• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Another Mall Shooting

Ivor the Engineer said:
How many people arguing for gun ownership in this thread own one or more guns?
Click to expand...
I have several.

If you own a gun, why?
Click to expand...
They're fun to shoot!

What do you think you are going to be able to do with your gun in a situation where you feel threatened? E.g., do you think you would have time to put your hand on it, or aim and fire it?
Click to expand...
Nope, don't even have ammo in the house.

Would you be afraid to be without a gun?
Click to expand...
Obviously not, but there certainly are people who do need a gun for protection and I wouldn't want to prevent them from doing so.

Are you afraid with a gun?
Click to expand...
No.
 
WildCat said:
The problem is that the real issue cannot be discussed without being branded a racist. Fact is, the homicide rates for caucasian whites in the US is very close to the rate in Canada and the UK. If you're a minority, your chances of being a homicide victim increases greatly. In other words, caucasian whites in the US with relatively easy access to guns don't murder each other more than those countries you cite with strict gun laws. The elephant in the room is the culture of violence within many minority communities, and it is not being addressed.

I think the evidence is quite strong that it is cultural in origin, and not simply gun laws.
Click to expand...

I'll take your word for the figures - i think we have a similar minority split in the UK - insofar as proportionaly the drugs trade has a higher representation of Afro-carabean men than any other group, and the majority of gun related shootings are drug related....[i think. Anyone have facts to refute this....?]

but with regards to the school/mall shootings, there isn't a minority split with regards to the perpetrators of the crimes is there? I'm not familiar with all of them, but those i do remember were all white kids, [and a second generation korean....]
 
Last edited:
andyandy said:
but with regards to the school/mall shootings, there isn't a minority split with regards to the perpetrators of the crimes is there? I'm not familiar with all of them, but those i do remember were all white kids, [and a second generation korean....]
Click to expand...
There's a good reason for that - most schools in violent areas already have metal detectors at the door and a strong police presence within the school. But outside of school, different story. I think ~30 (or very close to that) Chicago Public School pupils have been murdered this year alone, and I'd bet nearly every one was black or Hispanic. I doubt that makes the news in the UK.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
How many people arguing for gun ownership in this thread own one or more guns?
If you own a gun, why?
What do you think you are going to be able to do with your gun in a situation where you feel threatened? E.g., do you think you would have time to put your hand on it, or aim and fire it?
Would you be afraid to be without a gun?
Are you afraid with a gun?
Click to expand...

I own several.
Fun hobby.
If I have a gun on me, I may be able to use it to escape the threat. Otherwise I would need some time to dig it out.
Never have yet. I have run away from danger, but never felt I had to threaten anyone with a gun.
Nope

Ranb
 
fuelair said:
You mean those devices that legally in the hands of someone in the store might have stopped him? He had, by the way, a regular rifle as I heard.
Click to expand...

If by "regular rifle" you mean an SKS with a 30 round AK magazine (or possibly some semi-auto AK clone as mentioned above), then fair enough. That's relatively regular in the US, where the SKS is a popular hunting rifle. The size of the mag is a bit of a red herring, since without armed opposition, regular reloads ought not to be a problem. As long as one has, say, ten rounds to rattle through before swapping mags, I would think that satisfies the perverse urge to kill in spectacular and "godlike" fashion that these freaks seem to crave.

There's really no solution that I can think of beyond a UK-style ban and subsequent round up of every semi-auto weapon in the US, that would have prevented this. And as I've said before, such a ban would be not only hugely unpopular political suicide for whomever tried to introduce it State-side, it would also be completely unenforceable.

Counter-intuitive though it might seem to European and liberal minds, I actually think concealed carry might be the only viable option over there. A bit wild west maybe, and a potential trouble-creator in its own right, but on paper it seems to make a certain amount of sense. Or would it simply escalate the problem? More deaths through itchy trigger-fingers, misunderstandings, and disagreements? Perhaps very high-risk regional trials are in order.
 
Last edited:
pipelineaudio said:
Wait the lefties are saying that the US Armed Forces cannot possibly defeat a few thousand armed Iraqis, yet could easily take out a few million americans?

ok
Click to expand...

I am one of the lefties - but I have never said that the US Armed Forces cannot possibly defeat a few thousand armed Iraqis. IF they were left alone to do what they do best - develop strategy and tactics based purely on military priorities.

Unfortunately they are not - by their C inC and his flunkies.
 
WildCat said:
The problem is that the real issue cannot be discussed without being branded a racist. Fact is, the homicide rates for caucasian whites in the US is very close to the rate in Canada and the UK. If you're a minority, your chances of being a homicide victim increases greatly. In other words, caucasian whites in the US with relatively easy access to guns don't murder each other more than those countries you cite with strict gun laws. The elephant in the room is the culture of violence within many minority communities, and it is not being addressed.

I think the evidence is quite strong that it is cultural in origin, and not simply gun laws.
Click to expand...
Unless you are planning to rid the US of minorities, this argument gets us nowhere. I mean the Amish or Quakers most likely have a very low homicide rate. So what?

Regardless of the racial background of the shooter, easy access to powerful weapons increases the likelihood of killings and the number of deaths caused. I am still waiting for an explanation for the lack of mass killings after the banning of semi-automatics in Australia (and also in the UK as Big Les points out).
 
lionking said:
Unless you are planning to rid the US of minorities, this argument gets us nowhere. I mean the Amish or Quakers most likely have a very low homicide rate. So what?
Click to expand...
Because the killings won't stop just because a weapon is banned. Chicago has banned handguns for over 20 years, didn't lower the homicide rate a bit, in fact we led the nation in homicide rates for many of those years. Banning guns is a knee-jerk reaction to a complex problem. If it was as simple as availability of guns, there wouldn't be such a dichotomy in the statistics.

Regardless of the racial background of the shooter, easy access to powerful weapons increases the likelihood of killings and the number of deaths caused. I am still waiting for an explanation for the lack of mass killings after the banning of semi-automatics in Australia (and also in the UK as Big Les points out).
Click to expand...
Killings with "powerful" guns are very rare. Most are with low-powered handguns.

How many mass killings did the UK and Australia suffer through prior to the ban? You guys did a knee-jerk reaction to a extremely rare phenomenon and then declared success based on the fact that the rare event hasn't happened again?
 
I think we should ban gun nuts and all their nonsense rationalizations for gun ownership. They are small, sad people, those gun nuts. Their guns make them feel very slightly less small and scared and empty inside, I guess. They'll claim self-defense, or the idea that they'll overthrow the government if it gets too bad(which is often tinged with an anti-American flavor), but the reality is that the gun nuts are just nuts, and the guns are part of their mental defect. Their claim of the government conspiring to take their guns is all about their constant overriding fear of a whole spectrum of things.

If we could get rid of them, and their whole weird paranoid subculture, maybe we could have a more serious discussion of guns, gun violence, and the underlying issues.
 
BPSCG said:
See the first link in my post #98 above. Had you ever heard of that incident?
Click to expand...

No I had not. Interesting tid-bit in there though.
According to Bridges, at the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned firearms.[8] Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a 9 mm pistol and body armor.[9] Bridges, a county sheriff's deputy from Asheville, N.C.,[10] pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe.
Click to expand...

These weren't mere 'good armed citizens' they were off-duty law enforcement officers. That's an entirely different dynamic than what I was referring to when I responded to EagleEye.

Ivor the Engineer said:
How many people arguing for gun ownership in this thread own one or more guns?
Click to expand...

No, but I have in the past.

Ivor the Engineer said:
If you own a gun, why?
Click to expand...

The military versions I owned were because I was playing solider at the time thought firing them at the range was fun. Except for my police style shotgun, none would have been appropriate for home defense.

Ivor the Engineer said:
What do you think you are going to be able to do with your gun in a situation where you feel threatened? E.g., do you think you would have time to put your hand on it, or aim and fire it?
Click to expand...

Maybe. Maybe not. But since mine were for recreation, and not self-defense, I didn't think in those terms.

Ivor the Engineer said:
Would you be afraid to be without a gun?

Are you afraid with a gun?
Click to expand...

No, (I've lived in a major American city for 10 years without one) and No.
 
JoeEllison said:
I think we should ban gun nuts and all their nonsense rationalizations for gun ownership. They are small, sad people, those gun nuts. Their guns make them feel very slightly less small and scared and empty inside, I guess. They'll claim self-defense, or the idea that they'll overthrow the government if it gets too bad(which is often tinged with an anti-American flavor), but the reality is that the gun nuts are just nuts, and the guns are part of their mental defect. Their claim of the government conspiring to take their guns is all about their constant overriding fear of a whole spectrum of things.

If we could get rid of them, and their whole weird paranoid subculture, maybe we could have a more serious discussion of guns, gun violence, and the underlying issues.
Click to expand...

I actually couldn't tell if this was meant as a sarcastic post or not, which, if it is serious, is rather sad.

That being said, your argument here seems to boil down to, "If only we got rid of everyone who disagrees with me, we could have a rational discussion."
 
JoeEllison said:
.....Their guns make them feel very slightly less small and scared and empty inside, I guess......but the reality is that the gun nuts are just nuts, and the guns are part of their mental defect.
Click to expand...

Have you known many gun nuts? How do you decide who is a gun nut? Is it anyone who owns a gun? Or does a gun owner have to do something else to be a nut? Is your post merely satire?

I have been called a potential murder suspect just for owning guns. I have been sexually harassed on this forum just for discussing firearms and gun control. I routinely debate gun control with others on the internet who claim to own guns, but claim various guns are illegal despite the fact they have never read any law banning them.

It seems the gun owners who defend their right to own firearms are less nutty than the control freaks and self loathing gun owners.

Ranb
 
WildCat said:
Because the killings won't stop just because a weapon is banned. Chicago has banned handguns for over 20 years, didn't lower the homicide rate a bit, in fact we led the nation in homicide rates for many of those years. Banning guns is a knee-jerk reaction to a complex problem. If it was as simple as availability of guns, there wouldn't be such a dichotomy in the statistics.


Killings with "powerful" guns are very rare. Most are with low-powered handguns.

How many mass killings did the UK and Australia suffer through prior to the ban? You guys did a knee-jerk reaction to a extremely rare phenomenon and then declared success based on the fact that the rare event hasn't happened again?
Click to expand...
Several in a very short time. In my own town Julian Knight and Frank Vitkovic (spelling might be wrong) both went berserk with semi-automatics, and even the government bowed to the powerful gun lobby by not implementing bans. It took Martin Bryant at Port Arthur to do that. And there are still, sadly, nuts who claim he was a patsy and it was a government conspiracy. And guess what? No shooting rampages since. You can say it's a coincidence, but that is not the belief of police (and I did work for Victoria Police). And no decrease in mental illness can explain this. Also, civil society did not collapse.

Gun bans may not have worked in the past (and I will take your word for this) but this is no reason not to try again in light of recent killing sprees.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
I actually couldn't tell if this was meant as a sarcastic post or not, which, if it is serious, is rather sad.

That being said, your argument here seems to boil down to, "If only we got rid of everyone who disagrees with me, we could have a rational discussion."
Click to expand...

It is dead serious, and not sad at all. People can disagree with me if they like, although they'd probably be wrong. :D But, people who are kind of nutty can't really contribute to the discussion.

Now, to be fair, we probably need to get rid of the "melt down all the guns" nuts too, but they don't seem to have any real political power, as opposed to the gun nuts.
 
These sensationalized mass killings are tragic, but as far as death, homicide, or even shooting homicide, they're statistically insignificant.
 
Ranb said:
Have you known many gun nuts?
Click to expand...
Yep, sure have. I knew a guy, for instance, who had guns stashed around his house, so that if anyone attacked him while he was pooping or making an omelet, he could blow them away. Total nut. Another one had a stockpile of weapons and weird survivalist magazines, and barricaded himself during the whole Y2K non-event.

You get rid of the extremists, and the rest of us can probably come up with some solutions that maximize safety, minimize interference in people's lives, and can start talking about the underlying cultural problems with violence in general, and guns in particular.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom