School shooting Florida

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The derail into the availability of guns in the UK has been split to here.
Posted By: Agatha
 
cullennz said:
And still I have yet to hear why your average American needs to own either a semi auto or auto.

Or why they can't be controlled even if a pistol for self defence isn't
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I'm not defending the status quo. Nobody needs an AR15. How we got here is largely the result of NRA extremism, which was promoted by gun manufacturers as a marketing tool starting in the '70s during a time of social upheaval and rising crime rates in the U.S. AR15s are big business, and attitudes toward them and guns in general fall along the urban/rural divide that affects so much of the culture. Half of all guns are owned by three percent of Americans, and something like 80 percent don't own any guns at all. But legislators pay the most attention to the loudest voices and the deepest pockets.
Americans who own guns today keep arsenals in a way people did not 40 years ago. It seems plain to me that that’s because they—not all, but many—have given themselves over to fantasies.
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics...made-americans-fear-their-own-government.html

(I note that handguns, which are more likely than long guns to be used in ordinary crimes, are subject to tougher controls than rifles.)
 
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Darat said:
Mike, Mike don't you know unless you get down to the manufacturer, model, series and production run of a particular gun you can't say anything meaningful about gun control.

There is simply no way you can write legislation that would control gun ownership as a Mk 3 version 12 series 8a made by Bob Smith on Friday 13th June 2012 can be converted to a non fully automatic bump loading grenade launcher by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of steel casting, gun powder production and a working foundry?
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Precision in language is important, particularly regarding legal matters. The U.S. imposed a 10-year ban on "assault weapons" in 1994. But because of how the legislation was written, manufacturers were able to easily modify their AR15s to comply with the letter of the law and evade the broader intent. You can't demand tougher laws for "machine guns" because "machine guns" are already subject to tight restrictions. But you could demand tougher laws restricting "semi-automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines," because that's what's at issue.
 
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baron said:
Nessie - If you claim I'm wrong I'd expect you to follow up with figures proving that I'm wrong, not proving that I'm right.

40 years ago - 1978.

Me: "The US did have this problem 40 years ago"

1970s - 30
1980s - 39

Correct.

Me: "Not as bad as today, but still outrageously more prevalent than anywhere else in the Western world.

2010s - 143

Correct.

Me: "It's a black mark on US society that these are looked back on as 'the good old days' where guns weren't a problem."

1970s - 30
1980s - 39

Correct.

Unless, of course, you're maintaining that an average of 35 school shootings a year is insufficient evidence that guns were a problem.
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Sorry, should have said you were right, I don't know why I wrote wrong.
 
Bob001 said:
Precision in language is important, particularly regarding legal matters. The U.S. imposed a 10-year ban on "assault weapons" in 1994. But because of how the legislation was written, manufacturers were able to easily modify their AR15s to comply with the letter of the law and evade the broader intent. You can't demand tougher laws for "machine guns" because "machine guns" are already subject to tight restrictions. But you could demand tougher laws restricting "semi-automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines," because that's what's at issue.
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Yeah, but if machine guns, assault rifles, automatics, semi-automatics, indeed anything but bolt-action single shot rifles and shotguns, should all be banned, then the difference from my perspective is utterly moot. They're all ridiculous and indefensible things for members of the populace to own.
 
MikeG said:
Yeah, but if machine guns, assault rifles, automatics, semi-automatics, indeed anything but bolt-action single shot rifles and shotguns, should all be banned, then the difference from my perspective is utterly moot. They're all ridiculous and indefensible things for members of the populace to own.
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There is literally no chance at all of that happening in the U.S. And even in what you suggest, "bolt-action" and "single-shot" are not the same things.
 
MikeG said:
Yeah, but if machine guns, assault rifles, automatics, semi-automatics, indeed anything but bolt-action single shot rifles and shotguns, should all be banned, then the difference from my perspective is utterly moot. They're all ridiculous and indefensible things for members of the populace to own.
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Yes, I've seen claims that semi-automatics are great for hunting. But any supposed benefit is outweighed by the downsides.
 
jimbob said:
Yes, I've seen claims that semi-automatics are great for hunting. But any supposed benefit is outweighed by the downsides.
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Not necessarily. Many hunting semi-automatics typically hold four or five rounds. The real problem with AR15-type rifles is the high-capacity, rapidly exchangeable magazines. You don't need 20 rounds to take down a deer.
 
Bob001 said:
Not necessarily. Many hunting semi-automatics typically hold four or five rounds. The real problem with AR15-type rifles is the high-capacity, rapidly exchangeable magazines.
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I might be mistaken, but I *think* I have seen people on this board claiming that AR-15 type rifles were ideal for hunting.

ETA: And I still say that the benefits of any semi-automatic rifle for the individual hunter are outweighed by the downsides to society if you still allow bolt-action rifles for hunting.
 
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William Parcher said:
CNN: Florida gunman Nikolas Cruz is willing to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty and spare the community from reliving the massacre in a trial, his public defender said.
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That's good. I would bring a quick resolution and recognizes that he'll never be free regardless of what his attorneys do. The families can move on and start the healing process, society can try to start looking at meaningful changes that may reduce the number of this sort of event.

But it won't happen. Political decisions will force a push for the Death Penalty, forcing a long drawn-out trial and endless appeals. The appeals alone will take decades, that's normal in death penalty cases. The legal costs for the state to fight the case will far outweigh what it would cost to just house him in prison for the rest of his life.

By then, society will probably no longer tolerate the death penalty anyway, making the trail just a bunch of meaningless and very expensive show.
 
jimbob said:
I might be mistaken, but I *think* I have seen people on this board claiming that AR-15 type rifles were ideal for hunting.
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I'm sure you have. A semi-auto allows a quick second shot. But a competent hunter shouldn't need a 20-round magazine.
 
When the Dunblane Primary School shooting took place, the entire of Scotland demanded action. The whole country felt that is was their children who had been killed and all united in grief. Even the gun owners.

That is completely unlike the USA, where only a portion of the population demands action after a mass shooting. Listening to the relatives of the kids killed in Florida, who are demanding improved gun control, I wonder if they were so vocal when it was the kids of Columbine or Sandy Hook who were killed?
 
Nessie said:
When the Dunblane Primary School shooting took place, the entire of Scotland demanded action. The whole country felt that is was their children who had been killed and all united in grief. Even the gun owners.

That is completely unlike the USA, where only a portion of the population demands action after a mass shooting. Listening to the relatives of the kids killed in Florida, who are demanding improved gun control, I wonder if they were so vocal when it was the kids of Columbine or Sandy Hook who were killed?
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Indeed, it was the whole of the UK, as it was after Hungerford. After Hungerford, semi-automatic rifles were banned. After Dunblane, semi-automatic pistols were banned.
 
Checkmite said:
The guy who shot up his community college in Oregon a few years back had white-supremacist leanings as well, although as in this case they didn't seem to motivate the shooting specifically. But no groups rushed forward to claim him.

I'm curious why the artificial constraint to shootings only at schools? There have been numerous mass-shootings caused by adult white supremacists that didn't happen at schools which white-supremacist groups could just as easily have exploited for publicity but have not.
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The white supremacist lied about the association.
 
jimbob said:
Indeed, it was the whole of the UK, as it was after Hungerford. After Hungerford, semi-automatic rifles were banned. After Dunblane, semi-automatic pistols were banned.
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Just about all pistols, single-shot, revolver or semi-automatic, were banned after Dunblane. The main exceptions are muzzle loading pistols, and pistols with a barrel over a foot long and overall length greater than two feet. The GB Olympic pistol shooting team cannot practice in the UK.
 
Anybody else find this incredibly stupid?

Florida legislators said Thursday they will provide the resources to help the Broward School District tear down Building 12, the site of the massacre that killed 17 students and teachers. They want to build a new classroom space and replace the site of the murders with a memorial to honor the victims and their families.

“This building has to come down,” Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, told the Miami Herald on Friday after visiting the school the day before. He said the horror was palpable.

“Everything was strewn across the halls from people running and dodging and there were significant blood splatters on the wall,” he recalled. “Like someone took a milk jug and exploded it.”
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And get the pricetag:

“We need to take a serious look at tearing down that building and build a facility that these kids could return to and be proud of,” Simpson said Friday. Early estimates indicate the cost of a replacement building is between $25 million and $30 million, he said.
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In another article, it was mentioned that the building was constructed in 2009, so it's unlikely to be functionally obsolete.

Look, the building did nothing. A couple of fresh coats of paint will get rid of the blood spatters on the wall. Yes, I am sure that it will be difficult for students and teachers to enter the building again. I suspect strongly it will be difficult for them to go back to any of the buildings in the school.
 
White supremacy or racism is there inside this kid...

Group chat messages show school shooter obsessed with race, violence and guns

CNN said:
In a private Instagram group chat, confessed school shooter Nikolas Cruz repeatedly espoused racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic views and displayed an obsession with violence and guns...

Racism was a constant theme in the chat group, which was called "Murica (American flag emoji) (eagle emoji) great" -- a name it was given by Cruz...

In one part of the group chat, Cruz wrote that he hated, "jews, ni**ers, immigrants." He talked about killing Mexicans, keeping black people in chains and cutting their necks. The statements were not made in jest...

Cruz said he hated black people simply because they were black; Cruz hated Jews because he believed they wanted to destroy the world. After one member expressed hatred for gay people, Cruz agreed, saying, "Shoot them in the back of head."...

White women drew Cruz's hatred as well, specifically those in interracial relationships, whom he referred to repeatedly as traitors. There are no indications in the group chat that any member, including Cruz, is or was part of a white nationalist or white supremacist group...

At one point in the chat, he wrote, "I think I am going to kill people." After a member told him not to say things like that, he said he was just playing. During one of the anti-Semitic rants in the chat, Cruz spoke of his birth mother, saying, "My real mom was a Jew. I am glad I never met her."...
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/us/exclusive-school-shooter-instagram-group/index.html
 
Brainster said:
Anybody else find this incredibly stupid?



And get the pricetag:



In another article, it was mentioned that the building was constructed in 2009, so it's unlikely to be functionally obsolete.

Look, the building did nothing. A couple of fresh coats of paint will get rid of the blood spatters on the wall. Yes, I am sure that it will be difficult for students and teachers to enter the building again. I suspect strongly it will be difficult for them to go back to any of the buildings in the school.
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It seems strange to me. Normally I'm not too judgmental of a person's response to grief or tragedy, but this is an unreasonable imposition. I can understand that the survivors and their close friends and family might not ever want to see the inside of that structure again and I think the school system should accommodate that on request, but tearing the building down seems a pointless gesture to me.
 
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