School shooting: but don't mention guns!

[Ziggurat]

The sad thing is, the "what if you're old and/or weak" argument tends to ignore that empowerment guns give to criminals as well.

Do try to keep up. Your objection was answered quite some time ago:

Well, no. If you are physically weak (ie, a woman or an old person), then when neither you nor your potential attacker have weapons, you are at a very large disadvantage. Guns level the field. Same is true if your potential attackers outnumber you: numerical superiority makes an unarmed fight pretty risk-free for the side with more people, but the risks are enormous even with numerical advantage once people are armed. So the idea that arming people is a zero-sum game isn't really true.

 

[Hungry81]

Do try to keep up. Your objection was answered quite some time ago:

No it wasn't. How does a victim having a gun on his person help or even the playing field when an assailant already has a weapon aimed at the victim? How does one victim having a gun help when multiple assailants have weapons aimed at him/her?

 

[RedRatSnake]

But again that raises the question, what is the answer to all this? Connecticut has some of the most strict gun control laws in the country, so I have trouble believing tighter gun control will be the solution.

It won't cause there are already so many guns out there, maybe if everyone was allowed to have a gun then this kinda stuff would not happen, it's a hard fix no matter how you look at it.

 

[LTC8K6]

No it wasn't. How does a victim having a gun on his person help or even the playing field when an assailant already has a weapon aimed at the victim? How does one victim having a gun help when multiple assailants have weapons aimed at him/her?

It might not help.

It might not even help if the perp is firing a manual bolt action rifle. Note that these are aimed shots. You can go faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RQnWXEM_9bk#t=110s

 

[Ziggurat]

No it wasn't. How does a victim having a gun on his person help or even the playing field when an assailant already has a weapon aimed at the victim? How does one victim having a gun help when multiple assailants have weapons aimed at him/her?

It's a complete mystery.

Perhaps you watch too much TV. Real life seems to not work the way you assume it works.

 

[RedRatSnake]

How does a victim having a gun on his person help or even the playing field when an assailant already has a weapon aimed at the victim? How does one victim having a gun help when multiple assailants have weapons aimed at him/her?

That would depend on the person and what experience they have in a situation like that, not everyone that has a gun has the will to fire, not everyone that has a gun has good aim, with some training you would be surprised at what one person can do keeping calm and using some smarts.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_minute

Note that the 30 hits would include 2 reloads with 4 stripper clips...in a minute...

 

[gumboot]

Do you remember this to-do that happened a few months ago? I think it's kind of understandable in that carrying a gun will make most people feel safer, because they think that if they are faced with any danger, they can just pull out the gun and problem solved. The obvious problem with this is twofold: if you can carry a gun, so can everyone else, meaning you're back to where you started if neither attacker nor defender has a gun, only guns are now involved; and the statistics don't seem anyway to bear out the assumption of making you safer anyway. Nonetheless, if you're used to carrying a gun and having it always with you, you will feel impotent if it's not there.

I can understand someone carrying a gun thinking they're safer, that's really central to the premise of my post; gun control laws in the US reflect a desire to use firearms for personal protection. The question is why they feel unsafe in the first place. I don't think Americans are so bizarrely disconnected from reality that they carry a gun to guard against a threat they perceive as improbable. You don't see Americans walking around with life jackets or parachutes, on the off chance they might need one. Clearly many of them think the probability of them needing a gun is high enough to justify carrying one.

So why is it they feel so unsafe?

 

[gumboot]

You do have to remember the importance of our Second Amendment and the historical context for it, though. Once people start feeling that they can't depend on the government to protect them, they quickly remember the Second Amendment and everything else follows.

This is where we're starting to explore an explanation for why Americans feel unsafe, but I am not sure it goes far enough. If it was only government that Americans feared, I can't really see that it would explain carrying firearms around on your person, and certainly the rhetoric from those who are anti gun control seems directed mainly at protecting Americans from other civilians.

If anything the "fear of government" is just an excuse because anyone with half a brain cell recognises that a totalitarian government action requires the support of the military, and America's 50 million or so gun owners don't stand a chance against the US military.

 

[gumboot]

You were making a lot of sense up until here. Then you just lost the thread. The key difference is NOT storage of firearms. That's a fairly minor issue. It implies that a significant fraction of murders are committed by otherwise normal people who just happened to have a gun next to them for that fleeting moment when passion ruled them. But that simply isn't the case. Murderers are not normal people. They are overwhelmingly people who already have a criminal record. There is no reason to think that the way that they stored their gun would really prevent them from using it in a crime, or even that they would follow the law regarding storage. And with the exception of domestic violence cases (which storage laws won't stop), I've never seen any evidence that guns being used against their owners by third parties is really a significant contributor to the problem.

I think you are making a number of pretty significant false assumptions here. There's a number of factors with relation to homicide and guns that points to lower levels of gun violence with greater gun controls. I say homicide for a reason, and your immediate leap to "murder" is telling.

Firstly, there's suicide, which represents the largest single cause of gun-related homicide. Comprehensive psychological analysis of suicide has found that the overwhelming majority of suicide attempts are not-preplanned, but rather spur of the moment acts. Further, in most cases the primary purpose is not to end the person's life, but rather to make some sort of statement to other people in the person's life. Suicide is most often, literally, a "cry for help". A readily accessible pistol offers one of the easiest and quickest ways of carrying out a successful suicide. This is further compounded by the number of people who do not commit suicide with their own firearm, but with someone else's firearm which is readily available in their house.

The next problem, as you move onto murder, is that the presence of a gun in a situation increases the odds of a death occurring. The USA's non-firearm homicide rate is comparable with the non-firearm homicide rate of other western countries. Meanwhile, the rate of firearms use in crimes in the USA is substantially higher. If a firearm is used in any crime, the likelihood of someone being killed is dramatically higher.

Indeed, when we look at the specific circumstances of gun murder in the US, nearly half of all homicides occur in the spur of the moment, in the immediate aftermath of, or during, an argument or fight. It is the ready access to firearms that escalates a non-fatal confrontation into a fatal confrontation. There is no cooling off period - the killing occurs on impulse. Thus a firearm that is less accessible is less likely to be used to kill.

The second most common circumstance for gun murder in the US is during the commission of a felony. It is notable that use of firearms in crimes is much higher in the US than in other western countries.

In both of these circumstances (which combined constitute 75% of male gun murder and 65% of female gun murder) the storage of firearms is directly pertinent as they only occur due to the ready access of firearms.

The real key difference is simply that the general crime rate in New Zealand and Scandinavia are much lower.

Is it? I think you might be surprised at the rates of violent crime in New Zealand. The difference is people don't die, because guns aren't involved. Of course, it's a little difficult to compare crime statistics because of differences in how they're measured, but I think you're being a little naive by declaring it's just because of generally lower crime rates.

And that probably has lots of causes (less cultural homogeneity leading to fractured communities, larger numbers of poor immigrants, our failed drug war...).

Again, it doesn't reflect the reality. New Zealand is significantly more culturally diverse than the USA, and significantly poorer.

Because we think that citizens should be able to defend themselves without having to depend upon the state. This isn't simply a question of how effective personal defense is versus state protection, it's also a matter of principle. Do you surrender the ability to protect yourself to the state in the hope that the state will do a better job? How much personal responsibility are you willing to cede to the state? What will you let them keep you from doing? Your answers and my answers need not be the same. This idea that America has to come to the same conclusion as most other developed countries is rather peculiar. I would think one could see that having a variety approaches to the structure of society would provide benefits. It doesn't upset me that the rest of the world doesn't adopt the American model, why should it upset you that America doesn't adopt a European (for want of a better term) model?

I think you've missed the point totally. I get the desire to be protected, and not to have to rely on the state. That's not the issue. Do you really think I feel safe because there's a policeman around every corner who will come to my rescue?

Like I said, the issue is really one of perceived threat. It's not that I am happy to leave my protection to my government. It's that I don't feel like I need protecting, because I don't feel threatened. That's the difference. Americans feel threatened. The rest of us don't. The question is why? Crime statistics just don't support the contention that America is that much more dangerous.

 

[gumboot]

But again that raises the question, what is the answer to all this? Connecticut has some of the most strict gun control laws in the country, so I have trouble believing tighter gun control will be the solution.

Given the US states have open borders with each other, I don't think the individual gun controls in each state are particularly relevant to the gun control debate.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Guns won't be controlled. I'm just telling everyone that now. They may put a few restrictions on gun ownership and bar who can own guns, but villains who want guns for retaliatory purposes won't go away. We are actually focusing on the most trivial part of the debate in my opinion.

 

[Information Analyst]

Murderers are not normal people. They are overwhelmingly people who already have a criminal record.

That doesn't seem a particularly high bar to set. Lots of people who never murder anyone have criminal records.

 

[Ziggurat]

Firstly, there's suicide, which represents the largest single cause of gun-related homicide.

You think outlawing one method of suicide will prevent suicides? I think not. I also find it odd that your argument now depends so much on suicide, considering that New Zealand and those Nordic countries so often appealed to here have higher suicide rates. Seems to me gun control isn't really the issue when it comes to suicide.

Indeed, when we look at the specific circumstances of gun murder in the US, nearly half of all homicides occur in the spur of the moment, in the immediate aftermath of, or during, an argument or fight. It is the ready access to firearms that escalates a non-fatal confrontation into a fatal confrontation. There is no cooling off period - the killing occurs on impulse. Thus a firearm that is less accessible is less likely to be used to kill.

This may be true for people who are already pre-disposed to violence. But nobody has presented evidence that people with no criminal history are at any increased risk of killing someone in the heat of the moment.

The second most common circumstance for gun murder in the US is during the commission of a felony. It is notable that use of firearms in crimes is much higher in the US than in other western countries.

Since these people are rather obviously criminals why would gun control laws stop them?

In both of these circumstances (which combined constitute 75% of male gun murder and 65% of female gun murder) the storage of firearms is directly pertinent as they only occur due to the ready access of firearms.

If you have your gun locked in a safe, you can get it out easily enough during a domestic dispute. And if you're a criminal, why would storage laws make a difference to how you used your gun?

I think you've missed the point totally. I get the desire to be protected, and not to have to rely on the state. That's not the issue.

That's not your issue. Why do you presume it can't be the issue for anyone else?

Like I said, the issue is really one of perceived threat.

How do you know? Are you psychic? Have you done public opinion polling?

 

[The Don]

I can understand someone carrying a gun thinking they're safer, that's really central to the premise of my post; gun control laws in the US reflect a desire to use firearms for personal protection. The question is why they feel unsafe in the first place. I don't think Americans are so bizarrely disconnected from reality that they carry a gun to guard against a threat they perceive as improbable. You don't see Americans walking around with life jackets or parachutes, on the off chance they might need one. Clearly many of them think the probability of them needing a gun is high enough to justify carrying one.

So why is it they feel so unsafe?

My opinion isn't that some people in the U.S. feel particularly threatened but rather that feel that they should have the right to protect themselves and their loved ones. In most other Western countries we're happy to leave this to the authorities but in the U.S. enough people want to do this themselves.

I'm not entirely clear about why this is the case but I imagine that geography and history have something to do with it (a hundred years ago you couldn't wait for the law to turn up) and the history of the formation of the country (particularly some of the Western states) means that there is a history of self-sufficiency and self reliance.

Now that the United States is settled and nearly everyone has access to competent law enforcement this attitude may no longer be relevant but it seems to be part of the national DNA.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So your issue is with guns rather than with preventable deaths. Interesting priorities. No outrage over the 3000 people a year who die because someone chose to use a cell phone while driving? No concern for the 600 people who chose to participate in recreational boating last year and ended up dead? That more people died in the past thirty years getting struck by lightning on golf courses than have been killed in mass shootings doesn't make you want to prohibit golf, ban clubs, register golf club owners, require psychological exams for those who choose to play?

This is just an extended riff on the fallacy of making the perfect the enemy of the good.

There are lots of people in the world. We don't all have to spend our lives all working together on the #1 problem. Some of us can work on #1, and some on #2, and so on and on. We can research breast cancer at the same time as we research bowel cancer, heart disease, diabetes and every other major disease. We can try to cut down on preventable gun deaths at the same time as we try to cut down on preventable drownings, preventable beatings, preventable falls...

Criticising people who are trying to make the world a better place because you think there is something else they could do which would be even better seems pointless and counterproductive to me.

 

[Ashles]

I believe "impersonating law enforcement" and/or "inducing panic" would likely be the actual arrestable offenses.

Why? It doesn't say that's what was happening.

 

[Rat]

Why? It doesn't say that's what was happening.

It doesn't matter. In the USA, they have free speech, so when someone is arrested for something they say, it's not really because of something they say. I'm assuming that when people over here are arrested for something they say, they are actually charged with "illegally exercising free speech". Because we're oppressed over here and don't have free speech.

 

[Quad4_72]

Given the US states have open borders with each other, I don't think the individual gun controls in each state are particularly relevant to the gun control debate.

Ok, given that in this particular instance with the school shooting, going to another state was not the issue. They were weapons that were legally obtained and registered in a state that has some of the strictest gun laws. Let's go ahead and say these same gun laws were in place around the United States. Would it have made a difference? Obviously not, so what possible law put in place would have prevented this from happening short of banning guns across the country (And even then that is not a guarantee to stop mass school shootings).

 

[Dcdrac]

No oe has ever shown me a plausible reason for civillians to have access to semi automatic and automatic weapons.

You do need a M16 copy to hunt a deer.