12 ms·
> The shooting happened early Sunday morning > the sound of more than 30 gunshots coming from an apartment complex directly behind Shepards > The shooting app
by 01acheru 5y ago
> The shooting happened early Sunday morning
> the sound of more than 30 gunshots coming from an apartment complex directly behind Shepards
> The shooting appeared to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearms
How can this happen and keep happening?
It is not only about the number of weapons around in the US: the households with weapons in the US are 42% (2017 data), 37.9% in Finland, 16.6% in New Zealand, 28,6% in Switzerland (2005 data). But stuff like that in the US is in the tenfold to hundredfold when compared to similar episodes in any other country that is not bloody poor or a war zone.
Why is that?
data: gunpolicy.org
RIP
- newaccount2021 5y agoThirty shots fired is not random. This isn't kids shooting at bottles in the backyard. Feels like details here are being omitted. If thirty shots can be fired in your neighborhood without an immediate and massive police response, you should move immediately.
- stevehawk 5y agodefine immediate. it takes seconds to fire thirty rounds. it takes minutes for police to respond to anything
- coldtea 5y agoTen to twenty minutes, and closing down the whole 1+ mile area, like it was a terrorist attack. That would be the case in a civilized city/country. Else, it appears as if 30 gunshot rounds is like routine in that place, so it's a kind of shithole.
- noodlesUK 5y agoIn the west coast city I lived in last year, it wasn’t uncommon (more than once per week easily) for people to drive around in trucks at night (or even in the day sometimes) and just unload magazines into the sky for no apparent reason. In any other country I’ve ever visited, this would result in a huge news response condemning the act along with a significant police response. I never even saw most of these on the news or saw any significant police response.
- 5ESS 5y agoIn some Arab countries this is a normal day time activity often done during weddings.
- phendrenad2 5y agoWell we don't need the police to scoop up the bullets out of the air. If they can get there within 20 minutes, and find a pile of shell casings and dudes with warm guns in their posession, and sulphur smoke in the air, maybe they can do something as a deterrent to future cases, such as presenting all of them to the DA with a nice bow on top.
- jopython 5y agoWhen seconds count police are minutes away.
- tomjakubowski 5y agothe police were already responding to the gunfire as the girlfriend was calling 911
- tsss 5y agoIf you expect police to do anything to help you, you'd probably have to move into the whitehouse.
- Kye 5y ago30 is not that much if someone nearby is doing target practice. They're going to get someone killed some day, but the police don't care.
- giantg2 5y ago"They're going to get someone killed some day..." Most of the time - no. Most farms I know of have a good backstop, consistent with any "official" gun range.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Kye 5y agoThere's kinds of farms. The kind nearby is the kind someone buys because they're rich enough to own a farm without caring about paying for it with the farm. A farm for someone who can't bridge the gap between their self-identification as a working-class conservative and the amount of money they have. I checked the particular neighborhood in the article, and it's all single-family homes, so probably someone in their backyard goofing off. A neighbor in a similar place liked to run around shooting squirrels with a pistol. The police never showed up. It was an awkward, anxious few years before he moved out. He also liked to shoot bottle rockets without regard for direction. I got buzzed a few times. Georgia is a land of contrasts.
- pseudo0 5y agoFrom the article: > Shepard, whose apartment is in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, who told the television station that the couple woke up on Jan 16 to the sound of more than 30 gunshots coming from an apartment complex directly behind Shepards. Seems pretty clear that this wasn't a case of someone target shooting with an insufficient backstop.
- giantg2 5y agoPretty sure the comment i was responding to mentioned people on farms (not related to the article), but is now edited.
- sergiomattei 5y agoAs someone living in a relatively poor state, thirty shots is just another normal night. The police doesn’t do shit.
- Tade0 5y agoWhat are these people aiming at?
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago> If thirty shots can be fired in your neighborhood without an immediate and massive police response, you should move immediately. rephrasing: if thirty shots can be fired and nothing ever changes and the same things keep happening again and again, you should move ASAP, I agree. You should move abroad to a more civilized country. EDIT: this happened a month ago. https://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2021/12/03/columbia-university-italian-student-stabbed-to-death_222288e1-66d3-48a9-8954-07903316f452.html https://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2021/12/03/col... USA is no country for civilized people. TBF some of them are dangerous even outside of their borders https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/europe/americans-murder-italian-police-officer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/europe/americans-mu... In 2021 the whole EU (population 448 millions) registered ~3.5k homicides. USA (population 332 millions)? > 20k (+29% compared to 2020, during a pandemic, while in the rest of the World homicide stats went down considerably)
- powvans 5y agoI was going to reply that this sort of thing isn't all that uncommon here in Atlanta. Then I clicked the link and saw this this happened in Brookhaven, which is formerly a neighborhood of Atlanta proper. <sigh>
- tomjakubowski 5y agoQuote from TFA: "Police were in the vicinity pursuing reports of gunfire when the 911 call from Shepard came in."
- yread 5y agoHow else would you keep the house prices from skyrocketing /s
- DaltonCoffee 5y agoBecause cowboys and rap music and manifest destiny. But seriously, you don't have to look that far. Canada's gun ownership and gun crime rates are also puzzling to compare with America's.
- throwaway5752 5y agoIt's because of the NRA, which is a trade group of gun companies preventing regulation, and high ownership due to lack of regulation. The high ownership is there goal, a gun costs hundreds of dollars on the low end, and it's an 11-figure market. Canadian gun ownership and gun laws are not comparable to the US. They have 1/3 the guns and 1/3 the gun crime per capita compared to the US, and ownership is more highly regulated.
- drno123 5y agoIsn’t NRA more of a white Americans thing, while these kind of shootings are more gang-related?
- ceejayoz 5y agoEven better for the NRA. Fear of the Other helps the NRA drive more gun sales.
- tomjakubowski 5y agoIt sounds more like people were recklessly popping rounds off for fun than anything gang-related.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 5y agoWell they do have 5 million members, so I don't think it's necessarily accurate to call it a "trade group of gun companies". They may be a significant part of the organization but there are a significant number of individuals who are part of it.
- anonnyj 5y ago
- altcognito 5y agoCertainly systemic problems should be lain at the feet of those in charge, not just complaining about the individual acts as inexplicably "in their nature." Regardless of the race. But if your primary concern is washing your hands of any responsibility, then I guess this is a good try?
- peoplefromibiza 5y agowhen did "American" became a race?
- drewcoo 5y agoIf it's too hard to deal with this puzzle without being racist, work up to it! Here are some practice puzzles: https://www.cafepress.com/+anti-racism+puzzles https://www.cafepress.com/+anti-racism+puzzles
- 5ESS 5y ago
- vmception 5y agoI actually have no idea what you are talking about, how would one address the problem directly and constitutionally? There is very little the constitution allows to do by race and I dont know enough about what you are referring to that would prevent a random reckless discharge of firearms. Can you elaborate?
- xyzzyz 5y agoFor example, we could enforce our existing gun control laws — those about straw purchases, posession by felons, illegal concealed carry etc. The places with gun crime problem, which overwhelmingly are big cities which have been controlled entirely by a single political party for many decades, don’t want to enforce the law, though — instead, their narrative recently have been in the opposite direction, to defund the police and reduce incarceration. The only big city that attempted to enforce the law, New York City, has been overwhelmingly successful in reducing its crime problem. The method they used was pretty simple: they caught people doin relatively petty crime, and jailed them, reducing the criminal population, while at the same time sending signal to the remaining people with criminal tendencies that the city cares about it, and will go after you. Unfortunately, the activist lawfare made them stop using their highly successful method, and these days crime there is not only on the rise, but also the authorities becoming more lenient toward serious crime, including gun crime: > Prosecutors were also instructed to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors in certain cases. For instance, suspects initially charged with armed robbery of a store would get hit with petit larceny instead, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there was no “genuine risk of physical harm,” the memo states. So, if you rob a store with a gun in your hand in NYC, you’re looking for less than a year in jail, and no pretrial detention either. Basically, they’ll arrest you, get your data and address, maybe confiscate your gun if you have it on you, and let you go hit like that, with a court date many months in advance (courts are swamped by Covid induced inefficiency). How is this supposed to be a significant crime deterrent?
- ptr 5y agoI’d bet there are very few handguns in Finland, mostly bolt action hunting rifles.
- masklinn 5y agoAccording to the wiki, out of 1.5 million registered firearms there are about 225000 handguns. Though there could be as much as a million weapons from WWII.
- coldtea 5y ago>Why is that? Many americans like to kill and die by gunfire, and consider it their constitutional right. That's why. And many of those opposing them, still agree to treat the Constitution as some holy scripture - they might differ on the interpretation of the gun related law, but they wont go out and say "who cares if the Constitution gave you the right, it's 2022 and it's just a piece of paper, let's change it anyway". So in that sense, they reinforce their opponents argument (which is based on their interpretation + the Constitution, by upholding the second part, and thus keeping it at the level of a debate of interpretation).
- 01acheru 5y agoAnd why do US citizens like to kill and be killed by gunfire? It's not only because of lots of weapons.
- ahallock 5y ago> Many americans like to kill and die by gunfire, and consider it their constitutional right How does this sarcastic, mocking comment contribute to any kind of rational discussion? You have no idea what you're talking about.
- coldtea 5y ago
- Nextgrid 5y ago> But stuff like that in the US is in the tenfold to hundredfold when compared to similar episodes in any other country that is not bloody poor or a war zone. I think the US has an unhealthy obsession with guns that I haven't noticed with other countries. This encourages US residents to acquire/carry guns to make a political point about the second amendment or their rights as opposed to any practical need, leading to way more guns out there than actually necessary for hunting/self-defense/sport. In other countries you mention, I'm pretty sure guns are something people acquire when they have a legitimate need for them (even if just recreational shooting) but otherwise are a fairly trivial item with no "culture" nor politics associated with it - people don't obtain/carry them just to prove a point about the second amendment or their rights.
- 01acheru 5y agoThanks for bringing good arguments to the discussion. > I think the US has an unhealthy obsession with guns that I haven't noticed with other countries Where do you think this obsession comes from? > but otherwise are a fairly trivial item with no "culture" nor politics associated with it Why would that reduce their risk? Flipping the question: why would this gun culture bring to more guns being actually fired? (for recklessness, violence, whatever stupid reason)
- jahnu 5y agoDifferent societies have different thresholds and criteria for what problems can be solved with violence or the threat of violence. We can see this manifest in the use of violence by the state authorities. E.g. if state applies capital punishment to certain crimes then this reinforces the idea that violence is a solution to problems. Whether the state holds this position because the society does or vice versa or some mixture of the two I'm not sure.
- 01acheru 5y agoSo in your opinion the US are a more violent society than most around the developed world?
- Stevvo 5y agoThis article is the best explanation I've read; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/19/charleston-shootings-guns-race-america-shackled-to-its-past https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/19/charle...
- albertopv 5y agoOld wild west myth never ceased, the myth of the hard wild frontier, where everyone must defend by himself. And civil war, I guess USA never really made peace with itself after civil war, primarily because it's a federation of states.
- seventytwo 5y agoIt’s because of gun culture in the US.
- leephillips 5y agoBecause, in some senses, the US is bloody poor and is a war zone.
- 62951413 5y agoMany state/city governments are captured by a certain party. They openly encourage criminals in an effort to destabilize the country enough to become the ruling party for good. So some ethnicities are forced to study, work hard, pay for the festivities, and get punished for as much as a speeding ticket. Others are given welfare and get to burn down cities. It happened many times before in history (Russia 1917, Germany in the 30s).
- gregors 5y agoI lived in a bad area of town growing up. Lots of shootings outside. In fact the very first week we moved into that house there was a MAJOR shoot out. My entire family lying flat on the living room floor - face kissing the ground. Someone asked if they should call the cops or not. "Shhhhh, be quiet don't move" We laid on the floor like that for a long time. Kids all outside later watching the cops pick up bullet casings... Fast-forward 15 years - bringing my wife over to the same family house. Me, "uh-oh, they're shooting again, get on the floor". My wife looking around, everyone on the floor "Oh, you're not joking?!" It's not a new problem and it's not a good way to live.
- Youden 5y agoSwitzerland has a high rate of gun possession because it has mandatory military service and people take their weapons home with them. And though many households may have a gun, they don't have ammunition. In the event they need to use the gun for military service, the canton will distribute ammunition from the arsenal. Aside from service weapons, it is possible to simply buy a personal weapon and ammunition for it but firearms are much more regulated. You are never permitted to carry a loaded firearm in public for example (aside from a few permitted purposes like a security guard with a permit), only an unloaded firearm that you are transporting (and the police aren't going to buy any bullshit like "I'm transporting this gun to the protest"). So comparing the US to Switzerland just doesn't make sense. Sure there are guns but the rules and culture around them are completely different. It's not impossible in Switzerland but it's close. Plus, the whole economic situation in Switzerland is different. There isn't such a huge part of the population living on the street or just barely scraping by. There isn't a whole lot of violent crime in general, let alone gun violence.
- vmception 5y agoSwiss have guns because they trust their government Americans have guns because they distrust their government The concept of a collaborative governing body does not exist in the US, everything about the governance concept employed in the Swiss system would be a culture shock to Americans
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoIf you discharge a gun in most European cities, I believe police will respond and will make sure you don't get an opportunity to do that again. I think many times if a gun is involved it results in a pretty serious response, potentially directly the local equivalent of SWAT. I'm pretty sure 30 gunshots from an apartment complex would be a full SWAT response. As soon as a gun comes into play, police take it extremely seriously. It seems like in some US cities not much is going to happen unless and until someone actually dies.