Poll: Is there a solution to mass shootings?

[Saucycarpdog]

With the colorado shooting, everyone is at it again with the blame game. The parents of the killer, video games, violent movies, guns, mental illness, and many other things are on the blame list. People target these things and then propose solutions. For example, stricter gun laws, more focuse on mental illness, or less violence in media.

But I want to see the opinion of the escapists. Is there a solution to mass shootings or is it something that will always happen?

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Hmm, maybe some tighter security in places with a lot of popularity, such as a movie theatre. Beyond something like that, I don't see much of a solution besides disciplining the person(s) who committed the action and moving on.

 

[tippy2k2]

Unless we decide to go all 1984 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Surveillance] on the population, there is no way that you are going to stop EVERY nutter butter who decides that the best way to deal with their pathetic life is to pick up a weapon and spray down a group of people.

If we eliminate every gun through magic: They'll use explosives
If we eliminate every chemical that can create explosives: They'll use knifes
If we eliminate every sharp object: They'll beat people with thick objects
If we eliminate every thick object: They'll bite and scratch

Basically, we would either need 1984-esque "video camera always watching you" or possibly "Minority Report"-esque psychic powers to completely eliminate mass killings.

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I know a lot of people will argue "More security obviously!" but who's going to pay for all this? You'll need a bunch of them since if you only have one armed guard at a movie theater, the bad guy will just gun him down first. So now we need to pay multiple people.

Now you have multiple guards but what are they carrying? Bad guy comes in with armor, those guards 9mm will do nothing to our bad guy short of a lucky shot.

Will these guys be trained? Be pretty easy for the rent-a-cop to do something stupid and get someone shot (or in the rare case of an actual shooting; be pretty easy to hit by-standers in the smoke-filled theater). So now we need to pay extra to make sure that the guards isn't just some cop-dropout with a power trip.

At the rate we're going, we're looking at $30 movie tickets to pay for all this stuff to protect us from something that is so terribly unlikely.

 

[Cabisco]

There is always the chance it will happen but gun control, more laws and tighter security will make it less likely.

But none of that can really happen in the USA from what I gather (I'm British) as each suggestion is shouted down by cries of freedom and the constitution. So I think it's a horrible price you have to pay in order to live by those freedoms you choose, I wonder what the hypothetical limit is in which Americans would overwhelmingly support banning guns.

 

[LetalisK]

No, you can not "solve" mass shootings. The best you can hope for is to lower the incidence rate.

 

[Terminate421]

Background checks on people with guns.

Thats all we can do, its pretty hard to tell when someone has a pistol hidden in their boot or not. (Assuming they hid it right)

And NO gun control laws would NOT have stopped the Batman Shooting, at the end of the day, 70 something people would be injured and 14 people would be dead even with the fucking laws in place.

 

[Khazoth]

No, not unless you want to do some sort of Magneto-esque plan to do away with all humans. As long as people exists there will be a mentally unstable element in some humans. Even without mental instability there is religion, politics, misinformation, and other things. People will find a way to kill others if they are mentally disposed to do so.

It's going to happen, its just a matter of controlling it, and lessening the amount it happens. Gun control would certainly be the first step.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not as such, however there has got to be cultural influences which make them more likely, and those should be looked into.

 

[dunnace]

Kill everyone. That'd do it.

 

[FalloutJack]

YES: Mass stop-being-idiots-and-crazy-fucknuts.

Ask me again later about my brilliant solution to the recession and how to keep out of jail.

 

[cobra_ky]

no, you can't "solve" murder. what you can do is reduce the number of people that you can feasibly murder at once, by restricting magazine sizes and the kinds of weapons that are made available to civilians.

 

[Ryotknife]

There is always the chance it will happen but gun control, more laws and tighter security will make it less likely.

But none of that can really happen in the USA from what I gather (I'm British) as each suggestion is shouted down by cries of freedom and the constitution. So I think it's a horrible price you have to pay in order to live by those freedoms you choose, I wonder what the hypothetical limit is in which Americans would overwhelmingly support banning guns.

here are some pre-requisites before banning guns can even be remotely considered:

-The Cartels will have to magically vanish into thin air
-a giant 20 foot concrete wall along the borders of both Canada and Mexico with heavy armaments
-institute a massive draft in order to man such walls
-have a fairy give us a few trillion dollars to fund such a project.
-pull our entire Navy back to defend our waters
-force people from their homes in rural and country areas and move them into cities

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

There is a very simple solution.

Kill everybody!

If everybody is dead, nobody can be shot and die in a mass shooting!

 

[J Tyran]

There is no solution to stopping all of them, or even most of them. Making it a bit harder for nutters to be able to own guns legally might reduce them a little bit. In nations with poor gun control stricter laws about the ability to buy and own guns would help to keep them out of the hands of some of the nutters, in countries that have more sensible fire arm legislation better enforcement of the existing laws would also keep some nutters from getting their hands on guns.

There is no way to stop it from happening though. I wonder why this started in the first place though? Mass shootings have been around ever since guns and crime became connected but they where usually purposeful, like a gang killing several members of another gang at the same time (like the Valentines day massacre) or in terrorist acts. The senseless shooting of innocent people for no real reason seems to be something that started in recent decades though.

 

[kommando367]

Metal detectors. Put them in important or highly populated places if they aren't already there. That, and don't give assault weapons to crazy people.

 

[fulano]

In the case of the U.S. the most one can do is admit that there is an actual serious problem and see how to go about addressing it. For that one would need better mental health care and some good measure of gun control in the country with the most guns per capita on the planet (with Yemen a far, far second). Those measure will not stop the madness from happening in plenty of instances, but they would seriously put a dent on the damage done on a civillian population in the long run.

For a curious argument about gun control, fast forward to 1:37 of the video, or watch the entirety of it to see how Bill O'Reilly goes full schizoid, tearing into gun control and then making an argument for gun control--as in: the government taking actual measures when it comes to how guns should be handled--that does make actual good sense, for full hilarious effect.

But, sadly, given that the U.S. is chock full of all kinds of monetary interests like healthcare HMOs and gun manufacturers that pay for lobbyists and politicians this is not likely to even come close to becoming a reality any time soon. Now, add to that the extremely noisy, but nevertheless quite widespread, stupid perception that Americans are a bunch of inept morons intellectually incapable of ever being able to get past those issues or being even capable of enacting efficient reforms, you are likely to be dealing with a very rarefied place to have a serious discourse about these things--all the while, someone is making a good, comfortable buck.

People will just have to deal with this.

 

[chadachada123]

Edit: False post, wrong thread. I do wish there was a 'delete' button.

 

[fulano]

Not without recognizing the Inner Party's control over the Ministry of Truth, no.

Slight rant time: Part of the solution involves not allowing for gun-free zones. (Pretty much) Every. Single. Mass. Shooting. Ever. Has happened. In a 'Gun-free' zone. No mass shootings ever happen in areas where civilians are allowed to be armed. No mass shooting has ever happened in a shooting range. The mere fact that guns are not allowed in schools and colleges makes it a prime target for people that want to kill as many people as possible. This is particularly (or perhaps solely) true in the United States, which has a massive number of illegal gun carriers that other countries simply don't have to deal with.

The sole exception is the military shooter that killed several others at a fort, though even there there was no one armed nearby to stop him until he had already killed a good number of people.

End rant.

That just seems weird to me. Of course, you are arguing in favor of deterrence and, yet, your argument seems rather incomplete to me.

I believe people should have the right to have access of their guns if they want to-no need to get in the way of that-but steps should be taken to prevent nutjobs from getting their mitts on them so easily. Bill O'Reilly, in his own insane way, made an actual argument for a sensible form of gun control b/c, in a way, he recognizes that getting guns in the U.S. is just too damned easy.