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> Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter. Sorry, but that's patent nonsense. Somewhere north of 3 million AR-15 rifles have been sold. The number o

> Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter. Sorry, but that's patent nonsense. Somewhere north of 3 million AR-15 rifles have been sold. The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year. http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/ http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-o... You should be embarrassed to even make that claim.

solipsism 9y ago
You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not claiming most, average, or even many assault rifle owners do anything inappropriate with it. I agree that would be nonsense. School shootings are rare. Cop murders are rare. No one thinks anyone with a rifle is likely to do these things. The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. This is not rocket science. If it was legal to own RPGs, some people would. And the more people did, the more crazy RPG-related shit would happen. And when we're grieving over a 50 death incident, we'll never be able to prove (to a degree that would convince a member of the National RPG Association) that it would have been 15 if RPGs had been illegal.
- adamrezich 9y ago
  >The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. We can presumably agree that there's more legal civilian-owned firearms in the US than ever before, yet the national homicide rate has steadily decreased since the 90s https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago Bump stocks were first sold in 2010, yet the homicide rate has still slowly declined since then. How does any of this match up with your belief that more firearms owned by civilians, higher capacity magazines available for civilian use, and even the invention and sale of lesser-known (until recently) novelty firearm accessories such as bump stocks lead to increased violent firearm crime?
  - solipsism 9y ago
    Again with the simplistic views. To claim that the mere quantity of guns (or anything else) alone directly predicts gun deaths (or anything else) would be ridiculous. There are many theories for the reduction in homicide rate. Longer (and mandatory) prison terms, stricter gun laws, more police, etc. Your argument is equivalent to the guy holding a snowball and arguing that global warming obviously can't be real.
    - adamrezich 9y ago
      I'm not arguing that anything directly proves anything, I was arguing the opposite: that increased legal firearm ownership, including legal ownership of bump stocks, high capacity magazines and what have you, seems to have had nothing to do with overall homicide rate of the country, nor the firearm-related homicide rate of the country. The number of "mass shootings" has increased in recent years though (despite still being an incredibly statistically small cause of death, even when compared to other "preventable" causes of death like drunk driving)… so maybe this indicates that it's not the firearms themselves that are the problem, but other factors not being accounted for in mass media analyses of these events, for one reason or another. For example, SSRIs will never be blamed for anything on television news, as long as pharmaceutical companies advertising on their stations are a core part of their business.
      - solipsism 9y ago
        There's an incredibly clear correlation between firearm deaths and gun ownership: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ And if you don't think high muzzle speed and high capacity magazines increase effectiveness (read: ability to kill more school children faster) then you'd better let our military know. It really takes willful ignorance to pretend that having higher numbers of more effective killing tools has nothing to do with deaths. maybe this indicates that it's not the firearms themselves that are the problem And again. The incredibly simplistic way of thinking. The problem? There are many problems! Properly addressing this would take many solutions. Mental health problems are fundamental to our species and may never be completely be eradicated, but we can do better. One problem that is not fundamental to our species is the easy access to weapons of war. But we do like our toys, don't we.
yongjik 9y ago
> The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year. Only in America you will find someone saying, with a straight face, that one mass murder at school per year does not constitute social crisis...
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  Way more children drown in swimming pools. Something like 15 teenagers (comparable to the number killed in Florida) die every day from texting and driving. Why aren't those things "social crises"?
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    More people died from the Spanish Flu epidemic than all of WWI. Was WWI not a crisis? Half of all people who have ever lived, died as a result of mosquito-borne illnesses, do all other causes of death not matter? Shall we stop bothering to develop autonomous vehicles because deaths from automotive accidents pale next to that? Note that I’m not even attacking your premise that accidental deaths during an activity voluntarily engaged, in some way relates to mass murder.

solipsism 9y ago

You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not claiming most, average, or even many assault rifle owners do anything inappropriate with it. I agree that would be nonsense. School shootings are rare. Cop murders are rare. No one thinks anyone with a rifle is likely to do these things. The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. This is not rocket science. If it was legal to own RPGs, some people would. And the more people did, the more crazy RPG-related shit would happen. And when we're grieving over a 50 death incident, we'll never be able to prove (to a degree that would convince a member of the National RPG Association) that it would have been 15 if RPGs had been illegal.

adamrezich 9y ago
>The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. We can presumably agree that there's more legal civilian-owned firearms in the US than ever before, yet the national homicide rate has steadily decreased since the 90s https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago Bump stocks were first sold in 2010, yet the homicide rate has still slowly declined since then. How does any of this match up with your belief that more firearms owned by civilians, higher capacity magazines available for civilian use, and even the invention and sale of lesser-known (until recently) novelty firearm accessories such as bump stocks lead to increased violent firearm crime?
- solipsism 9y ago
  Again with the simplistic views. To claim that the mere quantity of guns (or anything else) alone directly predicts gun deaths (or anything else) would be ridiculous. There are many theories for the reduction in homicide rate. Longer (and mandatory) prison terms, stricter gun laws, more police, etc. Your argument is equivalent to the guy holding a snowball and arguing that global warming obviously can't be real.
  - adamrezich 9y ago
    I'm not arguing that anything directly proves anything, I was arguing the opposite: that increased legal firearm ownership, including legal ownership of bump stocks, high capacity magazines and what have you, seems to have had nothing to do with overall homicide rate of the country, nor the firearm-related homicide rate of the country. The number of "mass shootings" has increased in recent years though (despite still being an incredibly statistically small cause of death, even when compared to other "preventable" causes of death like drunk driving)… so maybe this indicates that it's not the firearms themselves that are the problem, but other factors not being accounted for in mass media analyses of these events, for one reason or another. For example, SSRIs will never be blamed for anything on television news, as long as pharmaceutical companies advertising on their stations are a core part of their business.
    - solipsism 9y ago
      There's an incredibly clear correlation between firearm deaths and gun ownership: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ And if you don't think high muzzle speed and high capacity magazines increase effectiveness (read: ability to kill more school children faster) then you'd better let our military know. It really takes willful ignorance to pretend that having higher numbers of more effective killing tools has nothing to do with deaths. maybe this indicates that it's not the firearms themselves that are the problem And again. The incredibly simplistic way of thinking. The problem? There are many problems! Properly addressing this would take many solutions. Mental health problems are fundamental to our species and may never be completely be eradicated, but we can do better. One problem that is not fundamental to our species is the easy access to weapons of war. But we do like our toys, don't we.

yongjik 9y ago

> The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year. Only in America you will find someone saying, with a straight face, that one mass murder at school per year does not constitute social crisis...

Turing_Machine 9y ago
Way more children drown in swimming pools. Something like 15 teenagers (comparable to the number killed in Florida) die every day from texting and driving. Why aren't those things "social crises"?
- IntronExon 9y ago
  More people died from the Spanish Flu epidemic than all of WWI. Was WWI not a crisis? Half of all people who have ever lived, died as a result of mosquito-borne illnesses, do all other causes of death not matter? Shall we stop bothering to develop autonomous vehicles because deaths from automotive accidents pale next to that? Note that I’m not even attacking your premise that accidental deaths during an activity voluntarily engaged, in some way relates to mass murder.