Now is not the time to talk about gun control (1 Viewer)

[brandon]

T&P

10 killed in Boulder shooting: Victims identified, suspect charged

Police said 10 people were killed, including an officer, after a shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.

www.google.com

 

[SystemShock]

There does have to be something about the AR-15, though, otherwise wouldn’t you see some variety here?

Unfortunately, that is not a complete list of shootings. Right off the top of my head**:
- the Virginia Tech shooting is not on the list; it was carried out with 2 pistols, and the death toll was 32, with 17 dead.
- Columbine is not there either, and no AR-15 types were used; 13 dead 20 injured.
- The Charleston church shooting is not listed either, and an AR-15 was not used; 9 people dead.
- The Vegas shooter had AR-15's, but those were not the only guns he had (AK, M10, etc.).

I am sure if I look, I'll find more mass shootings that were not carried out with AR-15's.

AR-15's are popular for a number of reasons. As I mentioned earlier, it is the standard rifle of the U.S. armed forces (the M4 and its variations). That, and the amount of models and accessories you can buy for them a. gives them the "tacticool" factor and b. gives the gun stores repeat business.

Because they are popular, people think banning them will reduce the number of shootings, without realizing that you can buy other rifles that can inflict the same or even more damage than AR-15s at the same places. Not to mention, given how gun regulations work, manufacturers would change something minor, and reclassify the weapon as something else, and back to square one in one production cycle.

It is frustrating, indeed, that we have allowed ourselves to be put in this situation. There will not be a solution in the near future, but there can mitigation, if we are willing to do so, and we are smart about how we apply regulations. But even mitigation will be an uphill battle, as long as the cult of gun believes the 2nd Amendment is the word of God, or Republicans simply want to taste liberal tears.

** I had to look up the casualties, those weren't off the top of my head; the events were.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

“Enough Was Enough”: How Australia Reformed Its Gun Laws & Ended Mass Shootings After 1996 Massacre​

 

[MT15]

Here is something I had not considered:

 

[Optimus Prime]

Eerie similarities

Almost like a memo went out
=======================

A mass shooter killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday. And Republican politicians took to Twitter in the wake of this tragedy to express their condolences.

But if you look closely, you’ll notice something odd. Many of the messages were identical, as though they’re all just copying and pasting the same tweets from the last mass shooting.

There seems to be a formula for how right-wing politicians are now responding to mass shootings on social media that goes something like this:

I am [HORRIFIED, HEARTBROKEN, ETC] at the senseless tragedy in [LOCATION] today. We are [LIFTING THEM UP IN PRAYER, PRAYING FOR THEM] and thank the heroic efforts of [POLICE, FIRST RESPONDERS, ETC] on the scene.

That’s it. No promise that laws will be passed to help stop these mass shootings from happening again; no recognition that the U.S. is the only wealthy country in the world where mass shootings happen frequently; no acknowledgement that children in other countries don’t have to participate in active shooter drills. The only thing politicians can muster is “thoughts and prayers” and “thank God for our cops.”

Take a look at some of the tweets from yesterday, with an emphasis in the text from Gizmodo to show just how identical these statements really are.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky:



Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee:



Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona:



Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota:



Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia:



Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas:


…. The list goes on and on. And they all use the same formula.

But oddly, it wasn’t just Republicans who used a similar mash-up of platitudes on Tuesday. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, used language identical to the Republicans:

Republican Ghouls Send Identical Tweets After 19 Kids Killed in School Shooting

Politicians like Ted Cruz have developed a special formula for 'thoughts and prayers' on Twitter.

gizmodo.com

This actually reminds me of when Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 911 and the GOP responses were nearly identical

“If I wanted to see a fantasy on screen I’ll go see Spider-Man/Shrek (or whatever else was out at the time)”

I swear I saw at least half a dozen people say the exact same thing

 

[MT15]

That happens all the time from every POV, though.

 

[Semper]

And Schumer sends the senate home for 10 days…

 

[MT15]

This is from the Financial Times but the tweet didn’t have a link. That place where everything starts increasing sharply is where the federal assault weapon ban ended.

Further down the thread on Twitter, it was pointed out that in 2017 Trump rolled back certain protective measures to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental health issues. And it was pointed out that if you go the the FT web site this is an interactive graphic and that makes it easier to understand.

 

[MT15]

And Schumer sends the senate home for 10 days…

What makes you think they (meaning Rs) were not going to filibuster any quick attempt to do something anyway? Pretty sure Sen. Murphy asked Schumer to give him ten days to try to come to an agreement with Rs.

 

[Semper]

What makes you think they (meaning Rs) were not going to filibuster any quick attempt to do something anyway? Pretty sure Sen. Murphy asked Schumer to give him ten days to try to come to an agreement with Rs.

I just think Schumer caved. I think it would have been better if he Said duck it, we’re not leaving until we get something done. Instead, to me, it’s just business as usual from both sides. Was not aware of the Aden Murphy thing. I know there was a bill they could have voted on about school safety that the R’s introduced but Schumer wouldn’t bring it to vote. I have not read the bill and I imagine it had nothing to do with firearms.

 

[the annoying thing]

And yet, no crazy person in any other country walks to the corner and buys 2 assault rifle and 300 rounds of ammunitions over a weekend to enter a school and take out a bunch of children on a whim. So maybe our lack gun laws and culture have something to do with it since we're literally the only country in the world with this epidemic. Somehow, everybody else has figured out solutions but we can't.

Really they dont . what ab

And yet, no crazy person in any other country walks to the corner and buys 2 assault rifle and 300 rounds of ammunitions over a weekend to enter a school and take out a bunch of children on a whim. So maybe our lack gun laws and culture have something to do with it since we're literally the only country in the world with this epidemic. Somehow, everybody else has figured out solutions but we can't.

Really what about the 80 people shot in norway or the shootings in france and the uk those must not count

 

[the annoying thing]

Nope, it’s the gun.

Thanks for playing, see the producer for some parting gifts on your way out.

Really its the gun hey. When was the last time you heard of a gun picking ots self up loading its self and shooting people ?
Name all the times this has happened

 

[coldseat]

Really they dont . what ab

Really what about the 80 people shot in norway or the shootings in france and the uk those must not count

You know why you remember those, because they're extremely rare in those countries. It was an outlier, where as here it's the norm. There is really no arguing this point.

There is no equivalence to the scope of the problem we face here in America. And the clear reason for that is our lack gun laws/regulations..

 

[SystemShock]

There was a picture posted on the printed version of my hometown newspaper of Ted Cruz faking grief while hugging the sheriff of Uvalde crying like the birch that he is. forking disgusting.

 

[RobF]

You know why you remember those, because they're extremely rare in those countries. It was an outlier, where as here it's the norm. There is really no arguing this point.

There is no equivalence to the scope of the problem we face here in America. And the clear reason for that is our lack gun laws/regulations..

Someone brought up the UK - saying that the UK homicide rate increased after gun regulation, and that the UK wanted to (sigh) 'ban kitchen knives' on another forum, so I'm going to be really lazy and just copy and paste what I said there here, because as should be really, really, clear, the US is far and away an outlier with respect to places like the UK in terms of homicide in general and massively so with regard to homicide with guns.

Another way of looking at it occurred to me after I made that post (below), which is that, if the US managed to reduce its homicide rate by just 20%, that would, in terms of lives saved relatively to most recent rates per head of population, save the same number of lives as if the UK somehow eliminated homicide entirely.

But didn't the homicide rate in the UK actually increase after the gun ban?

Assuming this is referring to the Firearms Act introduced in 1997, the year after the Dunblane massacre in which sixteen children and one teacher were killed, the overall homicide rate in 1996 was 11.4 per million in 1996. In 1997 it was 11.7 and in 1998 it was 11.7. It peaked in 2003 (when the 173 victims of Harold Shipman were recorded) at 17.9, and is currently (2021 figure) 9.9.

For context, the homicide rate in the USA in 1996 was 74 per million, and in 2019 was 50 per million.

So what is it that says? The homicide rate in the UK was already much lower than the USA, and we already had far fewer shootings. So why would anyone expect the 1997 Act to have resulted in an immediate reduction in the overall homicide rate here? Unlike in the USA, there wasn't that much to reduce overall. The goal wasn't to somehow eliminate murder at the stroke of a pen. The goal of the 1997 Act (and similarly, the goal of the Firearms Act 1988, following the Hungerford massacre in 1987) was to greatly reduce the chances of tragic events like those happening.

You know what hasn't happened again to date? Any school shootings. Children here aren't doing active shooter drills. We're not worrying about whether the school has enough guards, or whether they're sufficiently well armed to defend the school against heavily armed attackers.

I believe they want to ban kitchen knives now...

If anyone believes that, they should start seriously questioning the nature of the sources of whatever it is they've read that has them believing it.

The UK is far from perfect, and does recognise knife crime as a problem, and does take measures - sane measures, not 'banning kitchen knives' - to try to limit it.

But then, that might be one reason why the UK's knife homicide rate is also lower than the USA's. Per person, we have vastly fewer deaths from shooting, a bit fewer stabbings to death, and overall, just, much less murder.

That's not to say gun control is the one single solution. But, and I can't stress this enough, there isn't one single solution. It's not sensible gun regulation or improved mental health care or tackling gang violence or addressing causes of crime like poverty and lack of opportunities, it's all of them.

Any attempt to address the problem which tries to put everything on one thing is likely to fail, because if it doesn't do that one thing fantastically well, the consequences are multiplied through the absence of any attempt to address other factors.

 

[samiam5211]

Really its the gun hey. When was the last time you heard of a gun picking ots self up loading its self and shooting people ?
Name all the times this has happened

The gun is the common denominator. Did you forget the context of your comment?

The stupid argument that guns don’t kill people is not one adults should be making, and we’re past entertaining people who try to make it.

 

[UriUT]

I'll leave this here since I believe the main issue is the interpretation of the 2a. And the right have convinced their fanatics that it is absolute.

The language of the amendment, Anderson says, was crafted to ensure that slave owners could quickly crush any rebellion or resistance from those whom they'd enslaved. And she says the right to bear arms, presumably guaranteed to all citizens, has been repeatedly denied to Black people.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

I'll leave this here since I believe the main issue is the interpretation of the 2a. And the right have convinced their fanatics that it is absolute.

Justice Warren Burger is 1000% correct.

 

[brandon]

Really its the gun hey. When was the last time you heard of a gun picking ots self up loading its self and shooting people ?
Name all the times this has happened

Man, it looks like you’re reading off the talking points memo from ten years ago.

No one buys this bullshirt any more. Head over to Fox to get the most recently focus-grouped bullshirt.