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Not sure what you're saying. Every place in the world has shootings and mass killings, not just the US. They're all marked by the same tragic feature - the tota

by nsxwolf 10y ago

Not sure what you're saying. Every place in the world has shootings and mass killings, not just the US. They're all marked by the same tragic feature - the total inability of the victims to defend themselves.

burkaman 10y ago
I understand, but in the developed world, every country with lower murder rates than the US (nearly all of them) has stricter gun laws, and in most cases much stricter. There is a somewhat rough relationship between stricter gun control and lower violent crime rates, which is the opposite of what you would expect if violent criminals were encouraged by defenseless civilians. Also, there are instances in the US and elsewhere of shootings on places like military bases where everyone is armed, and many cases where the shooter planned for a confrontation with armed police. It might seem counter-intuitive, but much like the death penalty does not seem to be an effective deterrent for murderers, I don't see much evidence that armed civilians are an effective deterrent for murderers. I think murderers in general just don't think very logically. The core question I'm asking is, why is gun control so effective in every other developed country? Why don't murder rates increase when gun control increases and ordinary people can't defend themselves? Edit: Also, I want to address this claim: > They're all marked by the same tragic feature - the total inability of the victims to defend themselves. This is not always true. For a recent example, look at the shooting in Dallas. The victims were all armed, as were many civilians in the area: > [The Dallas police chief] said 20 to 30 people, some of them wearing camouflage, showed up at the peaceful Black Lives Matter protest carrying AR-15 rifles and such items as gas masks, ammunition gear and bulletproof vests. “Doesn’t make sense to us,” he said, “but that’s their right in Texas,” where people can legally carry long firearms in public. > Those people “began to run” when the shooting started, Brown said. “For our officers, they were suspects” until any involvement in the deadly sniper attack could be ruled out, he added. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dallas-police-chief-shooter-seemed-delusional-scrawled-cryptic-messages-in-blood/2016/07/10/bd1c0d96-46a9-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dallas-police-chief-... You can also look at the history of shootings on military bases: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootings-at-Military-Installations-in-the-US-223933651.html http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootin... There's shootings like the 2011 one in Tucson, Arizona, where very lenient concealed carry laws did not seem to deter the shooter. There are also instances of crimes being stopped by civilians with guns, I just want to point out that "all mass killings are marked by this feature" is not true.

by nsxwolf 10y ago

burkaman 10y ago

I understand, but in the developed world, every country with lower murder rates than the US (nearly all of them) has stricter gun laws, and in most cases much stricter. There is a somewhat rough relationship between stricter gun control and lower violent crime rates, which is the opposite of what you would expect if violent criminals were encouraged by defenseless civilians. Also, there are instances in the US and elsewhere of shootings on places like military bases where everyone is armed, and many cases where the shooter planned for a confrontation with armed police. It might seem counter-intuitive, but much like the death penalty does not seem to be an effective deterrent for murderers, I don't see much evidence that armed civilians are an effective deterrent for murderers. I think murderers in general just don't think very logically. The core question I'm asking is, why is gun control so effective in every other developed country? Why don't murder rates increase when gun control increases and ordinary people can't defend themselves? Edit: Also, I want to address this claim: > They're all marked by the same tragic feature - the total inability of the victims to defend themselves. This is not always true. For a recent example, look at the shooting in Dallas. The victims were all armed, as were many civilians in the area: > [The Dallas police chief] said 20 to 30 people, some of them wearing camouflage, showed up at the peaceful Black Lives Matter protest carrying AR-15 rifles and such items as gas masks, ammunition gear and bulletproof vests. “Doesn’t make sense to us,” he said, “but that’s their right in Texas,” where people can legally carry long firearms in public. > Those people “began to run” when the shooting started, Brown said. “For our officers, they were suspects” until any involvement in the deadly sniper attack could be ruled out, he added. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dallas-police-chief-shooter-seemed-delusional-scrawled-cryptic-messages-in-blood/2016/07/10/bd1c0d96-46a9-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dallas-police-chief-... You can also look at the history of shootings on military bases: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootings-at-Military-Installations-in-the-US-223933651.html http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootin... There's shootings like the 2011 one in Tucson, Arizona, where very lenient concealed carry laws did not seem to deter the shooter. There are also instances of crimes being stopped by civilians with guns, I just want to point out that "all mass killings are marked by this feature" is not true.