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I don't think it is clear at all that "Columbine-like shooting are an American phenomenon". The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen wer

by objclxt 14y ago

I don't think it is clear at all that "Columbine-like shooting are an American phenomenon". The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. The same is true in other countries around the world - I'm just citing those I'm most familiar with. The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun.

kiba 14y ago
The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun. In Japan, one mass murderer kills 8 Japanese schoolchildren with a knife. In another incident, a mass murderer kills 3 people with a truck and then killed 4 individuals on foot. They were eventually arrested and sentenced to death. If somebody was there with a gun, they could have engage the murderer in a firefight instead of defenseless people getting knifed or getting shot.
- leot 14y ago
  The amount of determination required to do that much killing with a knife would have had its effects amplified by the ready availability of a gun. You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle?
  - kiba 14y ago
    You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? It would not be certainty a fair fight. Even so, a murderer is forced to engage civilians who are shooting at them rather than civilians who are simply defenseless. The only thing a person with handgun can do is buy time for a SWAT team to arrive and the slower the SWAT are, the more likely for death. (See the North Hollywood shootout as an example of this) Nonetheless, I consider the defenders having guns to be an equalizer. In the Virginia Tech massacre incident, the murderer have only two handguns, but he was able to kill 32 individuals.
    - stan_rogers 14y ago
      Unless those civilians have been trained under live-fire circumstances, there is a far greater probability that they would add to the toll of bystander injuries than that they would quickly stop the original threat. It's not life on the target range; flinching, adrenalin tremors and tunnel vision are real, and a miss (or a through-and-through) doesn't always go safely into a sand berm. And what about the other armed individuals whose situational awareness is formed when they see two or three shooters rather than the original one?
  - mbell 14y ago
    > You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? Considering he was stopped simply by 2 people tackling him I would say: quite possibly.
  - brandoncapecci 14y ago
    Am I the only one who thinks it's humorous how many people think that body armor means bullets just ricochet to the ground harmlessly? Vests are simply for preventing shots from penetrating vital organs, not turning the wearer into Iron Man. Best case scenario, it'll feel like you just got hit with a golf drive. If your ribs aren't broken, they'll be badly bruised. The weapon is negligible since it's not a firefight, if anything, armed people in the theater would have the upper hand because these killers are never expecting people to shoot back at them. Really, anybody who's ever shot a gun could have likely killed him, if not debilitated him enough such that people could escape. There are strong arguments to both sides of gun control but alluding that handguns are insufficient protection is not one of them, that's just ignorance.
  - zanny 14y ago
    If a psychopath wants an assault rifle, they will go to any means to obtain one, regardless of it is legal to own one wherever they live. Meanwhile, if you have unarmed police and no armed civilians, you are likely to have killers go on even more unstoppable rampages. Additionally, killers who can't get guns will just resort to other methods of mass destruction, like our little theater shooter who had bombs and gas grenades as well. You can build a pipe bomb in your own basement with commodity supplies. Tools of destruction are cheap and always readily available.
    - leot 14y ago
      Real policy is a numbers game. Anyone who is sufficiently determined to do anything doable will probably end up approximately doing it. The issue is: how much, how often, how many people will be affected, etc.
heyitsnick 14y ago
> The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. This is disingenuous. There have not been 'several cases where over a dozen were killed, and several smaller scale incidents'. There have been exactly three in recent UK history: Dunblane (16 schoolchildren killed, and has to be the worst criminal act in modern UK history), Cumbria (12 adults in a lone gunman killing spree), and the Hungerford Massacre in 1987 (16 murdered by lone gunman). Going further back, there is the Shepherd's Bush murders in 1966 (3 policemen and 2 members of the public shot dead) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders as a possible example of 'several smaller scale incidents along similar lines.' But this is hardly how you phrased it. Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United...
- mbell 14y ago
  > Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United.... You realize this list contains everything from wars, to 9/11, to drug gang battles, etc, etc. It is not even remotely comparable to a list of actions with "no apparent motive".
  - heyitsnick 14y ago
    Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself. Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Seal Beach shooting 2011, Aurora shooting 2012, Columbine 1999, Brown's Chicken massacre 1993, Northern Illinois University shooting 2008. That's from the first 4 or 5 states in that list. There has been exactly three massacres of this type in recent UK history (~last 50 years). There are dozens in the US just in the last couple of decades. So implying that UK has a similar incidence of random killing spree gun crime as the grandparent did is disingenuous.

by objclxt 14y ago

kiba 14y ago

The US certainly has a higher frequency of apparently motiveless mass murders, but I think it is fairly certain that this is due to easy access to weapons. Someone who is mentally unbalanced is probably going to kill fewer people with a knife before being stopped than with a gun. In Japan, one mass murderer kills 8 Japanese schoolchildren with a knife. In another incident, a mass murderer kills 3 people with a truck and then killed 4 individuals on foot. They were eventually arrested and sentenced to death. If somebody was there with a gun, they could have engage the murderer in a firefight instead of defenseless people getting knifed or getting shot.

leot 14y ago
The amount of determination required to do that much killing with a knife would have had its effects amplified by the ready availability of a gun. You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle?
- kiba 14y ago
  You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? It would not be certainty a fair fight. Even so, a murderer is forced to engage civilians who are shooting at them rather than civilians who are simply defenseless. The only thing a person with handgun can do is buy time for a SWAT team to arrive and the slower the SWAT are, the more likely for death. (See the North Hollywood shootout as an example of this) Nonetheless, I consider the defenders having guns to be an equalizer. In the Virginia Tech massacre incident, the murderer have only two handguns, but he was able to kill 32 individuals.
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    Unless those civilians have been trained under live-fire circumstances, there is a far greater probability that they would add to the toll of bystander injuries than that they would quickly stop the original threat. It's not life on the target range; flinching, adrenalin tremors and tunnel vision are real, and a miss (or a through-and-through) doesn't always go safely into a sand berm. And what about the other armed individuals whose situational awareness is formed when they see two or three shooters rather than the original one?
- mbell 14y ago
  > You think some person with a handgun would stand much of a chance against someone in body armor with an assault rifle? Considering he was stopped simply by 2 people tackling him I would say: quite possibly.
- brandoncapecci 14y ago
  Am I the only one who thinks it's humorous how many people think that body armor means bullets just ricochet to the ground harmlessly? Vests are simply for preventing shots from penetrating vital organs, not turning the wearer into Iron Man. Best case scenario, it'll feel like you just got hit with a golf drive. If your ribs aren't broken, they'll be badly bruised. The weapon is negligible since it's not a firefight, if anything, armed people in the theater would have the upper hand because these killers are never expecting people to shoot back at them. Really, anybody who's ever shot a gun could have likely killed him, if not debilitated him enough such that people could escape. There are strong arguments to both sides of gun control but alluding that handguns are insufficient protection is not one of them, that's just ignorance.
- zanny 14y ago
  If a psychopath wants an assault rifle, they will go to any means to obtain one, regardless of it is legal to own one wherever they live. Meanwhile, if you have unarmed police and no armed civilians, you are likely to have killers go on even more unstoppable rampages. Additionally, killers who can't get guns will just resort to other methods of mass destruction, like our little theater shooter who had bombs and gas grenades as well. You can build a pipe bomb in your own basement with commodity supplies. Tools of destruction are cheap and always readily available.
  - leot 14y ago
    Real policy is a numbers game. Anyone who is sufficiently determined to do anything doable will probably end up approximately doing it. The issue is: how much, how often, how many people will be affected, etc.

heyitsnick 14y ago

> The UK has had several massacres where in each case over a dozen were killed with no apparent motive (Dunblane in 1996, Cumbira in 2010), and there have been several smaller scale incidents along similar lines. This is disingenuous. There have not been 'several cases where over a dozen were killed, and several smaller scale incidents'. There have been exactly three in recent UK history: Dunblane (16 schoolchildren killed, and has to be the worst criminal act in modern UK history), Cumbria (12 adults in a lone gunman killing spree), and the Hungerford Massacre in 1987 (16 murdered by lone gunman). Going further back, there is the Shepherd's Bush murders in 1966 (3 policemen and 2 members of the public shot dead) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_murders as a possible example of 'several smaller scale incidents along similar lines.' But this is hardly how you phrased it. Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United...

mbell 14y ago
> Now look at the United States list as a comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United.... You realize this list contains everything from wars, to 9/11, to drug gang battles, etc, etc. It is not even remotely comparable to a list of actions with "no apparent motive".
- heyitsnick 14y ago
  Yes of course I realize this. There is no list of 'no apparent motive recent shootings' on wikipedia i'm afraid, so you will have to do a little leg-work yourself. Feel free to scan through the US list and pick out the many dozens that fit. Just reading down the top of the list, in the last decade or two I see Tuscon 2011, Geneva County massacre 2009, Cupertino quarry shooting 2009, Oikos University shooting 2012, Seal Beach shooting 2011, Aurora shooting 2012, Columbine 1999, Brown's Chicken massacre 1993, Northern Illinois University shooting 2008. That's from the first 4 or 5 states in that list. There has been exactly three massacres of this type in recent UK history (~last 50 years). There are dozens in the US just in the last couple of decades. So implying that UK has a similar incidence of random killing spree gun crime as the grandparent did is disingenuous.