Mass Shooting Las Vegas...

[JimL]

It's just an eggshell.

Oh, so thats why they call you bird brain. Careful, i think its cracked!

[Adrift]

Hmmm, that is a tough call. No, actually, on second thought, I think you're much thicker MM.

Dang. I never win nothin around here.

[Mountain Man]

Oh, so thats why they call you bird brain. Careful, i think its cracked!

I suspect yours got scrambled when you were dropped on the head as a child.

[Adrift]

Um, I didn't argue for abolition - that's Adrift. And, as he pointed out, a lot of the 'Prohibition didn't work' is simply hype.

I don't LIKE gun ownership but I don't see a sound basis to completely outlaw it (which I would really, really prefer) so I don't support gun abolition.

Gun control, however, does work. The question is does it need to be stricter - Adrift argues yes, I'm not yet ready to take a position.

Just so no one gets the wrong idea, though I think prohibiting guns altogether is the right idea, I'm not a passionate anti-gun enthusiast. I really do see the charm in owning weapons, and I've fired a few rounds on my brother's property since my military days in Security Forces. I know a lot of good people who love their guns, and, unlike, say, sports, I get it. I really do. Guns are fun, they look cool, there is a sense of both thrill and relaxation firing them. Lots of people were raised with them. They're as part of some people's lifestyles as a fishing pole, or a wrench set. And having had more than my fair share of run-ins with bad guys, I understand the desire for personal safety. I still think there's a better way though. I'm tired of seeing/reading about people getting hurt by these things, and we're sort of alone in the first world on this gun fascination (with the exception of the gun paradise known as Switzerland, but their gun culture is, I imagine, far different than our own). People who like guns, who own guns, who support gun rights, and are against stricter gun control laws are not evil people. Some of them are the best people I've ever known. To me, my disagreement is more an intellectual problem than a heart problem.

[Mountain Man]

There's no absolutely perfect way that will avoid any and all such cases - you do realize it's exactly the same basis as your 'but killers will use knives' argument, right? I reject that argument as silly - perfection might be the goal but it's not achievable. What is achievable is to minimize such cases - preferably down to almost nil.

What we can do is make it hard as heck for mass killers to obtain the necessary fire power. In so doing, we make it far more likely that a given killer will get caught or be frustrated before the killing can happen.

Which, as I argued earlier, is happening. If you could pick up an M-16 at Wally World with the groceries and minus any paperwork, there would be bullets sprayed in anger every day. That layer of complication gives the irrational time to regain their senses and law enforcement a chance to catch the vicious.

I'm not looking for perfection, but banning guns is pointless when it doesn't meaningfully reduce violent crime. On the other hand, statistics show that increased gun ownership correlates to a decrease in violent crime. So it would seem that if your goal is increased safety then you should support increased gun ownership

[TheWall]

Sin is a lion at ones door. The problem isn't with systems it is with us. You want proof evil exist look in a mirror.
Still I want people to be able to defend themselves.

[One Bad Pig]

Two words: body armor.

The fact is, the possibility of armed resistance isn't going to stop a determined killer, any more than abolition would. Like the lunatic that killed in LV, a determined killer can and will overcome that little possibility. No, the real reason we don't see this kind of killing routinely is because existing gun laws make it difficult enough that only the absolutely determined will succeed.

Actually, armed resistance tends to have a deterrent effect even on a determined killer. Both the Sandy Hook and Las Vegas mass murderers turned their guns on themselves as soon as someone (potentially) armed showed up.

[Joel]

My gut feeling is that it isn't. I know that's not enough to convince anyone, but it's just something, I, personally, can't shake.

Fair enough. We'd need more information. (And like I said, it may vary between time and place due to many factors.)

Gun usage at a range is a common usage of guns, so it would be unreasonable to discount it when evaluating the riskiness of average gun use.

Nah, I just can't buy that. We don't have nearly the safety precautions and direct monitoring by experts on roadways that we have on the gun ranges. I really do think it's an apples and oranges comparison.

I'm not sure I follow, and maybe that's because I don't accept your reasoning as seen above.

I'm not sure where I'm losing you. You are talking about hypothetically gun usage increasing so that it's equal to the amount of ladder usage (assuming it is currently less). If a large part of actual gun usage is safe usage at gun ranges, then in our hypothetical increase of gun usage, we presumably should assume that usage at gun ranges is a large (proportional) part of the increase in gun usage. To not include gun usage at ranges in your hypothetical increase or in the total amount of gun usage would be to beg the question, and give you a conclusion counter to the facts.

Equivalently if we want to evaluate risk per gun usage (to try to compare it to risk per usage of ladders), we need to include the actual common usages of guns (including at ranges) in calculating that average. Yes? We would take gun deaths, divided by the total quantity of usage (including at ranges, competitions, hunting, etc.).

If instead you included only riskier usages, then your claim is weaker. You'd only be saying that risky usage of guns is risky. Which nobody can deny, but that doesn't tell us whether actual gun usage on average is risky.

You are wanting me to compare gun usage under certain conditions to ladder usage under comparable conditions. But that's not the relevant comparison. What's relevant is gun usage under the actual conditions that it occurs in the real world compared to ladder usage under the actual conditions that it occurs in the real world. The actual conditions of real gun usage may not be of the same quality as the actual conditions of real ladder usage. There may in fact be more safety training and caution regarding gun usage than there is with ladder usage. The percentage of gun usage that occurs in controlled environments like ranges is probably a lot higher than the percentage of ladder usage that occurs in comparably controlled environments. Those differences will factor in to the averages.

What sort of school were you imagining? Hopefully not, like, a grade or high school. Even one accident in a safe school environment would see parents outraged.

There exist high school shooting programs.
I was in a shooting sports club (outside of school) when I was in grade school.

I've been around guns long enough, both professionally, and as a civilian to feel that there's a risk assessment in them that I feel is higher than there is in ladders. I think I'd be surprised to find out that was a very controversial view outside of this forum.

The perception that guns are more dangerous can also contribute to people being more cautious with their use.

[Joel]

...No, the real reason we don't see this kind of killing routinely is because existing gun laws make it difficult enough that only the absolutely determined will succeed.

...perfection might be the goal but it's not achievable.

I'm beginning to think Teallaura has me on ignore.

[Tassman]

My post, the one you responded to, was not about mass shootings but about what impact stricter gun laws have on violent crime in general, and according to every statistic I can find, the impact is negligible at best. Even taking the Port Arthur massacre into account, the murder rate in Australia remained unchanged following the infamous "buy back" program.

What was the source of your statistics?. I couldn't trace it.

The "infamous" (most would say highly successful) 'buy back program' has resulted in no mass shootings in 21 years in Australia. And homicides have decreased.

"Australian crime statistics show a marked decrease in homicides since the gun law changehttp://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/gun...ralia-updated/

They're not commonplace at all, which is why they're such big stories whenever they happen, and there's no evidence that they've been on the rise even though the liberal media is doing everything they can to sell that narrative.

No other developed nation comes close to the rate of gun violence in America. Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every adult".

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...s-gun-violence

[rogue06]

Dang. I never win nothin around here.

I'll put you in the exclusive nincompoopiehead club (current membership and ) if it'll make you feel better.

[rogue06]

Depending on his sniping skills, that seems unlikely to me. It took him approx,what? 10 minutes to kill 59 people and wound over 500 (granted, many of those were probably wounded in the panic). Thinking back to my military training, I feel that I don't think I could have done better than that in 10 minutes.

Reports say that the crowd at the concert was between 22,000 to 30,000 people. If you couldn't shoot and kill far more than 59 people in that amount of time considering his set up then you must have been an incredibly poor shot. Fortunately, he picked a device that while increasing the ROF drastically reduces accuracy (though I've heard that some people who practice with it a lot can compensate for it somewhat).

[rogue06]

Average law abiding citizens are only law abiding citizens until they break the law and they should be allowed to have guns, just not guns that are mass murder machines. Apparently the Las Vegas mass murderer was an average law abiding citizen, until he wasn't.

This quote comes back to mind

"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."

[rogue06]

Using that logic, we should ban ladders since they are among the leading causes of accidental death in the home. Guns don't even crack the top 10.

Stairs and bath tubs should be banned and replaced with ramps and showers

[Jedidiah]

You're basically saying there's nothing we can do to stop mass murder.

Spread out.