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Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2018 Thread

alasdairm said:
why apart from? why not as well as? false dilemma is false.
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I didn't say completely ignore gun reform, but I did earlier prove that gun laws do not have a significant enough influence on homicide rates for them to be the main issue.

And how quick people are to remind us that the debate isn't actually about reducing homicide rates - it's about banning guns.
 
mal3volent said:
I think people just don't feel their humanity any more. We are so disconnected with everything. Just give us our processed shit. If you feel suicidal, might as well go down the street and get a machine gun. Take some people with you. Who cares, the planet is dying anyways. Imbeciles and zealots in charge of everything.
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Yeah I think this is the root cause as well. We are becoming so disconnected from our nature for various reasons. And there is a LOT to be angry/disgusted/disturbed about. It does seem that in most mass shootings, the end goal is suicide at the end of the killing spree. What does that say about the psychology of the killers? It says they're so fed up with things that they want to die AND take as many people out with them as they can.

So in order to solve the problem, we have to figure this out. Of course that's not to say there aren't things we can do to minimize harm in the meantime. In the US it's kind of a little late for gun control, maybe, since there are already SO many guns out there, readily available. But maybe if we did something about it, over time they would become less available. I don't know the answer, but I don't blame anyone for calling for tighter gun control laws, for something to be done. Kids didn't used to live in fear of getting shot at school. People didn't used to live in fear of getting shot at a concert, or in a movie theater, or whatever. People are desperate for something to change. The gun debate, on the side of people calling for gun reform, IS about reducing homicide rate, It's about making things safer. Whether it would work or not, it's why people are debating it. There are probably some people for whom that's not true, but I think that's rare.
 
LandsUnknown said:
Knives are designed for utilitarian purposes, yet are sometimes used as weapons. The same could be said of hammers, baseball bats, and crowbars. Like knives, their intended purpose was not to be a weapon yet they have been used as weapons. However, guns are specifically designed to be used as weapons.

That doesn't mean all guns should be banned. However, steps should be taken to ensure that the mentally unstable don't have access to them.
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I've never found that a compelling argument. Because it doesn't really say anything. Why does "designed as a weapon" make a difference? Presumably the argument is that something designed as a weapon must be more dangerous than something not, but that doesn't hold at all. Lots of drugs we use were evolved by nature originally as a weapon. Lots of items not designed as weapons can be extremely deadly. I think it's just a lazy meaningless argument used to try and avoid a more in depth rational intelligent debate about the differences between the laws for different dangerous items.

It's not even that straightforward. A shotgun is designed as a weapon, but can be used to fire all sorts of cartridges not intended to kill. It's more accurate to say bullets are designed to do this or that. And it still gets complicated when you consider that arguably more consideration is given to immediate incapacitating than death.

It's a bad argument I see made over and over because it's easy, avoids harder questions and most people don't know enough to argue against it.

Apple maps was "designed as" a navigation tool but it can be lethal too when it has you nosedive off a bridge.
 
Yet another mass shooting

American society is disintegrating

A gunman blasted his way into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis with a shotgun Thursday afternoon, killing five people, authorities said. Journalists dived under their desks and pleaded for help on social media. One reporter described the scene as a war zone. A photographer said he jumped over a dead colleague and fled for his life. The victims were identified as Rob Hiaasen, 59, a former feature writer for The Baltimore Sun who joined the Capital Gazette in 2010 as an assistant editor and columnist; Wendi Winters, 65, a community correspondent who headed special publications; Gerald Fischman, 61, the editorial page editor; John McNamara, 56, a staff writer who had covered high school, college and professional sports for decades; and Rebecca Smith, 34, a sales assistant hired in November.
Two others were injured in the attack that began about 2:40 p.m. at the Capital Gazette offices at 888 Bestgate Road in Annapolis.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-gazette-shooting-20180628-story.html
 
Some employees removed high heels to prepare to flee the building. Others hid. One pulled two handguns out of his desk drawer for self-defense.
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Im not American so fond it hard to fathom or relate to the need to bring 2 handguns to work for self defense, does self defense include approaching and killing the attacker to save lives not his own? Theres not much any company can do except bulletproof their buildings and security guards everywhere.


How did this attacker get smoke grenades? Are they purchased legally?


RIP the journalists, bit weird how they turned to docial media for help and not 911 but cops turned up swiftly regardless.

This wont stop happening. Its tragic but too common to be of any major headline here, is it news headline in the USA?
 
zephyr said:
How did this attacker get smoke grenades? Are they purchased legally?
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In the United States, grenades are classified as destructive devices, a form of Title II weapons under the National Firearms Act. They must consequently be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, are taxed, and are illegal in states that ban Title II weapons.
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Legal in some, illegal in others.

Likely he went over state lines to someone who would sell him some at an inflated value.

Doesn't really matter; the low-tech solution of using blockades to prevent people from leaving was heinous and likely much more deadly than smoke grenades.
 
Grenades as in high explosives or fragmentation grenades are destructive devices, but smoke grenades I'm fairly sure are much more available. Especially since they're used in maritime and emergency signaling and such.

You'd have to check the specific laws, but I doubt smoke grenades are hard to get and they're definitely not the same destructive devices category.

Really, there's no reason for smoke grenades to be hard to get. Daytime smoke flares are identical in function and you can't be banning those or you're gonna create big problems in civilian maritime regulations.

But, then again, perhaps I'm looking at this wrong. Perhaps there's no reason smoke grenades should be EASY to get? I'm always hearing about how people's lives are more important than people's hobbies.

So in that spirit, I propose we immediately ban all smoke grenades and any device that can be used as a smoke grenade. And since carrying such devices is required in this situation, to do so now makes civilian boating and recreation unsafe and compliance with its regulations impossible, I propose we ban that too.

If it saves one life it's mother fucking worth it am I right? Ordinary people don't NEED to have a boat.
 
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^That's confusing to me. Drawing a parallel between smoke grenades and guns is not an argument I would ever make . . . though I would support, say, not selling smoke grenades to kids or whatever.
 
swilow said:
^That's confusing to me. Drawing a parallel between smoke grenades and guns is not an argument I would ever make . . . though I would support, say, not selling smoke grenades to kids or whatever.
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My point is nothing to do with guns. It's entirely about the justifications people use.

My point was to mock the many similar half assed justifications I've heard used to justify banning whatever.

That if it even has a chance of working it's worth doing. That the possibility however remote instantly makes irrelevant how many people's lives are fucked up by it. Never giving any thought to the side effects. That it doesn't NEED to be legal.

In truth, much of this is a rant from frustration about bad justifications people use to ban shit. Nobody actually said anything (yet).
 
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Banning guns isn't going to happen, random shootings are always possible considering there are always going to be people pissed off or psycho enough to kill people with the guns and associated weapons they are fully entitled to have. So basically, like other crimes too common to mention other than police paperwork - maybe mass shootings won't even make the social media headlines.
 
^
"Is there a cut-off for tragedy?
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indeed.

Mr Buckley said his wife talked him out of pushing ahead without the President's approval and lowering flags in Annapolis, the capital of the US state of Maryland.

"At this point in time, it would start to polarise people and I don't want to make people angry," Mr Buckley said.
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classy. classier, certainly than our president.

alasdair
 
Wow - the message there is fucking nuts. Fucking disturbing.



On a more superficial level, i had no idea the mayor of annapolis (like me) grew up in perth.

I visited annapolis in the 90s, and it's a really picturesque little town. What a heartbreaking tragedy :(
 
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