Another Fucking Mass Shooting At US School

[Politesse]

And to think the Uvalde shooter wasn't at all organized. What would have been the death toll if determined gangsters had entered that school?

Luckily, their open embrace of unhinged libertarian ideology and disdain for education means that gun nuts are usually shitty organizers.

 

[Gospel]

But how could the new nation defend itself on land without a standing (ie, permanent) army?

The militia.

Idea being: in 1787, armies weren't hard to create quickly: just pull cannons out of a warehouse, requisition a bunch of mules/horses, and call for volunteers.

Basically, the Constitution doesn't anticipate an institutional Army like we have today; rather, "armies" were ad hoc, short-lived creatures created in formal wartime; otherwise, national defense was left to the "militia" (ie, all able-bodied men).

While navies require expensive hardware: warships. So it's good to have some around so one does not have to rebuild them, and it doesn't cost very much to keep them docked and ready for action. Present-day armies are more like navies back then than like armies back then.

This brings to mind the leak about the supreme court ruling abortion illegal because "it's not in the constitution". They would in turn be aborting America because a lot of what we do today is not explicitly in the constitution. Like Copywrite laws.

Anyhow back to the kids. News is starting to spread that both the Police department and School Board are no longer cooperating with the investigation. I have my doubts that's true (could just be delayed replies) but OMG if so they must really love making things worse.

Uvalde police, school district no longer cooperating with Texas probe of shooting: Sources

Uvalde police and school district police are no longer cooperating with the Texas Dept. of Public Safety's probe into the Robb Elementary School shooting, sources say.

abcnews.go.com

 

[ZiprHead]

The militia clause requires, iirc, regular muster under your government commander. One of the first things I always ask of someone citing the 2nd A for possessing their guns is when was the last time you mustered before your government commander.

 

[Gospel]

The militia clause requires, iirc, regular muster under your government commander. One of the first things I always ask of someone citing the 2nd A for possessing their guns is when was the last time you mustered before your government commander.

They'd probably say January 6, 2021. I couldn't help it.

Sorry,

 

[Politesse]

The militia clause requires, iirc, regular muster under your government commander. One of the first things I always ask of someone citing the 2nd A for possessing their guns is when was the last time you mustered before your government commander.

When it suits right wing politics, they are originalists. When it doesn't, they're textualists. Since the framers of the Constitution were good enough to directly indicate their frame of mind in penning the second amendment, and it wasn't to facilitate unregulated recreational collection of military hardware, that necessitates the most strict textualism of all. Those two bits are in different clauses and under no circumstances should either ever be read as informing the other half of the sentence they are in.

 

[Copernicus]

The militia clause requires, iirc, regular muster under your government commander. One of the first things I always ask of someone citing the 2nd A for possessing their guns is when was the last time you mustered before your government commander.

When it suits right wing politics, they are originalists. When it doesn't, they're textualists. Since the framers of the Constitution were good enough to directly indicate their frame of mind in penning the second amendment, and it wasn't to facilitate unregulated recreational collection of military hardware, that necessitates the most strict textualism of all. Those two bits are in different clauses and under no circumstances should either ever be read as informing the other half of the sentence they are in.

From the perspective of forensic linguistics, textualism wouldn't save the plain wording interpretation, since the initial clause cannot simply be ignored. Legislative language, especially constitutional language, is considered parsimonious. That is, every word has significance. The reason is that it is usually framed by a group of people who have to agree on the wording, and it is ratified by an even larger group of people who have to understand the wording. So the initial clause must be there for a reason, and the simplest conclusion is that it is there to limit the scope of the amendment to militia duty. Otherwise, there would be no necessity for the right to exist at all. Committees don't normally include details about why they chose to have a law in the language of the law unless they expected that language to instruct on how to interpret it.

If originalism were at issue here, the relevant interpretation would be that "well-regulated" was probably synonymous with "well-regimented" or "well-trained" rather than "governed by specified regulations". After all, what would being equipped with arms have to do with specified regulations? Soldiers were almost always equipped with single-shot long guns that took time to reload. In order to keep up a constant fusillade, some had to be firing at the same time that others were reloading. IOW, militias had to drill in order to coordinate their firing of those types of weapons. The need for such training changed as weapons technology forced changes in tactics, not to mention the fact that state militias fell into disuse after the establishment of the National Guard, which is not really the same thing as a citizen militia. Less than half the states have separate militias of one sort or another that are separate from their National Guard units. Most states don't even have one anymore.

 

[ZiprHead]

If originalism were at issue here, the relevant interpretation would be that "well-regulated" was probably synonymous with "well-regimented" or "well-trained" rather than "governed by specified regulations". After all, what would being equipped with arms have to do with specified regulations?

Someone tried to tell me once that in the late 1700s well regulated meant well equipped. I looked up the word regulated in three late 1700s dictionary and all three defined it the same as it is defined today.

 

[Copernicus]

Someone tried to tell me once that in the late 1700s well regulated meant well equipped. I looked up the word regulated in three late 1700s dictionary and all three defined it the same as it is defined today.

Dictionaries in the 18th century were not as good at capturing usage patterns as they are today. A better method is to produce a concordance of existing texts from that era and base definitions on that data. I have come across the claim that it could have meant "well-armed", but I've never seen any support for that claim that was based on actual data from English usage of that era.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

...

Self-defense killings always exceed mass shooter deaths.

Can you back this up with a link to data? Self-defense killings are almost negligible when compared with other gun-injury deaths according to what I've read. For example, see:

Self-Defense Gun Use​

The use of guns in self-defense by private citizens is extremely rare. VPC research has found a gun is far more likely to be used in a homicide or suicide than in a justifiable homicide. More guns are stolen each year than are used in self-defense.

The gun lobby seeks to expand the carrying of concealed, loaded handguns into an ever-increasing number of public spaces, while at the same time blocking any restrictions on the availability of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. The main argument used to advance these policies is that guns are a common and effective tool for self-defense. This argument is false.

A series of VPC studies on guns and self-defense thoroughly disprove the NRA myth. These studies analyze national data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Among the findings of the most recent edition of the study are the following:

• In 2017, the FBI reports there were only 298 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm. That same year, there were 10,380 criminal gun homicides. Guns were used in 35 criminal homicides for every justifiable homicide.
• Intended victims of violent crimes engaged in self-protective behavior that involved a firearm in 1.1 percent of attempted and completed incidents between 2014 and 2016.
• Intended victims of property crimes engaged in self-protective behavior that involved a firearm in 0.3 percent of attempted and completed incidents between 2014 and 2016.

When analyzing the most reliable data available, what is most striking is that in a nation of more than 300 million guns, how rarely firearms are used in self-defense.

Want to try again? You just made my point. 298 justifiable civilian homicides is well above the mass shooting death toll.

The data shows that
1) justifiable civilian homicides by gun are dwarfed by criminal gun homicides, and
2) how rarely guns are used in self-defense.

Of course, none of that addresses the issues of mass shootings of children at schools or mass shootings using "war weaponry" or mass shootings by males under the age of 21.

The issue was mass shootings. Switching to murders is a big moving of the goalposts.

Getting rid of guns would put a substantial dent in mass shootings but it would do basically nothing about murder. Just look at Australia where the much-vaunted gun measures did just that. You're getting rid of some high profile events but at a probable cost of more total dead.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Loren, look at the kind of comparison you are making between 298 justifiable civilian homicides and mass shooting death tolls, which compared with only a fraction of the 10,380 unjustifiable civilian homicides. Laughing dog pointed this out to you, but it is worth reflecting on why your comparison was so misleading. Justified homicides in general are not a fair or reasonable amount to compare against just a fraction of unjustified homicides. They need to be compared against all unjustified homicides. We should not just be concerned with mass shootings, but with all criminal shootings. Gun control is not about just stopping mass shootings and letting all those other shootings keep on going at the same high level. It is about bringing down the amount of unjustifiable shootings of all types. This thread is about a particular mass shooting, so maybe what you need to find is some statistics on the number of justified mass civilian homicides. Can you do that?

What you are missing is that the proposed gun measures will do squat about the unjustified homicides in general. Thus comparing self-defense cases vs homicide in general is not a realistic look at the costs/benefits. I'm doing an apples-to-apples comparison, the benefits (few mass shootings) vs the costs (a lack of ability to defend oneself.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

...
Why did the police wait for the keys?

It's fair to say that everyone is asking that question. I think that a few of reasons may have been that they weren't prepared to break into a locked room containing an active shooter, they weren't being told to enter, they feared being injured or shot, and they feared shooting innocents in an exchange of gunfire in a crowded classroom. They really just didn't know how to deal with that kind of situation, and they needed some kind of strong, decisive leadership to coordinate their activity. They feared that any action would just result in the situation getting more out of control without some kind of clear directive to do something. Only the parents of the children were giving them that directive. Those of us judging them in hindsight and with even less information on what was really happening find it really difficult to imagine why they didn't behave more like first responders in NYC during the 9/11 attacks. Their job was to run towards the screams and gunshots, but they weren't really trained to do that.

Unfortunately, there is probably little they could have done as they are neither trained nor equipped for an assault entry. It's been a long time since I've been in any sort of school but my memories from when I was getting into a classroom without keys is something that would be both noisy and slow unless you could blast your way in.

What I wonder is if they could have gone through the other classroom and through the bathroom. That wall probably would be a lot weaker.

 

[pood]

At least it’s not a school, just a hospital.

 

[pood]

I guess the latest shooter is just another Second Amendment enthusiast.

 

[laughing dog]

Getting rid of guns would put a substantial dent in mass shootings but it would do basically nothing about murder.

Sounds to me that it is a good idea then.

However, it us not feasible in the US at this time.
Limiting access to “ war weaponry” is feasible, as is raising the expense of firearms and ammunition.

 

[Copernicus]

Loren, look at the kind of comparison you are making between 298 justifiable civilian homicides and mass shooting death tolls, which compared with only a fraction of the 10,380 unjustifiable civilian homicides. Laughing dog pointed this out to you, but it is worth reflecting on why your comparison was so misleading. Justified homicides in general are not a fair or reasonable amount to compare against just a fraction of unjustified homicides. They need to be compared against all unjustified homicides. We should not just be concerned with mass shootings, but with all criminal shootings. Gun control is not about just stopping mass shootings and letting all those other shootings keep on going at the same high level. It is about bringing down the amount of unjustifiable shootings of all types. This thread is about a particular mass shooting, so maybe what you need to find is some statistics on the number of justified mass civilian homicides. Can you do that?

What you are missing is that the proposed gun measures will do squat about the unjustified homicides in general. Thus comparing self-defense cases vs homicide in general is not a realistic look at the costs/benefits. I'm doing an apples-to-apples comparison, the benefits (few mass shootings) vs the costs (a lack of ability to defend oneself.)

No, you are comparing a small subset of unjustified gun-injury homicides--just mass shootings--against all justified gun-injury homicides. The point of gun regulation laws is to bring down the total number of gun-injury homicides, not just mass shootings. That is the only "apples to apples" comparison that makes sense. Although you didn't actually cite any statistics or back up your claim, it is pretty clear that you were creating a straw man with that approach, since nobody made that comparison before you.

Mass shootings can be reduced by some specific laws, e.g. a ban on large capacity magazines that allow shooters to keep shooting for extended periods of time without a need to reload. I have no idea what specific "proposed gun measures" you are talking about, since that wasn't in the post I was responding to, and I also have no idea what your objections to them are or how you construct your "costs/benefits" analysis.

 

[Tigers!]

I got angry and was very rude to some posters.
I apologise.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Loren, look at the kind of comparison you are making between 298 justifiable civilian homicides and mass shooting death tolls, which compared with only a fraction of the 10,380 unjustifiable civilian homicides. Laughing dog pointed this out to you, but it is worth reflecting on why your comparison was so misleading. Justified homicides in general are not a fair or reasonable amount to compare against just a fraction of unjustified homicides. They need to be compared against all unjustified homicides. We should not just be concerned with mass shootings, but with all criminal shootings. Gun control is not about just stopping mass shootings and letting all those other shootings keep on going at the same high level. It is about bringing down the amount of unjustifiable shootings of all types. This thread is about a particular mass shooting, so maybe what you need to find is some statistics on the number of justified mass civilian homicides. Can you do that?

What you are missing is that the proposed gun measures will do squat about the unjustified homicides in general. Thus comparing self-defense cases vs homicide in general is not a realistic look at the costs/benefits. I'm doing an apples-to-apples comparison, the benefits (few mass shootings) vs the costs (a lack of ability to defend oneself.)

With a semi-automatic? But as you do point out, the cost of 260 or so families losing a child over the past couple of decades in mass school shootings is nothing compared to the loss of the right defend oneself from the boggie man.

 

[Toni]

Loren, look at the kind of comparison you are making between 298 justifiable civilian homicides and mass shooting death tolls, which compared with only a fraction of the 10,380 unjustifiable civilian homicides. Laughing dog pointed this out to you, but it is worth reflecting on why your comparison was so misleading. Justified homicides in general are not a fair or reasonable amount to compare against just a fraction of unjustified homicides. They need to be compared against all unjustified homicides. We should not just be concerned with mass shootings, but with all criminal shootings. Gun control is not about just stopping mass shootings and letting all those other shootings keep on going at the same high level. It is about bringing down the amount of unjustifiable shootings of all types. This thread is about a particular mass shooting, so maybe what you need to find is some statistics on the number of justified mass civilian homicides. Can you do that?

What you are missing is that the proposed gun measures will do squat about the unjustified homicides in general. Thus comparing self-defense cases vs homicide in general is not a realistic look at the costs/benefits. I'm doing an apples-to-apples comparison, the benefits (few mass shootings) vs the costs (a lack of ability to defend oneself.)

I think you’re wrong, Loren. Regulation of firearms reduced the number of gun homicides and suicides when it was put into effect.

I’m also extremely skeptical of firearms being useful in self defense. In three separate instances, close family members were held up at gunpoint, in their own homes, by strangers. Everyone survived with zero injuries. Only one had a firearm fired at him: the one who was himself armed and extremely proficient with firearms. He and his wife were shot at with HIS gun in his own small kitchen. Fortunately, the thieves were terrible shots. The stress of this situation precipitated a heart attack shortly after and a breakdown from the stress. One triple bypass and valve replacement later and some meds, he was fine, but he nearly lost his life during the robbery. BTW, two of those robberies took place at farm houses. The other took place in an upscale suburb and required a SWAT team to resolve, with zero shots fired/no injuries except to dignities.

 

[Toni]

...

Self-defense killings always exceed mass shooter deaths.

Can you back this up with a link to data? Self-defense killings are almost negligible when compared with other gun-injury deaths according to what I've read. For example, see:

Self-Defense Gun Use​

The use of guns in self-defense by private citizens is extremely rare. VPC research has found a gun is far more likely to be used in a homicide or suicide than in a justifiable homicide. More guns are stolen each year than are used in self-defense.

The gun lobby seeks to expand the carrying of concealed, loaded handguns into an ever-increasing number of public spaces, while at the same time blocking any restrictions on the availability of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. The main argument used to advance these policies is that guns are a common and effective tool for self-defense. This argument is false.

A series of VPC studies on guns and self-defense thoroughly disprove the NRA myth. These studies analyze national data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Among the findings of the most recent edition of the study are the following:

• In 2017, the FBI reports there were only 298 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm. That same year, there were 10,380 criminal gun homicides. Guns were used in 35 criminal homicides for every justifiable homicide.
• Intended victims of violent crimes engaged in self-protective behavior that involved a firearm in 1.1 percent of attempted and completed incidents between 2014 and 2016.
• Intended victims of property crimes engaged in self-protective behavior that involved a firearm in 0.3 percent of attempted and completed incidents between 2014 and 2016.

When analyzing the most reliable data available, what is most striking is that in a nation of more than 300 million guns, how rarely firearms are used in self-defense.

Want to try again? You just made my point. 298 justifiable civilian homicides is well above the mass shooting death toll.

The data shows that
1) justifiable civilian homicides by gun are dwarfed by criminal gun homicides, and
2) how rarely guns are used in self-defense.

Of course, none of that addresses the issues of mass shootings of children at schools or mass shootings using "war weaponry" or mass shootings by males under the age of 21.

The issue was mass shootings. Switching to murders is a big moving of the goalposts.

Getting rid of guns would put a substantial dent in mass shootings but it would do basically nothing about murder. Just look at Australia where the much-vaunted gun measures did just that. You're getting rid of some high profile events but at a probable cost of more total dead.

I just looked at murder rates in Australia and the US rate is more than 5 times that if Australia, whose rate continues to decline.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mass shootings can be reduced by some specific laws, e.g. a ban on large capacity magazines that allow shooters to keep shooting for extended periods of time without a need to reload. I have no idea what specific "proposed gun measures" you are talking about, since that wasn't in the post I was responding to, and I also have no idea what your objections to them are or how you construct your "costs/benefits" analysis.

Loren has long held that any restriction proposed by 'the left' is a camel's toes under the tent... no wait... nose... camel's nose under the tent. That makes more sense. Where was I? Oh yeah, paranoia. Left restrictions on guns would lead to more restrictions on guns. The fear is, if we reduce the number of mass shootings at schools via a couple changes in the laws, that further gun restrictions could be possible when people see it is possible to reduce gun violence.

Of course, that would be silly. Gun violence is a done deal in the US. There are so many guns out on the streets that hand gun violence isn't going anywhere. So Loren's paranoia is unfounded. Lots of Americans will have their constitutional right to be killed by gun violence left unrestricted.