US Connecticut Shooting

[das_nut]

The bill of rights was written at a time when you could only fire a single shot, then had to stop to reload, not shoot 3000 rounds per minute (or 60 rpm in the case of a semi-automatic).

It was also written at a time when the printing press was the fastest way to disseminate information, and that information could only travel at the speed of a fast horse.

But I doubt you really want to weaken free speech rights even if technology has greatly progressed since the bill of rights was written.

That is ridiculous, to point out Mexico as an example of a country which has "gun regulations" it is basically run by drug cartels for whom the law is completely irrelevant.

As opposed to the US, where our criminals are law abiding and drugs aren't a major factor in organized crime?

Handguns were used in the attack itself, but I've seen several articles claiming he had a Bushmaster M4 in the trunk of the vehicle.

Bushmaster M4, assuming its the non-military version that isn't illegally converted, wouldn't be considered an assault rifle. (No full automatic fire.)

It may be considered an assault weapon, but I'd have to check into it.

"Assault weapon" is basically a BS term. For example, out of the two weapons below, only one counts as an assault weapon:

The gun on the left is a TEC 9, banned under the now-lapsed federal assault weapons ban. The gun on the right is the AB 10. Perfectly legal even during the federal assault weapons ban. They are basically the same weapon, with a few changes made to get around the ban - notice the lack of a barrel shroud (the thing with holes on it around the barrel of the gun). That was enough to get around the ban, along with the lower capacity magazine.

In short, our politicians are either too dumb to pass an effective law, or (more likely, IMO) are willing to pass laws that sound good even though elements of the law itself are effectively worthless.

 

[beancounter]

As for gun control, I'm not even gonna get into that debate. All I will say is that if gun reduction in general is to be the answer, you have to change the culture before you change the law. If there is still a demand for guns, restricting ownership will fail for the same reason that alcohol prohibition failed and the drug war continues to fail. Unenforceable laws are irrational, serving only to elevate items to black market status and making it very difficult to regulate and track sales.

I'm not really sure that's a good analogy. Drugs and alcohol are potentially addictive substance that someone ingest. Whereas, guns aren't.

 

[Freesia]

That picture demonstrates the reality, for those still in denial.

 

[yakherder]

Bushmaster M4, assuming its the non-military version that isn't illegally converted, wouldn't be considered an assault rifle. (No full automatic fire.)

It may be considered an assault weapon, but I'd have to check into it.

"Assault weapon" is basically a BS term. For example, out of the two weapons below, only one counts as an assault weapon:

I guess I never really put much thought into it. Even the M16s I used in the military before switching to the M4 were not full auto.

 

[yakherder]

But again I don't really even have a point in regards to the debate. I have my opinions, but they are opinions I don't give much importance to. I don't think the nature of life in the U.S. would change one way or another regardless of what laws they make, and I don't have any plans of buying any guns. I don't hunt anymore, obviously, if someone assaulted me I doubt it would be in a situation where I'd have a chance to arm myself even if I owned a gun, I have a 1 year old son and a girlfriend who is about as liberal as they come (which I'm fine with), and if there is an all out conflict I'll be a part of it either way since I'm in the military. So I'll just stay out of it and let popular opinion determine the direction the U.S. takes.

The best defense against those who want to control you is your state of mind. In order to control you, they need leverage. The less you fear, the less leverage they have. Whether I'm armed or not the worst someone can do to me is kill me, and that's not among my fears. Those who live their lives in fear are asking to be controlled whether they are anti gun or armed to the teeth rednecks.

 

[sequoia]

As for gun control, I'm not even gonna get into that debate. All I will say is that if gun reduction in general is to be the answer, you have to change the culture before you change the law. If there is still a demand for guns, restricting ownership will fail for the same reason that alcohol prohibition failed and the drug war continues to fail. Unenforceable laws are irrational, serving only to elevate items to black market status and making it very difficult to regulate and track sales.

I think the bolded part is important. There is no simple, one-answer solution to this. It isn't just about guns, although I do think that they are a part of it. You really have to take a holistic approach.

 

[das_nut]

That picture demonstrates the reality, for those still in denial.

1. Comparing total number of deaths across nations with very different population sizes is misleading.
2. "Guns killed" sounds like they are also counting suicides.
3. Wouldn't a better metric be the chance a handgun was used in a crime?

For example, while I can't find the handgun data, just dumping online data for gun ownership rates and comparing them to homicides committed by firearms, some trends pop up.

I took data from the web and dumped it into a spreadsheet. I took the number of guns per 100,000 people, and compared it to the number of firearm homicides per 100,000 people. I'm calculating the chance an individual gun will be used in a fatal homicide in each country I have data for.

The results are interesting. A Swedish gun is far less likely to commit homicide than an American gun (about 17% as likely). So is all of Europe like this? No. Just go across the Baltic, and look at Lithuania. A Lithuanian gun is remarkably deadly, being 10 times more likely to kill someone than a US gun, and about 40 - 50 times more likely to kill someone than a Swedish gun.

For the most part, Western Europe has the lowest gun deaths (with some exceptions), eastern Europe is higher, Latin America spikes highly, Canada is close to the US, and weirdly enough, even in countries like Japan or Korea with very few guns, the chance of a gun killing someone is very similar to the US. Other nations are a crap-shoot. Philippines are remarkably high. Parts of Africa are high (no surprise). Some nations are similar to Europe - Kuwait, for example.

Culturally and socio-economically, there's something going on.

 

[yakherder]

I'm not really sure that's a good analogy. Drugs and alcohol are potentially addictive substance that someone ingest. Whereas, guns aren't.

Perhaps. How about prostitution then? Illegal pretty much everywhere, but ridiculously easy to find pretty much everywhere. I suppose you could still argue that sex is also an addiction, but with our culture guns could be considered a psychological addiction as well. My stepfather was one of those people would have gone down fighting if someone had tried to take his guns. Even if data were to show that limiting gun ownership would reduce crime, I guess my point is simply that culture has to be taken into consideration before simply throwing around laws.

The police already can't enforce the laws we have. Traffic deaths dwarf anything guns could do, but I don't see people thanking traffic cops for giving them speeding tickets, and no matter how many they hand out I still feel like an obstacle if I'm going the speed limit. Human stubbornness and hypocrisy is a tricky thing.

 

[mlp]

Handguns were used in the attack itself, but I've seen several articles claiming he had a Bushmaster M4 in the trunk of the vehicle.

According to the statement of the coroner who conducted the highest number of the autopsies (the chief coroner of the state), and after he consulted with the other coroners who conducted the other autopsies, all of the victims at the school were shot multiple times by a "long rifle", which other sources are identifying as a military style Bushmaster.

 

[Calliegirl]

Interesting that no one wanted to go on and defend their position.

'Meet The Press' host David Gregory said that no pro-gun rights senators would agree to go on the show on Sunday.
"We reached out to all 31 pro-gun rights senators in the new Congress to invite them on the program to share their views on the subject this morning," he said. "We had no takers."
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined the show to discuss a greater need for gun control.She announced that Senate Democrats would introduce a new bill banning assault weapons on the first day of the new Congress in January...

...CBS's Face The Nation ran into the same problem on Sunday:

"Face the Nation" invited on politicians who oppose gun control, including representatives from the NRA, but they declined the program's requests.​

Pro-gun rights have been mostly quiet since a gunman walked into a Connecticut elementary school on Friday and shot 26 people, including children, and then himself. The NRA on Friday refused to comment on the shooting...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/david-gregory-pro-gun-rights-senators_n_2311559.html

 

[das_nut]

While Newtown residents say that "there are many gun enthusiasts" in the area, the origins of Nancy's interest was a bit troubling. Her former sister-in-law, Marsha Lanza, told reporters that Nancy was part of the Doomsday Preppers movement, whose members believe they need to prepare for the end of the world.

Marsha said [Nancy] had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.

‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’

Indeed, many described her as "high-strung" and reluctant to let others into her house. Holmes said that when he arrived to do yard work, he would "ring the bell on the front door, and she would come out the side and meet me. It was a little weird." And a group of neighbors with whom Lanza played a weekly dice game said she always managed to avoid hosting the get-togethers, despite having participated in them for over 15 years.

- Source

Weird. Seems a little unhinged.

 

[mlp]

I will say this - the problem in this country isn't just the number and types of weapons and the ease of accessibility; it's the reverence (for lack of a better word) in which they are held by so many people - their egos, their sense of self, their sense of security is all tied up in gun ownership, and that's a sad and dangerous thing.

This mother did at least two things very wrong - she had dangerous weapons in a house where she was raising an unstable child, and more importantly, by her own example, she engendered a mindset where guns were a way, or perhaps even the way, to resolve problems.

For myself, I find that more fault lies with her than with the shooter because of this. I understand the difficulties inherent in raising a troubled child, but to foster in such a child a love of weapons and provide easy access to weapons - that's unforgivable in my book.

I don't think anything will change as a result of this tragedy. Those who are entrenched in their mindset of the sanctity of gun ownership will remain entrenched. Those who say "well, there are other factors at play" will continue to think of themselves as especially enlightened and will continue to pat themselves on the back. (And yes, there are always other factors involved, but to ignore common threads is not at all enlightened.) And as a society and a country, we will get what we deserve - more massacres, more spur of the moment homicides and suicides which would not have occurred but for the ease in which a gun brings death.

 

[das_nut]

This wasn't a spur of the moment homicide though, judging from the limited evidence we have.

The shooter tried to buy a weapon two days before.

 

[mlp]

This wasn't a spur of the moment homicide though, judging from the limited evidence we have.

The shooter tried to buy a weapon two days before.

I didn't say that THIS was a spur of the moment situation. But there are, in fact, a lot of murders and/or suicides that happen on the spur of the moment and wouldn't without the ready accessibility of guns and the ease with which one can kill by using guns. Bob Costas was completely right about that.

 

[das_nut]

I didn't say that THIS was a spur of the moment situation. But there are, in fact, a lot of murders and/or suicides that happen on the spur of the moment and wouldn't without the ready accessibility of guns and the ease with which one can kill by using guns. Bob Costas was completely right about that.

True. Of course, that distances the conversation away from this case.

 

[mlp]

True. Of course, that distances the conversation away from this case.

I thought we had been talking about this specific tragedy AND about gun issues generally. I guess I was mistaken.

But seriously, for every tragedy, we can talk about the specifics and pinpoint things that could/should have been done differently in that specific instance. That's not particularly productive, and certainly would not lead to any changes, because those particular people are already dead. For ever gun related death, we can identify a number of *but for* circumstances, without which the death(s) wouldn't have happened, and ignore the common threads that run through multiple tragedies. That's nice if all you want is an academic exercise, but won't do anything to avert even one death going forward.

 

[mlp]

And it's been confirmed that all of the murders at the school were committed with the Bushmaster military style rifle.

I'm sure that Das_nut will be interested in arguing whether it's an "assault rifle", something resembling an "assault rifle", or whatever description he thinks is accurate, but the fact is that it's a weapon with high magazine capacity that can easily be used to maximize the number of people who can be killed in the shortest possible amount of time. And these are legal why?

 

[Freesia]

.

 

[das_nut]

I thought we had been talking about this specific tragedy AND about gun issues generally. I guess I was mistaken.

This is now a gun control debate, and has been for a few pages of this thread. I guess this specific tragedy is irrelevant except for using the emotions to further one's own politics.

That's obscene, but the world is obscene.

So lets talk about gun control in the US. Now, to take it to an extreme to get our gun ownerships rates very low would probably require a concentrated attack on the Bill of Rights. That's something I'm not really comfortable with, because quite frankly, while I don't really exercise any rights under the 2nd amendments, I find a lot of the other amendments useful for restricting government abuse of power. To neutralize the third amendment would be to provide a plan of attack on the rest.

We probably could ban specific weapons, but as the assault weapon ban shows, such legislation is problematic. (and shows misplaced priorities - assault weapons aren't used in the majority of gun crimes).

Pragmatically, I don't really think we can legislate gun control in such a way where we won't have an erosion of other rights. Politically, I don't think it's viable either.

We could present some legislation attacking specific weapons, but as we've seen in the past, such legislation has been ineffective.

I think we're better off changing attitudes. Just look at smoking - smoking rates haven't gone down because cigarettes are illegal. Smoking rates have gone down because the culture has changed.

Just getting the US down to a violence per 100k gun rate similar to some other nations would be a big step forward in reducing the death toll from gun violence. But such behavior is multicausal, and the solution is going to have to be similarly broad.

 

[ledboots]

I will say this - the problem in this country isn't just the number and types of weapons and the ease of accessibility; it's the reverence (for lack of a better word) in which they are held by so many people - their egos, their sense of self, their sense of security is all tied up in gun ownership, and that's a sad and dangerous thing.

This mother did at least two things very wrong - she had dangerous weapons in a house where she was raising an unstable child, and more importantly, by her own example, she engendered a mindset where guns were a way, or perhaps even the way, to resolve problems.

For myself, I find that more fault lies with her than with the shooter because of this. I understand the difficulties inherent in raising a troubled child, but to foster in such a child a love of weapons and provide easy access to weapons - that's unforgivable in my book.

I don't think anything will change as a result of this tragedy. Those who are entrenched in their mindset of the sanctity of gun ownership will remain entrenched. Those who say "well, there are other factors at play" will continue to think of themselves as especially enlightened and will continue to pat themselves on the back. (And yes, there are always other factors involved, but to ignore common threads is not at all enlightened.) And as a society and a country, we will get what we deserve - more massacres, more spur of the moment homicides and suicides which would not have occurred but for the ease in which a gun brings death.

You are saying the dead woman is more to blame than the shooter? Come on!!