7 ms·

I find all this talk of mass shootings and gun control pointless. There are shootings only because shooting is currently most cost-effective. It is not that p

by lstodd 7y ago

I find all this talk of mass shootings and gun control pointless. There are shootings only because shooting is currently most cost-effective. It is not that people want to shoot people, it's that they want to kill people. That is the problem, and banning one single way of killing can not solve this. There are so many other ways. I sometimes wonder why all those shooters bother to walk and shoot instead of just blowing it all up or burning it all down. That's what you'll get by banning guns - same idiots but using propane or anfo. Is that what you really want? An idiot with a gun can at least be stopped. You can't stop an explosion or a fire-induced panic. Or maybe let's focus on why people start wanting to kill people?

charwalker 7y ago
The point of making tools that efficiently kill humans restricted, illegal, or unavailable without demonstrating some level of intent like searching for explosive plans or components is not to 100% stop deaths. But one cannot kill as many with a knife as they can with a firearm. Decreasing the impact of the attack goes a long way to preventing casualties. However, we may gain more as a society by allowing the CDC to research gun related deaths, connections to mental illness or other behaviors, and properly enforcing or expanding the reach of existing regulations and systems. Of course I'm forgetting which shootings but several were conducted by individuals who should not have had access to a firearm (poorly secured, stolen, taken from family, etc) or would have failed a background check if required (in addition to a waiting period) or if information was passed on as required by law would have failed the background check that was run (military failing to log domestic abuse and other complaints in the system per regulation). We have many tools in place, they are just under funded, under utilized, not used at all in many places, or maliciously circumvented like blocking funding to the CDC for necessary research to educate policy.
djohnston 7y ago
The rebuttal to your argument is that it takes less effort to insert a magazine and pull a trigger than it does to craft explosives. For those who resort to blades because they can't access rifles, that's still a better outcome since projected fatalities will certainly be lower. I agree that there is a deeper problem that should be addressed, but there's no reason you can't soften the current burden.
- kls 7y ago
  Takes less effort than chaining the doors and lighting the place on fire? That is the method du jour among the Mexican crime syndicates right now for mass killing other gangs in bars and safe houses. It's just not Tatic-cool, which is what these US kid mass shooters are going for.
  - lstodd 7y ago
    This. Propane is too hi-tech, my fault, sorry. It'll all burn and kill everyone quite nicely just with the air. What the fuck is going on? Why no one ever tries to investigate the root causes?
- lstodd 7y ago
  If anything, it's simpler and cheaper than learning to operate a gun. But that's beside the point. The point being that no one tries to fix the problem. Okay, ban guns all the way to Tannhäuser Gate, you'll just see some alternative creativity.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Are you serious? Using a gun is so simple it's become a catchphrase ("point and shoot") for trivially easy-to-operate things. The thing is, people in their right mind don't often make considered decisions to kill people, but people sure as hell flip out and in that moment want to kill someone. If it takes more than 10 seconds to obtain the means to kill someone, the would-be murderer probably has time to calm down and rethink their plans.
    - lstodd 7y ago
      If you would take some time to study how mass shootings come to be and, well, let's say, unweil, you will see that it takes a) a long period to mentally prepare for, b) a comparable period to prepare materiel for and c) a willingness to execute that is rooted in the above. This misconception that mass shootings are in a big part something impulsive is a symptom of.. well.. ignorance. Can someone at last investigate the actual problem? You can't control thoughts by administrative or legislative action, how hard can this be to grasp?? edit: tpyeos
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
glandium 7y ago
No need for propane. One can just use their massive SUV and drive into a crowd. Guess what? That's actually what happens in countries with less guns. But that also happens less frequently. Maybe that says something.
- threeseed 7y ago
  a) It was an incredibly rare event. Nothing like mass shootings in the USA. b) Those have largely been stopped by cities putting up metal bollards.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    Mass shootings are not exceptionally common in the US, contrary to unquantified media portrayal: https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from...
- lstodd 7y ago
  A SUV costs what? Tens of thousands of dollars likely. Besides the efficiency sucks. A gun+ammo costs hundreds. A propane can costs idk what, because they cost more to get rid of than to buy one. Its refill is what, 30 bucks for a 13 gal one maybe? 13 gal is quite enough to demolish a building. Countries that have less killings have that not because they have ridiculous restrictions on guns. It's because people there _FOR_SOME_OTHER_REASON_ do not wish to kill other people. If nothing is done about that and instead guns are just banned, then it would be something else that people will keep dying to. This is what I was talking about.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    > A SUV costs what? Tens of thousands of dollars likely. A beat up one for less than $1000 works just as well as a new one for this purpose.
threeseed 7y ago
There aren't mass murders around the world to the same extent. So either something is fundamentally flawed with Americans as a people or maybe it's just that other countries make it hard to obtain automatic machine guns. And no. Banning guns which we did in Australia does not result in people trying to kill you using propane.
- lstodd 7y ago
  Well, but do you believe you would have had more people trying to kill you if you didn't ban them? I seriously doubt this.
- technothrasher 7y ago
  > make it hard to obtain automatic machine guns. We're not talking about automatic machine guns here. It's already pretty darn hard to get one here in the US. It takes about an 8-12 month federal background check and upwards of $10,000 to get one of those. The last time one was used in a major crime was in the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout (although those were illegally converted, and not legally obtained). We're talking about semi-automatic "civilian" firearms. The truth of the matter is that the civilian AR-15 is no more deadly than any other semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. You need to heavily restrict all such firearms to have any effect at all. Banning just the AR-15 simply because it is used the most is like trying to stop soda usage by banning Coke simply because it is the most widely drunk soda. Everybody will just drink Pepsi and nothing is solved. Take as an example the 2011 Norway mass shooting. The perpetrator tried to get an AK-47 to commit his murders, but was denied because of the strict laws against "assault weapons" in Europe. So instead he bought a Mini-14 "ranch rifle" and killed 69 people with it.
aortega 7y ago
I agree, there is so much stupidity in banning guns (even more banning a single model). Those are not shootings, those are suicides. It's just that angry men prefer to die taking some people with them. They will find another way to kill themselves, maybe more dangerous. They are not fixing the root causes, just the symptoms.
- jamiegreen 7y ago
  It might be just fixing the symptoms of the problem for the individual, but on a society level it can solve the problem. See e.g. decline in mass shootings in Australia after auto rifle ban, and relative scarcity of mass shootings in other developed countries
taneq 7y ago
> It is not that people want to shoot people, it's that they want to kill people. That is the problem, and banning one single way of killing can not solve this. If there is one single way of killing people that is far-and-away more effective than the others and also far-and-away cheaper and more accessible than the others, then maybe, just MAYBE, controlling that one way will help a little in controlling the rate at which people kill people.
- lstodd 7y ago
  Like I said, shooting guns is neither the only one, nor even now the most effective way to kill people. You have to address the root of the problem. Why people decide to kill people, not what tools they use for that.
  - taneq 7y ago
    False dichotomy. You need to do both. You guys have a mass shooting every week. Not a mass murder-by-whatever-means. A mass shooting. If it was harder to get a shooter then there would be less shooting and this is not a difficult concept to understand.
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      What is a difficult concept to understand is the point of shifting the mass killings to another method which is about as easy, unless you're just coming it from an exploitative gun control position.

by lstodd 7y ago

charwalker 7y ago

The point of making tools that efficiently kill humans restricted, illegal, or unavailable without demonstrating some level of intent like searching for explosive plans or components is not to 100% stop deaths. But one cannot kill as many with a knife as they can with a firearm. Decreasing the impact of the attack goes a long way to preventing casualties. However, we may gain more as a society by allowing the CDC to research gun related deaths, connections to mental illness or other behaviors, and properly enforcing or expanding the reach of existing regulations and systems. Of course I'm forgetting which shootings but several were conducted by individuals who should not have had access to a firearm (poorly secured, stolen, taken from family, etc) or would have failed a background check if required (in addition to a waiting period) or if information was passed on as required by law would have failed the background check that was run (military failing to log domestic abuse and other complaints in the system per regulation). We have many tools in place, they are just under funded, under utilized, not used at all in many places, or maliciously circumvented like blocking funding to the CDC for necessary research to educate policy.

djohnston 7y ago

The rebuttal to your argument is that it takes less effort to insert a magazine and pull a trigger than it does to craft explosives. For those who resort to blades because they can't access rifles, that's still a better outcome since projected fatalities will certainly be lower. I agree that there is a deeper problem that should be addressed, but there's no reason you can't soften the current burden.

kls 7y ago
Takes less effort than chaining the doors and lighting the place on fire? That is the method du jour among the Mexican crime syndicates right now for mass killing other gangs in bars and safe houses. It's just not Tatic-cool, which is what these US kid mass shooters are going for.
- lstodd 7y ago
  This. Propane is too hi-tech, my fault, sorry. It'll all burn and kill everyone quite nicely just with the air. What the fuck is going on? Why no one ever tries to investigate the root causes?
lstodd 7y ago
If anything, it's simpler and cheaper than learning to operate a gun. But that's beside the point. The point being that no one tries to fix the problem. Okay, ban guns all the way to Tannhäuser Gate, you'll just see some alternative creativity.
- taneq 7y ago
  Are you serious? Using a gun is so simple it's become a catchphrase ("point and shoot") for trivially easy-to-operate things. The thing is, people in their right mind don't often make considered decisions to kill people, but people sure as hell flip out and in that moment want to kill someone. If it takes more than 10 seconds to obtain the means to kill someone, the would-be murderer probably has time to calm down and rethink their plans.
  - lstodd 7y ago
    If you would take some time to study how mass shootings come to be and, well, let's say, unweil, you will see that it takes a) a long period to mentally prepare for, b) a comparable period to prepare materiel for and c) a willingness to execute that is rooted in the above. This misconception that mass shootings are in a big part something impulsive is a symptom of.. well.. ignorance. Can someone at last investigate the actual problem? You can't control thoughts by administrative or legislative action, how hard can this be to grasp?? edit: tpyeos

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

glandium 7y ago

No need for propane. One can just use their massive SUV and drive into a crowd. Guess what? That's actually what happens in countries with less guns. But that also happens less frequently. Maybe that says something.

threeseed 7y ago
a) It was an incredibly rare event. Nothing like mass shootings in the USA. b) Those have largely been stopped by cities putting up metal bollards.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Mass shootings are not exceptionally common in the US, contrary to unquantified media portrayal: https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from...
lstodd 7y ago
A SUV costs what? Tens of thousands of dollars likely. Besides the efficiency sucks. A gun+ammo costs hundreds. A propane can costs idk what, because they cost more to get rid of than to buy one. Its refill is what, 30 bucks for a 13 gal one maybe? 13 gal is quite enough to demolish a building. Countries that have less killings have that not because they have ridiculous restrictions on guns. It's because people there _FOR_SOME_OTHER_REASON_ do not wish to kill other people. If nothing is done about that and instead guns are just banned, then it would be something else that people will keep dying to. This is what I was talking about.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  > A SUV costs what? Tens of thousands of dollars likely. A beat up one for less than $1000 works just as well as a new one for this purpose.

threeseed 7y ago

There aren't mass murders around the world to the same extent. So either something is fundamentally flawed with Americans as a people or maybe it's just that other countries make it hard to obtain automatic machine guns. And no. Banning guns which we did in Australia does not result in people trying to kill you using propane.

lstodd 7y ago
Well, but do you believe you would have had more people trying to kill you if you didn't ban them? I seriously doubt this.
technothrasher 7y ago
> make it hard to obtain automatic machine guns. We're not talking about automatic machine guns here. It's already pretty darn hard to get one here in the US. It takes about an 8-12 month federal background check and upwards of $10,000 to get one of those. The last time one was used in a major crime was in the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout (although those were illegally converted, and not legally obtained). We're talking about semi-automatic "civilian" firearms. The truth of the matter is that the civilian AR-15 is no more deadly than any other semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. You need to heavily restrict all such firearms to have any effect at all. Banning just the AR-15 simply because it is used the most is like trying to stop soda usage by banning Coke simply because it is the most widely drunk soda. Everybody will just drink Pepsi and nothing is solved. Take as an example the 2011 Norway mass shooting. The perpetrator tried to get an AK-47 to commit his murders, but was denied because of the strict laws against "assault weapons" in Europe. So instead he bought a Mini-14 "ranch rifle" and killed 69 people with it.

aortega 7y ago

I agree, there is so much stupidity in banning guns (even more banning a single model). Those are not shootings, those are suicides. It's just that angry men prefer to die taking some people with them. They will find another way to kill themselves, maybe more dangerous. They are not fixing the root causes, just the symptoms.

jamiegreen 7y ago
It might be just fixing the symptoms of the problem for the individual, but on a society level it can solve the problem. See e.g. decline in mass shootings in Australia after auto rifle ban, and relative scarcity of mass shootings in other developed countries

taneq 7y ago

> It is not that people want to shoot people, it's that they want to kill people. That is the problem, and banning one single way of killing can not solve this. If there is one single way of killing people that is far-and-away more effective than the others and also far-and-away cheaper and more accessible than the others, then maybe, just MAYBE, controlling that one way will help a little in controlling the rate at which people kill people.

lstodd 7y ago
Like I said, shooting guns is neither the only one, nor even now the most effective way to kill people. You have to address the root of the problem. Why people decide to kill people, not what tools they use for that.
- taneq 7y ago
  False dichotomy. You need to do both. You guys have a mass shooting every week. Not a mass murder-by-whatever-means. A mass shooting. If it was harder to get a shooter then there would be less shooting and this is not a difficult concept to understand.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    What is a difficult concept to understand is the point of shifting the mass killings to another method which is about as easy, unless you're just coming it from an exploitative gun control position.