Outside Opinion On America's Shooting?

[Grape_Bullion]

Politics aside it's beyond tragic. I mean there's not a whole lot else to say about the matter. I'm from the US and I'm visiting, but I've been living outside of it for half of a decade now and it's always terrible to hear when something this grotesque happens back home.

Politics inside, Americans have proven yet again they're beyond incapable of having a massively armed public without terribly tragic events happening at any time. It's awful, but until there are actual changes to American firearm laws, these sorts of things will happen and it's honestly not that surprising, in terms of another massacre taking place.

 

[TravelerSF]

Greetings from Finland

It's tragic of course, I probably have to repeat that again (but I still did, didn't I). Personally I dislike the mentality America has over guns as a nation, but I don't think it'd be very realistic to try to change that mentality with new laws and regulations. We have somewhat stricter gun laws here, yet there have been some shootings here as well. I think the better solution would be to get to the root of the problem, these people didn't perform these horrible acts of violence because they had guns, they did it because they were ill and in pain. So I think a better solution might be a proper mental health care system and a societal safety net.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I see it as people having absolutely no reason at ALL to carry automatic weapons.

The Connecticut elementary school shooter didn't have an automatic weapon. The Vtech shooter used pistols, a glock 19 and a walther p22, and killed more people than the Connecticut elementary school shooter. The Bath School shooter killed 38 elementary school children and used a single-shot rifle. Even Columbine's murderers didn't have automatic weapons, and they were armed to the teeth.

 

[Zeckt]

I see it as people having absolutely no reason at ALL to carry automatic weapons.

The Connecticut elementary school shooter didn't have an automatic weapon. The Vtech shooter used pistols, a glock 19 and a walther p22, and killed more people than the Connecticut elementary school shooter. The Bath School shooter killed 38 elementary school children and used a single-shot rifle. Even Columbine's murderers didn't have automatic weapons, and they were armed to the teeth.

I don't know, I freely admit to lashing out because this tragedy SCARES me and I guess I got to blame something. Still, Americans literally have 10 times the amount of shooting fatalities as we do and thats based on an equal person to person ratio. My point is, your freedom to earn guns DOES cost you lives including 18 of your children that would of grown up and raised families and would of gotten jobs in YOUR country. If they were born somewhere else they would of been safe, but instead they were born in America where any idiot can own a gun and endager them. Instead they are just another statistic to American gun fatalities. Your country is dangerous and no place to raise children.

 

[Ryotknife]

I see it as people having absolutely no reason at ALL to carry automatic weapons.

The Connecticut elementary school shooter didn't have an automatic weapon. The Vtech shooter used pistols, a glock 19 and a walther p22, and killed more people than the Connecticut elementary school shooter. The Bath School shooter killed 38 elementary school children and used a single-shot rifle. Even Columbine's murderers didn't have automatic weapons, and they were armed to the teeth.

I don't know, I freely admit to lashing out because this tragedy SCARES me and I guess I got to blame something. Still, Americans literally have 10 times the amount of shooting fatalities as we do and thats based on an equal person to person ratio. My point is, your freedom to earn guns DOES cost you lives including 18 of your children that would of grown up and raised families and would of gotten jobs in YOUR country. If they were born somewhere else they would of been safe, but instead they were born in America where any idiot can own a gun and endager them. Instead they are just another statistic to American gun fatalities. Your country is dangerous and no place to raise children.

/eyeroll

children dying is a rarity in our country. They are just as likely to die here as anywhere else. They may be more likely to be shot, but when it comes to total deaths % there is not much difference.

But go ahead and sensationalize it. Honestly, there are probably more lottery winners than for children killed by guns. And most of the children deaths from guns are probably via GANGS who own ILLEGAL guns.

but please, continue with the complete and utter ignorance so you can feed your superiority complex.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Australia here. Considering how well publicised other shooting massacres both in the US and overseas have been in our media in the past I'm surprised I didn't read more about this tragedy. I'm getting the feeling on the ground around here that it's because people see it as "yet another gun related massacre in the US"; like it is a regular event that we could mark on our calendar. Australians tend to be pretty practical and if someone isn't seen to be doing anything to prevent a foreseeable problem from happening again then they often lose sympathy.

Personally, I really don't know what the answer is. There's going to be pissed off teens anywhere in the world. Hell, I was one! I think what differentiates the US from say here is the speed at which someone can deal death in a short space of time. I was watching an episode of Fact or Faked where Jael obtained a AR-15 to test fire, which is apparently a common gun in the States. A common gun! In Australia, a common gun would be some bolt action rifle or 12 gauge shotgun and even then only a very small percentage of the population who have a gun licence would own one. Apart from my mate who goes pig hunting, the only guns I've seen are the ones that sit in the holsters of police officers. Another friend of mine has paintball markers that he has to legally store in a gun cabinet or he can be charged with incorrectly storing firearms. If his wife takes it she can be charged with illegal possession of a firearm.
With all that said it would be nearly impossible to restrict automatic weapons. It's like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. They'll always find a way into people's hands.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

As many of you may or may not know we had a shooting in the US in Connecticut. For those outside of United States, what did you hear, what did you think, and what did the media show you? I'd like to think of humanity as rather intelligent (Or at the very least those of us that frequent this wonderful site.) so please leave out the stereotyping of those of us that inhabit the landmass between Mexico and Canada as gun toting, illiterate flab sacks. Lets just hear it like it is without the bs.

so first you ask what the media showed us and then tell us not to say it. make up your mind.

Yep, Opinion around the office (where I heard the news) is that:

1) It was a sad event.

2) Why are they still arguing about gun control when massacres like this keep on happening?

3) Hunting rifles? Sure go ahead. Pistols? A little unnerving but reasonable. Military Grade Assault Rifles? Why?

 

[Lurklen]

I'm from Canada.

What did I think about the shooting?

That is horrible. Thank god it didn't happen here. Those parents lives are ruined. Thank god it didn't happen here. Why did this happen? Why am I not as shocked as I should be? Because it happens, not all the time but enough that I accept it's possible. It would probably happen less if guns were harder to come by. But it would still happen. Who was this guy? Why can't these people just off themselves before they do something like this? That's a horrible thing to think. I wish people that messed up were helped. No matter how safe we think we are there is always a chance something like this can happen. It probably wont, in fact most people get to go their whole life with out something like this happening to them. But every time you let your baby out the door there is a chance they wont come home. Thank god it didn't happen here. My mom's gonna lose it when she hears about this.

I need to think about something else now.

I thought all of that in about a minute. Then I talked to my mom on the phone until she stopped crying,after that I played with my nephew until it was his bedtime. Personally I think it needs to be easier and cheaper in America for people with mental issues to get help. After that I think it should be harder to purchase a gun. That's it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Still, Americans literally have 10 times the amount of shooting fatalities as we do and thats based on an equal person to person ratio.

This is a false argument. You're comparing gun murders to gun murders, when you should be comparing total murder rates, which are not nearly as different as you would like them to be. Of course if they have access to guns then the rate of gun murders will be higher. Just like if you outlaw everything except screwdrivers, the rate of murders with screwdrivers would rise.

Look at Australia. Did the outlawing of guns change their level of assaults and murders at all? First their murder/assault rate climbed and then it lowered, and its basically been completely awash and hovering around the same rate pretty gun ban. Yeah shooting incidents have gone down, but for every person not shot someone else is being stabbed or poisoned or run over with a car.

Is there something I'm missing? Is it somehow more tragic when someone is shot to death rather than being stabbed to death?

I've researched this topic quite a bit, looking at every country I could find with statistics, with a completely open mind. I research using NGOs and organizations with good track records for nonbias, like the UN strategic small arms survey on civilian populations. I'm a pacifist and have absolutely no personal stake in the debate. I have never owned a gun, and barring reality changing, I never will. There is absolutely nothing tying gun control, types or numbers of guns. to changes in murder rates. Russia has few guns and a high murder rate. Switzerland has a lot of guns and a low murder rate. Iraq has a mid level of guns and an extremely high murder rate. Australia has essentially no guns and a rate close to that of the US.

The HDI is the human development index and its essentially a measure of a variety of things like education levels, wealth disparity, poverty, economic success.

You're taking a reactionary stance based on the first thing you have seen and it has nothing to do with the issue. I'm sorry to say and sad to report that in all my research the only trends between murder rates between countries are racial & religious homogeneity, and public perceptions of poverty especially to do with wealth disparity. That why countries with socialist governments to reduce wealth disparity, with people who look the same and have the same world views, countries like Finland, have almost no murders. Whereas countries that are comprised of tons of races, tons of religions, and have a rising wealth disparity problems have much higher murder rates.

My point is, your freedom to earn guns DOES cost you lives including 18 of your children that would of grown up and raised families and would of gotten jobs in YOUR country. If they were born somewhere else they would of been safe, but instead they were born in America where any idiot can own a gun and endager them. Instead they are just another statistic to American gun fatalities. Your country is dangerous and no place to raise children.

So you're basically an anti-US bigot who refuses to come to grips with the most obvious of facts.

There are 35,000,000 kids in elementary schools in the united states. 18 students dead is .0000005% of all those kids.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

Go play real lives sometime. http://www.educationalsimulations.com/index.php

If those kids were born somewhere else the chance is a lot fucking higher that they will be dead from something that's nothing to a kid in the US, something like diarrhea. And if they aren't dead they will have throat goiters from malnutrition. They will have tons of treatable diseases. They will be born up and live in slums in Delhi where there are no sewage systems. They will be born in China and live in cities where people have to wear masks to not get diseased. They will be born in Malaysia and forcibly recruited into an army in order to gun down monks who are speaking up against the administration. They will be born in the Congo and forced as a child to mine Coltan so that you can have a cellphone. So that you can have the internet, so that you can write posts about how the US is such a terrible place for children because of insignificant statistics you have blown out of proportion.

 

[worldruler8]

There are 50,000,000 kids in elementary schools in the united states. 18 students dead is .00000036% of all those kids.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

First I'd like to congratulate you on your data. It's interesting how much of an outlier the US is. Anyhow, I'd like to correct your post. You said the population of kids in the US in elementary school is 50 million. In your own link, it says that the number in elementary school is something more like 35.9 million. Regardless, a public school is probably the safest place for a child to be.

OP:The travesty with this event is where it happened, and how it happened, was so much of an outlier that we could not have predicted this would have happened. This wasn't a gang crime that has become a fact of life, this was an event that occured in a state with strict laws with guns, and the guns were obtained illegally by the perpetrator. We could have done nothing to have prevented this, without some sort of magic wand to obliterate all guns. Which is what makes this event so frustrating, it was a perfect storm of every cog being in the right place. It should not have happened, but sadly these sorts of things cannot be prevented. They can only be deterred.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

There are 50,000,000 kids in elementary schools in the united states. 18 students dead is .00000036% of all those kids.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

First I'd like to congratulate you on your data. It's interesting how much of an outlier the US is. Anyhow, I'd like to correct your post. You said the population of kids in the US in elementary school is 50 million. In your own link, it says that the number in elementary school is something more like 35.9 million. Regardless, a public school is probably the safest place for a child to be.

Thanks, fixing it now. I was using the data for elementary and secondary schools combined.

 

[Gamer_Fries]

American here

I'd like to start out by saying this is awful and no matter how many happen it will always be awful when something like this happens. While gun better national gun laws could possible be a good thing it well never stop things like this from happening, if someone wants to kill a person badly enough they will try their hardest to do it. And while many countries have stricter gun laws and have not had as many "large sprees" you're countries have still had crazy attacks just with different weaponry. Murder will always be something that happens the most we can do is learn how to prevent it and learn how to cope and react with such events.

 

[Olas]

Who the hell made this?
You expect us to take a graph seriously when it crowds 75% of the countries onto the very very left side and then doesn't even label most of them?

Where on this graph are the developed nations? Where's Germany? Italy? Spain? The UK? Canada? My guess? Probably somewhere in that red circle I drew.
It's not exactly news that impoverished countries like Honduras and El Salvador have higher murder rates than the United States. To get an accurate understanding of the effect of guns we have to compare countries that are relatively similar in terms of economic and social prosperity, otherwise your results will be clouded with other variables unrelated to gun violence, such as wars and internal violence over resources.

[a href=http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-march-2012/trends-in-crime--a-short-story.html#tab-How-do-trends-in-violent-crime-compare-with-other-countries-]Source[/a]

Of course this chart leaves out Mexico which has 3x the murder rate of the United States, but this is due to drug wars being waged in the country and not ordinary crime, therefore it's best we not include it. We all know the homicide rate in the United States is disproportionately high for a country of it's status. Of course other variables factor into it as well, but to say there isn't a correlation between guns and gun related homicide is just stupid.

Still, Americans literally have 10 times the amount of shooting fatalities as we do and thats based on an equal person to person ratio.

This is a false argument. You're comparing gun murders to gun murders, when you should be comparing total murder rates, which are not nearly as different as you would like them to be. Of course if they have access to guns then the rate of gun murders will be higher. Just like if you outlaw everything except screwdrivers, the rate of murders with screwdrivers would rise.

Evidence?
Somehow I don't see mass 22 person killing sprees being carried out with screwdrivers.

 

[Meight08]

Dutch here,
I find it very disturbing how some Americans defend their assault rifles like wild animals protecting their meat before the blood has even dried on the carpet.
But then again this is america we are talking about and I've ceased to be surprised about the crap coming from there.

 

[Ryotknife]

Of course this chart leaves out Mexico which has 3x the murder rate of the United States, but this is due to drug wars being waged in the country and not ordinary crime, therefore it's best we not include it. We all know the homicide rate in the United States is disproportionately high for a country of it's status. Of course other variables factor into it as well, but to say there isn't a correlation between guns and gun related homicide is just stupid.

Then can you explain why most of the dangerous cities in the US are in states with strict gun control laws?

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100dangerous/

 

[Athinira]

As an American, this is easily one of the most logical responses to an event like this from a European.

My security knowledge is based on readings from a variety of security experts, but one i read a lot (including his monthly newsletter) is american security expert Bruce Schneier

He wrote a very good article [http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/05/securitymatters_0517] back in 2007 on the Virginia Tech Shootings. The article isn't so much about how to deal with school shootings, but about how we overreact to it and how we - as humans - fail at risk assessment in the 21st century.

Spoiler: Good ending quote from the article here

our brains need to find someone or something to blame. (Jon Stewart has an excellent bit on the Virginia Tech scapegoat search, and media coverage in general.) But sometimes there is no scapegoat to be found; sometimes we did everything right, but just got unlucky. We simply can't prevent a lone nutcase from shooting people at random; there's no security measure that would work.
As circular as it sounds, rare events are rare primarily because they don't occur very often, and not because of any preventive security measures. And implementing security measures to make these rare events even rarer is like the joke about the guy who stomps around his house to keep the elephants away.

"Elephants? There are no elephants in this neighborhood," says a neighbor.

"See how well it works!"

If you want to do something that makes security sense, figure out what's common among a bunch of rare events, and concentrate your countermeasures there. Focus on the general risk of terrorism, and not the specific threat of airplane bombings using liquid explosives. Focus on the general risk of troubled young adults, and not the specific threat of a lone gunman wandering around a college campus. Ignore the movie-plot threats, and concentrate on the real risks.

 

[solemnwar]

Of course this chart leaves out Mexico which has 3x the murder rate of the United States, but this is due to drug wars being waged in the country and not ordinary crime, therefore it's best we not include it. We all know the homicide rate in the United States is disproportionately high for a country of it's status. Of course other variables factor into it as well, but to say there isn't a correlation between guns and gun related homicide is just stupid.

Then can you explain why most of the dangerous cities in the US are in states with strict gun control laws?

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100dangerous/

The strict gun control laws are probably a symptom. The cities are dangerous, therefore strict gun control laws. Sort of "Oh jesus christ everyone's dying maybe if we tighten up gun laws they'll die less."

It has more to do with the communities living in an area. For example, where I live, Canada. Strict gun control laws. My city often charts as the murder capital of canada. This is not because of the strict gun control laws. It's because we have a very large, impoverished native population. Most places in Canada with high crime rates are (it's a problem that we're really not addressing properly).

I don't know, I'm not well learned in these things, just food for thought maybe?


OT: I think that America needs longer waiting periods and stricter requirements, on how you store your weapons, make them harder to just grab at. Also, better social services.

 

[dexxyoto]

How is this news? THis happens all the time in the states. It is das but even Oboma has made it easyer to get guns, use guns and kill inicent things.