Poll: Is there a solution to mass shootings?

[Spartanmk1]

The three worst mass killings committed in the US were committed without a gun.

One was in a school and two were in Office buildings.

1927 Bath Massacre [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster] was committed by a man who had his farm forclosed on. So he took 500 pounds of TNT and blew up a school. To this day, this remains the worst school killing in US history. Killed 38 people, many of which were children.

1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing] Committed with 4800 pounds of Ammonium Nitrate, or Fertilizer. 168 (169 possibly) people died.

September 11th attacks [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks]. Technically committed with Box Cutters. 2996 people were killed total.



Now lets look at gun related massacres.

Columbine [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre] 21 people
Virginia Tech [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre] 23 people
Aurora Theater Massacre [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_massacre] 12 people


Seems to me, guns are inefficient for committing mass killings. Even Anders Behring Breivik only managed to kill 77 people, and he was the only citizen armed anywhere. No one could have stopped him even if they wanted to.


What do all of these gun related massacres have in common? All occurred in "Gun Free Zones." Because people who wish to do harm totally listen to a sign telling them they can't come in with a gun.

Know what's funny? The US government have massacred more people then those "Horrible Massacres." Yet we don't pay attention to those massacres because the people killed were horrible people who were going to destroy the world.

FYI: The Waco Siege killed 82 Men, women, and Children. To this day, no one knows who fired first, and a few FBI agents have gone back and forth on that subject. In the end, 82 people died, and they were not really doing anything illegal.



SO tell me, how exactly does taking away the rights of the people, when our own government has shown a history of killing people en mass, make sense?

Sure, there are insane people that come up from time to time, but it's not an often event.

At each of those incidents of Gun massacres I listed, one person carrying a weapon could have stopped it.

Also, James Holmes did not have an automatic weapon. He had a Smith and Wesson M&P 15. Which is an AR-15 like rifle. He had one 100round Beta mag, which in fact jammed. It was not an automatic weapon like the media claims it to be.

 

[tsb247]

people may use the thing for hunting but its designed from the outset to be a military weapon whose primary purpose is to kill human beings.

the only difference between an AR-15 and the first model m-16s were the markings.

you can use semantics all you want but its still an assault rifle despite dodgy us laws

So I suppose that we can use that logic to say that since people have been killing other people with blades and blunt objects for thousands of years then we should restrict kitchen knives and baseball bats.

The person behind the rifle determines its purpose - NOT the shape or mechanics of the rifle itself.

 

[tsb247]

Also, James Holmes did not have an automatic weapon. He had a Smith and Wesson M&P 15. Which is an AR-15 like rifle. He had one 100round Beta mag, which in fact jammed. It was not an automatic weapon like the media claims it to be.

And to my knowledge, he did not have, "Body armor," either, but rather he was simply wearing a black tac-vest. Apparently, those who wear tactical vests are evil as well.

Gotta love the media, right? :/

Beta mags, while cool, are generally useless for that reason. They are expensive, heavy, and they jam. Most people who shoot ARs (that I know of) generally don't bother with them. I know I don't. They just aren't worth it. I'll stick with 30rnd and 10rnd mags.

 

[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

That's ironic given that tens of thousands of guns are stopped from being smuggled into Canada from the states each year. Very, very ironic.

also funny considering the amount of drugs being smuggled into the US from Canada

very very funny. Listen, i dont want to turn this into a canada vs US because i like canadians. Suffice to say that if we banned guns and DIDNT lock down the canadian border, it would be easy for contraband to get in from that direction.

actually it amazes me that you would even find those weapons if they truly do exist. Every single visit ive had to canada (which is a lot) basically comes down to the same thing when i cross over into canada.

"what is the purpose of your visit?

"to spend money"

"welcome to canada!"

meanwhile when i cross back into the US it feels like im in an interrogation room.

 

[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

That's ironic given that tens of thousands of guns are stopped from being smuggled into Canada from the states each year. Very, very ironic.

also funny considering the amount of drugs being smuggled into the US from Canada

very very funny. Listen, i dont want to turn this into a canada vs US because i like canadians. Suffice to say that if we banned guns and DIDNT lock down the canadian border, it would be easy for contraband to get in from that direction.

Yeah but you don't see Marijuana being used to murder 12 people in a theatre.

You're also assuming that if the US took such drastic actions with thier gun laws that the Canadian government would not likewise follow suit with similar measures of their own.


I don't even know why this is being discussed anyway. There's a prevailing attitude amongst pro-gun advocates on this board, the first is to read "gun control" as "banning guns" when the two are not the same thing. There are different degrees of gun control.

The second is the farsical attitude of "oh well, if this guy didn't have a gun he would've just killed them in some other fashion anyway".

People should not enter into a discussion if they are not prepared to change their minds. Which is why I should quit reading these threads.

beeeecause a lot of people in this thread (especially the british/australian kind....) are suggesting banning guns. Stricter gun laws is one thing (which am i not opposed to), but even that is tempered by the knowledge that liberals will push for more and more gun laws until they are eventually banned.

So even if the pro-gun people WANTED tighter gun control laws, they could not endorse it as the other side would use such a sentiment to further their own agenda or use it as a precedent to implement more and more gun control. If we had level headed MODERATE people on both sides of the aisle, that is one situation. But lately our government is in the hands of fanatics from both aisles (although the republicans fired the first shot that caused that situation).

In video game terms, it is kinda like that issue with Bethesda and the "scrolls" name issue from a few months ago. Bethesda did not particularly care if another company used the name of scrolls, but they were forced to defend the position.

 

[Zetatrain]

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.

Actually no, no that's just incorrect. He used an assault rifle. If he only had pistols, there is no way in hell he would have gunned down that many people. Ban long guns and Americans can still have their precious "protection" but won't have (easy) access to the much more powerful Assault rifles, Sniper rifles, etc. Yes, people would still have been shot, yes people still would have been injured. But to propose that banning long guns wouldn't have helped at all is plain, old fashioned ignorance. Keep in mind, he got all of his guns through legal means.

Captcha: Funny Farm
Yes, this post was a barrel of laughs indeed!

If your suggesting that he able to kill as many people as he did because he used a fully automatic weapon then chances are you're wrong. He used an AR-15 and while it is an assault rifle, I believe you can only buy a semi-auto version legally in the USA. While an assault rifle is more powerful, in situations like the Aurora shootings (close range), chances are the extra power that an assault rifle round provides is detrimental. The velocity of assault rifle caliber rounds would have most likely caused them to go through the victims at close range, while pistol caliber rounds would have stayed lounged in the victims. A round lounged in a person is worse because then comes the complication of removing that fragments which continue to do harm until removed.

I should also note that in shootings such as the Columbine and the Virginia Tech Massacres, no assault rifles were used. Columbine had 13 victims(not including the shooters) and the shooters used shotguns and pistols. Virginia Tech had about 32 victims and the shooter used only two pistols. The Norway massacre shooter killed 70 with a glock (pistol) and a semi automatic rifle (Ruger Mini-14). The Ruger mini-14 uses .223 Remington which can be used for hunting (though not deer). Based on accounts it seems like he killed most of his victims at close range as well. Saying that the Aurora shooter would not have been able to kill as many people as he did without an assault rifle is flawed to say the least.

Now granted according news sources, the Aurora shooter's AR-15 jammed and some are saying that this saved lived. However, apparently he had a shotgun and a pistol as well so whether or not his AR-15 jamming had an effect on the number of victims is debatable.

My point is that banning assault rifles to prevent situations like the Aurora shooting is not going to do anything. The reason being is because the extra firepower they provide will count for next to nothing at close range when compared to pistols or shotgun. Now while I agree that fully automatic weapons should be restricted if not outright banned, that is not the case here since chances are the AR-15 the guy used was a semi-automatic variant.

It should also be noted that most gun related deaths in the US involve hand guns. The reason being is because they are easier to conceal. If anything banning pistols would be more effective than banning assault rifles if you wanted to decrease gun related deaths (though there's no grantee doing either would yield results).

 

[lacktheknack]

To everyone who selected the "Batman" poll option: You are terrible.

OT: No. You cannot stop mass shootings without uninventing guns.

Then they'll use knives.

 

[lunavixen]

It's no good tightening the gun control laws, criminals won't follow the law anyway, besides there is always a black market for this stuff, there probably always will be. American laws have been too free on gun control from the get go.

For those who are saying that "if someone in the crowd had a gun, the death toll would be lower"... b******t, if someone in the crowd had a gun and had fired it, it would have made the situation worse, remember the phrase 'violence begets violence'? It's true. Besides, this guy was wearing body armour, most small caliber bullets can't get through Kevlar outside of a very lucky shot, besides, the theater was dark, try aiming in that.

There are very few feasible methods that could be implemented to stop mass killings, and most of them result in a reduction of freedoms. The best we can do at the moment is try and mitigate the incidences of violent crimes involving guns.

 

[Baalthazaq]

"No" is the most popular answer.
"No" is entirely equivalent to saying "Our laws are perfect, our people are the problem".
And your people commit mass shootings at a rate 43 times higher than the rest of the world.

What sort of problem, and this is entirely on topic, and a valid question to anyone who answered no; What sort of problem do your people possess that you think makes you 40 odd times worse than everyone else?

Remember, it has nothing to do with how you've set up the laws. No matter what you do with guns, it'll always be the same. America will always, always, just have to be the worst at shooting up schools and other public places, and other countries will always be ok with it no matter how much you flood the markets with guns.

Nothing to do with guns [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country], or gun culture. Nothing to do with the correlations [http://www.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/07/20/gun-violence/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage_0.img.503.jpg/1342791220360.cached.jpg], they're just not causation.

There should be no curtailing of guns whatsoever, for any reason, because any mention of gun control, be it background checks for psychos, criminals, and terrorists [http://thehill.com/homenews/house/161037-judiciary-republicans-kill-bill-blocking-gun-sales-to-suspected-terrorists], is exactly the same as a complete gun ban. A complete gun ban which nearly every Republican says every Democrat wants, whilst even the biggest gun campaigners in the US like Brady are pushing for background checks and renewing the assault weapons ban.

There is no middle ground. Either you let certified crazy terrorists with criminal backgrounds on schools grounds with assault weapons, or you're the fuhrer reincarnated.

After all, it's about freedom. 14 states stop ex-felons from voting, and that's more acceptable to people than taking away their gun rights.

Remember, your laws and culture aren't ingraining people with the idea that a gun is a more important tool to enfranchise you than your vote. People in America are just worse people. It's the only option left. Apparently.

I on the other hand, voted yes. Though I'm sure you guys know best.

 

[Slayer_2]

Funny enough, you can actually address issues of vehicle safety without everyone coming down on you. And at least people are actually trying. It's nice to try and equate the two, but it doesn't play out very well.

Instead, with firearms, we've tried almost nothing and just saying "eh, whatcha gonna do?"

Yet 93 people still die every day in the US from motor vehicles. Until we get AI controlled vehicles, or lose all personal transport, I don't see that number taking a serious reduction any time soon. "Ohhh, but cars are a CRITICAL part of life in America". And so are guns, apparently. A few hundred people's lives is worth having access to firearms, just like losing 33,000+ people annually is a fair price to have cars.

When did I try to equate the two? I simply stated that most Americans probably have no clue how much more likely it is to die from a car crash than it is from a random crazy fucker. Media-ignited and spread fear is a much more attractive option than logic. And only one of those types of death is really preventable. Instead of reasoning things out, they freak out about gun control and how this could have been stopped, and who is to blame. Wake up call, it couldn't have been prevented, unless you keep everyone in straightjackets.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

A complete and total end to granting the perpetrator infamy and notoriety would be a good starting point; the primary reason people do this is for attention. Giving it to them justifies their actions and shows the next guy that he too can get himself a catchy nickname and the scorn of all that lives, and all he has to do is shoot up that preschool he walks past every day.

Follow that up with execution by gunfire for any and all guilty of the crime, with no hope of appeal or redemption, and you've weeded out pretty much anyone that could even come close to thinking of such a thing, at least in first-world countries. There are always those one or two people who were legitimately crazy and didn't know what they were doing, but at least they won't be shooting anyone else now.

Hey, you asked how to stop it, not what was morally sound.

Outside of first-world countries, they tend to think they're doing it for god or a higher cause, and those people tend to be much more dangerous, because unlike the people who do it here, they think that no matter what you do to them or what you deny them, they're going to be rewarded once they've been knocked off. They do largely prey off of fear and infamy, though, so cutting off the attention they crave will still stifle some of them, and others will fear the quick and nonchalant punishment for the crime, so it'd still prune that particular hedge a good ways.

 

[Funkysandwich]

"No" is the most popular answer.
"No" is entirely equivalent to saying "Our laws are perfect, our people are the problem".
And your people commit mass shootings at a rate 43 times higher than the rest of the world.

What sort of problem, and this is entirely on topic, and a valid question to anyone who answered no; What sort of problem do your people possess that you think makes you 40 odd times worse than everyone else?

Remember, it has nothing to do with how you've set up the laws. No matter what you do with guns, it'll always be the same. America will always, always, just have to be the worst at shooting up schools and other public places, and other countries will always be ok with it no matter how much you flood the markets with guns.

Nothing to do with guns [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country], or gun culture. Nothing to do with the correlations [http://www.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/07/20/gun-violence/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage_0.img.503.jpg/1342791220360.cached.jpg], they're just not causation.

There should be no curtailing of guns whatsoever, for any reason, because any mention of gun control, be it background checks for psychos, criminals, and terrorists [http://thehill.com/homenews/house/161037-judiciary-republicans-kill-bill-blocking-gun-sales-to-suspected-terrorists], is exactly the same as a complete gun ban. A complete gun ban which nearly every Republican says every Democrat wants, whilst even the biggest gun campaigners in the US like Brady are pushing for background checks and renewing the assault weapons ban.

There is no middle ground. Either you let certified crazy terrorists with criminal backgrounds on schools grounds with assault weapons, or you're the fuhrer reincarnated.

After all, it's about freedom. 14 states stop ex-felons from voting, and that's more acceptable to people than taking away their gun rights.

Remember, your laws and culture aren't ingraining people with the idea that a gun is a more important tool to enfranchise you than your vote. People in America are just worse people. It's the only option left. Apparently.

I on the other hand, voted yes. Though I'm sure you guys know best.

Man, you said everything I wanted to say, better then I could ever say it.

 

[Moromillas]

I see some dancing around the obvious solution, while everyone else is talking about guns or security for some reason.

Yes, yes there IS a way to end these awful shootings, but no one seems to like the solution that much. Every single member of the human race, needs to die -- and I do mean everyone. It's not what killing tools man can make, man is my design, a warlike race. What? We're not? There's another war 10 or 15 odd years after the last one ends, it's been like this the whole time, it's not going to change. Man was picking up sticks and stones to kill each other with long before the convenience that is guns and bombs.

 

[A.A.K]

No.
and there is nothing you can do to avoid it. What so ever.
You could remove every firearm in the country from civilians - and people will still get their hands on them.

People need to get used to the fact that VIOLENCE - WILL - HAPPEN.

 

[The Rockerfly]

In the UK we just don't have guns and the murder rate from guns is stupidly low. However I do recognise that banning guns in the USA is a laughable idea. There's too much history with guns and too much culture ingrained into the people to ever take away the guns.

Instead we have a knife culture. Therefore all we need to do is change human nature

 

[Sectan]

Quick comment/question on the whole gun control thing. Doesn't Mexico have really strict gun control laws?

 

[Signa]

Seems to me the only way to stop things like the Batman shootings is to just instil a sense of vigilance for everyone to watch their silent neighbors.