Another Fucking Mass Shooting At US School

[Loren Pechtel]

I hear the children argument more often from the left than the right.

What you hear might not be representative, but it seems to me too that the right has abandoned the WATC trope.

Check the ages. You'll find most of those "children" are nearly adults--gangbangers.

Oh. Well, in that case … never mind.
We should probably look closer at the data though - might want to segregate out the 4 and under babybangers too.

The point is "children" doesn't mean "innocent bystander".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

FFS Loren! You must have ice in your veins to go along with the paucity if anything resembling data to go along with your willingness to simply shrug your shoulders at the deaths of school children.

How many children’s deaths is an acceptable number for you? By age group. Do you go by height and weight or age and grade level? Inversely proportionate? Are the deaths of 3 kindergarteners more or less tragic than the 17 year old valedictorian with a scholarship to Penn State. Or is it the other way around? Are two cheerleaders worth more or less than a quarterback or starting forward? If someone cheats on their math test or drops firecrackers in the toilet does that make their life more easily forfeit?

Or is the value of a fifth grader’s life measured by his neighborhood? His father’s profession?

I really want to know.

Once again I see the think-of-the-children logic. Almost inevitably used when the statistics do not support your position.

Derec has already posted the data--most of those "children" are gangbangers dying in gang-related conflict.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As of 2020, more children die each year from gun violence than from car accidents. We do a lot of things to prevent car accidents and to make cars more safe: child safety seats, seat belts! speed limits, automobile design! traffic control! Lots of things.

This is lumping all minors together, not just children proper. When you get into teenagers, esp. above the age of 15, you get a lot of gang or other criminal activity which increases a chance of gun-death considerably. A 17 year old has a six times higher chance of dying by a gun than a 13 year old, and it's not because Salvador Ramos and Nicholas Cruz types predominately attack senior class home rooms.

How many of these numbers are by so-called "assault weapons"? How many are from school shootings like the ones in Uvalde or Sandy Hook?
We know that overall, only a small fraction of all gun homicides, and a minority of even mass shootings, is committed with a so-called "assault weapon". And even with those where an AR15 or similar was used, the perp could have switched to a handgun if his weapon of choice was not available due to the renewed ban.

It is well known that teens, particularly male teens, engage in a lot of risk taking behavior. What tends to be forgotten or overlooked is the kids from certain families and with certain…complexions get a much lighter hand from the authorities than some less fortunately housed or complexioned.

He was talking about guns, you go trying to deflect by claiming racism--racism has nothing to do with whether someone becomes a mass shooter.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You haven’t answered: how many deaths is too many?

How many people dying because they can't defend themselves is too many?

(Hint: Neither are things you can put a number to. You have to balance the benefits vs the harms, neither can be considered in isolation. And you have to decide how to count the benefits and the harms. Personally, I count criminal-on-criminal deaths very low vs the deaths of innocents.)

 

[Elixir]

To be equated with Epstein merely for pointing out this obvious fact is beyond the pale. Even for you.

Perhaps people are making fun of you for putting forth something that is not only blatantly obvious, but also of trivial bearing on the discussion.
Guess I could be wrong, but that’s sure as hell what it looks like.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hint: Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always on the wrong side.

Hint: One of the times when they are not on the wrong side is when the hazard to the children is their actual death.

Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always about vague and subjective hazards, like "loss of innocence" or "causing nightmares", not "death from gunshot wounds".

I'm thinking more of the if-it-can-save-one-child arguments frequently put forth for things where the costs far exceed the benefits.

Oh, OK. Would you be able to enumerate the costs of licensing firearms, and explain how many children's lives would need to be saved in order to offset those (presumably massive) costs?

Perhaps as a follow-up, you could explain how (for example) Canada, has managed to struggle on against the massive costs imposed upon them by their gun regulations.

How about showing how licensing firearms is supposed to do much of anything to save children? It's all about getting a list for future seizure.

Hint: Very few crimes are committed by the legal owner of a gun, and those that are committed are often not of the type to be deterred by registration requirements anyway.

Hint: Gun-banners make a big deal about what was done in Australia--but in reality what was done had basically no effect. The murder rate was declining, it continued to decline at basically the same rate. Maybe it had an effect on mass shootings but it's certainly not visible (other than as a blip that returns to normal) in the murder rate.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When you lump in teenagers with children in order to inflate your numbers - implicitly pretending that all those numbers are due to things like school shooting - you are being dishonest. And we cannot solve these problems by being dishonest or by referring to meaningless legalisms.

Which is my point all along in this thread.

You can't solve a problem until you identify it. Any solution attempted on a misidentified problem is unlikely to be of much benefit. Step #1 is identify the problem. Step #1 is never to act.

 

[Toni]

FFS Loren! You must have ice in your veins to go along with the paucity if anything resembling data to go along with your willingness to simply shrug your shoulders at the deaths of school children.

How many children’s deaths is an acceptable number for you? By age group. Do you go by height and weight or age and grade level? Inversely proportionate? Are the deaths of 3 kindergarteners more or less tragic than the 17 year old valedictorian with a scholarship to Penn State. Or is it the other way around? Are two cheerleaders worth more or less than a quarterback or starting forward? If someone cheats on their math test or drops firecrackers in the toilet does that make their life more easily forfeit?

Or is the value of a fifth grader’s life measured by his neighborhood? His father’s profession?

I really want to know.

Once again I see the think-of-the-children logic. Almost inevitably used when the statistics do not support your position.

Derec has already posted the data--most of those "children" are gangbangers dying in gang-related conflict.

Why don’t you tell me the acceptable number of children’s deaths, per annum? I mean: real children, prepubescent. Nothing to stir up anybody’s unpleasant thoughts.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do not find it compelling when I hear the argument that goes like “ no point in restricting guns in any way because they’ll just find a way”. It’s an intellectually dishonest argument and one that the right wing never employs when they want to ban or restrict something they don’t Like. So it also drips with hypocrisy, which I loathe.

It is very relevant. Suppose I put security bars on the front windows of this house. Is there any point in doing so? No--anyone who would go through a window will walk around back. You put bars on all ground floor windows or none (with the exception of an occasional window that's too small to climb through or the like), you don't only protect some of them because that's incurring substantial cost for virtually zero gain.

Likewise, you have to consider the effectiveness of any proposed measures--and basically everything the left loves will incur costs (not always monetary) to the law abiding but do virtually nothing to the vast majority of criminals. A sufficiently sweeping ban will stop most mass shooters but that's all you'll do about crime. (Suicide is another matter--there you will have some effect. I question how much, though, as you just make people get a bit more complex about it.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But so fucking what? What does it say about society that has people in it who are completely fine with writing off 17 year olds' deaths, and are perfectly fine with the fact that maybe a few hundred elementary aged children die in gun violence as simply meh, collateral damage? Why would we accept such disordered, narcissic, sociopathic 'thinking' to actually make decisions about how society should function?

You're utterly incorrect here.

We're pretty much ignoring them because they chose the gang path. It's like the guy who recently died in Death Valley--canyoneering solo, with a too-short rope and no ascenders. I'm not a canyoneer but it took me 30 seconds to find out that where he was you need enough rope for a 250' descent and a couple of minutes to discover that it's no place for a novice, period. It says nothing about whether one should go to Death Valley or whether the park service is handling safety properly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Look upthread at the graph in the link I provided and see how the gun deaths of children have exploded in the last 20 years. Then try to demonstrate that the number and type of weapons is not responsible for the deaths of thousands of children.

And thanks for the Biden quote. He's right. There is no single rationale or socially redeeming value in semiautomatic weapons except for the profit of gun manufacturers. And the pocketbooks of the NRA. And to help impotent men feel potent again.

Want the real cause? The drug war.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hint: Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always on the wrong side.

Hint: One of the times when they are not on the wrong side is when the hazard to the children is their actual death.

Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always about vague and subjective hazards, like "loss of innocence" or "causing nightmares", not "death from gunshot wounds".

I'm thinking more of the if-it-can-save-one-child arguments frequently put forth for things where the costs far exceed the benefits.

Ok. Now we're getting somewhere.
We know the benefit: saving children's (and plenty of adult) lives. The numbers have been posted previously, many times.

Now, you have to spell out the costs. TIA.

You have to establish that what you propose will accomplish what you want. I don't buy your faith in it.

 

[Toni]

But so fucking what? What does it say about society that has people in it who are completely fine with writing off 17 year olds' deaths, and are perfectly fine with the fact that maybe a few hundred elementary aged children die in gun violence as simply meh, collateral damage? Why would we accept such disordered, narcissic, sociopathic 'thinking' to actually make decisions about how society should function?

You're utterly incorrect here.

We're pretty much ignoring them because they chose the gang path. It's like the guy who recently died in Death Valley--canyoneering solo, with a too-short rope and no ascenders. I'm not a canyoneer but it took me 30 seconds to find out that where he was you need enough rope for a 250' descent and a couple of minutes to discover that it's no place for a novice, period. It says nothing about whether one should go to Death Valley or whether the park service is handling safety properly.

Chose the gang path?

Oh get off it, Loren. You might know about hiking in Death Valley but you have even less idea what it is like to grow up with the kind of pressures some kids grow up than I do.

The kind of self satisfied arrogance in your reply is beyond the pale.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A LOT of kids, especially teenaged boys, engage in petty theft, fighting, property damage, illegal consumption of various substances and sometimes go joy riding or worse. What is the biggest difference between those who go on to spend a lot of their adulthood in and out of cells and those who go on to college, jobs or careers, marriage, children? A lot of it in this country boils down to color of skin, closely correlated with socioeconomic status. Two kids doing exactly the same thing in different parts of town are often treated very differently because of what they look like and where they live.

The solution is not to start treating all kids harshly. It's to treat all kids with kindness and compassion--and firmness and consistency and fairness. Consequences, not jail sentences.

Always trying to make it about race. It's not. It is socioeconomic. And it's no surprise that things are treated differently in different parts of town--areas with more problems will in general come down harder on those who cause problems.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So why are such background checks not implemented? Surely they are regulatory rather than legislatived

For that to be effective a federal authority would need to be in charge. In America that would be the ATF. The ATF aren't allowed to record such information.



Fucking ridiculous, I know.

Because gun tracing doesn't accomplish much. We used to have a local handgun registry. It finally got scrapped when it came to light that the police had never gotten useful information from it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I do not find it compelling when I hear the argument that goes like “ no point in restricting guns in any way because they’ll just find a way”. It’s an intellectually dishonest argument and one that the right wing never employs when they want to ban or restrict something they don’t Like. So it also drips with hypocrisy, which I loathe.

It is very relevant. Suppose I put security bars on the front windows of this house. Is there any point in doing so? No--anyone who would go through a window will walk around back. You put bars on all ground floor windows or none (with the exception of an occasional window that's too small to climb through or the like), you don't only protect some of them because that's incurring substantial cost for virtually zero gain.

That’s too simplistic a comparison to be useful to this discussion.

A sufficiently sweeping ban will stop most mass shooters but that's all you'll do about crime.

And that would be a worthy goal. I already said I’m not Compelled by the argument that if you can’t stop all crime there’s no point in stopping any crime.

(Suicide is another matter--there you will have some effect. I question how much, though, as you just make people get a bit more complex about it.)

The right doesn’t let this get in the way of their efforts to say restrict abortion for which they supported all Kinds of Legislation that simply made it harder and harder and more complex.

 

[bilby]

How many people dying because they can't defend themselves is too many?

The vast majority of people who kill in self defence are just criminals defending themselves against other criminals.

It's therefore impossible to give a shit about anyone else who finds themselves in that situation.

Apparently.

 

[bilby]

Hint: Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always on the wrong side.

Hint: One of the times when they are not on the wrong side is when the hazard to the children is their actual death.

Think-of-the-children arguments are almost always about vague and subjective hazards, like "loss of innocence" or "causing nightmares", not "death from gunshot wounds".

I'm thinking more of the if-it-can-save-one-child arguments frequently put forth for things where the costs far exceed the benefits.

Oh, OK. Would you be able to enumerate the costs of licensing firearms, and explain how many children's lives would need to be saved in order to offset those (presumably massive) costs?

Perhaps as a follow-up, you could explain how (for example) Canada, has managed to struggle on against the massive costs imposed upon them by their gun regulations.

How about showing how licensing firearms is supposed to do much of anything to save children?

Well, for a start it plugs the enormous gaping hole of 'lost' firearms that have been diverted from legal to illegal ownership.

It's all about getting a list for future seizure.

Your paranoia on this is already well established. You needn't repeat it.

Hint: Very few crimes are committed by the legal owner of a gun, and those that are committed are often not of the type to be deterred by registration requirements anyway.

Hint: Almost all illegally owned guns began as legally owned guns. Registration requires responsibility - owners need to know where their guns are, and to report loss or theft promptly.

Hint: Gun-banners make a big deal about what was done in Australia--but in reality what was done had basically no effect.

That's utter bollocks. It had a huge and well documented effect. I know you have seen the data posted here previously, and I am aware that you refuse to believe it; But your stubborn refusal to acknowledge the existence of data isn't a rebuttal of it.

The murder rate was declining, it continued to decline at basically the same rate.

So what? The point of the exercise was to reduce the risk of mass shootings.

Maybe it had an effect on mass shootings but it's certainly not visible (other than as a blip that returns to normal) in the murder rate.

It's plenty visible in the mass shooting rate, which has fallen to zero, and remained there for twenty six years.

Adjusted for population, that would be the equivalent of almost two years without a single mass shooting in the USA.

Don't try to tell me that the US mass shooting frequency is basically indistinguishable from 0.5 per annum, because that would be a lie so large that your pants might start a firestorm and destroy your entire city.

 

[bilby]

When you lump in teenagers with children in order to inflate your numbers - implicitly pretending that all those numbers are due to things like school shooting - you are being dishonest. And we cannot solve these problems by being dishonest or by referring to meaningless legalisms.

Which is my point all along in this thread.

You can't solve a problem until you identify it. Any solution attempted on a misidentified problem is unlikely to be of much benefit. Step #1 is identify the problem. Step #1 is never to act.

It appears that your objective is exactly "never to act". And to justify your inaction by reference to the fact that the figures you won't allow to be collected, or disagree with, or have questioned (whether or not justifiably) haven't been collected.

 

[Toni]

A LOT of kids, especially teenaged boys, engage in petty theft, fighting, property damage, illegal consumption of various substances and sometimes go joy riding or worse. What is the biggest difference between those who go on to spend a lot of their adulthood in and out of cells and those who go on to college, jobs or careers, marriage, children? A lot of it in this country boils down to color of skin, closely correlated with socioeconomic status. Two kids doing exactly the same thing in different parts of town are often treated very differently because of what they look like and where they live.

The solution is not to start treating all kids harshly. It's to treat all kids with kindness and compassion--and firmness and consistency and fairness. Consequences, not jail sentences.

Always trying to make it about race. It's not. It is socioeconomic. And it's no surprise that things are treated differently in different parts of town--areas with more problems will in general come down harder on those who cause problems.

Bullshit.