Shooting at Texas college

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I think you're only partially right. Gangs thrive because of the illegal income. You'd hurt them where it matters most. But, I think you're also correct in saying they'd just find another source.

Gangs are able to recruit because it breeds itself.

America offers gobs and gobs of opportunity, but the kids don't take it. I've seen it first hand. They want the easy road. They see the thugs in their neighborhoods rolling around in expensive, tricked-out rides...wearing expensive clothes...etc. They want all that, but they don't want to have to get a job to get that...they want it now. What better way than to join a gang?

IME, that isn't it at all. Kids live in economically depressed areas with dangerous and dodgy schools, and a automatic "head unstart", so they don't see "gobs and gobs" of opportunity.

Gangs are almost neighbourhood associations. If you don't join, you will get targeted. And protection from other gangs is also a powerful motivator. To say they are lazy and want money is missing the point. There are plenty of people like that everywhere.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I think you're only partially right. Gangs thrive because of the illegal income. You'd hurt them where it matters most. But, I think you're also correct in saying they'd just find another source.

They thrive on illegal income because they see themselves as outside of society's laws and norms because in their eyes society abandoned them. Thus they target means of income that are likewise outside of the norms of the society they no longer feel a part of.

Gangs are able to recruit because it breeds itself.

America offers gobs and gobs of opportunity, but the kids don't take it. I've seen it first hand. They want the easy road. They see the thugs in their neighborhoods rolling around in expensive, tricked-out rides...wearing expensive clothes...etc. They want all that, but they don't want to have to get a job to get that...they want it now. What better way than to join a gang?

This is where I am going to disagree with you. America offers gobs of opportunity if you are the right sort of person. If you don't have the education, if you have a criminal history, if you are from the wrong side of the tracks and don't have a talent for music or sport, then you aren't going to get any of those gobs and gobs of opportunity. You have people who are working, but live in homeless shelters or their cars because they can't afford a home. You have homeless people who can't even get that much because with no permanent address they aren't entitled to state or federal help. The bottom 40% of your population has a combined total of just 0.1% of the combined wealth of the country! You have a huge section of your population in certain states that have no legal protections, no right to federal help, but they were born in the US. Their entire crime was being born to parents who migrated to the US illegally. What hope or opportunities do they have?

It's not that these groups don't want to work; it’s that many of them can't get it work that is capable of sustaining them and their families. Many of leaving school to do menial jobs to try and help their families out, but then have nowhere to go because they don't have any skills. Working for a gang isn't "the easy road", heck a lot of gang members work harder than some rich white folks who get to summer in the Hamptons and have a NYC Apartment, rather it is to them, the only road out of poverty. Washing dishes in a restaurant isn't going to pay the bills for the rest of your life, and for every one person that started washing dishes and ended up owning the restaurant, there are hundreds that didn't.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but as far as gun homicides go in Buffalo, NY (42 in 2012), nearly all of them can be connected to some gang activity. If the victim wasn't a gang member, or related to a gang member, victims were by-standers caught in cross-fire or random drive-bys.

For the record, not a single homicide was committed in Buffalo during 2012 with a legally held gun.

I'm still trying to compile stats for the rest of NY state.

And I'm not disagreeing that gangs are a serious issue, just over what creates them. The funny thing is that most gang shootings are for the same things that people here claim to be willing to shoot others as well. They are done as self-defence, or defence of their "home" against an invader. Gangs are by nature, tribal, and so they defend their territories again those that would take them from them. From an anthropological point of view they are almost like mini-primitive countries, setting borders and having disputes of territory. Now yes, those territories usually involve where they can ply their illegal trades, so don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-gang, rather I can understand how these people ended up there.

I find it a serious shame the attitudes that some here have towards them, considering them sub-human or worse. In the end, all that separates us from those that joined a gang is the fate that we weren't born in the wrong neighbourhood and because of that, we had a lot more options to choose from in where to take our lives. Not everyone was so lucky.

Now again don't get me wrong here, I still believe that every gang member had a choose in what they became, but unlike us who had the choose of whether we became a doctor, or a lawyer, or a computer programmer, their choices were to become a pool cleaner, a dish washer, or join a gang, the first two don't fill the needs they have other than a job.

I would note that there is one legal option for them that would fill the gaps that gang life does, but the trouble is that most of them have already entered the gang system and got a record before they get to an age to enter that, and that's the Military. The two things actually have a huge amount in common, if you could get the at risk kids and get them into a military type surrounding before the gangs got to them, you'd likely find that a lot of the gang issues dried up.

 

[Belz...]

I still don't know why we exclude gang violence from shooting statistics.

 

[WildCat]

IME, that isn't it at all. Kids live in economically depressed areas with dangerous and dodgy schools, and a automatic "head unstart", so they don't see "gobs and gobs" of opportunity.

Gangs are almost neighbourhood associations. If you don't join, you will get targeted. And protection from other gangs is also a powerful motivator. To say they are lazy and want money is missing the point. There are plenty of people like that everywhere.

The difference is that profits from illegal drugs make the stakes much much bigger. These drug profits are used to buy the guns, and provide incentive to kill each other.

We saw this when crack hit the streets in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gang warfare and violence skyrocketed. Those gangs existed before, but they weren't nearly as violent when they weren't fighting over lucrative drug territory.

Chicago's homicide rate increase the last few years is directly related to long-established gangs whose various factions are fighting each other over control of drug territory.

So ending the "war on drugs" won't eliminate street gangs, but it will make them much less violent.

 

[WildCat]

I still don't know why we exclude gang violence from shooting statistics.

We don't exclude them from shooting statistics.

We differentiate gang violence from other kinds when trying to gauge the effectiveness of various gun control proposals or when proving or disproving the claim that it's guns that cause violence.

If guns were a major cause of violence, for example, we'd see similar rates of violence among all demographic groups subject to the same laws, yes? But if we see wide disparity in homicide rates among different groups subject to the same laws, then can't we conclude that other factors are far more influential in the violence than gun laws are and put our efforts in finding solutions to those factors that are most influential in homicide rates?

 

[remirol]

I still don't know why we exclude gang violence from shooting statistics.

As you can probably tell from the poorly veiled racism in some of the attempted responses (and the corresponding derail), I actually wasn't being sarcastic in my response, though I imagine it seemed so at first.

Gangs have "those people" in them and "those people" were never going to amount to anything anyway, so who cares if they shoot each other?

I would, in fact, prefer if it were sarcasm. But based on my observation, "gang violence" is a way to say "non-white-people shootin' other non-white-people", as though somehow that made those people less dead than those poor innocent sweet little angelic white kids who got shot up in Newtown, Suburbia, USA.

Gang violence should not be excluded from shooting statistics at all, because the flow of weapons goes from "manufacturer" to "legal purchaser" to "illegal owner", in that order. If we want to stop the use of guns illegally -- and that should include those used by gangs -- we need to find a way to stop legal purchasers from voluntarily or involuntarily (theft) transferring those guns to people who aren't supposed to have them. Current gun regulations do a pathetic to nonexistent job of this.

 

[WildCat]

As you can probably tell from the poorly veiled racism in some of the attempted responses (and the corresponding derail), I actually wasn't being sarcastic in my response, though I imagine it seemed so at first.

Gangs have "those people" in them and "those people" were never going to amount to anything anyway, so who cares if they shoot each other?

I would, in fact, prefer if it were sarcasm. But based on my observation, "gang violence" is a way to say "non-white-people shootin' other non-white-people", as though somehow that made those people less dead than those poor innocent sweet little angelic white kids who got shot up in Newtown, Suburbia, USA.

Ah, when you have no evidence or facts just accuse the other person of racism.

Gang violence should not be excluded from shooting statistics at all, because the flow of weapons goes from "manufacturer" to "legal purchaser" to "illegal owner", in that order. If we want to stop the use of guns illegally -- and that should include those used by gangs -- we need to find a way to stop legal purchasers from voluntarily or involuntarily (theft) transferring those guns to people who aren't supposed to have them. Current gun regulations do a pathetic to nonexistent job of this.

I think everyone agrees we need ways to keep weapons from getting to the wrong people, but things like magazine capacity and "assault" weapons bans and "gun free zones" do nothing towards that effort and is unlikely to have any effect whatsoever on homicide rates, the purported purpose of such laws.

 

[remirol]

Ah, when you have no evidence or facts just accuse the other person of racism.

It's trivial to see that there are indeed some racist responses in this thread WRT gang violence; sorry if that gores your ox or something, but black people and Mexicans die just as easily when shot as white kids.

I think everyone agrees we need ways to keep weapons from getting to the wrong people, but things like magazine capacity and "assault" weapons bans and "gun free zones" do nothing towards that effort and is unlikely to have any effect whatsoever on homicide rates, the purported purpose of such laws.

Magazine capacity bans are an attempt to stop things further up the food chain. My opinion is that it may have some small effect, but not much of one.

Assault weapons bans are only meaningful if they focus on the actual functionality of the weapon, rather than appearance or the like. I haven't bothered reading the latest one because, as one might have gathered from my initial response in the Sandy Hook thread, I consider the actual problem to be handguns and CCW.

Gun-free zones exist to prevent accidents from happening, not criminal activity. Bringing them up in a discussion about how to stop criminal activity is really sort of missing the point; I'm sure everyone's seen the video of the cop shooting himself in the leg while demonstrating in a classroom? Yeah, that's why gun-free zones are there. No gun = no gun accident.

There isn't a single person out there that thinks a sign reading "gun-free zone" will stop a criminal, but that's not why the signs were put up in the first place.

 

[Biscuit]

Now we're all waiting for a plan that removes that gun from that person before punishing every gun owner willynilly.

Let's assume this was a good guy with a gun that shot 2 people and himself. When did he become a bad guy with a gun? When is that line crossed from good guy with a gun to bad guy with a gun?

Who is being punished? Gun laws are viewed as punishment? Wow. Is not being allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre a punishment?

 

[Biscuit]

If only there was a law requiring a license to carry a gun, and the school was a gun-free zone!

Oh, wait...

A national licensing system would be a great idea. Here in AZ there is no license.

If only there were speed limits... oh wait.

The idea that some people break the rules is a terrible argument for not having rules.

 

[triforcharity]

We're not saying "no rules". What we're saying, and have been for some time, is reasonable, enforceable rules.

 

[WildCat]

A national licensing system would be a great idea. Here in AZ there is no license.

If only there were speed limits... oh wait.

The idea that some people break the rules is a terrible argument for not having rules.

The issue is having rules that actually produce the desired effect. And if you're going to formulate rules based on the premise that "guns cause crime" you won't get the desired effects of the new laws.

 

[Xulld]

I have to admit I don't understand why gang shootings are excluded by pro-gun people when dealing with statistics, and I'd be glad if someone could explain it to me.

I dont think they should be excluded, what I think we should recognize is that something different is driving the violence among that group of people than other collective groups.

When you compare groups of citizens who engage in gangs, and those that do not you see a very big difference. Asking why gangs form, what drives the violent behavior, and how to address that is going to have a bigger impact than any amount of blanket legislation.

Just my .02

A national licensing system would be a great idea. Here in AZ there is no license.

If only there were speed limits... oh wait.

The idea that some people break the rules is a terrible argument for not having rules.

20,000 rules are not enough?

 

[Belz...]

We don't exclude them from shooting statistics.

We differentiate gang violence from other kinds when trying to gauge the effectiveness of various gun control proposals or when proving or disproving the claim that it's guns that cause violence.

If guns were a major cause of violence, for example, we'd see similar rates of violence among all demographic groups subject to the same laws, yes? But if we see wide disparity in homicide rates among different groups subject to the same laws, then can't we conclude that other factors are far more influential in the violence than gun laws are and put our efforts in finding solutions to those factors that are most influential in homicide rates?

Thank you for your response.

 

[Biscuit]

The issue is having rules that actually produce the desired effect. And if you're going to formulate rules based on the premise that "guns cause crime" you won't get the desired effects of the new laws.

I would hope that all good guys with guns would follow the law and not bring guns into a gun free zone. That some bad guys with guns might ignore it is no reason to get rid of the rule. While the goal of gun free zones is safer schools the goal of speed limits is safer roads - the both have their desired effects. We can see what happens with reckless speeding and in Texas we have seen what happens with guns in gun free zones. In Texas a simple argument is escalated into a shooting.

The notion that guns don't cause crime is a semantic one. Did the guy in texas have a gun that drew itself, leveled and fired all on it's own? No. If he didn't have a gun would anyone have been shot? No.

When does a good guy with a gun become a bad guy with a gun?

 

[Xulld]

I would hope that all good guys with guns would follow the law and not bring guns into a gun free zone. That some bad guys with guns might ignore it is no reason to get rid of the rule.

Lets break this down a bit.

"I would hope that all good guys with guns would follow the law and not bring guns into a gun free zone." Law abiding, abiding the law. OK. We are clear so far.

"That some bad guys with guns might ignore it is no reason to get rid of the rule." This entire conversation is precipitated on the notion that we are talking about bad guys/gals who want to harm others with a firearm.

The idea that a deterrent with less severe penalties will deter an act which is also crime with more server penalties is absurd.

Thus the only effect such a law could EVER have is to restrict those that would seek to protect themselves from the predators amongst us.

The notion that guns don't cause crime is a semantic one.

No. The word usage/definition is not what creates the disagreement. For this to be a semantic argument the meaning of "cause" must change/ be in disagreement. Do you really disagree on the definition of "cause"?

I think if you take a rigorous, scientific approach to define this word then any such semantic issues will dissolve.

Did the guy in texas have a gun that drew itself, leveled and fired all on it's own? No. If he didn't have a gun would anyone have been shot? No.

Ask the wrong questions get the wrong answers. Just imagine if humanity did not exist, world peace. Wrong question to address anything of value. If you cant get rid of technology which is used to create weapons, then you cannot get rid of weapons. The technology to create elicit drugs did not go away when we made them illegal, and thus the problem went underground instead of being addressed. Thus this is the wrong question. Utopia might have your answers if it could exist.

When does a good guy with a gun become a bad guy with a gun?

The answer should not be that he crossed an invisible line. The answer should relate to direct objective harm.

 

[remirol]

"I would hope that all good guys with guns would follow the law and not bring guns into a gun free zone." Law abiding, abiding the law. OK. We are clear so far.

"That some bad guys with guns might ignore it is no reason to get rid of the rule." This entire conversation is precipitated on the notion that we are talking about bad guys/gals who want to harm others with a firearm.

The idea that a deterrent with less severe penalties will deter an act which is also crime with more server penalties is absurd.

Thus the only effect such a law could EVER have is to restrict those that would seek to protect themselves from the predators amongst us.

Goddammit, do some of you not read the thread on purpose, or are you just that careless?

Gun-free zones exist to prevent accidents from happening, not criminal activity. Bringing them up in a discussion about how to stop criminal activity is really sort of missing the point; I'm sure everyone's seen the video of the cop shooting himself in the leg while demonstrating in a classroom? Yeah, that's why gun-free zones are there. No gun = no gun accident.

There isn't a single person out there that thinks a sign reading "gun-free zone" will stop a criminal, but that's not why the signs were put up in the first place.

 

[Giz]

Gun-free zones exist to prevent accidents from happening, not criminal activity. Bringing them up in a discussion about how to stop criminal activity is really sort of missing the point; I'm sure everyone's seen the video of the cop shooting himself in the leg while demonstrating in a classroom? Yeah, that's why gun-free zones are there. No gun = no gun accident.

There isn't a single person out there that thinks a sign reading "gun-free zone" will stop a criminal, but that's not why the signs were put up in the first place.

Really? Do you have a citation for that, because it sounds like something that just got made up...

From what I've seen, it seems like folks aren't worried about gun-accidents in schools but gun-murder. Add a bit of wishful thinking and hey presto: "gun free zones".

 

[remirol]

From what I've seen, it seems like folks aren't worried about gun-accidents in schools but gun-murder. Add a bit of wishful thinking and hey presto: "gun free zones".

From what I've seen, folks are worried about both.

No guns = no gun accidents.
No guns = no CCW fools deciding to play Lone Ranger.
No guns = no arguments that get "settled" with a gun.

Nope, spree shooters won't pay attention to it, and neither will addicts looking to snatch-and-grab a laptop. But removing the signs won't stop them either, it just adds accidents, fools, and arguments back into the equation.

You're welcome to identify (at any time!) the people who think that a sign reading "gun free zone" will stop criminals -- that is, people intending to commit a crime on the property -- from carrying a gun into the zone. Or you can abandon this strawman and start discussing the issues honestly.