that qualify it as an “assault weapon” are accessories, gear, and features that often make the gun itself safer to fire anywhere. Those are features like a pistol grip, or the shroud that covers a hot rifle barrel. In New York, the lethality of a banned AR-15 “assault weapon” may be no different or significantly less than the Ruger Mini-14, another semiautomatic rifle, but without a pistol grip. But the Mini-14 can be perfectly legal in New York.
New York’s anti-assault-weapons legislation forbids large magazines under the somewhat plausible theory that a mass shooter can inflict more damage by quickly spraying a large magazine and reloading another one. But mass shooters rarely do this. The Boulder shooter may not have even reloaded, and in the horrifying videos, he fires methodically and slowly. Other mass killers such as those at Columbine High School did the same. They too used pistols, shotguns, a carbine, and bombs.
Walther cites some embarrassing ad copy as evidence of the AR-15 cult corrupting its adherents. That there is much gimcrack and embarrassing hype around the AR-15 is not surprising. This is America, and people are trying to sell you things. Ad copy about the Ford F-150 truck, or Dolce & Gabbana cologne, or garage floor tiles is just as silly and embarrassing to cite to people who buy these things. People sell lawn-care products with promises that you will “dominate” your neighbors.
The AR-15’s versatility and adaptability has made it the rifle of America’s militia, which is nothing more or less than America’s responsible gun owners. It is within the AR-15 cult that gun owners are likeliest to get the best education in gun safety, the best training for being a responsible gun owner at home, traveling, or on a range. It’s there that they may get the best understanding of where the gun fits into America’s tradition of republicanism. A country of determined men who have arms like the AR-15, or even significantly less-capable rifles, is almost impossible to rule without consent. Just take a look over at Afghanistan.
Attempting to ban the AR-15 will just mean that the ad copy is written for Ruger Mini-14s, or for Shockwave-style shotguns. The space in magazines and message boards that are vacated of the AR-15 will fill up with something else, and suddenly we’ll fret about the “cult of Glocks” or the “cult of the SIG Sauer P365” when those are used in mass shootings. They already are used in them.
The dangerous gun owners are the ones who don’t make their gun ownership an occasion for socializing and interacting with other gun owners. It is the loners and paranoiacs. Or the people who inherit a gun and never learn how to use it, or buy a handgun during a period when they feel in danger, but then forget about it until they’ve fallen into a dangerous depression. America’s gun laws are an outlier; that is true. So are the laws and norms that prevent the mentally ill from getting the interventions and supervision they need.
The Second Amendment’s protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, but its reference to a militia does indeed point to the social nature of arms ownership. We should want gun owners to join their local ranges, to meet people from their message boards in real life and build each other up in institutions devoted to the mastery of their weapons and themselves. Ahmad al-Issa wasn’t warped by a cult; he was self-radicalized. A community of AR-15 enthusiasts, if they had met him, may well have red-flagged him under Colorado’s existing laws.
And besides, if it is the devoted enthusiasm the AR-15 generates that bothers you, just watch what happens when you do ban it.
MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY is a senior writer at National Review Online. @michaelbd
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
SKL they don’t want to ban AR15s for any other reason than that they are a formidable weapon that could be used if the people ever took a stand against the establishment. They are really scared of this, this is why they will never bring attention to the fact that semi auto rifles are rarely used in violent crime. It’s virtually always hand guns, and once the oligarchs get ARs you best believe they are coming for hand guns.
Xorkoth
Bluelight Crew
Not necessarily, I guess what I'm against is people being able to surprise a group of people and unload dozens of rounds before anyone has time to react. It's not so much the semi-auto part in and of itself.
LordOfThisWorld
Bluelighter
Jess if those citizens were carrying weapons in holsters the way they do in Pennsylvania and other states I guarantee you that guy would’ve thought twice about pulling a gun on anyone, he probably would’ve been shot dead before he even got a chance to pull the trigger, I believe the shooter had a Muslim name, and no I’m not being racist I have a couple of Muslim friends who are completely against terrorism, and just want to go on about their daily lives without being discriminated against because of their faith, and I’m completely against this anti Asian violence and hatred that’s going on here in the US. I have a few Chinese and Korean friends who you couldn’t find more respectful and humble people.
I do believe Biden will pass an Executive Order banning guns, that is only my belief and opinion.
LordOfThisWorld
Bluelighter
None, my original post was remove because it contained violence, I got a message saying so, I think it would be hazardous to their health if they tried.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
Your belief is wrong. There will be no executive order banning guns. It's not even something you can do under an executive order. And there certainly wrong be any confiscation. Even if Biden actually submitted such an order, and he won't, it'd be thrown out by scotus in a heartbeat.
And as I said earlier, I don't care about "well if everyone had guns". Everyone doesn't have guns. Everyone doesn't want guns. Unless you have a civilization where literally everyone is culturally pressured to train with guns and carry them at all times, it's not gonna happen so it's a completely pointless and unhelpful thing to mention. You might as well say "well if people didn't decide to commit mass shootings there wouldn't be mass shootings". Even if it's technically true, it's unhelpful as far as productive solutions.
Also while calling then Muslim names may not be racist it still strikes me as a pretty ignorant thing to say.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
It should be. lol.
If we just conjecture about if we could implement any kind of gun control without issue, getting rid of semiautos would have a far bigger impact on people trying to commit mass shootings than getting rid of high capacity magazines.
Now instead of it taking a couple seconds to reload, it a second or two for each shot instead of a fraction of a second. That's all time for people to escape or intervene.
Now I'm not saying that I think banning semiautomatics is the ideal gun control solution, I've already explained what I think that is. But just in comparison to that or magazine capacity, magazine capacity is not a major issue.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
You're allowed to say that you think people would die of they tried to implement widespread gun confiscation. I believe that in fact.
It's when you start getting into specifics about what you specifically would do that things are likely to become a bit questionable.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
Uhh, well there's not really any such thing as a "manual" gun as far as I am aware. Keeping in mind that I learned all this stuff over a decade ago and haven't exactly kept up with it since :D.
But I assume what you're talking about is a gun with a manually operated action. In which case no, it can still have a magazine capacity of... Anything really.
But the point is after every shot the shooter will have to manually cycle the weapons action. That will provide lots of time for people to escape and should reduce deaths in mass shootings.
Of course.. This is all kinda pointless. No matter what we ban, magazines, types of guns, if you don't have confiscation it won't even stop people getting those types of weapons. And confiscation is not going to work, not least of all because we don't even know where all the guns are to confiscate them.
Pickledlemons
Bluelighter
I kind of caught myself in this quagmire. My arguments for wanting drugs legalized and guns restricted were complete opposites. I'm now more middle of the road with guns but you have to admit that something isn't working right in the current american system.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
@JessFR
Okay, perhaps I'm less familiar with gun terminology than you are. It's been a long time since I last went hunting... but I still don't follow the logic of why mag capacity is basically irrelevant. Let's say maximum magazine capacity is 3 and you can only own five magazines. Most mass shooters fire numerous bullets per kill. How many seconds does it take to swap magazines? How many magazines would you need to have on you to do shoot 50 people?
Surely it would slow them down a bit?
Okay, perhaps I'm less familiar with gun terminology than you are. It's been a long time since I last went hunting... but I still don't follow the logic of why mag capacity is basically irrelevant. Let's say maximum magazine capacity is 3 and you can only own five magazines. Most mass shooters fire numerous bullets per kill. How many seconds does it take to swap magazines? How many magazines would you need to have on you to do shoot 50 people?
Surely it would slow them down a bit?
Pickledlemons
Bluelighter
Sorry just kind of dropping in here didn't read the whole thread, but I think its more like, you can issue arbitrary gun restrictions all day long but people are going to find a way to bypass them unless you couple it with some kind of enforcement and that is just counter to american culture. I honestly don't know what the answer is.
birdup.snaildown
Greenlighter
@Pickledlemons
I totally understand that. I believe in fixing the core of the problem. For example, I don't think you can solve drug addiction by trying to force abstinence. People need to think about why they're using. The same thing applies to guns... I do, however, believe that creating hurdles slows people down.
@JessFR has already responded to the following question, so (even though I disagree with the logic she presented) I'm not going to ask her again. I don't want to go in circles. I still think it's a relevant question, so I'll ask you instead. Why do people need high capacity magazines for self defence or hunting? I understand the self defence argument and people should be allowed to hunt, but what is the social benefit of high capacity magazines?
I don't believe the restrictions are arbitrary. Limiting magazine capacity seems like an obvious step to me. Like @Xorkoth said, it's about preventing people from shooting a dozen people before anyone has time to react. You can either do this by restricting semi-automatic weapons or restricting magazine capacity.
The core of the problem is not going to change overnight.
I totally understand that. I believe in fixing the core of the problem. For example, I don't think you can solve drug addiction by trying to force abstinence. People need to think about why they're using. The same thing applies to guns... I do, however, believe that creating hurdles slows people down.
@JessFR has already responded to the following question, so (even though I disagree with the logic she presented) I'm not going to ask her again. I don't want to go in circles. I still think it's a relevant question, so I'll ask you instead. Why do people need high capacity magazines for self defence or hunting? I understand the self defence argument and people should be allowed to hunt, but what is the social benefit of high capacity magazines?
I don't believe the restrictions are arbitrary. Limiting magazine capacity seems like an obvious step to me. Like @Xorkoth said, it's about preventing people from shooting a dozen people before anyone has time to react. You can either do this by restricting semi-automatic weapons or restricting magazine capacity.
The core of the problem is not going to change overnight.
Xorkoth
Bluelight Crew
Yeah to be clear, I definitely think the root of the gun violence problem is not guns of any sort, but rather the angst/rage/mental illness/societal illness that causes people to want to kill a bunch of random people in the first place. That said, we are facing that problem. So it seems to me that it's important to make it less easy for people to access weapons that can allow them to easily kill a bunch of people in the blink of an eye. Especially when there isn't really a good reason for people to have them. It's not like you need them for hunting. I don't buy the "defense against a government takeover" because let's be real, if the government wanted to take over the populace with force, they've got tanks and drone swarms and all sorts of stuff that people with high capacity semi-automatic military guns won't be able to do shit about. The idea that a militia of heavily armed citizens could stop the military is naive, imo.