Yet another shooting thread

[Loren Pechtel]

What can I say? Throw my hands up?

Statistically speaking, you are already more dangerous than somebody with an AR15.

in the US, 85.7% of all homicides were committed using firearms.

You are being a bit disingenuous.

How many of those were committed with legally owned firearms, though?

The stats I saw did not break it down that way.

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

 

[Toni]

What can I say? Throw my hands up?

Statistically speaking, you are already more dangerous than somebody with an AR15.

in the US, 85.7% of all homicides were committed using firearms.

You are being a bit disingenuous.

How many of those were committed with legally owned firearms, though?

The stats I saw did not break it down that way.

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

 

[TomC]

If the Democrats have a majority in certain states why could they not implement some sort of gun control whilst they have the opportunity? It might not be much but there needs to be a start somewhere.

I don't know about elsewhere, but Chicago kinda learned that lesson the hard way.

Chicago had a big issue with gun violence. State and City officials tried to deal with it by heavily restricting private gun ownership. Law abiding citizens were disarmed. But Indiana is just minutes away. Here, you could practically get guns out of vending machines. So, anyone who wanted a gun and was willing to break the law could easily get one. And criminals could assume that their law abiding victims would be unarmed.

It didn't turn out well.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It just doesn’t make logical sense to me that the rarity of deaths by so-called “assault riffles” means that we should not consider stricter regulations on them.

The point is you put your effort where the problem is. A total success could at most reduce the murder rate by 5% and probably wouldn't change it.

When you see effort very disproportionate to the issue you'll almost never be wrong in thinking there are ulterior motives.

I have no idea how you reached your at most 5% figure but yeah, that’s enough for me.

So you'll stop after addressing a sliver of the issue? Why do I think of the camel's nose?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It just doesn’t make logical sense to me that the rarity of deaths by so-called “assault riffles” means that we should not consider stricter regulations on them.

The point is you put your effort where the problem is. A total success could at most reduce the murder rate by 5% and probably wouldn't change it.

When you see effort very disproportionate to the issue you'll almost never be wrong in thinking there are ulterior motives.

I think you are grossly oversimplifying the situation.

For example, you seem to be implying that someone who is against some guns must be against all guns.

The thing is the effort is being directed at a segment of the market with a far lower percent of misuse. And most everybody who is opposing them doesn't like guns in general.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Loren's argument is that if guns were not ubiquitous, nobody would be able to employ lethal force in self-defense, and so more people would be shot, because guns are ubiquitous.

This only makes sense if the only way someone can be killed is with a gun.

Or just if the only EASY way to kill someone is with a gun.

Which it is.

It's really difficult for most people to kill someone else, without using a gun. While killing someone else with a gun is so easy, that it often happens by mistake.

Reality: More murders are done with no weapon at all than with rifles.

 

[Elixir]

Reality: More murders are done with no weapon at all than with rifles.

More reality: killing someone else with a gun is so easy, that it often happens by mistake.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is a pointless statistic: hands are not optional. The frequency with which a weapon is used to kill people is interesting but a compelling reason to allow legal ownership. Using your rationale, private individuals should be allowed to own nuclear weapons.

The disingenuous arguments are getting ever more ridiculous. Personal nuclear weapons? WTF?

Personal ownership--fine. Personal possession--there's no way to meet the safety requirements and thus it's impossible.

While this may seem meaningless there's an edge case where it would matter. If Asteroids-R-Us wants to move one around I think they should be allowed to buy some nukes and have the military place them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sone oeople

Huh?

think you put your effort on the low hanging fruit first and work your way up.

But it's not really good fruit, as it won't bring much if any benefit, and it is not low-hanging either, as passing another ban won't be easy and would cost a lot of political capital.

Maybe. Maybe the low hanging fruit is mire comprehensive background checks. But reducing murders is a benefit.

And where are current background checks failing?

We do have problems with a lack of reporting of offenses that should cause disqualification and with pleading down charges that should cause disqualification, but where do we have any number of people who have disqualifying history but are buying them legally?

Beware of unintended consequences--psychiatric disqualification? That's how you get Germanwings 9525.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It just doesn’t make logical sense to me that the rarity of deaths by so-called “assault riffles” means that we should not consider stricter regulations on them.

The point is you put your effort where the problem is. A total success could at most reduce the murder rate by 5% and probably wouldn't change it.

When you see effort very disproportionate to the issue you'll almost never be wrong in thinking there are ulterior motives.

I think you are grossly oversimplifying the situation.

For example, you seem to be implying that someone who is against some guns must be against all guns.

The thing is the effort is being directed at a segment of the market with a far lower percent of misuse.

So what? Does that mean it shouldn't be addressed?

If mass murder is the "misuse" of these guns, then what's the actual use of these guns? Why do people need high powered, high rate of fire, high magazine capacity rifles?

 

[Elixir]

Why do people need high powered, high rate of fire, high magazine capacity rifles?

In case there's a home invasion.
By Genghis Khan's hordes.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It is a pointless statistic: hands are not optional. The frequency with which a weapon is used to kill people is interesting but a compelling reason to allow legal ownership. Using your rationale, private individuals should be allowed to own nuclear weapons.

The disingenuous arguments are getting ever more ridiculous. Personal nuclear weapons? WTF?

Personal ownership--fine. Personal possession--there's no way to meet the safety requirements and thus it's impossible.

So you do believe that some weapons should have governmentally applied requirements that could ultimately make possession prohibitive? Good, now we are just negotiating where to draw the line.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Disagree--I think it's about the camel's nose.

I do not think that quite explains it. The hostility toward so-called "assault weapons" tends to be quite emotional, visceral. There is more afoot here than just a "camel's nose" tactic.

Because the gun grabbers have been manipulating people.

Same as the Republicans about abortion. With the left it's assault rifles. With the right it was dilation and extraction.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As to your hobby-horse of only focusing on high-profile shootings that were covered in the media excessively, they amount to a very small percentage of all homicide victims.

I think the vast majority homicide victims belong to a group or groups that represent very small percentages of all homicide victims. In fact most gun homicide victims belong to groups that represent but a fraction of all gun homicide victims.
To be perfectly objective, if one looks closely enough, every single case where a person kills another person with a gun, is unique in some way, and can therefore be dismissed as a one-off.
Fuck it we need more guns.

What became of our confused smilie??

 

[Toni]

It just doesn’t make logical sense to me that the rarity of deaths by so-called “assault riffles” means that we should not consider stricter regulations on them.

The point is you put your effort where the problem is. A total success could at most reduce the murder rate by 5% and probably wouldn't change it.

When you see effort very disproportionate to the issue you'll almost never be wrong in thinking there are ulterior motives.

I have no idea how you reached your at most 5% figure but yeah, that’s enough for me.

So you'll stop after addressing a sliver of the issue? Why do I think of the camel's nose?

I do not see where you came to that conclusion, unless you are willingly misunderstanding me.

A five percent drop is a very good start. Breathe the hell out of your : I wanna play with my toys and I don’t care how many children die because my freedom is more important! stance.

I’m beginning to understand JD Vance’s statement about childless cat ladies don’t have much of a stake in the country—except he should have said childless men*

*Don’t @ me. I’m being very very sarcastic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

You're looking at the chickens (handgun murders) and going after the barn (rifles.)

 

[Toni]

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

You're looking at the chickens (handgun murders) and going after the barn (rifles.)

You don’t give a shit about anyone other than yourself.

WHY is not decreasing the number if death by firearms by 5% worthy? Who does it hurt?

The leading cause of death of children is firearms. If it were leukemia, would it not be worth it to take a measure to reduce childhood deaths by 5%.

Is there any sacrifice you’d personally be willing to make to save the life of a child?

Every day 120 people in the US are killed by guns. More than twice that number are wounded.

An Examination of US School Mass Shootings, 2017–2022: Findings and Implications

Gun violence in the USA is a pressing social and public health issue. As rates of gun violence continue to rise, deaths resulting from such violence rise as well. School shootings, in particular, are at their highest recorded levels. In this study, we ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Shadowy Man]

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

You're looking at the chickens (handgun murders) and going after the barn (rifles.)

Why do you think Toni doesn't care about the "chickens"?

Following that logic, we shouldn't worry about handgun murders until we've cured heart disease.

 

[Toni]

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

You're looking at the chickens (handgun murders) and going after the barn (rifles.)

Why do you think Toni doesn't care about the "chickens"?

Following that logic, we shouldn't worry about handgun murders until we've cured heart disease.

The real irony here is that I mentioned AK’s AND handguns as being used for killing people. Loren only cares about me going after AK style rifles.

Here’s the thing: I know that there are situations where AK-15 style semi-automatic weapons ( and similar so don’t come at me with picking apart different styles and types that are just as likely to be used in committing crimes) are very appropriate. If I lived in a rural area with a lot of grizzlies and had livestock or children I was concerned about —or even my own safety, I can definitely see the appeal. So why not restrict them to owners with special licenses which are only available after specific training and licensure procedures? Very limited! For as needed only. Hand guns, too. Specific use, special license. Mandatory gun safety training. Universal background checks and mandatory locked storage.

 

[Elixir]

Exactly--the key piece of information isn't presented because it would destroy the whole narrative.

You're trying to close the barn door because the chickens are escaping.

BULLSHIT. We KNOW that certain types of firearms are more likely to be used in certain situations. Handguns are almost always used for killing people So are AR-15 style semi-automatic rifles. The semi-automatics are able to kill many more people very very rapidly. WHY are such weapons available to the general public?

Because some people think they are fun? Fun to shoot? Well, some people think it's fun to shoot people, including children. It is a disgrace that we think letting some people feel that they are big tough men is more important than letting kids grow up with their parents. Or to live at all.

You're looking at the chickens (handgun murders) and going after the barn (rifles.)

Why do you think Toni doesn't care about the "chickens"?

Following that logic, we shouldn't worry about handgun murders until we've cured heart disease.

The real irony here is that I mentioned AK’s AND handguns as being used for killing people. Loren only cares about me going after AK style rifles.

Here’s the thing: I know that there are situations where AK-15 style semi-automatic weapons ( and similar so don’t come at me with picking apart different styles and types that are just as likely to be used in committing crimes) are very appropriate. If I lived in a rural area with a lot of grizzlies and had livestock or children I was concerned about —or even my own safety, I can definitely see the appeal. So why not restrict them to owners with special licenses which are only available after specific training and licensure procedures? Very limited! For as needed only. Hand guns, too. Specific use, special license. Mandatory gun safety training. Universal background checks and mandatory locked storage.

B -b-b-but that won't prevent gun crimes!