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It Has Happened Again...

slingblade said:
Can you still kill someone?
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Of course you can. Who has claimed otherwise? Not me.

Are you saying - and I am asking - that people will kill, regardless of what weapons they have available? It doesn't matter what weapon they have, they will kill, exactly the same number?
 
Without taking a side here, I must say that the last few posts are indicative of unnecessary talking-past-one-another.

Who on Earth doesn't understand that the contention here is that it's a lot easier to kill with a gun. Slingblade, don't you know that's what Claus means? Claus, why don't you just say it?
 
CFLarsen said:
Of course you can. Who has claimed otherwise? Not me.
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Then removing guns won't stop the problem of kids murdering people in school. And that's the problem.

Are you saying - and I am asking - that people will kill, regardless of what weapons they have available? It doesn't matter what weapon they have, they will kill, exactly the same number?
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Exactly? Oh, no, they might kill more, depending on what they used.

Explosives come to mind, and many can be made with stuff you get at the store.

Removing guns doesn't address the reason why these kids want to kill people, or why they do kill people. The rationale must be addressed; not so much the choice of weapon.

I simply don't see a kid with this mind-set saying to himself "Gee, I don't have a gun. I guess I can't kill (whomever)."

I rather see him saying "Gee, I don't have a gun. Wonder how many pipe bombs will fit into my backpack?"
 
hgc said:
Without taking a side here, I must say that the last few posts are indicative of unnecessary talking-past-one-another.

Who on Earth doesn't understand that the contention here is that it's a lot easier to kill with a gun. Slingblade, don't you know that's what Claus means? Claus, why don't you just say it?
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Because it wouldn't change MY point, which is: what's going on with certain kids, why do they want to kill, and is there anything anyone can do about their desire to kill?

I am responding to Claus' point. Removing the guns won't remove the kids' problem, whatever it is. And since we will likely have a very long wait, expecting all Americans to give up their guns, it's also a pie-in-the-sky solution: not realistic, not addressing the root, not changing a darned thing any time soon.

That's why.
 
Having access to guns isn't a new phenomenon. Many people, myself included, grew up around guns and were taught to respect them and to use them proprerly in our early teens (probably earlier for some). It is not the guns themselves that are dangerous. It is the people wielding them. If kids are determined enough to kill, it is easy enough to find a bomb or IED recipe on the web.

Sure. I would love to know how a 13-year-old got his hands on an AK-47, but the real question is why these (primarily) teens are taking guns to school and shooting people. You can take away the guns, but whatever is underlying this behavior will remain.

ETA: Um. Yeah. I should have just said that I agree with Slingblade. :o
 
BPSCG said:
Thread participants? Probably not.

But you know, there are lurkers here. I'm sure there are people here who do little or no posting, but a lot of reading. They're windowshopping in the marketplace of ideas, trying some of them on and accepting or rejecting them. Those of us who argue amongst ourselves will doubtless change very few minds amongst ourselves, but there are always people who haven't made up their minds yet.

My opinions on gun control, the death penalty, and abortion rights are not the same as they were thirty years ago. That is not the result of my brain's neurons one day spasmadically rearranging themselves; I was exposed to other ideas, and found some of them persuasive, and others wanting.

Think for a minute what the "E" in JREF stands for. These gun threads, abortion threads, death penalty threads, all serve that purpose. They educate.
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That's exactly why I refuse to engage in any sort of name-calling when I find myself disagreeing with someone here. No one has sunk to that level with me in the three years I've been here, but if anyone did, I wouldn't reciprocate in kind because there would be nothing for me to gain out of doing that. Name-calling serves no constructive purpose, no matter who diametrically opposed I am to someone's opinion.

Michael
 
Guns don't kill people, it's those darn bullets.

Preventing kids from getting guns will prevent people from dying by those guns.

Kids may kill using other methods such as explosives, or maybe a knife. One way would result in more deaths, one way would result in less.

Some kids decided at some point to kill other kids using guns.

These are the facts as I've seen them presented.

I've also seen a lot of hyperbole and supposition.

So here's my question. What do you intend to do with this information?
 
Dark Jaguar said:
So here's my question. What do you intend to do with this information?
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Purchase a 50cal BMG. That'll teach 'em. I always said, "walk softly and Carry a rifle with a 2,800 fps muzzle velocity, a 2,000 yard maximum effective range and the ability to punch a hole through 1" plate steel." (paraphrased). :)

That's hot!
 
slingblade said:
May I just interrupt here with a rousing "Who gives a [rule8]?"

Thanks.

Guns were much more readily available when I was in school. Their availability is not the primary reason for "it happened again." It is a contributing factor, certainly, if only because you can't shoot up a school if you don't have a gun.

It seems, however, that every time this horror happens, people want to talk about where the kid got the gun (if it's a kid, that is), how easy it is for kids to get guns, how we need to re-examine gun control....

This is not the problem.

My saying that, however, doesn't mean I can identify the problem. I have some ideas. I have a little insight. Most of us do. But we simply have to quit focusing on the guns. The guns are a symptom, and a tool, but they are not "the" problem.

There is no one place to put the blame, and there is no one answer or one solution. There may not be solutions. But kids having guns is not the problem.

A handful of kids wanting a gun, and wanting a violent solution to whatever problems they have or feel they have, is the problem.

How do we fix that? Can we fix that?
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When I was 12 (ca.1958), my brother (10) was gifted with an Italian WWII Italian carbine. In the shipping material with it, one page offered an anti-tank gun for 99.00 and shells for it at app. $10.00 each. If I had had $300.00, history might have been some different!:D
 
BPSCG said:
Think for a minute what the "E" in JREF stands for. These gun threads, abortion threads, death penalty threads, all serve that purpose. They educate.
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Judging by people's responses so far it appears you were right and I was wrong.

I hate that!:mad:


:D
 
fuelair said:
When I was 12 (ca.1958), my brother (10) was gifted with an Italian WWII Italian carbine. In the shipping material with it, one page offered an anti-tank gun for 99.00 and shells for it at app. $10.00 each. If I had had $300.00, history might have been some different!:D
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Oh yeah, I sure do remember THOSE from that time. The one I'm thinking of was called-honest- a "Boys rifle". ("Hey Ma, I want a Boys rifle for Christmas." The real reason for the name having nothing to do with young men....)

I do have to agree with Slingblade however. I grew up with firearms- had a .22 when I was 10 and a high power rifle and shotgun by the time I was 12. Most kids in my Penna suburban school hunted and the older ones often carried their firearms and ammo to school in the trunks of their cars. Heck, even our school bus driver carried a shotgun with him on the bus. (To hunt with after his bus route was completed.) Here in Vermont kids barely out of diapers could, and often did, use all kinds of firearms. Yet school shootings were unheard of. I can remember major flaps at school when someone was seen with a penknife in his lunchbox or when one kid called another a "dirty communist".

So no, I am not convinced it's something as simple as just the availability of firearms that is behind recent school shootings.
 
Hamradioguy said:
Oh yeah, I sure do remember THOSE from that time. The one I'm thinking of was called-honest- a "Boys rifle". ("Hey Ma, I want a Boys rifle for Christmas." The real reason for the name having nothing to do with young men....)

I do have to agree with Slingblade however. I grew up with firearms- had a .22 when I was 10 and a high power rifle and shotgun by the time I was 12. Most kids in my Penna suburban school hunted and the older ones often carried their firearms and ammo to school in the trunks of their cars. Heck, even our school bus driver carried a shotgun with him on the bus. (To hunt with after his bus route was completed.) Here in Vermont kids barely out of diapers could, and often did, use all kinds of firearms. Yet school shootings were unheard of. I can remember major flaps at school when someone was seen with a penknife in his lunchbox or when one kid called another a "dirty communist".

So no, I am not convinced it's something as simple as just the availability of firearms that is behind recent school shootings.
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Yeah, I had a similar upbringing. We would get together for boy scout hunts or to go deer hunting and every one had a riffle. I had a 30.06, 22 rifle and of course a Daisy Air Rifle when I was 12.

No one ever shot anyone in public simply because a gun was available, at least as far as I know.
 
CFLarsen said:
OK, what am I missing?



Remove the easy access to guns. If you can't get a gun, you can't shoot someone.
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They will just find alternate weapons:


"Mom Accused of Swinging Baby As Weapon
By Associated Press
2 hours ago

ERIE, Pa. - A woman used her 4-week-old baby as a weapon in a domestic dispute, swinging the infant through the air and striking her boyfriend with the child, authorities said."



If only she'd had easier access to firearms...
 
RandFan said:
No one ever shot anyone in public simply because a gun was available, at least as far as I know.
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Violence rates in the US have been falling for many years but there have been increases in certain segments. If you look at the history of violence you see that the rates have dropped steadily since the early 90's. They have now fallen to a level equivelent to that of the 1969.

Unfortunately, 1969 -70 were terrible. In fact, at that time, crime was so bad that people called for a national commision to study it which resulted in The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.

So when politicians claim they are doing great on violence, they forget to mention that rates are only down to a level that was bad enough to make the federal government take action.

In 1969, there were 197,136 individuals in state and federal prisons. In 1999 there were 1,496,629. An increase of 700%. The reason for the increase? The War on Drugs. Most of these people were non-violent offenders who undoubtedly turned violent in the prison system just to survive.

With violence levels being so high, for so long, it is no wonder that we see an increase in the use of the tool most capable of inflicting violence. The gun.

From 1985 to 2004 there were approx. 149,000,000 new firearms produced in the US.

Out of 728,511 pistols produced in the US in 2004 alone, 14, 959 were exported. The rest stayed in the US.

Take those numbers back to 1969 and you will see that the availability of firearms in 1969 is nothing like today.

Guns and their availability are a problem.
 
qayak said:
Yeah, but not much. Nothing a kit and a screwdriver can't fix.
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A kit that's incredibly hard to find (if they exist at all). The idea of "easily converting" a semi-auto to a full-auto is a myth, along with "plastic handguns that defeat metal detectors".

Without getting into too much detail, there are two types of semi-autos: closed bolt and open bolt. Open bolts are very rare (I think a few types of Ingram M-11s were open bolt for a while before they were outlawed). It was these that were "easily converted" to full autos. The closed bolts, which encompass nearly all semi-automatic firearms, cannot be converted without the aid of a machine shop and the know-how to do it. If it was as easy as you say, how come we don't see crimes committed with converted full-auto weapons all the time?

For that matter, how come crimes with normal semi-autos are also rare?
 
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