Why we shouldn't focus on mass shootings

[arkirk]

I'm not for free guns, they should definitely be licensed, but the problem is not the guns. It is your rotten welfare systems.

What are you talking about? What welfare systems? What makes welfare rotten?

We are told we shouldn't focus on mass shootings. Perhaps we should focus on them just enough to eliminate them...and then do something about all the rest of the gratuitous unnecessary deaths in our country. This shooting people in church and kids at school needs to be ended.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Guns are not THE problem, but they are A problem. So is the fear of the "other" that is a cornerstone of white supremacy. So is American Rugged Individualism and its myth of homesteaders on the prairie defending kith and kin with only a trusty Winchester and God's good grace. So is a type of libertarianism that tries to take Sociopathy and make it a legitimate political stance instead of what it is, a psychopathic personality disorder evidenced by behaviors that are antisocial, often criminal, and lacking in a sense of moral responsibility, empathy, or social conscience and connection.

- - - Updated - - -



Tell it to Australia.

Doesn't mean they'll listen. Their law didn't do any good.

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/08/some-notes-on-claims-about-australias.html

And now for something completely different

This is what happened when Australia introduced tight gun controls

As for John R Lott

Discredited Gun Researcher John Lott Botches S.C. Law To Blame Charleston Church Shooting On "Gun-Free Zone"
UPDATE: Lott Surreptitiously Modifies His Original Article To Hide Error

He's not a good source. He's a bit of fraud

... and a fool.

 

[Juma]

I'm not for free guns, they should definitely be licensed, but the problem is not the guns. It is your rotten welfare systems.

What are you talking about? What welfare systems? What makes welfare rotten?

It isnt fair. It isnt equal, it isnt for all.

We are told we shouldn't focus on mass shootings. Perhaps we should focus on them just enough to eliminate them...and then do something about all the rest of the gratuitous unnecessary deaths in our country. This shooting people in church and kids at school needs to be ended.

It has already ended. There is no school ir church shooting going on, but there are a lot of other violence going on.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Doesn't mean they'll listen. Their law didn't do any good.

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2012/08/some-notes-on-claims-about-australias.html

And now for something completely different

This is what happened when Australia introduced tight gun controls

As for John R Lott

Discredited Gun Researcher John Lott Botches S.C. Law To Blame Charleston Church Shooting On "Gun-Free Zone"
UPDATE: Lott Surreptitiously Modifies His Original Article To Hide Error

He's not a good source. He's a bit of fraud

... and a fool.

I do agree he's got some problems but you're not rebutting his point. The rates were already dropping, it continued to drop after the gun law change. That doesn't mean the law change had any effect.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The point is that arguments focused on mass killings misrepresent the real issue.

The real issue is too many people have access to guns. Statistically speaking, this means too many people have access to guns who shouldn't. It also means that too many people have access to guns at times WHEN they shouldn't.

The solution is to reduce Americans' access to guns. All the rest is just details.

No. I didn't say organized crime, I just said criminals.

No, you said "criminal underworld." Simply being a criminal does NOT make one a member of the underworld, otherwise you would get a knock on your door from the local mobster every time you break the speed limit.

You have a very specific vision in mind of a very specific kind of person when you say "criminals".

You want us to believe that gun deaths in America are primarily the fault of gangsters, drug dealers and action-hero-ninja-assassins that infest the inner cities with their block wars. This remains one of your many bizzare fantasies about how the real world works; but even if I were to entertain for a moment the possibility that you are CORRECT, and that the anomalous gun death statistic is entirely due to most of America actually being a Bruce Willis movie, it remains a fact that gangers and drug dealers would find it ALOT harder to kill people if they didn't have easy access to firearms.

People aren't shooting each other because we're an action-hero dystopia full of violent gangsters who solve their problems with bullets.

[Citation needed]

REALLY Loren?

 

[Frikki]

And now for something completely different

This is what happened when Australia introduced tight gun controls

As for John R Lott

Discredited Gun Researcher John Lott Botches S.C. Law To Blame Charleston Church Shooting On "Gun-Free Zone"
UPDATE: Lott Surreptitiously Modifies His Original Article To Hide Error

He's not a good source. He's a bit of fraud

... and a fool.

I do agree he's got some problems but you're not rebutting his point. The rates were already dropping, it continued to drop after the gun law change. That doesn't mean the law change had any effect.

You are using the same argument as the fucking anti-vaxers.

 

[arkirk]

What are you talking about? What welfare systems? What makes welfare rotten?

It isnt fair. It isnt equal, it isnt for all.

We are told we shouldn't focus on mass shootings. Perhaps we should focus on them just enough to eliminate them...and then do something about all the rest of the gratuitous unnecessary deaths in our country. This shooting people in church and kids at school needs to be ended.

It has already ended. There is no school ir church shooting going on, but there are a lot of other violence going on.

Please explain your position on welfare a little more clearly. You don't like welfare because it is not equal for all? What are you trying to say?

 

[ronburgundy]

Again, gun-related homicides (and gun-related armed robberies) are the only crimes for which the US is a notable outlier among first world democracies. The US is actually near the average of European countries on crime rates overall (remember that even in the US, homicides are a fraction of total crimes). The most common form of violent crime is assault, and the US is below Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia in total assault rates and just above Canada, Germany, Finland, and Belgium (see top of page 36 in the linked UN report). For simple "robbery" involving "threat of harm" but not a gun, the US is below England, Belgium, Spain, and Portugul. IOW, the US is NOT notable for its violence or its poverty-driven crimes like robbery and theft. It is notable solely for crimes involving guns, and therefore for homicides which are usually committed with guns.

Except for the gun involved, every other political, social, and psychological factor that contributes to homicides also contributes to other violent crimes like assault and to non-violent crimes like theft. The "gun-related" part of these outlier crimes is the sole aspect of them that is not common to other crimes. Thus, it is the only possible factor that could be responsible for the US being an outlier on those crimes and not on the others.

The bottom line is that the total lack of controls on the legal gun market allows legal gun dealers and owners to profit off of illegally funneling guns into the black market with almost zero chance of being caught and minimal penalties even if they are caught.
The guarantees millions of guns flowing freely into violent criminal hands cheaply and easily. That guarantees much greater use of guns in situations that would otherwise just be a non-deadly verbal of physical confrontation.

Of course guns are not the root cause the motivations that drive the person to engage in some form of crime and confrontation to being with. But a gun is a neccessary cause for a gun-related homicide, and non-gun homicides are much more rare because they much more dangerous for the perp, and usually require more planning, skill, and time (which also means time to not go through with the act). Thus, availability of a gun is the most proximal and neccessary cause of the vast majority of homicides in the US.

In sum, it is not an open question. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that gun availability is the primary and most proximal cause of most homicides in the US. Remove that availability, and the other factors remain, but they would usually wind up resulting in non-lethal criminal acts or no crime at all (such as mere aggressive words).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do agree he's got some problems but you're not rebutting his point. The rates were already dropping, it continued to drop after the gun law change. That doesn't mean the law change had any effect.

You are using the same argument as the fucking anti-vaxers.

With vaccines the line was already heading down but you see a sharp downturn when the vaccines were introduced. There's no such change in the Australian data.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Again, gun-related homicides (and gun-related armed robberies) are the only crimes for which the US is a notable outlier among first world democracies. The US is actually near the average of European countries on crime rates overall (remember that even in the US, homicides are a fraction of total crimes). The most common form of violent crime is assault, and the US is below Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia in total assault rates and just above Canada, Germany, Finland, and Belgium (see top of page 36 in the linked UN report). For simple "robbery" involving "threat of harm" but not a gun, the US is below England, Belgium, Spain, and Portugul. IOW, the US is NOT notable for its violence or its poverty-driven crimes like robbery and theft. It is notable solely for crimes involving guns, and therefore for homicides which are usually committed with guns.

Except for the gun involved, every other political, social, and psychological factor that contributes to homicides also contributes to other violent crimes like assault and to non-violent crimes like theft. The "gun-related" part of these outlier crimes is the sole aspect of them that is not common to other crimes. Thus, it is the only possible factor that could be responsible for the US being an outlier on those crimes and not on the others.

The bottom line is that the total lack of controls on the legal gun market allows legal gun dealers and owners to profit off of illegally funneling guns into the black market with almost zero chance of being caught and minimal penalties even if they are caught.
The guarantees millions of guns flowing freely into violent criminal hands cheaply and easily. That guarantees much greater use of guns in situations that would otherwise just be a non-deadly verbal of physical confrontation.

Of course guns are not the root cause the motivations that drive the person to engage in some form of crime and confrontation to being with. But a gun is a neccessary cause for a gun-related homicide, and non-gun homicides are much more rare because they much more dangerous for the perp, and usually require more planning, skill, and time (which also means time to not go through with the act). Thus, availability of a gun is the most proximal and neccessary cause of the vast majority of homicides in the US.

In sum, it is not an open question. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that gun availability is the primary and most proximal cause of most homicides in the US. Remove that availability, and the other factors remain, but they would usually wind up resulting in non-lethal criminal acts or no crime at all (such as mere aggressive words).

What's also interesting is that only about 7% of VIOLENT CRIMES in America actually involve firearms. It turns out the reason for the high murder rate is because around 70% of crimes that involve firearms (handguns in particular) result in homicides. By comparison, something like 12% of violent crimes that DON'T involve firearms result in fatalities.

Guns turn muggings into shootings; fist fights into gunfights; drunken brawls into battlefields. And it's probably a bit worse than that, since the effect of HAVING a gun makes certain types of petty criminals feel bolder and more powerful; easier to stick up somebody who might otherwise kick your ass if you can scare them with a gun.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Guns turn muggings into shootings; fist fights into gunfights; drunken brawls into battlefields. And it's probably a bit worse than that, since the effect of HAVING a gun makes certain types of petty criminals feel bolder and more powerful; easier to stick up somebody who might otherwise kick your ass if you can scare them with a gun.

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Guns turn muggings into shootings; fist fights into gunfights; drunken brawls into battlefields. And it's probably a bit worse than that, since the effect of HAVING a gun makes certain types of petty criminals feel bolder and more powerful; easier to stick up somebody who might otherwise kick your ass if you can scare them with a gun.

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

What if he's armed with a banana? Do you really want to live your whole life being known as the guy who gave in to the the person who mugged you with a banana?

Death would likely be preferable to that dishonour.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Guns turn muggings into shootings; fist fights into gunfights; drunken brawls into battlefields. And it's probably a bit worse than that, since the effect of HAVING a gun makes certain types of petty criminals feel bolder and more powerful; easier to stick up somebody who might otherwise kick your ass if you can scare them with a gun.

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

It's probably a little of both. Cowards hide behind guns to do things they'd otherwise be too scared to do, and at the first sign of resistance they put the gun to use. Ironically, we're discovering that this is just as true of criminals as it is of the police.

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

What if he's armed with a banana? Do you really want to live your whole life being known as the guy who gave in to the the person who mugged you with a banana?

Death would likely be preferable to that dishonour.

I dunno about that... the guy who tries to mug me with a banana clearly knows something I don't. I suppose he COULD be bluffing, but the threat from the banana is such a huge unknown that I can't really make an informed threat assessment.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What if he's armed with a banana? Do you really want to live your whole life being known as the guy who gave in to the the person who mugged you with a banana?

Death would likely be preferable to that dishonour.

I dunno about that... the guy who tries to mug me with a banana clearly knows something I don't. I suppose he COULD be bluffing, but the threat from the banana is such a huge unknown that I can't really make an informed threat assessment.

Of course you can make a threat assessment - it's a guy armed with a banana. It's not like he has a pointed stick or something.

Just pull a gun and shoot him in the face. Then eat the banana in order to disarm your opponent. This is Self Defence 101.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I dunno about that... the guy who tries to mug me with a banana clearly knows something I don't. I suppose he COULD be bluffing, but the threat from the banana is such a huge unknown that I can't really make an informed threat assessment.

Of course you can make a threat assessment - it's a guy armed with a banana. It's not like he has a pointed stick or something.

Just pull a gun and shoot him in the face. Then eat the banana in order to disarm your opponent. This is Self Defence 101.

Oddly enough, I have a story (actually a musical) written with something quite similar to that happening near the end in the "climatic" scene. And it is still better than Shrek!

 

[ronburgundy]

Guns turn muggings into shootings; fist fights into gunfights; drunken brawls into battlefields. And it's probably a bit worse than that, since the effect of HAVING a gun makes certain types of petty criminals feel bolder and more powerful; easier to stick up somebody who might otherwise kick your ass if you can scare them with a gun.

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

In Sweden, the muggers are rarely armed either (relative to the US), so they cannot shoot, even if nervous. Againt the 3:1 ratio of per capita guns in the US versus Sweden way under-estimates the difference in criminals access to handguns, because the handgun difference is greater and the laws limiting gun-per-person sales and resales prevent the flow from the legal into the illegal market.
It is not that Swede criminals don't shoot because they are less nervous about the victim being armed. The criminals simple do not have guns most of the time, so their emotions cannot translate into a homicide without a whole lot more effort and risk to themselves. Also, many murders are criminals killing other criminals. In Sweden, neither criminal has a gun, so there is less need to preemptively kill them and hard to kill them when you don't have a gun anyway.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

What if he's armed with a banana? Do you really want to live your whole life being known as the guy who gave in to the the person who mugged you with a banana?

Death would likely be preferable to that dishonour.

I know that was a flippant reply... but seriously... probably. I know a guy who is some sort of Kung Fu champion as well as having mob connections. He was jumped by three guys who were unarmed. And he just gave them his money, even though he probably would have been able to beat them. I asked them about it. He said something like, "they were clearly idiots, and idiots do dangerous things when cornered". It´s almost never worth it. A friend of mine who works as a surgeon has said something like it. He often operates on people who still would have a face/nose/ears/jaw if they just learned when to keep their mouth shut and hand over their cash. It´s not a question of winning. Even if you win, chances of you getting some sort of permanent damage is huge, even if it´s just fists. Humans are fragile.

...or it could be one of these deadly bananas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpmN1OpaihQ

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don´t think it´s a matter of boldness at all. I think it´s a matter of nervousness. If you don´t shoot first you might die. So it´s a dramatic escalation of the violence simply on the basis of staying alive. In Sweden no victims are armed. So there´s nothing to stress the muggers into shooting. And everybody knows that it´s always preferable to give your valuables to a mugger rather than fighting. That is true no matter what the mugger is armed with.

In Sweden, the muggers are rarely armed either (relative to the US), so they cannot shoot, even if nervous. Againt the 3:1 ratio of per capita guns in the US versus Sweden way under-estimates the difference in criminals access to handguns, because the handgun difference is greater and the laws limiting gun-per-person sales and resales prevent the flow from the legal into the illegal market.
It is not that Swede criminals don't shoot because they are less nervous about the victim being armed. The criminals simple do not have guns most of the time, so their emotions cannot translate into a homicide without a whole lot more effort and risk to themselves. Also, many murders are criminals killing other criminals. In Sweden, neither criminal has a gun, so there is less need to preemptively kill them and hard to kill them when you don't have a gun anyway.

The fall of the Soviet Union changed all that. It´s not hard getting hold of a gun now. But criminals only use guns fighting each other. The use of guns vs non-criminals is unheard of. Criminals rarely walk around armed with guns. They go and get guns when shit gets real. But they rarely have them "just to be safe". I´m not offering an explanation. That´s just a fact. So even if the control of guns is pretty one-sided, ie only potential victims are unarmed, it´s obviously still a good idea.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Honestly, isn't that why you carry a second wallet in areas of potential muggings? Lose a few bucks, move on.

Granted, it does occur to me that I hardly ever carry cash. Maybe I should put a sign on my jacket that reads "wallet never contains more than $20".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I know that was a flippant reply... but seriously... probably. I know a guy who is some sort of Kung Fu champion as well as having mob connections. He was jumped by three guys who were unarmed. And he just gave them his money, even though he probably would have been able to beat them. I asked them about it. He said something like, "they were clearly idiots, and idiots do dangerous things when cornered". It´s almost never worth it. A friend of mine who works as a surgeon has said something like it. He often operates on people who still would have a face/nose/ears/jaw if they just learned when to keep their mouth shut and hand over their cash. It´s not a question of winning. Even if you win, chances of you getting some sort of permanent damage is huge, even if it´s just fists. Humans are fragile.

Yet, it's still surrendering to a guy with a banana. Does life have value if it means living with that sort of humiliation?