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School shooting: but don't mention guns!

Giz said:
But given the number of deaths and injuries, shouldn't football matches have been prohibited from being played in front of an audience (at least in England). I mean, no one really needs to go to a football match do they?

Think of all the tragedies (Hillsborough, Heysel, St Andrew's etc) that could have been avoided if we'd just banned people from going to see a match live. (Far more death and injury than all the English gun massacres).
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And that's why we as a country made changes to how football matches were policed, how stadia were built, and how we viewed the acceptability of such violence. As a result football violence is the UK massively less than it was decades ago (although it does seem other countries are still not aware of this).

There was a serious problem - we looked at it, made changes, saw improvements.
 
The silly thing about these comparisons with cars and football games is that nobody claims that driving about in metal boxes at 70Mph has no causal relationship with road deaths, similarly nobody claims that gathering tens of thousands of roudy football fans together doesn't have it's risks. As a society we decide that we want to do those things anyway, and we try to mitigate the risks. I get the impression that gun owners want to say that mass gun ownership has no impact on the murder rate, spree killings, etc... This seems to me to be different to car owners.
 
StankApe said:
I have suspected this for years as well. Their pattern of behavior suggests they are gypsy style con artists rather than any sort of religious group. So they do and say reprehensible things, with the 1st amendment as a crutch, hoping to be assaulted so they can then sue for damages.

If there is one group in all of the USA that can unite people on the left and right to say "screw these clowns" it's the Westboro Baptist Church.


and I wouldn't feel the least bit bad if a satellite were to lose it's orbit and land on all of their heads
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They have the right to express their opinions. Just like I have the right to express mine by throwing flaming bags of dog **** at them. I live in Connecticut, and I'm feeding my dog extra Kibble just in case. It's all about free expression, you know. Eat up girl!
 
It is a large enough minority to have a huge impact on gun politics. The Gallop poll has found that at the moment 47% of households have a gun and over the 20 years that has varied from a high of 54% and a low of 40%.

The poll also shows at the moment 34% of adults say they won a gun, so if we go back to the estimate of 270 million guns and 80 million adults have those guns, we have each one of them has 3.3 guns.

The Gallop Poll also looks at political affiliation and finds just over a half of Republicans and around a third of Democrats own a gun. Though the Democrats have recently shown a large increase from 32% to 40% 2011-2012.

I think that shows the chances of getting any sort of radical reform of gun control laws is nil.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx
 
Checkmite said:
You'll have to forgive me for proposing an hypothetical solution without a 100-page fully-vetted and peer reviewed study to back up my suggestions.

As I have already indicated, it is simply my understanding based on memory that several of the recent massacres were perpetrated by people who were receiving mental health services, many of them since they were children. I was under the impression that many of these same people were able to legally purchase firearms which they then used for their rampages. I could be wrong; I don't think that I am though.

Of course, feel free to point out the disadvantages of this hypothetical suggestion, with the caveat that I may not agree that those disadvantages exist or are actually disadvantages. After all, aren't we supposed to be having a "discussion" here?
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So your at the JREF right, and now you complain because someone asks you to support your opinion?

Really?
 
Checkmite said:
How many individuals arrested for DUI actually caused a fatal accident or property damage?

What is the hypothetical percentage below which you would suggest revisiting the illegality of drunk driving?
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Nice dodge, I notice you are now creating more false dichotomies.

You made a statement and when asked for actual data, this is how you respond?

At the JREF?

Nice rhetoric, still no citations to support your POV, I am still wondering about why medications and not alcohol lead to a ban.
 
Checkmite said:
How can you possibly know this for an objective fact?

Of those arrested for DUI who did cause a fatality or property damage, are you under the impression that they knew they would most likely cause an accident and deliberately went driving anyway, or is it more commonly the case that they were operating under the assumption that they "knew how much alcohol they could drive safely on"?
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And your objective fact to deny me a firearm is a surmise made without any regard for the data collection or possible bias?

You ask me to meet a criteria that you haven't met when I ask you to support your statement.

You want to deny me a firearm because I have depressive anxiety and OCD and seek treatment, yet you have not a single citation to support your notion other than false dichotomies and personal opinon.
 
Checkmite said:
As I indicated earlier (again), the alleged stigma currently attached to mental illness has not stopped millions from seeking treatment. So I am dubious that this would have the effect you claim it would.

Has the inability of a convicted felon to legally own a firearm impacted the commission of felonies?
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More false dichotomies. People already avoid treatment, and the ones who are paranoid would be avoiding it after they know they can't purchase arms.

So how did your idea work again?

Considering that many people who seek treatment for depression are treated and do not have a reoccurrence of symptoms, you just seem to say 'deny them guns, don't ask for data'.

And yes stigma is a reason people avoid treatment for mental illness.
 
joesixpack said:
I believe so. At least compared to Western Europe. Also non-gun homicides are far higher in the US as well. I hate to be a jerk about it but you'll have to look it up yourself because I don't feel like googling at the moment. I'm too full of lasagna and booze at the moment.
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Sorry this is the JREF, so that is a no?
 
joesixpack said:
Is this because you are a felon or what? As far as I know there are no laws preventing a non-felon from owning a firearm. I owned a few guns when I lived in CA (and bought two, legally, while living there).
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Anyone who has been hospitalized for mental health issue is put on a list. In Illinois as well, now will this show in a Brady check, no. But it will show in a FOID check.
 
Seems kind of insane to be discussing which kind of mentally ill person should be allowed to have guns. Why is having a gun so important in the first place?

On the other hand, one can't help noticing that psychopaths have their finger on the nuclear buttons around the world...
 
this is interesting:

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/weaponstab.cfm
and my graphing of it.
1449450cdc9de2aa62.jpg


About 70% of US homicides are committed with a gun or handgun.

The US homicide rate is about 3.5 times the UK rate, so the non-gun homicide rate is roughly equivalent.

In other words, non-gun fatal violence is roughly equivalent, not far less than other countries.
 
Dancing David said:
More false dichotomies. People already avoid treatment, and the ones who are paranoid would be avoiding it after they know they can't purchase arms.

So how did your idea work again?
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Well, the people who are paranoid don't seek treatment anyway, because they don't think they're sick. So there's actually no change there in the number of paranoid people seeking treatment.

However, people whose illnesses begin as children cannot avoid seeking treatment in favor of preserving an ability to legally own a weapon, because they end up being taken to treatment by their parents regardless of their objections (and therefore will end up on the list).

If this sort of blind inclusive list-making is too unfair, do you think perhaps mental health assessments solely for the purpose of purchasing a gun might be a better way to go?
 
Gun massacres and mental health (the ones I know of off the top of my head).

Virginnia Tech, Seung Hui Cho - social anxiety, selective mutism, lack of emotional activity, was seeing a psychiatrist

Aurora, James Holmes - reports he was getting some sort of psychiatric treatment.

Hungerford (UK), Michael Ryan - suspected schizophrenia and psychotic behavouir, never diagnosed.

Dunblane (UK), Thomas Hamilton - nothing, anger issues

Utoya (Norway), Anders Behring Breivik - a big debate but at court it was accepted he had multiple mental health issues including narcissistic personality disorder, aspergers and possible paranoid psychosis.

Columbine, Eric Harris - suggestion a psychopath, but not diagnosed. Media left behind suggest mental health issues

Columbine, Dylan Klebold - suggestion a depressive but not diagnosed. Media left behind suggest mental health issues

West Side Middle School, Mitchell Johnson - nothing

West Side Middle School, Andrew Golden - nothing

Jokela (Finland), Pekka-Eric Auvinen - had used anti-depressants, media left behind suggest mental health issues.

Kauhajoki (Finland), Matti Juhani Saari - media left behind suggest mental health issues.

Cumbria (UK), Derrick Bird - nothing, anger issues

Tucson, Jared Lee Loughner - schizophrenia

All info taken off Wikipedia as to any diagnosis of a mental health condition. Arguable you cannot be sane if you go out to kill as many people as you can. So even the ones with nothing clearly mental had anger issues. Only the two boys at West Side Middle School appeared to have noting at all.

What is scary is most of the above got their guns legally.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Yes, sane gun control laws are vastly preferable to silly gun control laws based on misplaced panic, but at the same time slightly silly gun control laws are vastly preferable to none at all.
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The point being that the ultimate goal of many of those advocating for tighter firearms restrictions seems to be the total elimination of private firearms ownership with no law being too 'silly' if it promotes that agenda.

The fact that many pointless, irrational and ineffective rules and regulations are currently in force tends to justify the opposition to further restrictions.

In any case it can be argued that, in western society at least, there are now already enough gun control laws to prevent the criminal use of firearms provided those laws are enforced and complied with.

Getting those with criminal intent to comply seems to be the problem. If that can't be accomplished with the laws that we have now, how would adding more prohibitions and restrictions rectify the situation???
 
The choice would appear to be either

- stop anyone with an apparent mental health issue from having a gun, in which case you will stop lots of people who would never kill for a mental health reason from having a gun

- or continue the way things are.

In the UK background checks include referees and whilst not the case in all areas, many of the referees are required to be friends who socialise with the applicant and know them well. The referee is the one asked about any knowledge of mental health issues and suitability to have a firearm.

A brief look at the people involved in gun massacres suggests that some would have been flagged up as unsuitable and so if it was the UK they would not have got a gun.

I doubt that a referring system would be accepted in the USA as it would probably be unconstitutional as an invasion of privacy.
 
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