“The Boston Marathon bombers used pressure cooker that can be bought at any Walmart.”
So?
There are other uses for pressure cookers than making bombs with them. There is no other reason for using a gun then to kill someone/something or practice killing someone/something.
hayden - I agree with your theory concerning economic hard times.
I am not a gun owner. Never have been, never will be. That said I do not see any gun control legislation that would stop these attacks. I do not see the need for more restrictive gun laws. I understand the reaction to want restrictive laws, or any additional step to stop these attacks but I do not believe they will work.
Guns are used by sportsmen for hunting, and guns can be used for self defense. All guns are not used for murder. Towns in South Carolina like Bamberg, most households have at least a shotgun for hunting. If I lived near that NY prison where two killers just escaped…I’d want a gun for self defense…can’t always count on state to protect me.
"Guns are used by sportsmen for hunting, and guns can be used for self defense.
“All guns are not used for murder.”
I didn’t say all guns are used for murder - I said all guns are used for killing someone/something or practicing to do those things. The same cannot be said about cars, knives, pressure cookers, baseball bats, etc., etc., etc.
Killers and mass murderers are going to find a way. You see it all over the world.
“Killers and mass murderers are going to find a way. You see it all over the world.”
No you don’t. You don’t see the rate of mass murder by gun that we have here in any other westernized country with stricter gun control then the US.
I wish people would just come out an say that their Second Amendment right to have guns is more important to them then protecting innocent civilians from murder by gun. The argument that killers/mass murderers are going to find a way is just used as a excuse to allow unfettered access to guns.
No. No other developed country routinely has mass murders like this.
And if we’re going to start saying “Well it happens in Somalia so we can’t stop it here!” then I will have officially lost faith in our ability to get our heads out of the sand.
Somalia is a Libertarian paradise, after all.
http://myfox8.com/2015/06/19/charleston-shooting-suspect-dylan-roof-confesses-to-killing-9-people/
Straight from the source himself…he wanted to start a race war.
The Christian persecution trope going around in conservative circles/forums is nothing more than a canard to deny the racist motivations and intentions of this murderer.
Not even background checks. You would have thought that 20 dead first graders would have sped some measure of reform, ideally a ban on the sale of assault type weapons which no one needs for hunting or self defense. But no, not even background checks got through. The people who want reforms are not as organized or vocal or willing to open their wallets as the people who want no reform whatsoever.
I think we are inured to the violence partly because we don’t see it. We see the smiling faces of beautiful children and adults whose lives were wiped out, but we don’t see blood, and body parts, and what it looks like if you shoot a six year old in the face with an assault rifle. Perhaps if there was more exposure to the aftermath of these events, we as Americans would be less willing to tolerate this level of collateral damage to the Second Amendment.
From a piece in today’s New York Times Magazine recounting Charleston’s troubled history with regard to race relations:
The planned slave uprising would have taken place on June 17, 1822. Is it just a coincidence, or was it a deliberate act of terrorism that Roof killed all those churchgoers on the same date?
The ever-sensitive NRA has stepped into the fray. A board member proposes the only solution the NRA ever has – more guns. And while he’s at it, works in a smack at one of the victims.
Keep it classy, NRA.
I wish his friends and roommates would have been willing to speak up about what he was talking about before this happened. Some of them seem more than willing to talk to the media now. But it is too late for those killed, injured and traumatized by this event. One would hope that after so much publicity about Adam Lanza, one of those who knew him might have mentioned to someone else that his statements and actions are raising a concern.
The cost of these events is staggering, in terms of lost and ruined lives, grieving families and communities, and the shift of economic resources into medical care, police investigations, prosecutions, and incarceration.
And we as a nation limp from horrific event to horrific event, being shocked and saddened in the aftermath yet remaining paralyzed to prevent these acts.
It was reported today that he said he almost didn’t do it, because they were so nice to him. Wow, nice Blacks(insert eye roll)
It seems to me there are a lot of posts about gun control, which while I understand that is a natural outgrowth of this event is not really the topic of this thread. And of course as we all know there have already been numerous threads about gun control, so absent a new development such as new legislation or a new ruling by the courts, I am not sure how rehashing it all here furthers the conversation about these shootings. They happened, and debating the theoretical about whether better gun control would have prevented it or whether more guns would have stopped the shooter seems to not get anywhere. I won’t delete all those posts, because as I say they are a natural reaction. But let’s focus the discussion on the elements that actually occurred in this event. Make sense?
If one of his friends had reported him, could anything really have been done? There are a lot of people around making vague threats and engaging in apocalyptic rants about race wars.
Well, the NRA claims that had churchgoers been carrying, this massacre would have been prevented.
Is that the solution? Everybody carry guns everywhere?
And what if one or more of the churchgoers had had a gun with them…who knows if it would have made any difference. You have to be able to get the gun out of your purse or your holster before he shoots you. You have to take aim before he shoots you and get an accurate shot before he shoots you. The odds of a determined killer against the average person with a gun are not good.
And if there are two or more perpetrators, the odds against the armed good guy are even worse. Remember the concealed carry guy who was shot dead in a Walmart by one of the two people who gunned down two policemen in a Las Vegas?
So let’s say the NRA and the gun manufacturers and retailers get their way and the “solution” to mass killings becomes everyone has guns everywhere at all times…is it likely that these kinds of massacres will cease or will perpetrators just come in better armed, suited with body armor, loaded down with multiple magazines. When everyone is carrying easily concealed pistols, what stops the killers from upping the ante with assault rifles and reloading vests?
Will the solution be for everyone to carry assault rifles? Post armed and heavily armored guards at every school, church, mall, sports venue, bus terminal, subway entrance, airport?
I think that’s likely to get more people killed, through accidents or overreactions. And if everyone is walking around bristling with guns, how do we tell the good guys from the ones who are about to erupt?
How do we live at ease in a world where everyone you see is carrying and you have to wonder if they’re someone who has reached the end of their rope or someone who wants to go out with a blazing headline?
@scout59 thanks for that- I thought it was bizarre and it must’ve just been happening somewhere that I couldn’t see.
We do have a huge problem in the United States, but we are not the only one dealing with the presence of weapons in the hands of lunatics, zealots, terrorists, and other cockroaches.
Take a look at Mexico where guns are not permitted. Has that stopped the massacres and violence? How about Europe?
If the guy did not have access to a gun, he might have build a bomb by looking at the internet for parts. We are paying the price for our liberties.
People will always find a way to murder. Just today in the news, a man was decapitated with a sword, a woman killed her husband by bludgeoning him with canned food! There was a San Diego family killed with a sledgehammer.
The Germanwings pilot killed 156. Then there was the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The Norwegian nut. And on and on.