Poll: Is there a solution to mass shootings?

[userwhoquitthesite]

Of course there is a solution. There are several.
Here's one:
everyone has a gun. you can't kill everyone in a room someone shoots back and kills you first.
Here's another:
Use magic to get rid of all guns, and the knowledge of how to make guns. Then no one can be shot, ever.
and one more:
Advance science to the point we can predict the outcomes and behaviors of people in utero. Then fix or abort the ones who will shoot up the place. Of course, some of you out there may know the only flaw in that plan, send me a PM if you know how to survive that ship

 

[Dalisclock]

Background checks on people with guns.

Well, it's been standard that every retail gun purchase for the past 15 or so years be preceded by a background check. Now private sales are not subject to this but unless someone has been buying nothing but secondhand guns for the last decade or so I would imagine most gun owners have been checked as least once.

 

[Slayer_2]

Also somewhat ironically, with all the gun control debates, I think that if there had been a few armed people in the theater, the toll might not have been so bad. The anti-gun brigade loves to say "oh, that would have been worse, the armed civilians would have just unloaded into the crowd". Sure, because even in a moment of terror, your first reflex is to fire into a crowd of fleeing teenagers and kids. Imagine lying between seats, you can see the gunman reloading his rifle. If you had a handgun, you could potentially get the courage to peek out and take a shot at him. Without a gun, you're stuck lying there praying to whatever deity you may believe in that you aren't next.

Oh no, I would not go to a theatre where guns were allowed inside. We have enough killings in theatres already from people sneaking guns or other weapons inside. I've seen food and drinks thrown at rude people, and I've also seen a few fistfights break out inside a theatre, because someone would not shut up.

In a high-stress place with a high concentration of stressed-out people, the last thing I would want is for more of those people to be armed, even if it would improve their ability to fight back in the instance of a crazed mass-murderer walking in. Mass-killings would drop, but individual killings would fly through the roof.

Aren't guns allowed inside in most US states? Fistfights is one thing (and pretty hard to believe), but I doubt it'd escalate to a shooting.

 

[Slayer_2]

I agree with the first part of your post. There's a culture of paranoia which has extremely affected the decision making process of a lot of people. If I'm not wrong that's why the U.S went to war with Iraq in the first place, no?

Slightly disagree with the second part. If someone had a gun and managed to shoot the perpetrator,I wouldn't be complaining. Nobody would. However he would have to bring a gun into the movie theater.

Guns tend to misfire. It's pretty much Gun use 101. They're not safe and you have to be very very very very very (I can't repeat it enough) careful around multiple people. There have been several cases where someone who didn't properly put the safety accidentally shot someone. (Or even with the safety on). You don't allow guns in public areas because guns are dangerous things. Someone already said that human beings are stupid.

Then there's the flip side of the scenario where everyone starts shooting at the gunman. It was dark and no one really knew was going on. Unless everyone who carries a gun is an ex-soldier used to be under duress, some people might panic and shoot each other. It happens.

The point is moot though, since people are dead.

OP: Some people are crazy. Stricter gun control would make the crazies fall on weapons capable killing of less people in a short amount of time. Did you hear of the man who went on a rampage with a knife in New York? Imagine he had a gun.

But Holmes planned everything. The real prepared crazies won't be stopped unless every gun or weapon is destroyed, which is really unlikely.

There is a culture of paranoia, which has been encouraged by the media and leadership. For similar reasons: money and power. Such is life.

As for gun safety, yes guns can misfire. But almost all of the time, this happens when it is drawn and in someone's hand. The only reason I could see a (normal) person drawing their weapon, is in a time of crisis. In which case, you'd hope the gun is aimed at the ground or the criminal. And their finger is off the trigger until the moment they want to shoot.

Either way, these gun control debates are pretty stupid. Unless you can get rid of EVERY gun, you can't stop much. A determined man can kill unarmed civvies just as well with a bolt-action .22 cal. In fact, an untrained person with a fully automatic weapon is going to miss a hell of a lot, where as a trained hunter with a semi-automatic will land a lot more hits. So unless you have a magic device that can delete every gun from existence, save the speech please.

 

[malestrithe]

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.

Who says it has to be the theater owner that does it? Who says it has to be security guards that does it? Why not increase funding for law enforcement and let them do it?

 

[Ryotknife]

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.

------------------------------
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.

Japan has less then a dozen gun deaths a year, and thats due to good gun control, and you don't see them resulting in explosives, so your argument is invalid.

Japan is completely different from us in almost every single way, so your argument is completely invalid.

There is not a single country that has the same (or even similar) social, cultural, economic, geographical, and organized crime element as the US. I am not saying that in a "oh look at us such a pretty unique snowflake!" kind of way but in the "holy crap do we get the shaft in ways that most countries dont even have to deal with"

Japan has organized crime, but they are no where near as sadistic as the Cartels. Hell the organized crime in the US is not bad (talking mostly about the mafias, they probably more likely to attack with lawyers than with guns). But the Cartels that exist outside of our borders are animals that have no problems with crossing over lines most other organized crime syndicates hesitate to.

Hell Japan doesn't even have to worry about defending their country because we will do it for them.

 

[malestrithe]

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?

Yes, but nothing that any pro gun nut would go for:

Mandatory Firearms training. One time every 5 years, you must go take a course on firearms safety. It does not matter if you know it, or have been around guns all your life, everyone takes it. Law Enforcement would be exempt, as well as active military.

Restrict the purchase of firearms to one a month. No restrictions on bullets purchased, (as I don't want any pro gun nut to use that weaselly rebuttal to muddle the issue.)

In addition to a 3 day waiting periods, conduct the federal background check, and go from there. (Since most gun fatalities are crimes of passion, we want to make sure everyone is of sound mind when they get the firearm. Deal with it gun enthusiasts.)

Now no gun nut would for this because it sound like guvment taking away their guns, which it's not. But it is a knee jerk reaction to assume so.

 

[ElPatron]

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.

You restrict magazine sizes, people learn how to reload faster.


With all respect to this guy's skills, that wasn't even one of that fastest reloads around. Just check those I


I know it looks like he has an empty hand, but if you check his magazine pouch you can see he is actually pulling a mag from his belt.

 

[tippy2k2]

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.

Who says it has to be the theater owner that does it? Who says it has to be security guards that does it? Why not increase funding for law enforcement and let them do it?

Cops are even more expensive. You'd have to end up with a "cop on every street corner" kind of thing and the budgets for police departments are stretched already. To do something like that, SOMEONE has to pay for it (and if it is cops, it'd be tax payers) and these shootings (big picture) are so rare that is it really worth it? I realize that's easy to say when it's not my mother, father, brother, etc. who was just gunned down but really, these don't happen often.

Ultimately, all this protection has to be paid for by someone. Once we get robots to patrol, then we'll be good (but then we're playing right into Skynet's hands...)

 

[tippy2k2]

Japan has less then a dozen gun deaths a year, and thats due to good gun control, and you don't see them resulting in explosives, so your argument is invalid.

While @Ryotknife has already partially responded, I do have my own response.

At this point, the US is too far to just start banning guns (I'm jumping to conclusions here so this may not be what you want). I certainly agree that we should put restrictions on weapons like required background checks, waiting periods, required safety courses, etc. (and I personally think that these 100-shot ammo magazines should just plain be banned. If you need a 100 clip magazine to hunt with, you're doing it wrong). There are 9 guns for every 10 citizens in America (according to Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country]) and with so many already around, flat out banning guns will fail.

EDIT: Whoopsy, I edited the wrong quote. Sorry Ryotknife!

 

[zehydra]

yes, there are many solutions, but they all involve things which people disagree on as acceptable/unacceptable.

 

[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.

You restrict magazine sizes, people learn how to reload faster.


With all respect to this guy's skills, that wasn't even one of that fastest reloads around. Just check those I


I know it looks like he has an empty hand, but if you check his magazine pouch you can see he is actually pulling a mag from his belt.

I'm not sure how the "World's Fastest Reload" is at all relevant when we're mainly talking about disturbed college students and disgruntled office workers, not a military-trained champion marksman. Reloading quickly is a skill that requires practice. It's exceptionally difficult when you're actually aiming at moving people, instead of a stationary target 15 feet away. Not everybody is going to be able to do it, and that window is an opportunity to stop the shooter and save lives.

also, those are all handguns. how fast can you reload an AR-15?

 

[ElPatron]

also, those are all handguns. how fast can you reload an AR-15?

1 second and a few jiffies (give or take) but no ammunition inside it. Handguns are used by criminals because they are concealable. "Assault weapons" - such as the AR15 - are rarely used in criminal activities.

Look, you can spend an afternoon training and you can get the hand of it. You're not supposed to reload on the move because nobody reloads while out of cover unless you're some kind of High Speed Low Drag Operator. You're supposed to stay alive during combat, right?

Even if the criminals are too busy to spend an afternoon training their skills, they could just ask anyone to just extend the magazine. Magazines are a piece of metal with a spring and a follower in it. There is nothing stopping you from acquiring some sheets of metal and a new spring, welding the sheet to the magazine to extend it's capacity.

It will jam if the person doing it has no welding skills and chose the wrong spring, but the concept is there. People have created magazines for AR15s from frigging plastic on a 3D printer.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[cobra_ky]

also, those are all handguns. how fast can you reload an AR-15?

1 second and a few jiffies (give or take) but no ammunition inside it. Handguns are used by criminals because they are concealable. "Assault weapons" - such as the AR15 - are rarely used in criminal activities.

They were in Aurora.

Look, you can spend an afternoon training and you can get the hand of it. You're not supposed to reload on the move because nobody reloads while out of cover unless you're some kind of High Speed Low Drag Operator. You're supposed to stay alive during combat, right?

Mass shootings aren't a combat situation. Murderers don't need to reload behind cover because generally there isn't anyone shooting back.

Even if the criminals are too busy to spend an afternoon training their skills, they could just ask anyone to just extend the magazine. Magazines are a piece of metal with a spring and a follower in it. There is nothing stopping you from acquiring some sheets of metal and a new spring, welding the sheet to the magazine to extend it's capacity.

Anyone who'd be willing to extend a magazine, illegally, without asking questions. I'm sure there's people like that out there, but finding them would be a risk for any prospective shooter.

Or they could do it themselves, in which case...

It will jam if the person doing it has no welding skills and chose the wrong spring, but the concept is there. People have created magazines for AR15s from frigging plastic on a 3D printer.

Clearing a jam is an even better opportunity to stop a killer.

And hell, someone at work was telling me how to make homemade land mines yesterday. that doesn't mean it's feasible for most people to build them, nor does it mean there shouldn't be legal restrictions on land mine ownership.