Cont: Today's Mass Shooting (2)

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On school shootings, Australia (and no doubt the UK) do not have school police. How many school shootings have resulted in the past 30 years due to this scandalous dereliction of government duty? Well I’m not entirely sure of the UK, I’m betting none.
 
catsmate said:
I'd exclude rimfire.22s.
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Rimfire .22 cals and shotguns are the only semi-automatic weapons that can be legally owned in NZ after the new gun laws were passed, BUT

1. If it is a .22 cal, it must have a fixed magazine that will not hold more than 10 rounds (it must not be capable of using a detachable magazine).

2. If it is a shotgun, it must have a fixed magazine or tube that will not hold more than 5 shells (it must not be capable of using a detachable magazine or tube)

3. In order to own or use one, you must have a Category-E firearms licence. You pretty much can only get those if you are over 21, and a farmer, a private professional pest controller, or you work or contract for the Dept of Conservation as a pest controller. To give you some idea of what this means, there are 245,000 firearms licence holders in NZ, only 3% (7,500) of them hold E-Category licences.
 
lionking said:
On school shootings, Australia (and no doubt the UK) do not have school police. How many school shootings have resulted in the past 30 years due to this scandalous dereliction of government duty? Well I’m not entirely sure of the UK, I’m betting none.
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The last one was Dunblane, Scotland 1996, and their reaction was not to put cops in schools, or lock schools down with single points of entry... their reaction was the same as ours after Christchuch in 2019, the only sensible reaction, the only thing that had a chance of working - sweeping changes to gun laws
 
Checkmite said:
Great then. Let's make a new law that specifies "assault weapons" are guns with removable and large magazines and semi-auto functionality, and other of those intrinsic features. I like it.

However, the fact that the AWB that was initially passed had an imperfect definition that mostly covered "cosmetic features" and yet still resulted in reduced mass shootings - further supported by a skyrocketing number of them when the ban was allowed to expire by a GOP-controlled Congress - is very interesting indeed. As is the fact that the most popular and preferred spree/mass shooting weapon-of-choice at all relevant times was and is the AR-15. Despite the fact that, as you say, the AR-15 could be bought in a "AWB-compliant" configuration, it seems to be the case that even so while the ban was in effect fewer people bought them and went on mass-shooting sprees. While it did not stop mass shootings entirely, objectively speaking the ban had an effect consistent with its intention. It worked.
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I imagine the most effective element of the federal AWB was the magazine limit more than anything. If the goal is to reduce the volume of uninterrupted fire that a shooter can use, say in a massacre type situation, than the 10 rd mag limit did more than banning flash hiders or folding stocks.

I whine about the AWB because it displays a lack of understanding of what the critical factors are in the deadliness of these shootings. Lawmakers banned scary-looking features that had very little to no impact on the usefulness of these rifles in massacre-style shootings (with the mag limit being one big exception).

One big difference I see now is that these weapons are absolutely abundant right now, and if a similar "grandfather" clause were to be adopted, it would likely be a very long time before the supply started to noticeably dry up. There are so many of these rifles and 30rd (or more) magazines in circulation, much more so than in the early 90s when the ban was implemented. I would suggest that either a ban on transferring these pre-ban rifles/mags would be necessary, if not outright confiscation, if you wanted to limit the ability of deranged young men to get their hands on one for such a shooting in the future.

If you want to reduce the ability of shooters to kill large crowds of unarmed people, you really want to be looking at reducing or eliminating the ability of people to sustain fire without interruption. That means reducing the size of magazines, or even better making removable magazines illegal, and restricting semi-auto weapons. If I were in some fantasy situation where any sweeping gun culture was viable, these are the things I'd be focused on for maximum impact (or just an outright prohibition of semi auto weapons).
 
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Checkmite said:
Great then. Let's make a new law that specifies "assault weapons" are guns with removable and large magazines and semi-auto functionality, and other of those intrinsic features. I like it.

However, the fact that the AWB that was initially passed had an imperfect definition that mostly covered "cosmetic features" and yet still resulted in reduced mass shootings - further supported by a skyrocketing number of them when the ban was allowed to expire by a GOP-controlled Congress - is very interesting indeed. As is the fact that the most popular and preferred spree/mass shooting weapon-of-choice at all relevant times was and is the AR-15. Despite the fact that, as you say, the AR-15 could be bought in a "AWB-compliant" configuration, it seems to be the case that even so while the ban was in effect fewer people bought them and went on mass-shooting sprees. While it did not stop mass shootings entirely, objectively speaking the ban had an effect consistent with its intention. It worked.
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This is highly disputed. From Wiki:

The scientific consensus among criminologists and other researchers is that the ban had little to no effect on overall criminal activity, firearm deaths, or the lethality of gun crimes. Studies have found that the overwhelming majority of gun crimes are committed with weapons which are not covered by the AWB, and that assault weapons are less likely to be used in homicides than other weapons. There is tentative evidence that the frequency of mass shootings may have slightly decreased while the ban was in effect, but research is inconclusive, with independent researchers finding conflicting results.
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And of course, Columbine was right smack in the middle of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

The time for halfway measures is long in the rear view mirror. Chris Rock actually has the move: make bullets cost $5k each, and I'd add a maximun of 5 allowed per human. Have low-velocity plinker rounds available for sport shooters, perhaps with wood projectiles.
 
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Thermal said:
This is highly disputed. From Wiki:



And of course, Columbine was right smack in the middle of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

The time for halfway measures is long in the rear view mirror. Kid Rock actually has the move: make bullets cost $5k each, and I'd add a maximun of 5 allowed per human. Have low-velocity plinker rounds available for sport shooters, perhaps with wood projectiles.
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Think it's Chris Rock, not Kid
 
Thermal said:
This is highly disputed. From Wiki:

And of course, Columbine was right smack in the middle of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

The time for halfway measures is long in the rear view mirror.....
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Your Wiki paragraph specifically excluded mass shootings. If your measure is it didn't stop all the gun murders it was never designed to address, then of course you can say it didn't work. :rolleyes:

Also from the same Wiki link:
A 2019 DiMaggio et al. study looked at mass shooting data for 1981 to 2017 and found that mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the 1994 to 2004 federal ban period, and that the ban was associated with a 0.1% reduction in total firearm homicide fatalities due to the reduction in mass-shootings' contribution to total homicides.[29] ...

A 2015 study by Mark Gius, professor of economics at Quinnipiac University, studied the law's impact on public mass shootings.[34] Gius defined this subset of mass shootings as those occurring in a relatively public place, targeted random victims, were not otherwise related to a crime (a robbery or act of terrorism), and that involved four or more victim fatalities. Gius found that while assault weapons were not the primary weapon used in this subset of mass shootings, fatalities and injuries were statistically lower during the period the federal ban was active. The 2018 Rand analysis noted that the federal law portion of this analysis lacked a comparison group.[34]

A 2015 study found a small decrease in the rate of mass shootings followed by increases beginning after the ban was lifted.[35] ....

A 2013 study showed that the expiration of the FAWB in 2004 "led to immediate violence increases within areas of Mexico located close to American states where sales of assault weapons became legal. The estimated effects are sizable... the additional homicides stemming from the FAWB expiration represent 21% of all homicides in these municipalities during 2005 and 2006."[39]
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The reviews are all over the map: it had a benefit to it had no benefit.

Clearly there was bias pro or con in those studies. See what you want to see, just like the comments on the ban in this thread. I would imagine there was some gun industry dark money involved as well.

The laws need to go further. The GOP and the NRA need to be defeated. And hopefully voters will care where the people they vote for get their money.

Like Trevor Noah said, a law banning assault weapons may not be enough but we have to start somewhere.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Your Wiki paragraph specifically excluded mass shootings. If your measure is it didn't stop all the gun murders it was never designed to address, then of course you can say it didn't work. :rolleyes:

Also from the same Wiki link:

The reviews are all over the map: it had a benefit to it had no benefit.

Clearly there was bias pro or con in those studies. See what you want to see, just like the comments on the ban in this thread. I would imagine there was some gun industry dark money involved as well.

The laws need to go further. The GOP and the NRA need to be defeated. And hopefully voters will care where the people they vote for get their money.

Like Trevor Noah said, a law banning assault weapons may not be enough but we have to start somewhere.
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Well...yeah, that's what I said. Its disputed and unclear, as opposed to the confirmation bias that "it worked". We are not sure at all that it did.

I would expect the ban to take years to have real impact, since so many weapons were grandfathered in and already out there. The Columbine shooters had banned equipment, after all, and they were not exactly gun runners. A ban stops them from being made and imported. Great. But it doesn't make the existing guns vanish. It just stops someone from picking up a new gun while grocery shopping. It would take many years till the existing ones broke down and went out of circulation.

And recall that the ban was easily danced around by manufacturers. That's why it's effect was disputed; other factors were at play, including a drop in violence overall.

That's not to say it is undesirable. It was just impotent. All. Semis. Out. Of. Civilian. Hands. That's the target, along with licensing and the rest. Feel-good twaddling is just national masturbation.
 
Matthew McConaughey is speaking at a White House press briefing. He says he was born and grew up in Uvalde, where his mother taught school and where he learned responsible gun ownership, and he returned to meet with the parents of victims. He's talking at length about the dead kids.
 
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Thermal said:
That's not to say it is undesirable. It was just impotent. All. Semis. Out. Of. Civilian. Hands. That's the target, along with licensing and the rest. Feel-good twaddling is just national masturbation.
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Which I think we can all agree on but that isn't going to happen overnight or with one move. We have to start somewhere. I would take disputed action over inaction every day of the week.

Anything is going to take decades to work, just like it took us decades to get into this **** show in the first place.
 
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Bob001 said:
Matthew McConaughey is speaking at a White House press briefing. He says he was born and grew up in Uvalde, where his mother taught school and where he learned responsible gun ownership, and he returned to meet with the parents of victims. He's talking at length about the dead kids.
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What a ******* stupid thing to bring up when talking about dead kids that were shot by someone who legally bought a gun. The guy who killed those children he's talking about didn't do anything illegal with his gun until he started mowing down 10 year olds. God I hate stupid ******* people.
 
plague311 said:
Which I think we can all agree on but that isn't going to happen overnight or with one move. We have to start somewhere. I would take disputed action over inaction every day of the week.

Anything is going to take decades to work, just like it took us decades to get into this **** show in the first place.
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Oh, agreed, that something is better than nothing. It comes down to trying baby steps that get met with massive pushback, till some watered down version limps out, or swing for the fences, getting met with massive pushback and maybe a stronger watered down version limping out. The old business strategy of asking for double, and meeting the opposition halfway to land on what you wanted in the first place.

My concern is that the discussion will linger for decades in pissant halfway steps. We are long past that luxury, IMO. Time to get aggressive.
 
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