Las Vegas Shooting

[blah the Prussian]

27 minutes ago, Lushen said:

It's not that America is not in the top countries for homicide.  It's that they're in the middle.  Yes European countries have lower rates of homicide but it's entirely possible that they have lower rates of motive for homicide.  The point was more to discredit the belief that how many of our homicides are because of guns is the relevant issue here.  If guns related to homicides were the issue than a country with the most privately owned guns in which 1/3 of the country owns a gun would have significantly higher rates of homicide than most other countries which is untrue.  

The point here, and I'm glad you brought it up, is the underlying cause of high/low homicide rates is NOT guns.  It's motive.  The Drug War, for example, is able to escalate homicide in these countries despite gun regulation.  The only way to prevent murder is to kill motive.  The only effect I can see from the abolishment of the 2nd amendment is more motive because 1/3 of the country will just get pissed off.

Here's another issue: this is measuring CASES of homocides, not death toll. Like, if you stab someone with a knife or if you shoot ten people its still one instance of homocide, correct me it I'm wrong. I don't ever recall any European truck attack approaching this number of casualties.

[Lushen]

13 minutes ago, The Geek said:

I think the big point is that you wouldn't see one guy killing over 50 people and injuring single handed if all he had was a knife.  This shit happens here because apparently we need our guns to keep the government from turning totalitarian (because you know that is totally the only thing preventing such a thing and that shotgun on your wall will definitely allow you to defeat a tank)

Yes.  But you also wouldn't see this man not kill 50 people if you had gun control.  Because the guns he had were already illegal.  So in this particular case the law says this should never have happened and it did.  Naturally, gun control folks are going to use this to talk as a case against guns, but there's currently no evidence that gun control laws would change a thing in this case.  There's certainty no evidence that the NRA's attempts to legalize silencers would have made this situation worse, people just like to politicize bad situations.  Especially in America in 2017 after the two extremely controversial presidents of totally opposite political standing.

2 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

Here's another issue: this is measuring CASES of homocides, not death toll. Like, if you stab someone with a knife or if you shoot ten people its still one instance of homocide, correct me it I'm wrong. I don't ever recall any European truck attack approaching this number of casualties.

Barcelona killed 14.  Which is a lot.  It may not be as much but it also doesn't require a multi-millionaire who can afford a thousand rounds of ammunition and have the means/money to smuggle it and over 10 guns around.  It just requires a semi truck for a few minutes.  If you want to go to large death tolls we can talk bombs and 9/11 which have nothing to do with guns either.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

9/11 was a one time occurrence.  Shootings like this happen far more often.  Far too often.  I'm sorry that the rest of us aren't satisfied with saying "shit happens" and hugging our guns for comfort.

[Lushen]

23 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

Here's another issue: this is measuring CASES of homocides, not death toll. Like, if you stab someone with a knife or if you shoot ten people its still one instance of homocide, correct me it I'm wrong. I don't ever recall any European truck attack approaching this number of casualties.

Actually I made a mistake, barcelona is not the biggest truck attack.  Trucks have killed more people than this particular attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_attack

@The GeekWhat legislature would have prevented this attack given the knowledge we have of it (which is basically none BTW).  GL.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

It's not just this situation.  As I said, these shootings happen all the time.  Maybe stricter regulations on guns won't stop all of them, but cutting down on some of them would be better than doing jack shit.

[Lushen]

28 minutes ago, The Geek said:

It's not just this situation.  As I said, these shootings happen all the time.  Maybe stricter regulations on guns won't stop all of them, but cutting down on some of them would be better than doing jack shit.

What if it doesn't?  There's no evidence that it will - this kind of ideology is why our gov't keeps dumping money into failed infrastructure and can't figure out why it's not working.  Doing something  about it doesn't always actually do something.  

An update to what I'm reading about Australia, it seems they only confiscated less than 1/3 of the guns through the buyback program.  Basic logic tells me that the people who sold their guns were the people less inclined to commit murder.  As for the sudden decrease in homicides, it seems their timeline matches up exactly with the oddity observed in the 1990s reduction in the US and some other countries.  I've read that sociologists are actually looking into why homicide reduced in the 90s in many different countries simultaneously and haven't come up with conclusive answer.   This is hearsay but I read someone say that the amount of guns in Australia are very close to the number of guns before the buy back program now despite the fact that homicide rates are still going down.

edit:  Yes, http://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/04/28/australia-s-gun-numbers-climb.html

This pretty much discredits the Australia argument because there are now more guns in Australia and crime has not escalated substantially.   Still not quite as many per capita but its getting there.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

We can talk what ifs all day.  The fact of the matter is that other first world countries don't have mass shootings all the time like we do.  I'm willing to bet that the reason for it is because they don't have a masturbatory gun culture.

I recognize that the concentration of gun nuts in this country would prevent a total ban on guns from ever being implemented (especially as that would require an amendment to the Constitution) and it would likely go down the same path as prohibition and the war on drugs, but I'd like to believe for just a second that we actually have the capacity as a country to stop getting ourselves killed.

[Lushen]

2 minutes ago, The Geek said:

We can talk what ifs all day.  The fact of the matter is that other first world countries don't have mass shootings all the time like we do. 

No they don't...much like America doesn't have massive homicides by truck.  We need to attack MOTIVE, not guns.

Any yea, the response by people in the South in particular to the gov't forcibly taking guns would likely incite more violence than if we leave guns alone.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we have far more shootings than Europe does terrorist attacks.

And good to know that Southerners are such fine, upstanding people.

[Time the Crestfallen]

30 minutes ago, Lushen said:

edit:  Yes, http://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2016/04/28/australia-s-gun-numbers-climb.html

This pretty much discredits the Australia argument because there are now more guns in Australia and crime has not escalated substantially.   Still not quite as many per capita but its getting there.

What kind of guns though? Weapons in Australia are sorted into categories with varying levels of restriction.

Here's a full list of prohibited items for the curious.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Magus of Flowers

[Lushen]

8 minutes ago, Magus of Flowers said:

What kind of guns though? Weapons in Australia are sorted into categories with varying levels of restriction.

Here's a full list of prohibited items for the curious.

Still...You can't really say the buyback program was effective and disarmament worked when all guns taken out of the populous (which were less than 1/3) have now been reintroduced and the trend continues to decline.  Also, apparently the trend downward seems to have started slightly prior to the buyback program.  The restrictions very well may have, but I don't see how the buy backs could have.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

Numbers don't lie.  The number of guns went down and so did the number of gun deaths.  Fancy that.

[Time the Crestfallen]

5 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Still...You can't really say the buyback program was effective and disarmament worked when all guns taken out of the populous (which were less than 1/3) have now been reintroduced and the trend continues to decline.  Also, apparently the trend downward seems to have started slightly prior to the buyback program.  The restrictions very well may have, but I don't see how the buy backs could have.

I don't think the guns taken out have been re-introduced. Rather, the guns that wouldn't have fitted the regulations were taken out of the hands of the populace and the number was filled in by people buying guns that do fit the regulations.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Magus of Flowers

[Lushen]

5 minutes ago, The Geek said:

Numbers don't lie.  The number of guns went down and so did the number of gun deaths.  Fancy that.

As I said before I don't care whether someone is stabbed, strangled, or gunned down - I care that someone was murdered.  If anything, guns are the most humane.  So what ACTUALLY matter is the TOTAL number of homicides, not the number of homicides related to guns because, as an example, a man who wants to kill his wife will not grow a conscious because he doesn't have a gun.  He'll use his hands.

As for your numbers don't lie, I totally agree.

Spoiler

I literally haven't seen a single shred of evidence that removing guns from private owners will result in less death.  I've seen the exact opposite.  

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

Link to the full study?

[Lushen]

3 minutes ago, The Geek said:

Link to the full study?

Info comes from institutions like the CDC and FBI and is compiled here https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-more-guns-less-gun-violence-between-1993-and-2013/

[The Geek]

That ain't a study m8.  Also read the first line of the article "The chart above was inspired by a similar one featured by Max Ehrenfreund in his recent Wonkblog post"

That tells me that they pulled that graph out of their ass, and reading the article they linked increases my certainty of that as it makes a completely different point.

[Lushen]

6 minutes ago, The Geek said:

That ain't a study m8.  Also read the first line of the article "The chart above was inspired by a similar one featured by Max Ehrenfreund in his recent Wonkblog post"

That tells me that they pulled that graph out of their ass, and reading the article they linked increases my certainty of that as it makes a completely different point.

So go read the original article and follow where the statistics.  They are coming from the CRS, CDC, and the Washington post article linked there.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/?tid=sm_tw

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

I did read the article.  It gives a number of possible reasons as to why gun violence has gone down in this country.  That does absolutely nothing to disprove the assertion that stricter gun laws would reduce gun violence even further.

[Lushen]

5 minutes ago, The Geek said:

I did read the article.  It gives a number of possible reasons as to why gun violence has gone down in this country.  That does absolutely nothing to disprove the assertion that stricter gun laws would reduce gun violence even further.

The washington post cites the fact that gun violence has been in steady decline.  The author of the link I posted also pointed out that we nearly tripped the amount of privately owned guns.  Thus, it is plausible to suggest that there could be a correlation for less homicide, more guns.  It is not plausible to say that the exact opposite of what is plotted there is true unless you have a good reason which no one has pointed out to me because there is no actual statistical evidence (that I've seen) to suggest that homicide rates and the number of privately owned guns are proportional.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[The Geek]

The article you posted was pure speculation as well.  So in the end we just have two conflicting trains of thought:  more guns = less gun violence vs. fewer guns = less gun violence.  As stated before, after having large mass shootings like this other first world countries enacted stricter gun regulations and as a result have had major reductions in gun violence.

[Time the Crestfallen]

On the subject of the shooting, r/t_D's reaction to this was a predictable as it was clueless.

[Raven]

People defending against a change in gun laws make me want to shoot them.

[Time the Crestfallen]

16 minutes ago, Raven said:

People defending against a change in gun laws make me want to shoot them.

That's a bit much, don't you think? Threatening gun violence on such a topic strikes me as a bit tone-deaf.

[Raven]

2 hours ago, Magus of Flowers said:

That's a bit much, don't you think? Threatening gun violence on such a topic strikes me as a bit tone-deaf.

Yes, it was sarcasm. Then again, shooting up a concert-full of people is also a bit much.

Maybe not "sarcasm," but there is such thing as dark/British humour. I can appreciate if some may find it not so humourous, though. The point is to have people "experience the kind of things they are ultimately trying to defend."

Also this guy knows what's up:

 

Edited October 3, 2017 by Raven