Guns, mass shootings, and related.

stonebeard wrote: akamaisondufromage wrote: The NRA enter the debate.  The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The most effective thing the NRA has done with a gun is shoot itself in the foot.

 

The T wrote: npjnpj wrote: basically the problem is that in the US you can't ban guns because everyone needs those guns to protect themselves against other people with guns. People in the US also need the internet to protect themselves from people who live far away with access to the internet

And removing the entire population of the USA from the internet is a problem because?

Solving problems with guns. Everybody from our world leaders to our children have signed up for it. That is the problem.Don't be lulled to sleep thinking it is about guns. It is about mindset and human nature. The value of life is a pittance.

Edited by timothy leary - December 21 2012 at 10:59

npjnpj wrote: basically the problem is that in the US you can't ban guns because everyone needs those guns to protect themselves against other people with guns.

People in the US also need the internet to protect themselves from people who live far away with access to the internet 

All of human history is rife with killing, so I don't think "banning guns" is the panacea.

I promised T (implicitly, maybe), that I would comment on why I think violent crime is so high in the USA.  I will not do so tonight (had to input grades, car broke down), but I am off for twelve days (twelve days of Christmas, heh).  So I hope to make those observations when the eloquence finds me.

Won't be tonight.    *hic*

Killing

The only reason guns amongst civilians can be of interest, is when the police do not have the power to address crime.

Dean wrote: drip?

I wanted to add some colorful word choices.

Dean wrote: Some of those proposals would indeed have an effect though I do not know that the abolishion of gun-free zones will prevent killing sprees, then killing sprees account for a small fraction of all the gun-killings in the USA proposals to prevent those are not going to make a huge difference, whether they occured in gun-free zones or not.    Since I do not live in the USA I do not know by what criteria you designate an area as being a gun-free zone - our company's Austin, TX premises is a gun-free zone, yet during one of my visits I was a little surprised to discover that a significant number (ie most) of the people I spoke to who worked there kept guns in their cars and trucks parked in the work's carpark. If you're going to have exclusion zones then you need to pay a little more than lip-service to the idea before deciding that it is flawed. However, if you are going to have zoning, then it should be the other way around - designated gun-happy zones (shooting ranges, hunting areas, theme parks for drive-bys and gangland slayings etc.).     Sure you need to change perceptions and mindsets, that is ultimately the cure, but you still need to treat the symptoms because the mindset will not change while the symptoms persist.

Of course incidents like this account for a near negligible portion of gun violence in the US, but I view acts like this quite different than the general problem with homicides prevalent in the country (many of which come from an insane and easily correctable black market for drugs). I think that these type of attacks have a rather quick partial fix which should be implemented.

Essentially we have a situation where we force all of the youth the country into one centralized place. This place does not allow for the presence of firearms of any sort. If you're planning a mass murder/suicide, then you have a place with scores of victims packed in a small area where the only threat to you being able accumulate a large body count before you off yourself is a police force whose response time (if they actually do anything when they show up at all) contains an interval sufficient to kill a few dozen people easily. It seems to me that an on premises ability to stop a shooter might be desirable and easily obtainable.

I'm unfamiliar with many gun free zones. Schools and Universities include parking lots in the gun free zone.

I'm not ignoring the symptoms. I believe I was just addressing one. I don't see the symptoms as being feasibly treated via the means being proposed by many others. 



Edited by Equality 7-2521 - December 20 2012 at 09:21

Equality 7-2521 wrote: You do not. However, I would prefer if you did so I can see how it is relevant.

I'll keep it simple: using Switzerland as an example for why we actually need more guns is an over-simplified example used to "prove" the validity of a naive and simplistic solution to a complex problem.

Dean wrote: CCVP wrote: Brazil has one of the strictest gun policies in the Americas and we still have alarming rates of gunfire crimes/murder. Just some kilometers north of where I live there are over 60 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and where I live the figures are around 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, way above the US medium.  Are any of those crimes committed with legally acquired guns and ammunition?  A mere fraction. Still, I do believe that selling some types of firearms to civilians a bit too much, like rifles and such. That is a perfectly valid observation - treating the symptom does not cure the disease, it is necessary to do both to effect the desired result - regulation of the means of killing without addressing cause of killing is not a cure. If a kid is hitting other kids with a baseball bat the first course of action is to take away the bat, then you look to why he wants to hurt others - you don't enter that discourse while he is sat next to a pile of baseball bats. At some point in time all those illegally owned guns were legally produced and sold.   The question is, which club do you want to be a member of: one with >40 killings, >10 killings or <0.25 killings per 100,000 of population?

Just as an example, my country of origin, peaceful and calm about 20 years ago, is now violent as hell and the main cities are full of crime. Guns aren't legal. But lots of citizens are requesting some right to own arms for self-defense at home.