12 Dead, 50 Injured in Shooting at "Dark Knight Rises" Premire in Colorado

[Shyria Dracnoir]

CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57476379/mass-shooting-at-batman-showing-in-denver-suburb-aurora-colorado/)

(CBS/AP) AURORA, Colo. - A gas mask-wearing gunman opened fire early Friday at a suburban Denver movie theater, leaving at least 12 people dead and dozens more injured, police said.

The violent and chaotic scene erupted about 12:30 a.m. local time as the suspected gunman, identified as 24-year-old James Holmes, stood at the front of one of the Century 16 theaters at the Aurora Mall where the latest Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" was playing. Witnesses reported that the gunman entered the theater through an emergency exit door and threw a gas canister before opening fire.

Officers found Holmes near a car behind the theater. He surrendered without resistance, police said.

Aurora shooting witnesses describe panic, chaos
Suspect in Colo. movie-theater shooting identified shooting

Police recovered four guns at the theater - one shotgun, two pistols and what is believed to be an assault rifle, a law enforcement source told CBS News correspondent Bob Orr. Authorities also recovered a gas mask.

Aurora Police chief Dan Oates said there's no evidence of any other attackers. There was also no immediate word of any motive. Federal law enforcement officials are being briefed on the attack, but at this point, there is no indication it is terrorism-related, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports.

The suspect spoke of "possible explosives in his residence. We are dealing with that potential threat," Oates said. Police were at the Denver-area apartment and had evacuated other residents of the building. Oates did not say whether any explosives had been found, but Orr reports that Holmes' residence was "booby-trapped" and police can see what looks like "buckets of extra ammunition" and some kind of chemicals, according to a law enforcement source.

I honestly don't know what to say at this point. It's an utterly reprehensible turn of events, and I don't see it getting any better by the time we puzzle out the man's motivations. There's going to be a lot of mudslinging in the near future, and I just hope no one else decides to bring a gun to that.

[shiney]

Odds are extremely high that this gets politicized. The Brietbart site has already stated he is a registered Democrat. The likelihood of them actually knowing that is of course slim but...in this current environment...I'm going to guess that facts don't really matter.

Also, where is Batman when you need him?

[Sifright]

being a fascist.

[Loyal]

Fascist, Sif.

The media was going to eat this shit up regardless, politics just gives them another ratings-friendly angle with which to do it.

[Aerozord]

I just hope we dont hear something stupid like "he was trying to recreate Batman's origin"

[Solid Snake]

I just hope we dont hear something stupid like "he was trying to recreate Batman's origin"

Too late. (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/20/12850048-gunman-calling-himself-the-joker-shoots-71-killing-12-at-dark-knight-rises-screening-in-aurora-colorado-authorities-say?lite&__utma=14933801.372398289.1342818069.1342818069.13 42818069.1&__utmb=14933801.1.10.1342818069&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1342818069.1.1.utmcsr=msn.com|utmc cn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ccover=1^12= Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=ww w.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Int ernal%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=177762725)

[Flarecobra]

Well, this is just crazy. And what makes this even sadder is the fact that this guy was a Ph.D. student. And judging from the fact that he had all those explosives, weapons, and armor and was willing to use them does not really suggest that this was just a random act.

And because of this, the local theater decided to pull "Rises" for now.

[rpgdemon]

I'm just annoyed that our news media is telling any crazies, "Hey, if you want to be the joker, inspire fear, and make things shut down on your account, go out and kill people, and we'll do all the advertising for you."

Like, this guy is getting exactly what he wants, and the news is reporting, "WHAT IF THERE ARE OTHERS WHO IMITATE HIIIM?!" Well, if you want to make him a rallying point for crazy people, yeah, there might be.

[Bells]

this is really bad in a multitude of levels...

Also a horrible horrible tragedy to happen, there is really nothing much to say then the fact that this sucks and that this kid was just a lunatic waiting for an excuse.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Odds are extremely high that this gets politicized. The Brietbart site has already stated he is a registered Democrat. The likelihood of them actually knowing that is of course slim but...in this current environment...I'm going to guess that facts don't really matter.

I flipped over to Fox to see how they were spinning it. Democrats didn't get mentioned once, although I noticed they couldn't do first grade math.

http://oi47.tinypic.com/mi1a46.jpg

http://oi46.tinypic.com/ay0rx5.jpg

I'm just annoyed that our news media is telling any crazies, "Hey, if you want to be the joker, inspire fear, and make things shut down on your account, go out and kill people, and we'll do all the advertising for you."

Like, this guy is getting exactly what he wants, and the news is reporting, "WHAT IF THERE ARE OTHERS WHO IMITATE HIIIM?!" Well, if you want to make him a rallying point for crazy people, yeah, there might be.

what

EDIT: Like, no really, can you clarify your position here? Are you suggesting that the media not report on tragedies, because they could possibly inspire other fuckhouse crazy people to do similar things?

Like... what? Really?

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Dueling blame game reasoning before facts are in...

It was an attack on Judeo Christian beliefs! (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/louie-gohmert-aurora-shootings_n_1689099.html)

It's because Rush said Batman was an attack on Romney (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/20/rush-limbaugh-batman-and-the-colorado-shooting/)

[Solid Snake]

what

EDIT: Like, no really, can you clarify your position here? Are you suggesting that the media not report on tragedies, because they could possibly inspire other fuckhouse crazy people to do similar things?

Like... what? Really?


Much to my own surprise, I actually find myself in complete agreement with RPGDemon.

Though what concerns me more isn't so much the media reporting on it, but more the almost sadistic degree of joy the Media appears to be basking in reporting on every last, tiny, insignificant detail.

Clearly we need a police log, (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/20/911-tape-i-need-somebody-to-shut-this-movie-off/?hpt=hp_t1) a detailed copy-paste job with related Twitter accounts, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/aurora-shooting-twitter-batman_n_1688821.html) random conjecture about how either Hollywood or comics are responsible, (http://www.wptv.com/dpp/entertainment/aurora-colorado-dark-knight-theater-shooting-is-there-a-link-between-the-film-and-rampage) a goddamn CBS special somehow airing the night after this has happened, (http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/20/dark-knight-rises-tragedy-special/) speculation as to whether the shootings will impact movie ticket sales (as if that's the crucial takeaway from all this), (http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/20/dark-knight-rises-tragedy-special/) detailed biographies of the killer, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/james-holmes-shooting_n_1690726.html) and dozens of photos of grieving friends and family members.

Hell, I feel dirty just linking all of that.
This is an immense tragedy, no doubt about it, but we -- those of us who do not live anywhere near Aurora, Colorado -- don't need quite this level of detail. Oh, we need to know the basic facts, sure.

But this kind of inundation is exactly what the shooter wanted, and it's exactly what will inspire other shooters. It also feels intensely invasive of what should be an extremely private mourning process for the families and friends of the victims. And it's also incredibly selfish of all the media outlets who are plastering as much shallow, depthless articles in order to generate increased attention and increased traffic from a panicking and outraged general populace.

...And, worst of all, this kind of inundation isn't even productive. If we're going to have dozens of articles come out in the wake of a tragic shooting, at least write something socially meaningful.

Challenge us to rethink gun control laws.
Challenge us to rethink mental health programs for struggling youths who might otherwise gravitate towards violent actions.

Don't waste our fucking times scaring everyone with: "What if copycat crimes happen! Here's an article of tweets from random people afraid that copycat crimes will happen! DON'T attend the Dark Knight Rises!" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/james-holmes-shooting_n_1690726.html)

Or, "Is this Hollywood's fault for violence in movies? Let's blame Hollywood!"
Or, "Was this kid addicted to violent videogames? Ban all videogames!"
Or, "He dyed his hair red! Does this mean he was inspired by the green-haired anarchist Joker?"
Or, "It's all the Tea's Party fault! He was a Tea Partier!" (oh, wait, he wasn't.)
Or, "It's all the Democrats' fault! He was a registered Democrat!" (oh, wait, we don't know that.)
Or, "This shooter probably did this crime because he wanted to garner infamy. So here's all the insignificant details about his personal life you didn't need to know! (By the way, if you'd like to become just as famous, go out there and shoot some innocent people, disturbed people of the world!)"

Overreacting emotionally and playing upon people's fears, anger, sorrow and hysteria is exactly what the media does best. Providing us with the facts we need to know in a way that actually enriches our lives and improves our society? Not so much.

[rpgdemon]

Pretty much exactly what Snake said.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

What kind of gets me is the cycling of interviews with those who were lucky enough to escape with their lives and how, while the victims are trying to recount these traumatic events the reporter will just randomly jump in to ask about some stupid little piss ant detail they feel curious about.

[Aerozord]

what bothers me is they go into detail so exacting it makes it easy to replicate. Remember they did that with Columbine shootings and guess what PEOPLE REPEATED IT

You dont see this much detail on your average military debriefing*

*thats hyperbole I do not know the actual level of detail on military conflict debriefing.

[Mr.Bookworm]

I think there's a pretty clear middle ground between "media reports event in unnecessary detail" (which is bad) and "media doesn't report on event at all" (which is also bad).

RPG's post read like he was suggesting the second to me.

[shiney]

I think he was making commentary on how they are gladly sensationalizing the hell out of it without any regard for the victims or their families.

[Bells]

They did the same thing about that congresswoman that got shot in the head some time ago... i completely forgot her name though, but it was a media shit-flinging fest for a couple of weeks.

[shiney]

Gabrielle Giffords. And yes, they did. That one was a little more understandable given Palin having released an image a short while beforehand placing a crosshairs ("surveyor's mark") over Giffords' district representing her as a "target". But the actual shooting was not politically motivated, dude was just a psycho.

[Solid Snake]

Why is the media giving this man what he wanted? (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/20/12863679-colorado-shooting-suspect-people-remember-shy-funny-smart-jimmy?lite&__utma=14933801.646476715.1342586493.1342811570.13 42839078.11&__utmb=14933801.1.10.1342839078&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1342586493.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utm ccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ccover=1^12= Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=ww w.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Ear ned%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=250140934)

[Magus]

I had hoped this might finally be the last straw that made people sit up and take notice that it should be next to impossible for an everyday college student to obtain an assault rifle, body armor, and explosives, presumably within a month or so (assuming when he quit college was the moment of some kind of psychotic break and not just the final act in a slow process of insanity, which is also quite possible).

It depresses me more than I can express that it's apparently been politicized immediately. For what godforsaken reason would it matter if he were a Democrat or a Republican? Jesus Christ, people. What kind of idiotic shill would you have to be to even bother looking that up when for all intents and purposes it appears to be a psychotic with heavy weaponry?

@Snake: I dunno, that's not really that bad. It's just your usual semi-pointless "how could this happen?" article that is put out in lieu of actual information since they don't know anything about him yet (like does he have a history of mental illness? Did something make him snap? How the hell did he get a hold of an assault rifle, body armor, and explosives?) I don't see how it's giving him what he wants. The guy sounds loony to me if he honestly had his hair spraypainted red and said "I am the Joker" to the police (though that particular story sounds rather suspect, since apparently the police are being tight-lipped and as for bystanders he was masked and never said anything. I have no idea if that is true and I hope it isn't just so we can avoid another incredibly dumb Columbine-esque argument over violence in media that will detract from the discussion of the fact that apparently literally anyone can acquire an assault rifle, body armor, and explosives and kill dozens of people).

EDIT: This is doubly horrifying to me in that I went to see that movie where I live. Literally anyone could be the victim of violence like this. You could be in a mall or a store or whatever and be shot to death by someone firing 20-30 shots in a row. And yet I have no doubt a bunch of people will get up on their soapbox and loudly call for a defense of gun rights over the next few days. Because people just need assault rifles to defend themselves, apparently. They just need to be available in such bulk that literally anyone can get one.

[Bells]

it seems even good intentions can formulate bad ideas, but here we go.. just wanted to share this one tidbit about this story

http://9gag.com/gag/4820380?ref=discuss

[Xellos]

This seems relevant to what others have been saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

[Magus]

This seems relevant to what others have been saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

This does make sense and I think they do always essentially come off as making them into antiheroes even when they clearly aren't even rational. Like the guy who shot Giffords was just a straight-up delusional nutcase, but everyone wanted it to be politically motivated for the first few days of coverage, like he was some kind of thoughtful assassin. And there was the overemphasis on the Columbine shooters' "alienation" at school (ignoring other essential things such as their white supremacist leanings, their apparently shitty parents, and the fact that they had access to a multitude of firearms and were even able to make pipe bombs unmolested in their basement). They did this with the Virginia Tech shooter, too, showing all those photos of himself in "action-movie" poses.

Oh, and the dumb "violent media" things that are always brought up, like that is somehow more important than the fact that these people always have such apparently easy access to guns.

[Nique]

I'm posting something I wrote regarding this incident because of some slight arm-twisting on behalf of my wife because she found it encouraging;


The world can be a sad, scary place. When a single person can, in one act of chaos, literally destroy lives, it's so important to realize the power individuals have.

Empathize with others, even, and especially, those different from or far away from you. Don't be overwhelmed by tragedy and injustice, even as awful and frequent as they can be, but understand that they happen, and be understanding to those oppressed by the ugly parts of our world. Avoid contributing to their pain. Humans can destroy each other, but we are also empowered to build up, to encourage, and give hope.

Something terrible happened last night. Let's balance things out a little by being awesome to each other.

Basically, when this kind of thing occurs there's ton of outcries of support. Which is wonderful. But we're very privileged to live in a part of the world where we do not expect violence to be thrust upon us or those close to us, and it's important to remember that tragedy happens everywhere, everyday, far and near to us, but that empathy for all people is not beyond our grasp. Just as one person can have a terrible impact on the lives of others, all of us as individuals can have just as strong of a positive impact on our world.

[Meister]

Guys if you link something, it'd be nice to quote it or give a short description beyond "this could be relevant." :) With images, rehosting and embedding is also a good option.

[Gregness]

This does make sense and I think they do always essentially come off as making them into antiheroes even when they clearly aren't even rational. Like the guy who shot Giffords was just a straight-up delusional nutcase, but everyone wanted it to be politically motivated for the first few days of coverage, like he was some kind of thoughtful assassin. And there was the overemphasis on the Columbine shooters' "alienation" at school (ignoring other essential things such as their white supremacist leanings, their apparently shitty parents, and the fact that they had access to a multitude of firearms and were even able to make pipe bombs unmolested in their basement). They did this with the Virginia Tech shooter, too, showing all those photos of himself in "action-movie" poses.

Oh, and the dumb "violent media" things that are always brought up, like that is somehow more important than the fact that these people always have such apparently easy access to guns.

Magus, you keep bringing up this access to guns nonsense, but that's exactly what it is. Guns are just a tool, and the fact that he has them didn't turn him into a sociopath.

[Aerozord]

part of the issue is what I like to call "Telephone Game Syndrome"

Media: during an interview "is there any chance this was in response to the new batman movie"

Person A "I hear it might have been motivated by the batman movie"
Person B "It was motivated by the batman movie"

This is why I had "news" programs speculating. It leads to people thinking its true.

[Magus]

Magus, you keep bringing up this access to guns nonsense, but that's exactly what it is. Guns are just a tool, and the fact that he has them didn't turn him into a sociopath.

Explain to me how an assault rifle is anything but a tool for killing people. If you need 30 shots for a deer you are a shit-tastic hunter. We always got along just fine with a 30.6. Heck, my father's first deer was bagged with a .22 with iron sights 50 years ago.

If it's just for fun I would argue the necessity of it in comparison to the danger. There's a reason people shouldn't be able to buy M80s (quarter stick of dynamite) either, even though presumably they just want to have fun with them.

It's not even arguable in my mind like a handgun where maybe you could argue its use in self-defense.

As for sociopaths, part of more stringent gun laws would be creating a database of people with a history of mental illness to go along with current criminal databases. Maybe that would be a start. I don't think even the NRA could oppose that, right? Except they probably do.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

As for sociopaths, part of more stringent gun laws would be creating a database of people with a history of mental illness to go along with current criminal databases. Maybe that would be a start. I don't think even the NRA could oppose that, right? Except they probably do.

I think at this point they throw out knee jerk reactions to anything because that helps to maintain their political power.

[Marelo]

Magus, you keep bringing up this access to guns nonsense, but that's exactly what it is. Guns are just a tool, and the fact that he has them didn't turn him into a sociopath.

How does a tool merely existing mean that everyone should have free or even slightly inconvenient access to it?

Like, I don't know about you but I'm pretty glad people can't buy landmines at Walmart.

Same argument, put another way: Tools are useful because they're designed to help people accomplish things. Shovels are designed to make digging easier. Guns are designed to make killing things easier. The idea that we shouldn't be suspicious or restrictive of people buying flak jackets and assault rifles because they're "just tools" is like assuming someone buying a shovel isn't planning on digging a hole in the ground with it.

[Magus]

part of the issue is what I like to call "Telephone Game Syndrome"

Media: during an interview "is there any chance this was in response to the new batman movie"

Person A "I hear it might have been motivated by the batman movie"
Person B "It was motivated by the batman movie"

This is why I had "news" programs speculating. It leads to people thinking its true.

CNN has easily the dumbest story (LINK REMOVED BECAUSE IT WAS SERIOUSLY STUPID. Basically it's about that part in The Dark Knight Returns, the graphic novel from 1985, where a guy shoots some people in a theater, and then the second half points out that this is dumb to bring up, so why did they?) on their front page regarding this right now.

Hell Begins had the Waynes get shot outside a movie theater, why not go with that for your dumb article?

I like how the second half of the article basically goes, "This is actually baseless, but we already got your pageclick for our ratings, so joke's on you."

[Solid Snake]

The problem really is that the NRA has, in its mission to protect all guns from regulation, oversimplified the issue into a series of taglines about "Freedom" and "Liberty" and all those buzzwords you'll never be able to make sense of in America.

...And, really, I don't have a problem with certain KINDS of guns. That's the problem with the gun control discussion right now: The NRA has basically galvanized half the population by inappropriately, and inaccurately, demonizing gun control proponents as advocating a position that will restrict their access to their hunting rifles and destroy their "way of life."

I'm sure there are gun control proponents who'd seriously, if given the opportunity, outlaw guns entirely, but the general propositions I've heard from more serious political actors involves either banning the ridiculously violent varieties of guns, or merely including additional regulatory hurdles to the immediate acquisition of new guns.

Neither of those positions are unreasonable.

Neither of those options would, in any way, restrict what probably constitutes the majority of the NRA's membership from continuing to hunt. Shotguns and rifles that are designed to target game will continue to exist. Pistols that can only shoot a few rounds before requiring reloading? I'm all for continuing to sell them to purchasers in good standing -- though I'd like to see more regulatory impositions imposed on the sale of all firearms to ensure we're selling them to the right people. Many women, in particular, could well benefit from pistols that could be used to deter sexual assault.

As for the Second Amendment, even assuming the NRA is right in its assumptions as to its intended meaning and the literal nature of Constitutional interpretation, it's difficult to imagine what the "framer's intent" would truly be in the modern era. When Thomas Jefferson thought about guns, he was thinking about matchlock muskets. Those fuckers were notoriously inaccurate, painstaking to reload, and they sure as hell couldn't be used by mentally imbalanced citizens to has this kind of effect in these kinds of shootings.

[Gregness]

Explain to me how an assault rifle is anything but a tool for killing people. If you need 30 shots for a deer you are a shit-tastic hunter. We always got along just fine with a 30.6. Heck, my father's first deer was bagged with a .22 with iron sights 50 years ago.

If it's just for fun I would argue the necessity of it in comparison to the danger. There's a reason people shouldn't be able to buy M80s (quarter stick of dynamite) either, even though presumably they just want to have fun with them.

It's not even arguable in my mind like a handgun where maybe you could argue its use in self-defense.

As for sociopaths, part of more stringent gun laws would be creating a database of people with a history of mental illness to go along with current criminal databases. Maybe that would be a start. I don't think even the NRA could oppose that, right? Except they probably do.

How does a tool merely existing mean that everyone should have free or even slightly inconvenient access to it?

Like, I don't know about you but I'm pretty glad people can't buy landmines at Walmart.

Same argument, put another way: Tools are useful because they're designed to help people accomplish things. Shovels are designed to make digging easier. Guns are designed to make killing things easier. The idea that we shouldn't be suspicious or restrictive of people buying flak jackets and assault rifles because they're "just tools" is like assuming someone buying a shovel isn't planning on digging a hole in the ground with it.

My point is more that tools are neutral and that condemning a tool for what a person does with it is counterproductive. For the digging example, shovels are designed to make digging easier, but if some nutcase digs up a sewer pipe in my front lawn and breaks it open, it doesn't really matter whether he used a shovel, a backhoe or his goddamn bare hands, the damage is done. The issue is the guy being a nutcase/asshole/whatever, not that tools he used exist.

Careful and thoughtful application of dynamite helped carve Mount Rushmore, and that same dynamite could just as easily blast Washington's nose off.

Anyway, if you all want to have a further discussion of this, I'm more than game to engage you, but we should take it to PM's or another thread or something so we're not derailing this one.

[rpgdemon]

I like how the second half of the article basically goes, "This is actually baseless, but we already got your pageclick for our ratings, so joke's on you."

Then don't link it for fucks sake. You are feeding into it.

[rpgdemon]

though I'd like to see more regulatory impositions imposed on the sale of all firearms to ensure we're selling them to the right people.

Such as?

One of the biggest things people do wrong in debating the issue of gun rights is just say, "We need more regulations." It's like, sure, that makes sense inherently, but there already are a boatload of regulations. Like, list a regulation, and it'll probably already be, legally, in place.

It's not an issue of needing additional regulations on the sale of firearms, it's the fact that no one needs a pistol that can shoot 100 rounds without reloading. Who does that benefit? The person at a gun range who doesn't feel like reloading? And then you have the people going, "NO IT'S SUPER FUN TO SHOOT." Then you say, "Yeah, okay, your fun is totally worth the lives lost to these weapons in incidents like this.", and win the argument.

[Magus]

Then don't link it for fucks sake. You are feeding into it.

It's like a Rush Limbaugh article or something, a car wreck. We can't look away. Hell you can't even watch CNN without seeing the dumb way the media coverage of this is going. That said, I will take the link out since you are right.

My point is more that tools are neutral and that condemning a tool for what a person does with it is counterproductive. For the digging example, shovels are designed to make digging easier, but if some nutcase digs up a sewer pipe in my front lawn and breaks it open, it doesn't really matter whether he used a shovel, a backhoe or his goddamn bare hands, the damage is done. The issue is the guy being a nutcase/asshole/whatever, not that tools he used exist.

Careful and thoughtful application of dynamite helped carve Mount Rushmore, and that same dynamite could just as easily blast Washington's nose off.

Anyway, if you all want to have a further discussion of this, I'm more than game to engage you, but we should take it to PM's or another thread or something so we're not derailing this one.

Yeah but take your example of dynamite. Should anyone be able to access dynamite when they have no legitimate purpose or need for it? No. Like if you want to buy an assault rifle you should have to have a legitimate purpose for it, not just the second amendment. You can't go buy uranium or whatever. That's a hyperbolic comparison of course but at some point there should be a line between what is okay for civilians and what should only be given to police/military. And the line seems self-evident to me. I don't think civilians should be able to buy grenade launchers or explosives or assault rifles. They just can't be argued to be for self-defense.

I don't really see this as derailing the topic, I don't think we've had a spree killing topic ever where we didn't talk about gun control in some shape or form.

[Solid Snake]

Such as?

Background checks (including a prospective buyer's mental health history), lengthy waiting periods before acquisition, limits on the amount you can purchase at once, a centralized government computer database that records the amount (and type) of firearms you've purchased and own under your name, regulations inhibiting transfer (ie, inability to inherit), regulations relating to bullets (guns can't fire X bullets before a mandated manual reload)...

...ideally in the more distant future, also some way that certain more powerful weapons (the shotguns, not the self-defense pistols) would require personalized activation via fingerprint or voice.

[Magus]

A pistol is far more dangerous as a whole than a shotgun, though.

[Aerozord]

Just tossing this out there. Guy made homemade explosives and was able to use them for strategic advantage and the greatest difficulty in taking down suspects like this is the full body armor (ie the defensive aspect that no one seems to argue to regulate).

Sure it might have lessened number of dead but it wouldn't stop things like this. Could have easily have used other weapons

Japan has crazy strict weapon regulations. So some nut just drove a car into a crowd then started slashing people with kitchen knives. We are humans. The entire reason we are at the top of the food chain is our ability to make weapons

[Magus]

Just tossing this out there. Guy made homemade explosives and was able to use them for strategic advantage and the greatest difficulty in taking down suspects like this is the full body armor (ie the defensive aspect that no one seems to argue to regulate).

Sure it might have lessened number of dead but it wouldn't stop things like this. Could have easily have used other weapons

Japan has crazy strict weapon regulations. So some nut just drove a car into a crowd then started slashing people with kitchen knives. We are humans. The entire reason we are at the top of the food chain is our ability to make weapons

Yeah but I think you'll find that the murder rate in Japan is much lower. Sure you can find alternate weapons to kill people with but ultimately you will kill less people, presumably. It just seems equally pointless to go "well, they could just stab people, we might as well make it easy to buy assault rifles" or "they could just make homemade bombs, we might as well make it easy to buy assault rifles". I think I'm just looking at it pragmatically, if you make it harder to get guns that fire dozens of rounds you will reduce the amount of people killed by spree killers.

Tackling how this guy got access to high-grade explosives is another issue, but I presume he made them from separate ingredients that he put together himself, whereas the people with the technical expertise to make a home-made gun (or at least one that is like a real gun and not just a zip-gun that fires one or two bullets) would be incredibly rare.

As for regulating body armor I'm pretty sure you can't just buy kevlar body armor, either, but I know little about that.

EDIT: Presumably in most states body armor is regulated along the same lines as guns (you can't have a criminal record).

[rpgdemon]

Background checks (including a prospective buyer's mental health history), lengthy waiting periods before acquisition, limits on the amount you can purchase at once, a centralized government computer database that records the amount (and type) of firearms you've purchased and own under your name, regulations inhibiting transfer (ie, inability to inherit), regulations relating to bullets (guns can't fire X bullets before a mandated manual reload)...

Except for the bullet firing regulations (Which aren't regulations on purchase), all of those are in place, as far as I know. It might vary in other states though? As I said, it's an argument that you can't really win by saying, "We need impositions on purchasing of guns," because all the common sense things that you'd impose are already there. You need to take a different angle.

[Aerozord]

EDIT: Presumably in most states body armor is regulated along the same lines as guns (you can't have a criminal record).

yea and these people dont. Not 100% on this specific case but its not unusual.

I tend to think our mental health institutes are fairly good. Usually its the ones that no one notices that snap. The old "beware the quiet ones". I dont know maybe first we should worry about removing the cost and social stigma on seeking psychiatric help. I'd much rather work towards getting people to not go on homocidal rampages than just change the weapon they use.

I'm not really for or against gun control. I just feel if thats the route you take you will only change the murder weapon not the number of instances.

[Aerozord]

Except for the bullet firing regulations (Which aren't regulations on purchase), all of those are in place, as far as I know. It might vary in other states though? As I said, it's an argument that you can't really win by saying, "We need impositions on purchasing of guns," because all the common sense things that you'd impose are already there. You need to take a different angle.

aren't mods like extended magazines illegal?

[rpgdemon]

aren't mods like extended magazines illegal?

I don't know about that, but I was referring to Snake's point about regulatory laws.

[Marc v4.0]

A pistol is far more dangerous as a whole than a shotgun, though.

Most pistols are incapable of leaving 5 inch entry holes in things. Any shotgun can.

This is, of course, secondary to the fact that they are both just as dangerous because they are firearms designed to kill things.

[TDK]

...ideally in the more distant future, also some way that certain more powerful weapons (the shotguns, not the self-defense pistols) would require personalized activation via fingerprint or voice.

In what way is a shotgun more dangerous, its more lethal at close range (depending) but outside of very personal range, they're much less accurate. Its not really even more dangerous to a crowd because the penetration is much less (I would think) and the spread honestly isn't that great that it could hit more than one person lethally anyway

More importantly, most shotguns are used for hunting, which mainly takes place in environments not suited for fancy thumbprint scanners and shit. They would get wet, broken, any number of things. Not to mention running out of batteries or whatever. You think hunters are going to want to have to tote around fancy personalized activation stuff when they go deep into the woods? Also, the shock associated with gunfire would almost certainly not be good for sensitive electronics like that.

The entire south would throw a shit over something like that. And rightfully so!


I'm pretty sure you can't just buy kevlar body armor, either, but I know little about that.


You can buy plain old kevlar though! I'm not sure how hard it would be to make it into a vest, but I'm sure you could do it at home.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

In what way is a shotgun more dangerous, its more lethal at close range (depending) but outside of very personal range, they're much less accurate. Its not really even more dangerous to a crowd because the penetration is much less (I would think) and the spread honestly isn't that great that it could hit more than one person lethally anyway


I'm pretty sure the whole "Close range only" thing is just for Video games. Looking it up the Remington 870 the guy had would be effective for 25 yards using buck and over 75 for slug. Obviously you wouldn't have the same trained pinpoint accuracy as a handgun, but it would still be far more devastating to get hit in the chest with buck at 10 yards than a glock just because there's more likelyhood of something important getting hit.

That's the critical thing to me. Shotguns are more dangerous because the most important part about lethally hitting someone with a gun is where the bullets go, and shotguns are able to tear much larger holes in people, doing far more damage in the process.

[Nikose Tyris]

I am entertained that people combine the video game idea that shotguns are close range only while acknowledging they are an ideal tool in duck hunting.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

I wasn't going to mention that.

[Marc v4.0]

I am entertained that people combine the video game idea that shotguns are close range only while acknowledging they are an ideal tool in duck hunting.

Clearly, Shotguns are for a special kind of hunting where you have to sneak within strangling distance of the game before you can hit it.

[Sifright]

in fairness, video games usually presume you and your enemies are wearing full suits of bodyarmour. Kevlar does wonders against buckshot, if you have no armour though shotguns are way deadlier than a pistol because you don't even have to aim directly at your target to fuck them up.

[stefan]

in fairness, video games usually presume you and your enemies are wearing full suits of bodyarmour. Kevlar does wonders against buckshot, if you have no armour though shotguns are way deadlier than a pistol because you don't even have to aim directly at your target to fuck them up.

http://i.imgur.com/RY9Fi.jpg

[TDK]

I didn't say they are only effective at close range, I said they are only particularly more deadly at close range, and are less accurate. They are still deadly at moderate range (although this falls off more quickly than it would with heavier shots because obviously the pellets are lighter and therefore more affected by air resistance) but shotguns are inaccurate and therefore not useful at anything but close to medium range.

[Marc v4.0]

A great deal of shot inaccuracy is due more to lacking a ballistic spin that a regular round builds as it exits the gun, coupled with deformities caused by the extreme pressure and release. Wax-packed rounds made of more durable metals can increase the effective range and lethality of the shot by staggering degrees.

When we are talking in terms of range from street to sidewalk, or even from sidewalk to sidewalk, shot has tremendously more lethal potential than bullets. While it is true that shot lethality does drop off at long ranges, the distances we are talking about make this a pointless observation. Considering these people were wearing clothes and not body armor(another completely moot condition), even mid-long range shot is very dangerous.

Still really pointless because it is a Firearm designed to kill, one being more lethal than the other is a pretty derailing argument especially when comparing two completely different types of firearms and when it isn't even part of the thread topic to boot.

[Meister]

http://i.imgur.com/RY9Fi.jpg
If someone makes a bad point, make a good counterpoint, don't post a non sequitor photo.

[Magus]

I meant pistols are more dangerous on a societal scale (I think I said "as a whole" which I guess I meant to be in the various situations a pistol could be used in, but sorry for being vague) because even small, easily concealed ones are deadly. With a shotgun you can modify it into a sawed-off (a massive felony) but even then they are quite bulky. I was speaking in generalities about the societal implications of the two weapons, shotguns are simply not as "dangerous" on that scale because the scenarios in which they are used are much narrower. They have less implications for our society as a whole than pistols do. I wasn't even talking about fire power, range, whatever.

An emphasis on increasing mental health clinics and stuff like that would also be a good idea, I just don't think we should dismiss gun control out of hand as if there weren't entire countries built around the concept. The main problem with the U.S. isn't that gun control doesn't work, it's that the logistics on the geographical and population scale of the U.S. are a nightmare in comparison to other countries like Britain, Japan, etc. because we have ten times the population and ten times the space. But people always attack the very concept as ineffective when it has been shown to be effective, it just might not be as effective here or might be much more costly to implement and maintain.

[Aerozord]

sawed-off shotguns only have one advantage, they are easier to conceal, there is a reason no company on the planet manufactures them.

But as a rule all guns are equally as deadly, its just a matter of situation. If one gun was patently superior to another than no one would use the inferior one and it would cease to exist.

[Azisien]

What is this discussion about right now? Gun range?

Pretty sure every movie theater I've ever been in in my life has been 'close' range as far as firearms are concerned. And since it was a premiere the theater would have been packed, you probably would barely have to aim. What are we talking about?

[shiney]

What is this discussion about right now? Gun range?

Pretty sure every movie theater I've ever been in in my life has been 'close' range as far as firearms are concerned. And since it was a premiere the theater would have been packed, you probably would barely have to aim. What are we talking about?

This. The entire conversation can be moved to general if we are to discuss the efficacy of various types of firearms as compared against each other. If we are going to talk about what happened in Aurora, then see to it that happens instead.

[Jagos]

Irony: F&F happens because of loose gun laws and Holder is held in contempt for it. Now we have a massacre to deal with.

[Aerozord]

Irony: F&F happens because of loose gun laws and Holder is held in contempt for it. Now we have a massacre to deal with.

can you elaborate on this?

[Nikose Tyris]

I'd like to preface this long tweet by saying that my passion comes from my deepest sympathy and shared sorrow with yesterday's victims and with the utmost respect for the people and the police/fire/medical/political forces of Aurora and all who seek to comfort and aid these victims.

This morning, I made a comment about how I do not understand people who support public ownership of assault style weapons like the AR-15 used in the Colorado massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15

That comment, has of course, inspired a lot of feedback. There have been many tweets of agreement and sympathy but many, many more that have been challenging at the least, hostile and vitriolic at the worst.

Clearly, the angry, threatened and threatening, hostile comments are coming from gun owners and gun advocates. Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence - these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.

Many of them cite patriotism as their reason - true patriots support the Constitution adamantly and wholly. Constitution says citizens have the right to bear arms in order to maintain organized militias. I'm no constitutional scholar so here it is from the document itself:

As passed by the Congress:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

So the patriots are correct, gun ownership is in the constitution - if you're in a well-regulated militia. Let's see what no less a statesman than Alexander Hamilton had to say about a militia:

"A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss."

Or from Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Definition of MILITIA
1
a : a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency
b : a body of citizens organized for military service
2
: the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service

The advocates of guns who claim patriotism and the rights of the 2nd Amendment - are they in well-regulated militias? For the vast majority - the answer is no.

Then I get messages from seemingly decent and intelligent people who offer things like: @BrooklynAvi: Guns should only be banned if violent crimes committed with tomatoes means we should ban tomatoes. OR @nysportsguys1: Drunk drivers kill, should we ban fast cars?

I'm hoping that right after they hit send, they take a deep breath and realize that those arguments are completely specious. I believe tomatoes and cars have purposes other than killing. What purpose does an AR-15 serve to a sportsman that a more standard hunting rifle does not serve? Let's see - does it fire more rounds without reload? Yes. Does it fire farther and more accurately? Yes. Does it accommodate a more lethal payload? Yes. So basically, the purpose of an assault style weapon is to kill more stuff, more fully, faster and from further away. To achieve maximum lethality. Hardly the primary purpose of tomatoes and sports cars.

Then there are the tweets from the extreme right - these are the folk who believe our government has been corrupted and stolen and that the forces of evil are at play, planning to take over this nation and these folk are going to fight back and take a stand. And any moron like me who doesn't see it should...
a. be labeled a moron
b. shut the fuck up
c. be removed

And amazingly, I have some minor agreement with these folks. I believe there are evil forces at play in our government. But I call them corporatists. I call them absolutists. I call them the kind of ideologues from both sides, but mostly from the far right who swear allegiance to unelected officials that regardless of national need or global conditions, are never to levy a tax. That they are never to compromise or seek solutions with the other side. That are to obstruct every possible act of governance, even the ones they support or initiate. Whose political and social goal is to marginalize the other side, vilify and isolate them with the hope that they will surrender, go away or die out.

These people believe that the US government is eventually going to go street by street and enslave our citizens. Now as long as that is only happening to liberals, homosexuals and democrats - no problem. But if they try it with anyone else - it's going to be arms-ageddon and these committed, God-fearing, brave souls will then use their military-esque arsenal to show the forces of our corrupt government whats-what. These people think they meet the definition of a "militia". They don't. At least not the constitutional one. And, if it should actually come to such an unthinkable reality, these people believe they would win. That's why they have to "take our country back". From who? From anyone who doesn't think like them or see the world like them. They hold the only truth, everyone else is dangerous. Ever meet a terrorist that doesn't believe that? Just asking.

Then there are the folks who write that if everyone in Colorado had a weapon, this maniac would have been stopped. Perhaps. But I do believe that the element of surprise, tear gas and head to toe kevlar protection might have given him a distinct edge. Not only that, but a crowd of people firing away in a chaotic arena without training or planning - I tend to think that scenario could produce even more victims.

Lastly, there are these well-intended realists that say that people like this evil animal would get these weapons even if we regulated them. And they may be right. But he wouldn't have strolled down the road to Kmart and picked them up. Regulated, he would have had to go to illegal sources - sources that could possibly be traced, watched, overseen. Or he would have to go deeper online and those transactions could be monitored. "Hm, some guy in Aurora is buying guns, tons of ammo and kevlar - plus bomb-making ingredients and tear gas. Maybe we should check that out."

But that won't happen as long as all that activity is legal and unrestricted.

I have been reading on and off as advocates for these weapons make their excuses all day long. Guns don't kill - people do. Well if that's correct, I go with @BrooklynAvi, let them kill with tomatoes. Let them bring baseball bats, knives, even machetes --- a mob can deal with that.

There is no excuse for the propagation of these weapons. They are not guaranteed or protected by our constitution. If they were, then we could all run out and purchase a tank, a grenade launcher, a bazooka, a SCUD missile and a nuclear warhead. We could stockpile napalm and chemical weapons and bomb-making materials in our cellars under our guise of being a militia.

These weapons are military weapons. They belong in accountable hands, controlled hands and trained hands. They should not be in the hands of private citizens to be used against police, neighborhood intruders or people who don't agree with you. These are the weapons that maniacs acquire to wreak murder and mayhem on innocents. They are not the same as handguns to help homeowners protect themselves from intruders. They are not the same as hunting rifles or sporting rifles. These weapons are designed for harm and death on big scales.

SO WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THEM? WHY DO YOU NOT, AT LEAST, AGREE TO SIT WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE FROM BOTH SIDES AND ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND LOOK AT HARD STATISTICS AND POSSIBLY MAKE SOME COMPROMISES FOR THE GREATER GOOD? SO THAT MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND CHILDREN ARE NOT SLAUGHTERED QUITE SO EASILY BY THESE MONSTERS? HOW CAN IT HURT TO STOP DEFENDING THESE THINGS AND AT LEAST CONSIDER HOW WE CAN ALL WORK TO TRY TO PREVENT ANOTHER DAY LIKE YESTERDAY?

We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone.

I'll say it plainly - if someone wants these weapons, they intend to use them. And if they are willing to force others to "pry it from my cold, dead hand", then they are probably planning on using them on people.

So, sorry those of you who tell me I'm an actor, or a has-been or an idiot or a commie or a liberal and that I should shut up. You can not watch my stuff, you can unfollow and you can call me all the names you like. I may even share some of them with my global audience so everyone can get a little taste of who you are.

But this is not the time for reasonable people, on both sides of this issue, to be silent. We owe it to the people whose lives were ended and ruined yesterday to insist on a real discussion and hopefully on some real action.

In conclusion, whoever you are and wherever you stand on this issue, I hope you have the joy of family with you today. Hold onto them and love them as best you can. Tell them what they mean to you. Yesterday, a whole bunch of them went to the movies and tonight their families are without them. Every day is precious. Every life is precious. Take care. Be well. Be safe. God bless.

Jason Alexander


http://www.twitlonger.com/show/if2nht

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The thing that baffles me is that everyone accepts that people need guns because they go hunting. I need a rocket launcher because I go terroristing.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Smarty you scrub, pros hijack planes.

[Sifright]

Magus, you keep bringing up this access to guns nonsense, but that's exactly what it is. Guns are just a tool, and the fact that he has them didn't turn him into a sociopath.

A hammer is a tool.
A Saw is a tool.
A computer is a tool.

A gun is a weapon, it has one purpose kill things. Any one arguing otherwise has zero grip on reality.

Edit: Having the gun didn't turn him into a sociopath, but having it did allow him to shoot 72 people and kill 12, There is no way the same could have happened if all he had access to was a large knife. So yes gun control is not only a valid topic to bring up it is anything BUT nonsense. American cultures glorification of firearms as anything other than tools for murder is obscene.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I use my pistol to open bottles.

[Marelo]

Jason Alexander later retweeted this rebuttal: (http://www.grumpypundit.com/index.php/2012/07/22/we-wont-be-fooled-again-oh-hell-yes-we-will/)

Jason Alexander is almost completely wrong. His heart is in the right place, but, I’m sorry, he’s just flat wrong on most of what he says there. The one point he has right is that this is not the time for reasonable people to be silent on gun control and the sorts of tragedy we recently had in Colorado. As in so many other areas of public debate, we cannot leave the debate to the crazy people on either extreme.

On pretty much everything else, he’s wrong. We should have a reasonable discussion about this issue, but that should start with a firm understanding of the facts and, in his words, the ‘hard statistics.’ I would love to find some way of keeping any weapon–not just a particular scary-looking weapon, but any weapon out of the hands of the kind of nutcase who is going to go out and slaughter a bunch of people, but the problem is harder than it’s often made out to be. I have a few, probably futile, thoughts at the end, but first let’s look at some of Jason’s points.

He starts out by dragging out that old saw, long disproven, that the 2nd Amendment only applies to militias. (It was exactly this argument, by the way, back in the ’90s that led to the rise of right-wing groups calling themselves ‘militias.’) For the record, the explanatory clause at the beginning of the sentence doesn’t change the meaning of the main clause: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” To argue otherwise is to argue that ‘the people’ means something different in the 2nd Amendment than it does in all the rest of the Constitution. There is no basis for doing so, and courts up to and including the US Supreme Court have upheld that the 2nd Amendment right to arms is an individual right.

You may not like it, but that’s what it says, and means. Change it if you like, and can, but until you do, that’s the constraint that you have to work in.

Jason says:

100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence

Not true. The figure for 2007 (the most recent year I have numbers for) is 31,224. Of those, 17,352 were suicides, leaving 12,632 homicides. (Including criminals killed by the police.) 12,632 is a tragic number, but a far cry from 100,000.

By the way, in 2007 there were 41,059 motor vehicle deaths in the United States. More people died on our roads on July 20, 2012 than James Holmes shot. No one outside their families cares about them, though.

What purpose does an AR-15 serve to a sportsman that a more standard hunting rifle does not serve? Let’s see – does it fire more rounds without reload? Yes. Does it fire farther and more accurately? Yes. Does it accommodate a more lethal payload? Yes.

Allow me to correct his answers.

Does it fire more rounds without reload? Yes.

Does it fire farther and more accurately? No. Most hunting rifles fire a more powerful cartridge to a greater distance with more accuracy.

Does it accommodate a more lethal payload? No. See above. The Remington 700, to pick an archetypal ‘hunting rifle,’ fires a 7mm cartridge. There are a number of bullets available for that round, but one example fires a 7.1 gram slug at 1,100 meters/second, for a muzzle energy of 4,057 joules (2,992 foot-pounds).

The AR-15 fires a 5.56mm cartridge. The common 55 grain (3.56 gram) load has a muzzle velocity of 965 meters/second, for a muzzle energy of 1,658 joules (1,223 foot-pounds). We can easily see that the ‘more lethal than a hunting rifle’ AR-15 fires a bullet with less than half the energy of a common (and not particularly powerful) hunting rifle. (More powerful rifles, like a .458 Winchester Magnum, pack over 7,000 joules of muzzle energy.)

Jason asserts that if ‘these weapons’ were regulated, James Holmes might have been caught before he carried out his atrocity.

Regulated, he would have had to go to illegal sources – sources that could possibly be traced, watched, overseen.

Does Jason really think that illegal sources are more closely monitored than legal channels? That someone is tracing every illegal firearm transaction? Do I even have to explain how silly that is? It’s the legal transactions that have a greater chance of someone noticing an unusual purchase going on. (More on this later.)

These weapons are military weapons

This is a common misconception. The AR-15 style weapons that civilians can buy are not military weapons. They are designed to look like military weapons, but looking like something doesn’t make it that thing. The biggest, most crucial different between the civilian AR rifles and the military M-4 and M-16 rifles is the thing that makes the military version worthwhile as a military weapon; the ability to fire bursts or full-auto.

I’m afraid we must here digress back a few decades for a bit of history. A hundred years ago, military rifles were much like the Remington 700 that I mentioned above; slow-firing rifles that shot a big, powerful bullet a long way with great accuracy. In the 1930?s and ’40?s, as arms-makers were trying to shrink the machine gun so every soldier could carry one, studies found that most soldiers never took advantage of the great range and power of the full-sized rifle. The rifle might be accurate out to over a mile, but a soldier on the battlefields of Europe would almost never see a target that far away.

The big full-sized rifle cartridges were also too powerful to fire full-auto (where the gun continues to shoot as long as the trigger is held back) in a hand-held weapon. Arms makers began to look at ‘intermediate’ cartridges; something in between the large rifle cartridges and the smaller, pistol, rounds fired from submachine guns.

Thus was born the modern ‘assault rifle,’ in the form of the German StG 44 (Sturmgewehr–Storm Rifle 44). It fired a cut-down version of the German 8mm Mauser rifle cartridge and carried 30 of them in a removable box magazine. Compared to the older, full-sized, rifles it was crude, cheap, underpowered, and inaccurate. Its only virtue was that it could put out a lot of those underpowered bullets quickly.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/MP44_-_Tyskland_-_8x33mm_Kurz_-_Arm%C3%A9museum.jpg/640px-MP44_-_Tyskland_-_8x33mm_Kurz_-_Arm%C3%A9museum.jpg

The influence the design had on the AK-47 and M-16 is obvious.

The civilian AR-15 rifles and carbines imitate the military M-4 and M-16, but lack the ability to fire full-auto or bursts (three bullets for each trigger-pull). (You also can’t get an M203 grenade launcher attachment.) They shoot faster than a bolt-action hunting rifle, but still only a tenth as fast as a military assault rifle.

(An aside; the Batman shooter, James Holmes, started his rampage with an ordinary shotgun. Then he switched to his AR, but the imposing 100-round magazine he had attached to it jammed and he switched to a pistol. It would be interesting, in an admittedly morbid way, to know how many people were killed by each sort of weapon.)

These are the weapons that maniacs acquire to wreak murder and mayhem on innocents. [...] I’ll say it plainly – if someone wants these weapons, they intend to use them. And if they are willing to force others to “pry it from my cold, dead hand”, then they are probably planning on using them on people.

As of 2008 about 2.5 million AR-15 type rifles had been sold in the US. Over 300,000 were sold in that year, so now in 2012 we have probably about 3 million floating around the country.

Of those 3 million inherently evil guns that are only acquired by people who plan on using them on other people, how many have been used in mass-shootings over the past, oh, twenty years? Ten? Fifteen? Let’s say thirty, though I don’t think it’s been that many, just to make the math easy. That’s .001%.

Would it make you uncomfortable to point out that police departments are the most eager AR-15 purchasers of all?

I have been reading on and off as advocates for these weapons make their excuses all day long. Guns don’t kill – people do. Well if that’s correct, I go with @BrooklynAvi, let them kill with tomatoes. Let them bring baseball bats, knives, even machetes — a mob can deal with that.

The (common) mistake Jason is making here is assuming that if weapons like the AR aren’t available, mass-murderers would use something less effective. Unfortunately, history doesn’t bear that out. As I explain above, the AR-15 isn’t the most potent rifle available, and besides the biggest mass murders (by individuals; states are still the all-time champions, by many orders of magnitude) of all time have been carried out by bombs. Timothy McVeigh didn’t use an AR to kill 168 people in Oklahoma City. Andrew Kehoe didn’t use an AR to kill 45 people at the Bath Consolidated School. They both used bombs. Vasili Blokhin used a humble .25 caliber Walther pistol, about as weak a firearm as can be found, to murder about 7,000 Polish officers, but that’s something of a special case.

James Holmes’s apartment was booby-trapped with numerous explosive and incendiary devices. Who is to say that if he hadn’t been able to buy an AR-15 he wouldn’t have firebombed that theater? Anyone who thinks that firebombing a crowded theater wouldn’t have killed more than twelve people has never seen the inside of a crowded theater.

The Problem

There are two things that determine how much harm an individual can cause other people; capability and intent.

An invalid who can’t raise his arm from his hospital bed might have all the malign intent in the world, but hasn’t the capability to go on a murderous rampage. Most healthy adults have the capability to go forth and slaughter, but no intent to do so. I’ve talked about this before.

When there is a tragedy like the Aurora shooting we as a society make the same mistake as when there’s a terrorist attack; we focus on the capability. In particular, the tools used to carry out the attack, and where the attack took place. We look for bad stuff, and we want to make the bad stuff go away.

The problem isn’t the capability; the problem is the intent. I could kill every person in a crowded movie theater. So could you. But, I don’t want to do that. I presume you don’t either. Most people don’t. It’s not bad stuff that makes people do bad things, it’s bad people using stuff to do bad things.

Most people have the capability to do great evil, but not the desire.

We can’t stop bad people from getting their hands on stuff. There are too many things that can be used to hurt people. You want to take away all the guns, everywhere in the world? Okay. How about gasoline? That’s what Tim McVeigh used; gasoline and fertilizer. There are a lot of other nasty things you can do with it too, which I won’t go into for obvious reasons.

To me, “Why do some people want to do this?” is a more interesting and productive question than, “How can we keep people from getting this kind of gun?” or “How can we protect our movie theaters?” What in our society is causing this sort of alienation and hate, and what can we do about it?
The Solution

Hell if I know.

An outright ban on guns, or even certain types of guns isn’t the answer. The UK has enacted a sweeping ban of all semi-automatic weapons over .22 caliber, but gun crime has gone up. Knife crime has also gone up, even as stricter knife bans are passed. The US ‘Assault Rifle Ban’ of the ’90s had no impact on crime.

Focusing on the bad stuff doesn’t work. We keep trying it, it’s so easy and tempting and obvious, but it just doesn’t work.

As with terrorism, we have to look at the bad people. This is hard, very hard, because until the nutcase goes on his shooting spree, or sets off his bomb, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. We can’t, as much as some people might want to, arrest ‘pre-criminals.’ That’s a very scary road to go down.

The only thing I can think that might work, at least a little–and I hate like hell to say this–is running all firearm-related purchases through a national database. Guns, ammunition, accessories, training classes, all of it. Let people buy what they want, but track it. Any unusual purchases–someone who’s never bought a gun before goes out and buys five in one week, for example–throws up a flag in the computer system and that person’s information gets routed to a special investigative division of Homeland Security, who would then check this person out.

Here’s the thing; this can’t be some ordinary beat cop, some TSA package-grabber, who does the investigating. The investigator has to be more psychologist than cop, because the idea isn’t to determine what the person has done, or what they’ve bought, or what they may be guilty of. We already know that what they bought, and they may not be guilty of anything, yet. The idea is to determine their mental state, to try and get an idea of what they might do.

In other words, if someone starts buying a bunch of guns out of the blue, send a smart person over to talk to them and try to find out if they’re a fucking nutcase who’s about to flip his shit and kill a bunch of people.

Sure, there are problems with this system. Private party sales won’t be tracked. I don’t like the idea of the government doing the tracking in the first place. A lot of perfectly innocent people are going to be pissed off by some badge-flashing shrink knocking on their door and wanting to talk for a few minutes. Good lord, the idea of Homeland Security actually being able to do a competent job of setting up a system like this?

The thing is, though, it could work. And I can’t think of anything else that can.

At the end, there, he basically advocates gun control of a different sort, though reluctantly.

Like, gun control doesn't have to take the form of a gun ban. Logistically speaking, that wouldn't even work.

The problem isn't that the dude was able to buy a shotgun, an AR-15, and two pistols. I know people who own far greater arsenals that would never, ever use them on people. (Though a flak jacket and gas mask, sure, that's pretty suspicious on its own.) The problem is that he was able to buy them inside of a two month period without raising any red flags or prompting any sort of suspicion.

[Sifright]

Well purely from a uk perspective the rebuttal is full of shit. Gun crime in the uk is falling year on year and has been for some time. http://www.gun-control-network.org/GCN02.htm

Edit: logistics excuse is ridic because all that means is that implementing it properly would take a long time, thats no excuse for not doing it. The fact that you know people that own weapons that would 'never ever use them' is also beside the point. People change over time, more importantly none of us know each other as well as we like to pretend we do. How many relatives or friends of the person involved will claim they had no idea he was thinking of doing something like this?

Legally owned firearms account for the vast majority of all gun crime. Removing access to those firearms will reduce gun crime.

[Bells]

Man, the Flak Jason is getting for his Tweets are actually the most scary part of this thing... sometimes i forget just how people on the internet can be...

[Jagos]

can you elaborate on this?

Holder has the Fast and Furious witchhunt (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/06/22/504557/the-wild-conspiracy-theory-driving-the-fast-and-furious-investigation/) to deal with where he hasn't turned over enough details on the program (http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/).

In essence, the NRA has lobbied for weaker gun laws when stronger ones are needed to avoid situations such as the Aurora shooting.

Also, the Democrats are so scared of the NRA, they aren't going to do a damn thing in regards to legislation.

[Marelo]

Well purely from a uk perspective the rebuttal is full of shit. Gun crime in the uk is falling year on year and has been for some time. http://www.gun-control-network.org/GCN02.htm

Edit: logistics excuse is ridic because all that means is that implementing it properly would take a long time, thats no excuse for not doing it. The fact that you know people that own weapons that would 'never ever use them' is also beside the point. People change over time, more importantly none of us know each other as well as we like to pretend we do. How many relatives or friends of the person involved will claim they had no idea he was thinking of doing something like this?

Legally owned firearms account for the vast majority of all gun crime. Removing access to those firearms will reduce gun crime.

Hey! Fair enough.

[Gregness]

A hammer is a tool.
A Saw is a tool.
A computer is a tool.

A gun is a weapon, it has one purpose kill things. Any one arguing otherwise has zero grip on reality.

_n5E7feJHw0


Edit: Having the gun didn't turn him into a sociopath, but having it did allow him to shoot 72 people and kill 12, There is no way the same could have happened if all he had access to was a large knife. So yes gun control is not only a valid topic to bring up it is anything BUT nonsense. American cultures glorification of firearms as anything other than tools for murder is obscene.

Sif, the guy who wrote that rebuttal explained what I've been trying to get at in his section 'the problem'.


When there is a tragedy like the Aurora shooting we as a society make the same mistake as when there’s a terrorist attack; we focus on the capability. In particular, the tools used to carry out the attack, and where the attack took place. We look for bad stuff, and we want to make the bad stuff go away.

The problem isn’t the capability; the problem is the intent. I could kill every person in a crowded movie theater. So could you. But, I don’t want to do that. I presume you don’t either. Most people don’t. It’s not bad stuff that makes people do bad things, it’s bad people using stuff to do bad things.

It seems like you're saying that the very act of possessing one drives you inexorably to committing an atrocity like it were some sort of D&D cursed artifact. Maybe it's naive of me, but frankly I'm not that pessimistic about human nature.

[Aerozord]

Well purely from a uk perspective the rebuttal is full of shit. Gun crime in the uk is falling year on year and has been for some time. http://www.gun-control-network.org/GCN02.htm


violent crimes have been falling in the US (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/11/12170947-fbi-violent-crime-rates-in-the-us-drop-approach-historic-lows?lite) as well over the last few decades. Correlation isn't causation.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

It seems like you're saying that the very act of possessing one drives you inexorably to committing an atrocity like it were some sort of D&D cursed artifact. Maybe it's naive of me, but frankly I'm not that pessimistic about human nature.

That doesn't seem to be what Sif has suggested to me. In fact he specifically said otherwise. It's just that even when you look at a very similar perspective on Human nature you can still come out the other end and think that there's no real reason to make it easy for the one in a million crazy guy shooter to get his hands on a powerful assault rifle.




violent crimes have been falling in the US (http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/11/12170947-fbi-violent-crime-rates-in-the-us-drop-approach-historic-lows?lite) as well over the last few decades. Correlation isn't causation.

Consider that Sif's statement was made in response to someone drawing a causation between the UK's lack of gun restriction and an increasing violent crime rate. Which is a double whammy of not only drawing causation where there might not be any, but not even being an accurate statement to begin with.

[Sifright]

*snip*
It seems like you're saying that the very act of possessing one drives you inexorably to committing an atrocity like it were some sort of D&D cursed artifact. Maybe it's naive of me, but frankly I'm not that pessimistic about human nature.


Edit: Having the gun didn't turn him into a sociopath, but having it did allow him to shoot 72 people and kill 12, There is no way the same could have happened if all he had access to was a large knife. So yes gun control is not only a valid topic to bring up it is anything BUT nonsense. American cultures glorification of firearms as anything other than tools for murder is obscene.


Edit: Having the gun didn't turn him into a sociopath,
*snip*

Evidently you misread what I typed. You seem to have instead think I typed.


GUNS ARE MURDER WEAPONS AND ONLY EVIL PEOPLE BUY THEM THEY TURN YOU INTO A PSYCHO AND THEN YOU KILL.


What I was actually saying, the primary purpose of a gun is to kill. You might be motivated to buy one for a different reason but that does not change the fact that a gun is designed with one purpose in mind to kill.

There is no sensible reason to own a firearm outside of hunting and even that is pretty questionable and you could easily make a licensing provision for those that make a living via hunting.

There are people that seem to think had people in the theater had their own guns they would have been okay. Rubbish, a shoot out in the theater would have got more people killed. Given the situation that occurred any one inside the theater would have little to no way of verifying their targets and they would have been gunning each other down.

The only possible time a gun could help for self defence is during home invasions and even there the attacking party has the advantage. This is ignoring the accidental shootings that occur due to poor gun safety.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

This thread is terrible, I'm glad we have poor gun control because it will be easier for you all to shoot yourself.

[Aerozord]

Consider that Sif's statement was made in response to someone drawing a causation between the UK's lack of gun restriction and an increasing violent crime rate. Which is a double whammy of not only drawing causation where there might not be any, but not even being an accurate statement to begin with.

That just means neither is valid. Its why anecdotal evidence isn't a valid logical argument. If you look at the data violent crimes are dropping regardless of stricter or looser gun control laws.

Now this is just saying that over all our globalized culture is becoming more peaceful. There are plenty of other reasons to still want gun control laws. Like the actual mortality rates within the crimes might differ I honestly dont know, and its possible that if we had gun control laws they'd be dropping faster

However even if there is a better option it doesn't mean the status quo is preventing it. Personally I think social reform and education have had a greater impact by the virtue that to a homocidal maniac a knife to the back is just as valid as a bullet. Lack of guns just changes the weapon, it doesn't stop the crime (my take on the subject)

[Fenris]

This thread is terrible, I'm glad we have poor gun control because it will be easier for you all to shoot yourself.

That's never okay, see you in a week.

_n5E7feJHw0

Yo dude we're trying to get away from the whole "dismissive reactionary .gif/video" schtick here, especially in this subforum, so if you could not do that ever again, that'd be swell.

[Sifright]

That just means neither is valid. Its why anecdotal evidence isn't a valid logical argument. If you look at the data violent crimes are dropping regardless of stricter or looser gun control laws.

Now this is just saying that over all our globalized culture is becoming more peaceful. There are plenty of other reasons to still want gun control laws. Like the actual mortality rates within the crimes might differ I honestly dont know, and its possible that if we had gun control laws they'd be dropping faster

However even if there is a better option it doesn't mean the status quo is preventing it. Personally I think social reform and education have had a greater impact by the virtue that to a homocidal maniac a knife to the back is just as valid as a bullet. Lack of guns just changes the weapon, it doesn't stop the crime (my take on the subject)


A gun hits you from range a knife puts you directly next to your target. A gun shoots you before you react probably before you even know the guy is there. With a knife the person has to get close you if he has the knife out already you can run.

I never understand this "WE SHOULD ONLY USE ONE APPROACH" Thing people bring to these kinds of discussions, obviously the correct thing to do is implement stricter gun controls AND social reforms and improvements to education. You remove guns you drop the mortality rate from violent crime drastically. There are whole hosts of pros to removing guns, there are no downsides.


Potential pros
No accidental shootings Included in this umbrella children shooting each other by mistake. Home invasions that aren't home invasions where a relative kills a relative by mistake.

Less guns available so crazies can't get their hands on them with any where near the same ease. (don't say they will go black market because thats a ridiculous argument it's not that simple to find black market dealers and inquiries like that will raise flags)

Criminals instead have to use knifes or other implements to kill meaning they have much less chance of killing tens of people in one go. You can argue there are other implements to achieve this but it would be harder and require more planning and more importantly would be more likely to fail.

Potential cons

Might not work. (Wow, this sure is a reason not to do it.)

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

That just means neither is valid. Its why anecdotal evidence isn't a valid logical argument. If you look at the data violent crimes are dropping regardless of stricter or looser gun control laws.


Not but see you're using the word "neither" which implies as your previous post implied that Sifright was making the case that less guns means less crime. This isn't what Sifright said, he didn't even come close to suggesting it. Probably precisely because it's anectodal and correlative not causative evidence.
The only person to have tried to create a link between the lack of gun regulations or the excess of gun regulations and crime is the person Sifright was responding to.

[Sifright]

That's never okay, see you in a week.



Yo dude we're trying to get away from the whole "dismissive reactionary .gif/video" schtick here, especially in this subforum, so if you could not do that ever again, that'd be swell.

Yea the best part is where what I said and what he thinks I said don't match in any way shape or form.

[Sifright]

Not but see you're using the word "neither" which implies as your previous post implied that Sifright was making the case that less guns means less crime. This isn't what Sifright said, he didn't even come close to suggesting it. Probably precisely because it's anectodal and correlative not causative evidence.
The only person to have tried to create a link between the lack of gun regulations or the excess of gun regulations and crime is the person Sifright was responding to.

Thank you.

The only thing I have claimed in my posts is that removing the ability to legally aquire firearms will lower the amount of gun crime. I've no idea on what it will do to violent crime as a whole it could increase or decrease, what I do know is that it will decrease the number of people that die from violent crime.

[Gregness]

*snip*

What I was actually saying, the primary purpose of a gun is to kill. You might be motivated to buy one for a different reason but that does not change the fact that a gun is designed with one purpose in mind to kill.

*snip*


Are swords illegal? Are bows illegal?

(Note that these two are serious questions because I'm not an expert in weapons law. I know that there are lots of regulations on knives but it's my understanding that that's mostly due to the ease with which they're concealed.)

What about martial arts? By that same metric isn't their entire purpose the hurting of others and should thus be banned?

Pesticides' only purpose is killing too.

The fact that a tool's function is inherantly dangerous is not grounds enough for making it illegal in my opinion.

EDIT:

*snip*



Yo dude we're trying to get away from the whole "dismissive reactionary .gif/video" schtick here, especially in this subforum, so if you could not do that ever again, that'd be swell.

The part where sif was talking about me not having grounds in reality sort of struck me as a pot calling the kettle black sort of situation, but I didn't make that clear in my post so sorry about that.

[Sifright]

Are swords illegal? Are bows illegal?

(Note that these two are serious questions because I'm not an expert in weapons law. I know that there are lots of regulations on knives but it's my understanding that that's mostly due to the ease with which they're concealed.)

What about martial arts? By that same metric isn't their entire purpose the hurting of others and should thus be banned?

Pesticides' only purpose is killing too.

The fact that a tool's function is inherantly dangerous is not grounds enough for making it illegal in my opinion.

EDIT:



The part where sif was talking about me not having grounds in reality sort of struck me as a pot calling the kettle black sort of situation, but I didn't make that clear in my post so sorry about that.

The part where you think a person with a sword is any where near as dangerous as person with a gun might be why it is not as heavily regulated. Same with bows. Do you honestly think the average person could kill or injure 60+ people with a sword at the same time the same goes for the bow.

Your arguments aren't based in sound rational logic. You are reaching for anything you can rationalize the idea that guns should be legal and comparing them to things that are in no way like them but could be used to hurt others. To become proficient enough to kill some one with your bare hands is not that simple or easy any scrub with a gun can shoot you from 15 yards away in the chest that is whole reason armies moved away from bows and arrows to guns.

Guns are easy to use and VERY accurate.

A guns inherent function isn't just dangerous it's designed ONLY TO KILL.

You keep fixating on the tool idea, whilst a gun may fit the technical definition calling it a tool removes all of the context of it's function and is specious. A gun is meant only to kill. Guns aren't used for any other reason.

A hammer could be used to kill, but that isn't its intended function. You keep trying to obfuscate that point.

Double edit:

What the fuck I just read your blurb like about pesticides, You are seriously trying to compare pesticides to guns now? For a start pesticides aren't used to kill humans. Why the fuck am I even having to explain something so basic and obvious?

[Aerozord]

Are swords illegal? Are bows illegal?


In the US all bows and swords are legal but follow the same usage and concealment laws. They are all grouped as "weapons" for all legal purposes. Only less restricted in that there is no version that is illegal to obtain and I believe there is no like background checks on them

There is also kind of laws about martial arts. Like a professional boxer would face more serious charges if they punch someone. Though there are no restrictions on who can learn them

[Fenris]

Another reminder that the reported post feature is not to be used to report posts that you disagree with, but rather those that are actually against the rules.

[Sifright]

Another reminder that the reported post feature is not to be used to report posts that you disagree with, but rather those that are actually against the rules.



If you didn't understand fenris i'm saying hes trying to troll.

[Fenris]

I'm saying you're clearly and demonstrably wrong.

[Sifright]

Are swords illegal? Are bows illegal?

(Note that these two are serious questions because I'm not an expert in weapons law. I know that there are lots of regulations on knives but it's my understanding that that's mostly due to the ease with which they're concealed.)

What about martial arts? By that same metric isn't their entire purpose the hurting of others and should thus be banned?

Pesticides' only purpose is killing too.

The fact that a tool's function is inherantly dangerous is not grounds enough for making it illegal in my opinion.

EDIT:



The part where sif was talking about me not having grounds in reality sort of struck me as a pot calling the kettle black sort of situation, but I didn't make that clear in my post so sorry about that.

I'm going to respond to this post again properly.

Sword - Melee weapon You won't be killing 12 people in the same place with this a group of people would be able to fight you off or more importantly run the fuck away.

Bows - More dangerous than the sword again a large group will mob you to death before you can do more than shoot a couple of arrows.

Martial arts - Gaining proficiency so that you can do any serious damage to a person takes some dedication, again no matter how skilled you get a large group will be able to take you down or more importantly run the fuck away.

Pesticides - The most deadly dangerous weapon known to man, bring nuclear weapons or you have no hope.

[Gregness]

If you didn't understand fenris i'm saying hes trying to troll.

Not trying to troll, but perhaps less clear in my points than I'd like.

The part where you think a person with a sword is any where near as dangerous as person with a gun might be why it is not as heavily regulated. Same with bows. Do you honestly think the average person could kill or injure 60+ people with a sword at the same time the same goes for the bow.

Your arguments aren't based in sound rational logic. You are reaching for anything you can rationalize the idea that guns should be legal and comparing them to things that are in no way like them but could be used to hurt others. To become proficient enough to kill some one with your bare hands is not that simple or easy any scrub with a gun can shoot you from 15 yards away in the chest that is whole reason armies moved away from bows and arrows to guns.

Guns are easy to use and VERY accurate.

A guns inherent function isn't just dangerous it's designed ONLY TO KILL.

You keep fixating on the tool idea, whilst a gun may fit the technical definition calling it a tool removes all of the context of it's function and is specious. A gun is meant only to kill. Guns aren't used for any other reason.

A hammer could be used to kill, but that isn't its intended function. You keep trying to obfuscate that point.

Double edit:

What the fuck I just read your blurb like about pesticides, You are seriously trying to compare pesticides to guns now? For a start pesticides aren't used to kill humans. Why the fuck am I even having to explain something so basic and obvious?

My point is that I don't care what its intended function is because anything that exists can be used for something that wasn't its intended purpose. In this discussion, that means that if a thing exists, someone can find a way to kill you with it. The guns are simply a means to an end and what I'm saying is that going after the means through which people commit these atrocities doesn't affect the ends of a lot of people being dead.

See, I think this next part is where you and I may have a fundamental disagreement Sif. I don't think it's guns that are the problem, it's the people using them and I would much rather spend time discussing what we can do about that.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

The first and foremost concern should be helping people to not be crazy, but that means detecting them and that's basically impossible until they start doing
odd things.

But, again, yeah. It's the people and not the guns themselves that are the problem. But why does that mean we have to make it incredibly easy for those people to get their hands on ludicrously powerful weapons? And (Fairly sure I'm repeating something someone has said) one thing, one thing that we can do about the bad people IS MAKE IT HARDER FOR THEM TO KILL OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.

It's not the only thing, you might even be able to swing that it's not the best thing. But what I keep seeing from you is that because it's not what you want to focus on it shouldn't be done at all which seems like a silly argument against the regulation itself.
Correct me if I'm wrong there, but that is what I keep seeing you as saying.

[Sifright]

Not trying to troll, but perhaps less clear in my points than I'd like.



My point is that I don't care what its intended function is because anything that exists can be used for something that wasn't its intended purpose. In this discussion, that means that if a thing exists, someone can find a way to kill you with it. The guns are simply a means to an end and what I'm saying is that going after the means through which people commit these atrocities doesn't affect the ends of a lot of people being dead.

See, I think this next part is where you and I may have a fundamental disagreement Sif. I don't think it's guns that are the problem, it's the people using them and I would much rather spend time discussing what we can do about that.

Guns let you kill easily.

The rest of those things don't.

The massacre that happened if he only had access to those things you listed no where near as many people would have been hurt.

Yes we should work towards trying to stop people going crazy and implement reforms to work towards that.

That doesn't mean you ignore the other side of the situation. You work both angles remove the ease of access to weapons that allow you to easily kill others.

Guns let you EASILY kill people why because they are designed for that, You don't need any training to be able to shoot a person.

Using a sword isn't that simple.

Bows require you to place shots carefully a group of people could easily disarm you.

Martial arts is basically useless against groups of people.

Pesticides... kill insects?

[Aerozord]

The first and foremost concern should be helping people to not be crazy, but that means detecting them and that's basically impossible until they start doing
odd things.

maybe if we removed the social stigmas against mental health they'd be more willing to seek out help themselves. How many deaths could we avoid if people felt free to discuss their anger and frustration at their work place, their feelings of betrayal from getting their useless degrees, or just get someone to give them a cat scan to see why they keep hearing those voices.

[Sifright]

maybe if we removed the social stigmas against mental health they'd be more willing to seek out help themselves. How many deaths could we avoid if people felt free to discuss their anger and frustration at their work place, their feelings of betrayal from getting their useless degrees, or just get someone to give them a cat scan to see why they keep hearing those voices.

And we totally should do that, it shouldn't be our only method of dealing with the issue though, because people will ALWAYS slip through the cracks, and allowing guns to be freely available makes this occurrence all to likely.

[Aerozord]

And we totally should do that, it shouldn't be our only method of dealing with the issue though, because people will ALWAYS slip through the cracks, and allowing guns to be freely available makes this occurrence all to likely.

but we'd still have pipe-bombs, fertilizer bombs, mustard gas, any number of incendiary devices. All of which are more effective methods of mass murder.

Actually this makes me wonder. If you are for tighter gun control are you also for government monitoring people accessing sites to obtain illegal fire arms or containing information to create homemade weapons like those I mentioned?

[edit]and I am legitimately curious. cause I dont get why you'd be for only restricting one particular aspect of this incident but not others such as body armor or homemade explosives

[Osterbaum]

Hey would you look at that, North American culture glorifies guns!? Whaaaaaat!

[Aerozord]

Hey would you look at that, North American culture glorifies guns!? Whaaaaaat!

about as surprising as someone from another nation making judgmental comments of american cultural

[Osterbaum]

You guys just need to be less terrible.

e: also stop spreading it, it's like it's contagious
e2: that was kind of a good retort though, gotta say

[Aerozord]

look I'm a laid back guy, and trust me I get the annoyance of seeing what you consider an easy to solve issue being unresolved. But this whole, being the worlds punching bag thing is getting old. America is vastly different than any other nation politically, socially, culturally and even geographically. We have different values. Stop assuming your culture is superior or that your governing systems and laws would even work here. Our physical size alone renders most systems a logistical impossibility.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Aero
Even belief in American Exceptionalism doesn't mean that people from other countries aren't allowed to make fun of America.

Do you really believe that it's all just "WE DO NOT LIKE AMERICA"?
Individual citizens of the British isle make fun of the European Union, America and everyone else. Citizens of the European Union make fun of Britain and America and everyone else and citizens of America makes fun of everyone else.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Yeah, I often refuse to believe America is real, I think it's a parody of a real country but it's actually a country people have to live in. /european

Its unhealthy obsession with guns is a legit issue to call out, though. Because it's fucked up like nothing else. It also appears that violent crimes are very common there. At least if my father's latest visit to his homestate of Maine is any indication. And people seem to think helping a bleeding man on the streets is a bad thing or something. I dunno.

E: I also think it's pretty funny you call your "leftist" party liberal, but that's just because you don't know what liberal means, politically speaking.

[Aerozord]

Aero
Even belief in American Exceptionalism doesn't mean that people from other countries aren't allowed to make fun of America.
sure they are, just as I am free to find it annoying.

Frankly I wouldn't have said anything but his comment had absolutely no purpose beyond insulting american culture as well as lacking any fundamental understanding on why the culture holds such values.

American's dont dislike anti-gun laws because we want guns. Most people against these laws do not even own a weapon that would be illegal. This country was founded on the ideals that agency and choice was worth losing some security and safety. That just because some people abuse the rights granted to them doesn't mean we should all lose them.

If a culture understands and is willing to accept the dangers of granting individuals the ability to access fire arms that does not make the culture stupid or inferior just one with differing values.

[Aerozord]

It also appears that violent crimes are very common there.

its not, violent crimes are the lowest they have been in half a century, it just seems that way because our population is vastly larger.

And people seem to think helping a bleeding man on the streets is a bad thing or something. I dunno.this isn't an american thing its an everywhere thing. People are hesitant to assist someone out of fear of personal safety and a concern that their involvement would give them personal responsibility. Sadly people are not that productive. Like you will find far more people complaining on the internet about something than actually like calling their congressman about an issue or protesting.

Apathy is truly our greatest social problem. Cause most people are good and honest, they just dont do anything

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

This country was founded on the ideals that agency and choice was worth losing some security and safety. That just because some people abuse the rights granted to them doesn't mean we should all lose them.


This country was founded in 1776. Before the advent of weaponry and tools beyond the imagining of its founders. It was founded with the principle that because the South would have a massive population and electoral advantage otherwise slaves should be counted as 3/5ths of a human being. That the only person with the right to vote should be a white land owner of sufficient education and upbringing.

Aero, I really hate to do this to you but your founders were not perfect human beings. You can't predicate the decisions of a modern nation on the ideas of its several hundred year gone founders.

And lets be absolutely clear, when you say "Some people abuse the rights granted to them" what you mean is that some people take those rights and then use them to directly and purposefully deny other people the right to fucking live.

[Bells]

Let the Military in junction with the Office of the president define 2 Groups of Weaponry: General and Military. With a sub group for "Legal Hunting".

Everything the military defines (with agreement of the executive office) as Military is off the table for anybody that is not in Law Enforcement. Everything else is General and can be acquired. The "Grey" area are weapons that the Military considers Too much for the common civilian but that are usable in Legalized hunting is permitted for that group.

Then you add in Bullet control (When someone acquires ammunition the seller must report back to the legal authorities that will keep a track record of how much ammo someone is buying, from where, when, what type etc). How much Ammo some one may have is something that should be discussed, i personally think there is never any reason for you to have more than 3 Full loads per weapon... hell, 2 should be enough...

Next, everybody that owns more than 2 Firearms and is not a Licensed hunter, must go to the local Military office/Police Dpt once a year for a quick evaluation (just a brief conversation to assess mental health). If the doctor says it's Ok, they keep their license and weapons, if not, all firearms and apprehended until another doctor provides a bill of Mental Health. And you can only acquire a third Firearm presenting that evaluation (a copy to the seller, one to the Military office/Police dept).

Now, i don't know how much of this is actually already being done... but this is the first logic thing that comes to mind. The point is not to ban weapons, but to have more control and knowledge of What someone can have, what someone has, where they are buying, when and how often...

I hardly see that as evil... y'know what? If ever comes a time for the common folk to revolt and raise in arms against their government (and dear lord some of these people out there look like they just can't wait for it to happen...) those who want weapons will get weapons... and regardless of how much you have, good luck facing against the US army with a random Civil Militia... i don't care how many AR-15's you have in your basement, that day you're going down...

And yes, people who want to go around the law will still go around the law... but time and time again when these tragedies show up in the news what calls up to me is just how they never HAD to... i mean, why would you make it easier for them if you can still have your rights while making it harder for the few nuts?

[Gregness]

Let the Military in junction with the Office of the president define 2 Groups of Weaponry: General and Military. With a sub group for "Legal Hunting".

Everything the military defines (with agreement of the executive office) as Military is off the table for anybody that is not in Law Enforcement. Everything else is General and can be acquired. The "Grey" area are weapons that the Military considers Too much for the common civilian but that are usable in Legalized hunting is permitted for that group.


And what about those of us who already think that the police thinks too much like a military body?

*snip*

And yes, people who want to go around the law will still go around the law... but time and time again when these tragedies show up in the news what calls up to me is just how they never HAD to... i mean, why would you make it easier for them if you can still have your rights while making it harder for the few nuts?

Can I just point out that this is the same sort of logic that software companies use to justify the DRM that is pretty much universally derided? If you support their use of DRM, then that's just your position and I'm cool with that. If you hate DRM, consider the double standards.

(In before 'OMG you can't compare software pirates to mass murders')

[Bells]

And what about those of us who already think that the police thinks too much like a military body?

When you have a chunk of the populace that proudly spouts their "Freedom Fighter" ideals and that continually shouts vitrol about "Armed Civil Defense Against The Government" ... shouldn't they? At least a bit? Law Enforcement personal trained and instructed to everything right up to use of legal lethal force... Social Workers they ain't.

Extremes on both sides, of course... Minorites vs Majorities, i don't have any data to define the size of these chunks... but mind you that the same mentality that rides in the civil body that enrolls intself into the police. The mindset travels up, not down.

Can I just point out that this is the same sort of logic that software companies use to justify the DRM that is pretty much universally derided? If you support their use of DRM, then that's just your position and I'm cool with that. If you hate DRM, consider the double standards.

(In before 'OMG you can't compare software pirates to mass murders')

Yeah... i don't think that logic translates well into what you are trying to say...

[Magus]

I think it's a pointless argument to say that he could have used an alternative weapon. So I could kill someone with a knife or a pistol or homemade explosives, therefore I should be allowed to own assault rifles? I'm not sure which logical fallacy that falls under but I'm pretty sure it is one.

(In before 'OMG you can't compare software pirates to mass murders')

This fallacy is called a false analogy.

[Marelo]

The fact that a tool's function is inherantly dangerous is not grounds enough for making it illegal in my opinion.

Okay, let's make this a really clear-cut hypothetical example, and then walk the logic back to the real world.

What if someone makes a weapon, a technomagical virus or whatever, the release of which is connected to a big red button, that, if pushed, would specifically kill me, and only me? It is designed to cause my death and do nothing else.

Is that "just a tool" the function of which is inherently dangerous but which function is not grounds enough for making it illegal? Should it be freely available to anyone with money and ability to enter a store?

Like, if you agree to that then I'm pretty sure there's nothing to talk about here and you and I have very different ideas about what laws are for and the relative importance of human lives and "freedom."

Now, consider something that doesn't kill a specific person but, instead, kills any human, and is just as easy to operate. It's just a big red button and you point it at who you want dead, and press it, and they're dead. Me, you, Mrs. Jenkins down the street, anyone, as easy as the press of a button on an apparatus vaguely directed in our direction.

Should that mere tool be freely available to the public, to anyone with money and the free time to take a drive to Walmart?

I don't think so. In fact, I'd say that such a tool should be even more strictly controlled and outright banned, 'cause in that case I wouldn't be the only one in danger!

All right, I think you know where I'm going next. What about grenades and RPGs and flamethrowers? They're just tools! Tools designed for death and mayhem. Weapons. Inherently dangerous in ways that shovels and brooms and yes, even knives, even the big knives, are not.

Should we slap price tags on those and stock our shelves with them?

I don't think so. Hopefully you agree.

So my question is... why is the line suddenly drawn at guns, which are also designed solely to kill? Is it just a matter of effectiveness or precision? Because, honestly, I think twelve people dead and dozens more injured, by one person, is a pretty stark reminder that these weapons (not mere "tools" but weapons) are effective at taking and harming human lives, whether most of the gun-purchasing populace uses them that way or not. That's what they're specifically designed to do: Kill and harm animals, of which humans are a member.

Why shouldn't they be as controlled as all these other things, both hypothetical and real? Their being "tools" with no will of their own just doesn't hold water as a defense of how, and which, guns are sold. The word "tool" implies purpose, and tools with dangerous purposes necessitate caution, oversight, and control.

[TDK]

^Every part of this argument is just a really dishonest way to argue, and riddled with logical fallacy.

Guns have a purpose in our society. Leaving aside the whole militia thing earlier on in our history, firstly people hunt. And secondly, because guns exist and criminals can acquire them and will obviously use them to rob or kill or whatever. So by making guns available to people who are not criminals, they can defend themselves against criminals (or whoever) without becoming criminals themselves.

Guns don't only kill innocent people. They are also used to kill (or more likely maim) in defense of the innocent (or yourself).

This is basically the pro-gun argument. Self-defense.

[Sifright]

Guns have a purpose in our society. Leaving aside the whole militia thing earlier on in our history, firstly people hunt. And secondly, because guns exist and criminals can acquire them and will obviously use them to rob or kill or whatever. So by making guns available to people who are not criminals, they can defend themselves against criminals (or whoever) without becoming criminals themselves.

Guns don't only kill innocent people. They are also used to kill (or more likely maim) in defense of the innocent (or yourself).

This is basically the pro-gun argument. Self-defense.

^Every part of this argument is just a really dishonest way to argue, and riddled with logical fallacy.

I fixed your post for you.

Guns as self defense? Are you fucking kidding me?

That theater massacre would totally have been better in the theater if only they had some more people in there shooting at each other whilst unable to tell what the fuck is going on due to smoke right?

Guns as self defense is the most ridiculous argument of your vapid gun culture. Attackers always get the drop on the person who needs the defense.


And secondly, because guns exist and criminals can acquire them and will obviously use them to rob or kill or whatever.

This particular argument is ridiculously specious. You are attempting to argue access to guns shouldn't be removed because access to guns exists and therefore criminals will have them except that by removing access to guns you also removes criminals access.

*waits for typical ridiculous comment about criminals going and getting illegal guns as if finding black market dealers is so magically easy*

[TDK]

Um. It is apparently pretty easy? Do you think all the guns gang members have (including weapons that are not legally sold at all, which is not all that uncommon) are acquired legally?

[Amake]

If you were honest about the use for guns in our society, you'd want to argue for the banning of all guns except hunting rifles. Let's see this guy get into a theater carrying a couple of five-foot bolt action rifles, let alone shoot sixty people with them. . .

Or wait, maybe it's absolutely essential for the integrity and progress of society that we also have shotguns so we can more easily kill birds?

[POS Industries]

Um. It is apparently pretty easy? Do you think all the guns gang members have (including weapons that are not legally sold at all, which is not all that uncommon) are acquired legally?
Originally, yes. They are. There's all sorts of ways you can go about getting guns that bypass current gun control laws, such as at gun shows. A number of criminal organizations will purchase weapons at gun shows in states with more lax laws and then resell them to criminals in areas with tighter laws so that the criminals who use them are harder to trace. However, this only happens because of how lax our gun laws currently are on the whole.

The "self defense" reasoning is, itself, a lie. In all likelihood, there is a next to zero chance that you or anyone you know will be in a situation where you have to shoot another human being to defend yourself. A person buys a gun because, typically, they fantasize about being in such a situation, however. It's a fictional construct we create because, quite frankly, it seems awesome. We want to be the big hero who kills the bad guy. And there's nothing wrong with that! It's a normal human thing to want. But it doesn't change the fact that a gun has only one intended use: to kill something.

Better gun laws are a good thing, at least in terms of being able to properly track weapon sales and keep an eye on suspicious activity. And, while difficult as all hell to pass, is still probably something we have a chance of doing in this country in the future.

By contrast, banning guns would, in all likelihood, reduce gun crime in the US to relative nonexistence. However, that is if it were a thing we could ever do, and it's really not. Constitutional amendments aren't the easiest thing to pass, and repealing anything in the Bill of Rights has never been done before, and given the nation's political climate throughout its entire history and into its foreseeable future, would probably lead us into a second civil war. Even if it didn't, it would be a long, grueling, and bloody process to implement such a change. And that's even if we could get everything in place to pass such an amendment in the first place, which we as a society are committed to never, ever doing. America's kind of a pain in the ass like that.

[Bells]

Really, any situation where you could react with a gun you are always in a disadvantage in several degrees to begin with... because you are either getting caught by surprise or being faced by someone already with their gun drawn and ready to shoot. So, forget any fantasy of having a "Fair Fight", you just made yourself a bigger priority target by being the other person with a gun... that without even considering the state of mind and body necessary to actually face a lethal assault while trying to kill another person

[Amake]

America is vastly different than any other nation politically, socially, culturally and even geographically.
America's kind of a pain in the ass like that.
I propose mass emigration, or possibly mass secession.

[POS Industries]

I propose mass emigration, or possibly mass secession.
Well, if we actually, as a culture, had a problem with it, we might try. But we don't.

What a shocker, different cultures having different norms and philosophies. How horrible.

[Amake]

I was thinking everyone who personally has a problem with it could get out of there. Which seems to be nearly everyone. Seems weird that this culture is so contrary to what any of its individual members want it to be, and you still defend that cultural identity.

I've long thought there's a strange divide between the United States as a country in itself on one hand and its people on the other, when the people usually should be the extent of what a country is. Any thoughts?

[Osterbaum]

look I'm a laid back guy, and trust me I get the annoyance of seeing what you consider an easy to solve issue being unresolved. But this whole, being the worlds punching bag thing is getting old.
LIke what is this even. Ok, so you don't like people criticizing the US so much. But don't play it as if your country is somehow the victim here, not on a global scale anyway. I mean you are practically the only superpower and thus deserving of a much closer scrutiny than other countries. Not to mention that simply quite a bit of the stuff that goes on over there is fucked up, as viewed by the rest of the western world.

Frankly I wouldn't have said anything but his comment had absolutely no purpose beyond insulting american culture as well as lacking any fundamental understanding on why the culture holds such values.

American's dont dislike anti-gun laws because we want guns. Most people against these laws do not even own a weapon that would be illegal. This country was founded on the ideals that agency and choice was worth losing some security and safety. That just because some people abuse the rights granted to them doesn't mean we should all lose them.

If a culture understands and is willing to accept the dangers of granting individuals the ability to access fire arms that does not make the culture stupid or inferior just one with differing values.
Look, modern American culture goes way beyond valuing "agency and choice" when it comes to guns. Guns and the people who use them are overly glorified as shit in American mainstream culture. Not to mention that "agency and choice" seem to only matter in regards to certain rights, such as easy access to guns. Glorifying the right to carry guns goes way beyond having them as a means of self defense. Self defense against what? Well other guns of course! Not to mention that the evidence is pretty overwhelming that other societies that have tighter gun control have a lower occurrence of gun crime, simple as that. You wouldn't even need to ban all guns to improve the situation a bit, just stop treating guns, the right to carry them and the right to use them on other people as rights passed down straight from The Universe to the special little continent of North America!

This country was founded in 1776.
Also this. Always going back to the "wisdom" of those who founded your country over 200 years ago is just plain unhealthy for a society. The world has changed quite a bit, and so have the realities of the world we live in. Our world view has changed tremendously, our understanding has changed. Why should we always refer to those who knew nothing of the world we live in now? Why should we always do as they dictated in their time?! Like seriously, give me one good reason. And friggin' "tradition" is not a good reason.

[Sifright]

Old dead people, who were born before advent of the internal combustion engine and electronics sure do know a lot about how the modern world should be run!

[Osterbaum]

Quick, there is a modern issue that needs to be dealt with! What would the founding fathers have done!? Let's argue about that instead!

[Sifright]

Clearly we must burn the witches, this sorcery must not be allowed to pollute our children's minds.

[Magus]

People envision having a handgun for self-defense as being able to protect themselves from other people with guns? That doesn't make any sense. I always imagined myself protecting myself from somebody with a knife or something at best. And even then it would be giving them my wallet and waiting until they run away to shoot them in the back, which is probably illegal anyway.*

The thing with assault rifles almost always smacks of this fear of the government, this fanciful notion that you can oppose the federal government (when they come in the night to take you to a political prison or whatever) with semi-automatic rifles when they have literally every machine of war at their disposal. In any case, they obviously aren't going to be used for self-defense from street thugs.

[Bells]

Actually i think if a Criminal sees you walking down the street with a rifle on your back, he is not going to be afraid of you, he is going to see if he can get you off guard to take that rifle from you... free rifle! If you keep it in your card, Free card with bonus rifle!

Sure, not all, but really only takes one... and if he has a tiny little pistol, y'know what? 1 Bullet out of that kills just as much.

[Marc v4.0]

And even then it would be giving them my wallet and waiting until they run away to shoot them in the back, which is probably illegal anyway.*

That is straight up completely fucked up, right there. What the hell.

[Gregness]

I'm going to respond to this post again properly.

*wherin goes on to Sifright miss my point entirely*

You claimed that your issue with guns was that their only purpose was killing, So I bring up a bunch more things whose only purpose is to kill (and yes, stretched quite a bit with martial arts as I'm aware there's quite a few good reasons to learn them) and you say 'actually, those don't kill as many people so it's cool'. Swords especially, are designed for nothing else but the killing of other people and if it truly is the intended purpose that offends you you should want them banned just as badly.


*snip*

Yeah... i don't think that logic translates well into what you are trying to say...

*snip*

This fallacy is called a false analogy.

At the very least, you two have my thanks for not freaking the hell out like I thought people might. Let me try this again.

For context, this was in response to Bells suggesting that anyone who wants a gun needs to submit to yearly psychiatric evaluations in order to obtain, and keep their guns among other things, with the final tag line of "why make it easy for criminals". What I was trying to get at, is that last time there was a piracy debate on these boards, the consensus was that DRM essentially treated all customers as potential criminals and that this was generally a shitty thing to do. To me, making people do yearly psych evaluations and what have you is doing the exact same thing: treating anyone who has a gun as a potential criminal. If that's a shitty thing to do to people in one context, I don't understand how it's not shitty to do in the other.

I fixed your post for you.

Guns as self defense? Are you fucking kidding me?

That theater massacre would totally have been better in the theater if only they had some more people in there shooting at each other whilst unable to tell what the fuck is going on due to smoke right?

Guns as self defense is the most ridiculous argument of your vapid gun culture. Attackers always get the drop on the person who needs the defense.



This particular argument is ridiculously specious. You are attempting to argue access to guns shouldn't be removed because access to guns exists and therefore criminals will have them except that by removing access to guns you also removes criminals access.

*waits for typical ridiculous comment about criminals going and getting illegal guns as if finding black market dealers is so magically easy*

Let me thank you for creating a positive atmosphere in which we can discuss our differences of opinion!!

Seriously though, if guns are illegal then by definition only criminals will have guns.

Originally, yes. They are. There's all sorts of ways you can go about getting guns that bypass current gun control laws, such as at gun shows. A number of criminal organizations will purchase weapons at gun shows in states with more lax laws and then resell them to criminals in areas with tighter laws so that the criminals who use them are harder to trace. However, this only happens because of how lax our gun laws currently are on the whole.

*snip*

By contrast, banning guns would, in all likelihood, reduce gun crime in the US to relative nonexistence. However, that is if it were a thing we could ever do, and it's really not. Constitutional amendments aren't the easiest thing to pass, and repealing anything in the Bill of Rights has never been done before, and given the nation's political climate throughout its entire history and into its foreseeable future, would probably lead us into a second civil war. Even if it didn't, it would be a long, grueling, and bloody process to implement such a change. And that's even if we could get everything in place to pass such an amendment in the first place, which we as a society are committed to never, ever doing. America's kind of a pain in the ass like that.

I never knew that gun shows played by different rules than normal gun retailers. Like, I know I'm probably coming off as some NRA shill or whatever, but obviously loopholes in the systems that exist need to be closed. As for reducing gun crime, violent crime rates across states show little correlation between ownership and the overall rate. Obviously, if every gun in the country up and vanished there'd be no gun crime, but I doubt it would do anything to the overall crime rate.

I did some quick poking around and found various 'studies' for and against from places that are obviously biased, but very little hard evidence to say one way or another. Best I found was a set of UN stats on wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence)

Some things I thought were interesting from that list (the numbers are from 2000):

1) of the four countries with fewer than 1 homicide per 100,000 people there were two countries that allowed citizens to own guns and two that didn't

2)I'd be interested to know what Ukraine's gun control laws are like since their homicide rate is nearly twice that of the US but their gun homicide rate is about one tenth ours.

3)I didn't crunch the numbers, but overall homicide rates seem to be more connected to prosperity than anything else, though the percentage of homicides that use guns is higher in the US than in most other places as should probably be expected.

I was thinking everyone who personally has a problem with it could get out of there. Which seems to be nearly everyone. Seems weird that this culture is so contrary to what any of its individual members want it to be, and you still defend that cultural identity.

I've long thought there's a strange divide between the United States as a country in itself on one hand and its people on the other, when the people usually should be the extent of what a country is. Any thoughts?

I've been thinking that part of the problem is that in many ways the country has changed, but we still revere the old values which gives us a sort of nationwide cognitive dissonance. Like, we either need to update our values to reflect the reality of our society, or start changing our society to reflect our values.

[Red Fighter 1073]

For context, this was in response to Bells suggesting that anyone who wants a gun needs to submit to yearly psychiatric evaluations in order to obtain, and keep their guns among other things, with the final tag line of "why make it easy for criminals". What I was trying to get at, is that last time there was a piracy debate on these boards, the consensus was that DRM essentially treated all customers as potential criminals and that this was generally a shitty thing to do. To me, making people do yearly psych evaluations and what have you is doing the exact same thing: treating anyone who has a gun as a potential criminal. If that's a shitty thing to do to people in one context, I don't understand how it's not shitty to do in the other.

The major difference that makes the comparison invalid is the fact that it's weighing possibility of software theft vs. possibility of loss of human life. The outcomes are so incredibly different that you can't put the situations on equal comparison in regards to importance.

Same with swords. Swords are deadly, but guns kill many more people than swords do so they are much more worthwhile to focus on.

Though I do think that the yearly psych evaluations treat every gun buyer as a potential criminal which is exactly why I don't think it will be a solution that will get passed in the US.

[Marc v4.0]

For context, this was in response to Bells suggesting that anyone who wants a gun needs to submit to yearly psychiatric evaluations in order to obtain, and keep their guns among other things, with the final tag line of "why make it easy for criminals". What I was trying to get at, is that last time there was a piracy debate on these boards, the consensus was that DRM essentially treated all customers as potential criminals and that this was generally a shitty thing to do. To me, making people do yearly psych evaluations and what have you is doing the exact same thing: treating anyone who has a gun as a potential criminal. If that's a shitty thing to do to people in one context, I don't understand how it's not shitty to do in the other.


See, one is a software solution to a problem that the people who made it actually created, in effort to be as greedy as possible. It is a minor annoyance at the very worst.

The other is a Weapon that can kill or seriously maim another living human being, and the regulation of those things might actually prevent people who are mentally unstable or dangerous from getting easy access to the Firearm. At worst, it saves less lives than we estimate, but it still saves human life.

[Bells]

it saves less lives than we estimate, but it still saves human life.

Which someone can try to tie right into the "cars also kill so we should ban cars" argument, but i honestly hope we can be above that because "that's not the same" is the answer for that and we would just get stuck in a loop here.

[Sifright]

You claimed that your issue with guns was that their only purpose was killing, So I bring up a bunch more things whose only purpose is to kill (and yes, stretched quite a bit with martial arts as I'm aware there's quite a few good reasons to learn them) and you say 'actually, those don't kill as many people so it's cool'. Swords especially, are designed for nothing else but the killing of other people and if it truly is the intended purpose that offends you you should want them banned just as badly.

False Analogies, they are inherently limited in the harm they can do. so they aren't comparable.

Which someone can try to tie right into the "cars also kill so we should ban cars" argument, but i honestly hope we can be above that because "that's not the same" is the answer for that and we would just get stuck in a loop here.

the answer is obviously that cars do something other than kill people. Guns don't.

[Marc v4.0]

Cars also kill so we should teach people how to fucking drive because holy shit people don't drive in traffic so much as pretend no one else is there on the road.

[Gregness]

See, one is a software solution to a problem that the people who made it actually created, in effort to be as greedy as possible. It is a minor annoyance at the very worst.

The other is a Weapon that can kill or seriously maim another living human being, and the regulation of those things might actually prevent people who are mentally unstable or dangerous from getting easy access to the Firearm. At worst, it saves less lives than we estimate, but it still saves human life.

And most regulations are little more than an annoyance for criminals. Anyway, if you're willing to make the sacrifice of being treated like a potential criminal in the name of safety, then that's a legitimate position but not one that I personally agree with.

False Analogies, they are inherently limited in the harm they can do. so they aren't comparable.



the answer is obviously that cars do something other than kill people. Guns don't.

Sif, in case it hasn't become apparant my real beef with the arguments you've been making is that they aren't consistent. First you say your problem is with their design intent, so I bring up other stuff with similar intents and you switch to a degree of harm argument. You did it in that very post in fact. Like, is anyone else seeing this too or am I going nuts?

EDIT: Incidently, False analogy doesn't apply since I'm not trying to say that violent crime is equivalent to software piracy.

[Sifright]

And most regulations are little more than an annoyance for criminals. Anyway, if you're willing to make the sacrifice of being treated like a potential criminal in the name of safety, then that's a legitimate position but not one that I personally agree with.



Sif, in case it hasn't become apparant my real beef with the arguments you've been making is that they aren't consistent. First you say your problem is with their design intent, so I bring up other stuff with similar intents and you switch to a degree of harm argument. You did it in that very post in fact. Like, is anyone else seeing this too or am I going nuts?

the problem is you think I am arguing with only a single thought in mind when i'm not. Swords are not used to massacre a bunch of people by one person because it can't be done, like wise with bows and arrows. Its like you are trying to win on a technical point and ignoring objective reality and whats actually being discussed. Those things don't need heavy regulation because they aren't being used to commit murder on that scale or even at all really.

Whats being discussed > Gun control because guns can be used to kill a lot of people very easily.

What you did > Bring in irrelevant examples that are in no way similar to guns because they don't let you kill people as easily.

I am arguing > Regulating guns will help save lives by removing dangerous weapons from the hands of crazies and YES criminals as well.


You are attempting to say my thinking is invalid by drawing illusory counter examples of things that are dangerous which are in no way comparable.

if you think that guns being completely unregulated is totally fine then presumably you are okay with rocket launchers being something that can be privately owned. Tanks as well right? After all the only change is the scale of the damage they can do.

Edit: Ahhhh, Greg... Cars have a legitimate purpose. They are used for transport they kill people by accident. Guns have no legitimate purpose except for killing things. It's not fucking inconsistent to have more than one criteria when evaluating stuff. Fucking christ.

double edit: fuck this i'm out.

[POS Industries]

I was thinking everyone who personally has a problem with it could get out of there. Which seems to be nearly everyone. Seems weird that this culture is so contrary to what any of its individual members want it to be, and you still defend that cultural identity.

I've long thought there's a strange divide between the United States as a country in itself on one hand and its people on the other, when the people usually should be the extent of what a country is. Any thoughts?
My thoughts are that you seem to be incredibly ignorant about the American people. This is hilarious considering that the two sides of the argument in this thread have been mostly made up against Americans on the pro-gun side debating mostly non-Americans on the anti-gun side, and it seems odd to me that you haven't really picked up on that.

Also, speaking as an American in favor of much stricter gun control laws, I can't exactly say I appreciate a bunch of people using a single homicidal maniac's oversensationalized rampage and an exaggerated, outside impression of our nation's violent crime rates to wag their fingers at us about the folly of one of our nation's founding principles, regardless of how outdated and unnecessary that principle might be, no more than I'm sure any of you enjoys Americans rudely telling you what's wrong with your countries.

And I get that you're trying to help save us foolish Americans from ourselves, but to be honest it's amazingly insensitive. It's our people that got killed here, and it's a horrible, tragic thing that happened, but it's our problem, and shaming the general American public over it because of the slim chance a crazy person wouldn't have come up with any number of other ways to murder a bunch of people if he hadn't had access to guns isn't entirely welcome.

[POS Industries]

I'm also going to go ahead and close the thread since this discussion is going exactly nowhere.