awcntdb: In your grotesque fantasy, you forgot to count the number of friendly fire casualties from having 10% of the congregation shooting under stress conditions in an enclosed space. You also forgot to count the children who will kill and maim themselves, each other, and sometimes their parents playing with all those guns at home, and the marital disputes that will elevate to homicides because one or both of the parties is carrying.
In parts of the world where guns are illegal, there are many fewer gun deaths, and much less gun violence. Not 0, but much, much less. It may be that if guns are criminal, only criminals will have guns, but they will have fewer guns, and will use them far less. And, yes, racists could still use knives, but knives are far, far less efficient than automatic firearms. Your killpower is much less.
Guns, at least those guns designed only to shoot people, are a plague. I accept that we need a constitutional amendment to restrict them as severely as they need to be restricted, but we should have that constitutional amendment.
I don’t know about gun control. So much violence comes from the unlicensed market. But there is no denying that we are seein more and more legal guns, and more involved in this stuff…maybe it is time to really think on it…both sides!
“I think better control over who can procreate…parenting licenses, would be better. It is sad. This kid didn’t get this way on his own.”
“I’m not being flip. It is sad that anyone can have, raise and completely screw up a kid. Of course there is little we can do about it.”
My humor radar hasn’t been turned on yet today. But these statements are the beliefs people in power have today. It’s been tried in the past and it’s being tried today. I believe there are better options is all.
I don’t think most people understand how many people are killed and maimed in gun accidents. In most cases, it’s just a local story, so you just see the local reports. I see a site which lists accidental shootings from all over the country.
The numbers of accidental deaths and injuries is just staggering. I haven’t counted, but from my observation, it looks like it’s on the order of 2-3 per week. That’s PER WEEK.
Please tell me again, how many people have successfully defended themselves with guns this year?
The Washington Post has several interesting pieces about gun control (myths and misperceptions on both sides) and also has cited an FBI thorough study which concluded that unarmed persons involved in active shooter events were three times more likely to survive than those who were armed. Of the thousands of homicides studied (same report, I think) only a few hundred involved justifiable defenseive use – i.e., no, having guns does not significantly improve the outcomes.
I do think the prevalence of guns escalates other incidents. So instead of a grumpy conversation that resolves without incident, we get the NY swimming pool video where staff, police, and families escalate to ridiculous levels because now, we don’t trust that there’s no gun about to come out.
I used to work in a retail store, and let me tell you, angry unhappy customers are now received wit a finger on the panic button. A guy used to buy a gun magazine, Playboy, and a survivalist magazine; we got docked if we didn’t ask for email and even though he was a regular, he always got upset. When he started leaning over the counter, yelling about my communist boss, hands in a pocket and agitated, the guy in line behind him stepped between us and just said “hey, I gotta make a meeting” and I could have kissed him.
More likely is that if he thought people might be carrying he would have just started shooting without the warning.
My daughter wanted to go shooting since she had never tried it, and had a decent shot at heading to a Service Academy. I have only gone once 30 years ago. So, my sister and BIL took us shooting. I decided to try to qualify (unofficially) and decided I would try to fire as quickly as possible because my nephew said that a real qual is timed. I got off 12 rounds in 6 seconds and that was trying to be accurate enough to count my scores for qualifying. If the targets were closer than the 15 yds that I was shooting at I could have gotten off 9 shots in probably 3-4 seconds. I highly doubt a person would process the threat, react, draw their gun and fire in a span of a few seconds (assuming they weren’t among those shot with the first few shots).
ETA- you do also realize that if your community has as many guns as you state that statistically you will have a much higher percentage of homicides, right? So by trying (probably unsuccessfully) to prevent a situation like the one in SC you will have more domestic violence deaths, more suicides, more accidental shootings by children, etc. That’s a hell of a price to pay for MAYBE stopping a one in a million chance at a crazy guy firing on your little town.
No, that is not most likely, and the stats show that. He wanted to start a race war, not die himself.
He chose that place specifically because the laws and the people already announced they were defenseless against him and his gun. he choose a place where his survival was also at the highest percentage.
Look at the where mass shooters choose to shoot - they choose places where they know the people are unarmed. They are not as dumb as people think. Crazy, yes,; dumb, no.
We obviously live in different communities and around very different people. A guy or gal starts talking like that multiple people , including me, would be immediately on guard. Then again, we do not depend on police, so anything out of the ordinary is noticed pronto.
The only problem with this post is it is not true to the situation w are talking about. It is a non-sequitor.
Note that Brinkley shot two people and then was taken down. Hum, 2 is way less than 9. Or is my math wrong? Seven lives should not be dismissed so easily, i.e., these situations are not even functionally comparable.
I safely assume if after shooting the first two people that the next deceased seven were hoping someone could do something is a good bet. Alas, there was no one in a equitable position to the shooter to do anything.
Overall, the post is nonsensical vis a vis a mass shooting. It is virtually impossible to stop someone from simply walking up to someone with a hidden gun and stopping him from shooting someone. However, if that occurs, I find it frankly weird for anyone to then acquiesce that nothing further could be done and then the shooting numbers are allowed to pile up. Maybe people should be more like the Secret Service.
The one place people could lean from the Secret Secret is that they are armed and did not allow 2 shot to become a greater number. That, to me, is the lesson. The Secret Service did not stand around and endure 7 others shot. And better yet, the Secret Service were not helpless victims sitting there like lambs for the slaughter.
Who knows, but I think it would certainly reduce the number of incidents. Considering most of the shooters involved in these tragedies seem to go through normal channels, for the most part, to obtain their guns, it would seem that tighter control over those channels would help.
You know, even if SC had a law that did not exclude churches from concealed carry, that doesn’t mean that any of those people there that night would have been carrying. You’re not suggesting a law that actively requires people to carry guns to church are you?
DonnaL made a good point about whether it’s a good idea for law-abiding black people to carry guns at all, particularly in the Deep South lest they be stopped for a broken tail light and have that escalate into a tragic mishap. The people in that church did not want to carry guns into their church. Yet somehow theyare in the wrong for not being able to shoot it out with a loser who never should have been able to have a gun in his hands.
Why should they, and everyone else who doesn’t want to carry a gun everywhere, have to kowtow to the minority of people in this country who think the 2nd amendment means there should be practically no regulation on the right to bear arms?
I’d argue it’s a low figure, but a number that’s used for the number of guns in the US is 300 million. Low, in my opinion, because there’s a multitude of people that feel guilty for having them. Not socially acceptable for the circles they hang out in.
It’s often remarked that, practically speaking, we can’t deport all the illegal aliens in the US. Just too big a job, too many illegals, not enough personpower. Yet, the idea that, after the public wakes up, after one more evil killer does what he or she does, we’ll slap something in place that’ll take the opportunity to get a weapon right out of their hands. 300 million (plus) options will just evaporate. Hah.
It was also remarked, earlier on another thread, that Mexico got the guns out of the wrong hands. Priceless, true, and eminently quotable.
Another example of why we need better gun control. If those who are trained, and presumably trained well can’t hit their targets, why oh why do we trust lay people with minimal (if any) training to have guns around large groups of people?
