The worst mass shooting in US history

[DanDesade]

The band supported the 2nd then...

...they admitted just how wrong they were.

600+ dead or wounded.

Yet it is treated like another natural disaster.

Thoughts and prayers seemingly don't cut it anymore. How many times has that line been trotted out.

Still it's argued a good guy with a gun makes the difference

The shooter legally possed 40+ weapons legally. Go figure gun culture in the US.

[DanDesade]

I acctualy want to say something about this.

I do not understand hunting season.

For a advanced part of the world I do not understand shooting animals.

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Culling I do understand.

[Alexander Kerensky]

Originally Posted by DanDesade

The shooter legally possed 40+ weapons legally. Go figure gun culture in the US.

I currently have over 80 firearms in my collection, does this reflect something in the character of a person or "gun culture"? Instead of virtue signaling after a tragedy why not try and have an actual discussion on the topic of the current gun policy in America, if you believe it has a detrimental effect on yourself and others.

Originally Posted by DanDesade

I acctualy want to say something about this.

I do not understand hunting season.

For a advanced part of the world I do not understand shooting animals.

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Culling I do understand.

You do not understand the government regulated seasons of culling over populated animals for the benefit of packing your freezer with tasty meats instead of buying over processed materials from stores?

Also how advanced do we as a people need to be exactly, when killing hogs/cows with nail guns, or grinding chickens in a machine, or any other slaughter house practice is deemed ok but hunting is not?

[DanDesade]

Originally Posted by Alexander Kerensky

I currently have over 80 firearms in my collection, does this reflect something in the character of a person or "gun culture"? Instead of virtue signaling after a tragedy why not try and have an actual discussion on the topic of the current gun policy in America, if you believe it has a detrimental effect on yourself and others.




You do not understand the government regulated seasons of culling over populated animals for the benefit of packing your freezer with tasty meats instead of buying over processed materials from stores?

Also how advanced do we as a people need to be exactly, when killing hogs/cows with nail guns, or grinding chickens in a machine, or any other slaughter house practice is deemed ok but hunting is not?

AK

I do not and nor have I ever thought of you as someone as a person without you giving something due considerations

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I simply do not understand the need to physically hurt or kill another person to finish disagreement

[Alexander Kerensky]

Originally Posted by DanDesade

[/COLOR]I simply do not understand the need to physically hurt or kill another person to finish disagreement

I absolutely agree with this as I as well do not understand (outside of military endeavors) the need to physically harm others as a way to end personal conflict. That is what separates the people willing to do so from everyone else and causes such misunderstandings in the general public.

It is often easier to blame a tool as the cause of evil than the person who uses a tool, as it is so hard to understand the reason behind the person.

[bitermer]

The second amendment came into effect in 1791, a few years after the war of independence ended. Since then, a lot has changed. The US is the oldest democracy in its current form, which while it has undergone many strident political changes since its inception, has increasingly lagged much of the western world in the realm of social reform. Recently it has only just passed tentative universal healthcare policy and marriage equality legislation. But historically too, the US has tended to lag behind international consensus, for example during the civil rights era, women's suffrage and the long overdue abolition of slavery. This tendency towards preserving the status quo cannot be easily explained, though there are many likely factors including the relative independence granted the individual states, lobbyism, American exceptionalism and boosterism as well as a systemically entrenched political body.

In the specific case of the second amendment, most gun owners used to state their primary motivation for gun ownership as hunting. Since 9/11 however, the rate of gun ownership has increased dramatically and now gun owners primary motivation is self defense. This would seem a flawed motivation as statistically a gun owner suffers a significantly higher mortality rate. Furthermore, firearm mortality is now higher than motor vehicle mortality per year, over 33,000 deaths and mass shootings are approaching 1 per day in the US. These may seem like good reasons for reform, but, while the NRA continues to exercise its control over the legislature and people refuse to see them as an arm of the firearm industry rather than a civil association, nothing will change.

[DanDesade]

and in case you yanks have forgotten, we're in it tooth and nail

we are brothers in arms

[Alexander Kerensky]

Originally Posted by bitermer

This would seem a flawed motivation as statistically a gun owner suffers a significantly higher mortality rate. Furthermore, firearm mortality is now higher than motor vehicle mortality per year, over 33,000 deaths and mass shootings are approaching 1 per day in the US.

In order for any statistic to be meaningful you have to dig in and understand the sample core. For instance, the gun vs car deaths is only true if you cherry pick from certain states (and leave others completely out). The correct byline is something to the effect of Gun deaths outpace vehicle deaths in 22 states. In addition to this is how vehicle deaths are classified when you die in a hospital after a car accident, check out the CDC Coroners Handbook for some interesting reading.

What further (and very purposefully) complicates any statistic with gun violence is that the number is artificially and resolutely inflated when comparing like stats. 64% of all gun related deaths are suicide* not homicide or other violence. Guns are the only tool of suicide treated in this way, being double billed in statistics as both suicide and violence. As an example when someone commits suicide with a vehicle it is not included in the vehicle mortality statistics it is included in the national suicide rate like any other suicide that is not gun related.

*side note; i'm at work so had to use a NYTimes article as a reference.

Edit:

On a side note I volunteer with my States Department of Conservation every spring to teach hunter safety classes to 8-16 year olds so they can get their hunters licenses. I am a firm proponent of not only ownership but firearm education for everyone, as I believe if you teach a child firearm responsibility they are much less likely to see a gun as a toy to play with if found.

[Lord Emperor Clot]

This is hard to say, and a lot of us in the U.S. are just as mad that our politicians are being political before all the victims have been identified. I know people in Vegas. I live an hour or so from Orlando. Doubtless we will get some "feel good" legislation to make machine guns illegal but the politicians have been doing that for almost 90 years.
A sociopath won't care. The next one after new laws are made will probably drive a truck packed with gasoline to a sports stadium and set it off. They are socio-paths, and laws do not matter.
What should be done is address the great American neglect of the mentally ill, and we should- finally- have an honest discussion on how to care for our sociopaths, paranoiacs, and others. They don't all drool in a corner. And as we have just seen, some of them are very smart. Help mental health care, and we will do much more for this awful problem. But this will never happen....

[Immerael]

Have the Europeans given thought to banning the ownership of motor vehicles? what about explosives? These vans being used to mow people down in the streets are out of hand and the ability for these individuals to build their own bombs needs to be curbed.

Wait a minute...... weren't guns basically illegal in France, except for hunting and you are required to take a physiological evaluation? *Scratches chin* Then pray tell what did the folks in the Charlie Hebdo massacre die by? Because surely if gun control worked these clearly unstable people wouldn't be able to get these guns.

Gun control works like no Trespassing signs. They only stop people not inclined to break the law in the first place. You can drive up the price but America's inability to stop drugs from coming into the country, their ease of access and general affordability even so should serve to prove that banning something doesn't make it go away.

The second amendment was made for the sole purpose of making the American Government afraid of its people. Yes the modern military is vast and powerful, but there are more guns then people in the US and if the government were to ever become tyrannical those people could do a lot of damage. The American defense of this act is based upon a different mindset, call it exceptionalism if you will, but its the belief that American people can handle their lives better then any government body no matter the size. That we would rater take our lives into our hands, risks and all, then be dependent on the government for our very lives.

The incident in Vegas was a tragedy no doubt, one exceptionally well planned by a man obviously not insane (At least not in the traditional sense far too much planning shown so far), he came armed with multiple weapons, set up cameras to see when the cops would get to him and he was exceptionally well funded. This is the sort of man who was hell bent on murdering people, lets assume for a moment he for some reason could not get his guns by some magic gun control that actually worked. This was a wealthy man who owned planes, he could have loaded his little sesna's up with jet fuel and plunged it into the crowd possibly killing even more.

Do we ban planes now?

Lets say he's grounded, he gets a van and fills it up with a fertilizer mixture that with a basic science background can be turned into a massive bomb. There is no reason to suspect a man of his resources couldn't have managed it. Do we ban fertilizer now?

You see where I'm going here. People who perform these massacres are intent to kill as many as possible and there are many ways to do it. The Anarchists cookbook widely available online for free teaches people how to kill others in the most effective method with homemade bombs. They use guns usually because of their ease of access, even in countries where they are illegal surprise surprise, due to their small size and ability to respond to a changing environment and still carry out their plans.

It is for these same reasons that most Americans who carry, especially conceal and carry like myself, favor a gun or multiple for defense. There are situations where it may not help you but having anything is better then nothing when living in a world where we are seeing more and more of these.