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Discrimination on... gun holders?

Post by Sas148

No, I do not believe things like this could be prevented with stricter gun laws. Take away the guns and if someone wants to badly enough they'll find a bomb, or use knives... these situations aren't ever going to be completely preventable.

Post by MyTie

This seems applicable, and this, and this, and this, and this... 4chan is just alight with fun little tidbits. Fair warning, if you wander off of the provided links to the rest of 4chan, you ~~might~~ will find NSFW material.

Post by Gone

Why is it every time there's a mass shooting, people on both sides of the gun debate try and exploit it for their argument.

All I hear from the pro gun people is "Well if somebody in that movie theater had a gun, then maybe they could have shot back and killed the guy."

And from the anti gun people it's "Well if we had stricter gun regulations then all those kids and teachers would still be alive."

Both arguments are true, and kind of not true as well. Honestly though, both also make me a little sick when I hear about it right on the heels of one of these tragedies...

Post by HiVolt

Both arguments are true, and kind of not true as well. Honestly though, both also make me a little sick when I hear about it right on the heels of one of these tragedies...

Me too, honestly. That's why I haven't posted an opinion on it. The only reason I posted was to move the discussion to a more appropriate place from the News Articles thread. The only opinion that I've formed around this so far is that it's absolutely horrific. I just wanted to make sure that we can get a steady stream of reports on the incident in that thread and use this one for the inevitable debate.

Post by Ksero

moved from News Articles
Something to think about in relation to gun laws.

2009 US firearm deaths, 31,347. 2009 US vehicular deaths, 34,485 (source). Conclusion: outlaw cars.

How many of those deaths were caused on purpose and how many were accidents? In both cases, that is what is important.

I kinda have to disagree with that. I mean nobody dies on purpose from smoking, but it's still dangerous and harmful.

I will disagree with that. No one kills with smoking (at least as far as I am aware of cases where victim's death was contributed to someone's else smoking), and I personally prefer not to give a damn about how you decided to die. If we compare something as tools of bringing death to others (weapons) then accidents vs intention is important distinction. (I am all for banning smoking though)

What I'm saying that that intentions don't matter, just the results. It's not like you can put a section on a drivers test that says "Do you plan on getting into any car crashes?" where they check yes or no.

no but they get to see you drive, or at the very least know that you have some knowledge of the road, if they don't think you're a decent driver, then you don't get a license. As long as you have a clean background check ("clean" varies from state to state), you can buy a gun, and the person selling the gun has no idea what your skill is with it or if you're going to use it safely and responsibly.

Post by Magician22773

I have no issue with stricter background checks, waiting periods, ect for the purchase of a firearm. However, even that does only a little to prevent tragedy. The most it ever stops are "impulse" shootings, which account for a very small percentage of killings. But, even a single life saved by having a 3 day waiting period makes it worth it, and I am sure more than that have been saved.

But, shootings like what happened today in Conn., are something that no amount of gun control could prevent. As someone said...the genie is out of the bottle. There are millions of guns already in the country, and anyone who wants a gun can get one...legally or illegally.

Granted this is only speculation at this point, but my guess is, that in the coming days we will find out that this shooter had some serious mental issues that had been treated or noted in the past.

Maybe, rather than focusing on the tool used to do the killings, we need to start having stricter control of people with mental issues. What kind of control that needs to be...I have no idea. But if people put as much effort into solving that problem, as they do in trying to advance gun control, maybe we could prevent tragedies like this one.

Post by pikeyboy

2009. It's 3 years later. Still, it's relevant. Guns don't kill people. I kill people. With guns. Joey Lajoia (I think).

Post by 207044

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by cephadex

Well, if we weren't allowed to bear arms, the British would just come back and make us into a bunch of colonies all over again.

(Not being serious, before people get worked up).

Post by pikeyboy

I think it would probably work the other way round, and already has. (Not being serious, before people get worked up).
Except for these guys - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_r_68x1AQc&feature=player_detailpage

Post by Squishalot

An interesting series of facts courtesy of the Washington Post here (minus one 'fact' that was based on incorrect information).

Post by gamerunknown

Post by 331902

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by pikeyboy

Both arguments are true, and kind of not true as well. Honestly though, both also make me a little sick when I hear about it right on the heels of one of these tragedies...

When is the appropriate time to have the discussion then? In another thread, a poster pointed out that there is a kid getting off a school bus that'll be a cooling body in a month's time.

We can and should discuss what could have prevented mass shootings, just like we discuss adequate safety for cars (such as laws mandating child seats, seatbelts and speed limits - because children cannot give informed consent to not be driven around in a seatbelt). Of course, for the US, we must take into account the constitutional right to bear arms given the precedent set by Heller (no such right exists for driving - but as per the Federalist papers, Congress can define how regular a militia must be - a "shooting test", perhaps).

Would background checks have prevented this event? I don't think so - the guns used belonged to the shooters mother, who was neurologically typical as far as I'm aware. What about waiting periods? Not as far as I'm aware, the guns were not purchased recently. Assault rifle ban? Nope, he didn't use assault rifles or, from what I've read, semi-automatic guns.

Perhaps we need to hold the school civilly liable - the mother should have clearly shot her son or aborted him.

Nothing ever changes though.
Looking at that article and statistics kindly provided by Squishalot, even the massacre of children is unlikely to change the unhealthy fetish the US has for implements of death. After every shooting opinion has barely changed.

You can discuss all you want, nothing is going to stop further shootings, in fact the worrying trend is these broken people actually seem to want to one-up each other now and it has almost become a competition.

You have a system where guns can legally and easily obtained, and these shooters tend to be off the radar and perceived by society as normal until they go off the rails.
You can't really put a system in place to detect that.

+10 and a whole box of cookies!

Post by Aislinge

Cracking down on guns doesn't prevent gun crime or mass killings. Gun crime in Australia is continuing unchecked with Government's admitting that the rate in which illegal guns are now entering the country is beyond them (recent detections of guns coming in via Australia Post was a right 'whoops'). Despite what the media might be claiming about Australia having 'no mass killings' since Port Arthur, define 'mass killings'? An entire family was shot to death only the other year in Adelaide by a neighbour - was that not 'mass' enough? Around the corner from me, an ex-boyfriend shot his ex-girlfriend dead at a bus stop. These things continue on all the time - just because they don't hit 20+ people doesn't mean they aren't an issue. Because they don't have the shock and awe value, they are conveniently forgotten by the media.

For me, the issue underlying all of them is mental health and criminal elements. Cracking down on law abiding shooters does nothing in stopping those two factors. Shooters who know the law, in my experience (and I am a shooter), can quote the law better than most police. The issue I find are those who are a) crims b) suffer from mental health issues and may not be shooters and c) shooters who have held licenses since goodness knows when and, due to slack resources for police, have not been subjected to any form of review or inspection.

I would rather see the Government spend more money on Customs to monitor for illegal imports, more resources for police to deal with criminals, less red tape for shooters who have already proven, time and again, to be fit and proper persons and more resources to chase up license holders who are not a member of a Club and have had no inspection for 5+ years (they seem to be the ones continuously over represented in the incidents for 'oh, I just had it at the back of my wardrobe' kinda thing). Even more funding for mental health services, especially in rural areas.

Finally, I wish people in Australia would stop comparing (very selectively I might add) us to the US. Why not compare us to NZ? Or Switzerland? People always look at the US as the big bad wolf in terms of guns but forget, we're comparing 311mil+ to 22mil. Not a fair comparison tbh. Australia used to have a great gun culture. You could buy a gun, take it on the train home and not a single person would bat an eyelid. Now, people are trained to think that anyone with a gun is a nut job on a rampage or a criminal. So much so, that shooters who are licensed go out of their way to hide their sport and not mention it to anyone. But it's bloody hypocritical that they want to know us every 4 years when the Olympics come around!

Edit - just thought I'd add in this interesting read from the AIC regarding criminal use of handguns in Australia (one of the biggest things they cracked down on, aside from semi/auto weapons). The statistics are rather surprising - http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/361-380/tandi361/view%20paper.html

Post by Squishalot

Aislinge - you're saying that you would rather the government spend more money on those things. Is that to say that you're happy with the legislation on gun ownership at the moment? Because our gun laws are a lot more stringent than that in the US (or Switzerland, if you'd like the comparison instead). On a per-capita basis, 'mass events' occur just as frequently in Australia as the US, but from my understanding, homicides per capita are lower. The reason we compare Australian stats to US stats and not, say, NZ stats is because there are no significant differences in the laws and culture between Aus and NZ.

Anyway, looking at those stats, most handgun crime in Australia is committed using illegal weapons, because the ownership is so tightly restricted. The question is, if the ownership laws were widened and opened up to more people for more reasons (e.g. self-defense), would we see a simple shift from the 'illegal weapons' column to the 'legal weapons' column, or would we see a broader increase as the opportunistic crime increases?

Post by pikeyboy

What continually amazes me, is the fact that although nearly 30 people were murdered, it drives the US and British media crazy. Now think about the thousands murdered in Syria. Then think about the hundreds of thousands who starve to death, needlessly, across the world. Where is the public outrage against those crimes? Is it because they aren't as important as American kids for some reason?

Post by Aislinge

Squish, personally I'm not too happy with the legislation as it stands at the moment. While I've never seen the need for anyone to have automatic weapons, the sheer stupidity of Australian laws as they stand and the variation between States is beyond frustrating. But I won't get started on that - it'll give me a headache! :\

Australian and New Zealand laws are significantly different when it comes to firearms, so much so that NZ has 'gun tourism' and openly encourages people to come and shoot weapons there that they cannot acquire or shoot anywhere else (there's a comp next year for IPSC/ISSF in NZ which everyone is very excited for). As an example, New Zealand still allows silencers/suppressors (don't wake the neighbours!). Yet, I don't see Kiwis going mad shooting each other (there last 'massacre' was in 1997). Their laws are extremely lax compared to ours but our culture and populations are very comparable.

List of NZ Massacres - it's interesting to note how many were familial - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_New_Zealand

For comparison, look at Australia's history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

The interesting thing I find with the AIC reports are knife crimes have increased 55% in the same time as that gun laws have been more stringent. Violent crimes have not disappeared, they have simply converted. AIC figures also show that prior to 1996, 80% of gun deaths were suicides.

I certainly don't think that the US has it right (my partner and many mates would disagree being fans of conceal carry) but the worse thing that can possibly happen is it becoming emotive and political, it becoming a personal agenda item like it did with John Howard (who was open on his personal hatred of firearms) and then it snowball into what it is now in Australlia where people who do the right thing are made to feel criminal and criminals run rampant.

Post by Squishalot

The interesting thing I find with the AIC reports are knife crimes have increased 55% in the same time as that gun laws have been more stringent. Violent crimes have not disappeared, they have simply converted.

I don't find that surprising, to be honest. At the same time though, I believe that's the point - people will always find ways and reasons to hurt each other. If we can restrict that to non-lethal means (or at the very least, reduced-lethality means) then we will have a fair case for imposing those stringent rules.

With NZ, I stand corrected on the laws, but it's interesting to note that they've had equally as many 'massacres' as Australia has had in the last 50-60 years based on that list, despite only having a quarter of the population. To me, that would suggest that on a per capita basis, NZ is worse in relation to serious gun events than Australia is, which could be attributed to those laws. Is that a fair argument, in your mind?

Post by gamerunknown

The issue I find are those who are a) crims b) suffer from mental health issues and may not be shooters and c) shooters who have held licenses since goodness knows when and, due to slack resources for police, have not been subjected to any form of review or inspection.

How many mass shootings have been perpetuated by former criminals or those diagnosed with a mental illness? There is serious confirmation bias here: those who commit mass murders must be crazy, this person committed a mass murder so they're crazy, thus we need to get guns out of the hands of crazy people. In reality, we don't have a very good definition of crazy. If we accept the notion that every mass murderer is crazy, we still don't know the risk factors in perpetuating a mass murder, because a very small subset of "crazies" (around a third will qualify for a mental disorder at some point in their life) will go on to commit mass murder. In this case, far more important would be legislating secure storage, so family members would not have access to the guns when they deemed they needed them.

. These things continue on all the time - just because they don't hit 20+ people doesn't mean they aren't an issue.

No, it's more to do with the fact that the US has a firearms homicide rate thirtythree times higher than Australia's and far higher than most other industrialised countries (Israel and Canada are closer, with a third of the murders each). Part of that is due to the ease of access to guns in America. The only countries with higher rates are (more recent) former colonies or countries where America has instigated coups as far as I can tell. Someone in another thread pointed out that in a discussion on crime in the US, gun violence would be a minor part of the overall talk and gun control would be a minor component of reducing that violence, somewhere between masculinising knives and legalising marijuana (which'd do a lot to reduce other crimes). He said the top priority ought to be reducing income inequality, which I'm supportive of, but I don't think has a correlation to gun crime. Crime rates have steadily fallen as income inequality has grown in the past 20 years.

People always look at the US as the big bad wolf in terms of guns but forget, we're comparing 311mil+ to 22mil.

Which is a problem only if we ignore rates (unless one wants to posit population density as agitating crime, in which case we'd expect these countries to have vastly inflated murder rates)

Discrimination on... gun holders?

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