US is now averaging more than one mass shooting per day in 2015

chuckd · September 8, 2015

@Chuckd

This whole pointless sidetrack into hammers and chairs and nail hammers began with one poster making an analogy between guns and cars, and my attempt to show the uselessness of such analogies.

I allowed myself to fall into the trap of getting sidetracked into a pointless vortex of idiocy to which I contributed.

If anyone wants to discuss the various facts and credible research data I've listed, I'm happy to engage.

For the record, I'm by default against the curtailment of any freedoms, be they sexual, privacy, speech, movement or whatever. However, many freedoms *are* curtailed to some extent or other, sometimes necessarily so and at other times, unnecessarily so.

Based on the data, and all the research I've read, I have come to the conclusion that the freedom to own guns needs severe curtailment for the greater good. If you don't agree, I respect that. I would respect it more if you could show me some good reasons that stand up to scrutiny.

T

" I have come to the conclusion that the freedom to own guns needs severe curtailment for the greater good."

You are doing the same thing most non-Americans do. You are trying to penalize legal owners of guns for the sins of the criminal element.

More gun laws are not the solution. There are some 30,000 laws on the book now, and the criminals aren't worried about them.

They don't follow the laws, hence the word, criminals.

As I have said before on this thread...enforce the existing laws with mandatory prison sentences for any crimes committed when a firearm is used.

Get the bad guys off the streets and your violent crime rates will go down.

Uh, we might need to deport a few million of those illegals to really do a bang up job.

You are not addressing the reams of data and analysis based on that data that show the causes and viable options for solutions to the problem.

I agree that more robust enforcement of existing laws would help. Some of the research papers I linked to suggest that existing laws are inadequate and ineffectual. My sense from reading news stories and talks with friends involved in the matter is that various attempts to improve existing laws or introduce new ones invariably face robust opposition from the NRA and other vested interests who are resource rich and able to lobby lawmakers and organise both real as well as astro turfed grass roots campaigns that often succeed in thwarting/severely watering down all such efforts at change.

Meanwhile the (mostly) self-organised, amateur and part time citizen groups calling for change have far fewer resources, time or legislative or lobbying expertise. It's a lop-sided struggle

Saying that the problem will be successfully tackled by locking up the usual suspects is a deflection from the issue that the easy availability and plethora of firearms exacerbates existing problems--whether those problems are drugs, crime, suicide, poverty or untreated mental illness. The discussion and tackling of those issues should not preclude the discussion and tackling of the issue of a modern, largely peaceful developed country awash in lethal weapons. It can't be taken as a normal state of affairs when a developed nation such as the U.S. has, per capita, almost twice as many guns than the next nation on that list, Yemen--a country in the stone ages and in the midst of a civil war.

T

"Meanwhile the (mostly) self-organised, amateur and part time citizen groups calling for change have far fewer resources, time or legislative or lobbying expertise. It's a lop-sided struggle"

Mostly everybody that follows the gun control issue knows you are wrong on this.

Google "Michael Bloomberg Gun Control Organizations".

That will get you started on the pathway to finding the truth. Follow the money.

Thakkar · September 8, 2015

@Chuckd

This whole pointless sidetrack into hammers and chairs and nail hammers began with one poster making an analogy between guns and cars, and my attempt to show the uselessness of such analogies.

I allowed myself to fall into the trap of getting sidetracked into a pointless vortex of idiocy to which I contributed.

If anyone wants to discuss the various facts and credible research data I've listed, I'm happy to engage.

For the record, I'm by default against the curtailment of any freedoms, be they sexual, privacy, speech, movement or whatever. However, many freedoms *are* curtailed to some extent or other, sometimes necessarily so and at other times, unnecessarily so.

Based on the data, and all the research I've read, I have come to the conclusion that the freedom to own guns needs severe curtailment for the greater good. If you don't agree, I respect that. I would respect it more if you could show me some good reasons that stand up to scrutiny.

T

" I have come to the conclusion that the freedom to own guns needs severe curtailment for the greater good."

You are doing the same thing most non-Americans do. You are trying to penalize legal owners of guns for the sins of the criminal element.

More gun laws are not the solution. There are some 30,000 laws on the book now, and the criminals aren't worried about them.

They don't follow the laws, hence the word, criminals.

As I have said before on this thread...enforce the existing laws with mandatory prison sentences for any crimes committed when a firearm is used.

Get the bad guys off the streets and your violent crime rates will go down.

Uh, we might need to deport a few million of those illegals to really do a bang up job.

You are not addressing the reams of data and analysis based on that data that show the causes and viable options for solutions to the problem.
I agree that more robust enforcement of existing laws would help. Some of the research papers I linked to suggest that existing laws are inadequate and ineffectual. My sense from reading news stories and talks with friends involved in the matter is that various attempts to improve existing laws or introduce new ones invariably face robust opposition from the NRA and other vested interests who are resource rich and able to lobby lawmakers and organise both real as well as astro turfed grass roots campaigns that often succeed in thwarting/severely watering down all such efforts at change.

Meanwhile the (mostly) self-organised, amateur and part time citizen groups calling for change have far fewer resources, time or legislative or lobbying expertise. It's a lop-sided struggle

Saying that the problem will be successfully tackled by locking up the usual suspects is a deflection from the issue that the easy availability and plethora of firearms exacerbates existing problems--whether those problems are drugs, crime, suicide, poverty or untreated mental illness. The discussion and tackling of those issues should not preclude the discussion and tackling of the issue of a modern, largely peaceful developed country awash in lethal weapons. It can't be taken as a normal state of affairs when a developed nation such as the U.S. has, per capita, almost twice as many guns than the next nation on that list, Yemen--a country in the stone ages and in the midst of a civil war.

T

"Meanwhile the (mostly) self-organised, amateur and part time citizen groups calling for change have far fewer resources, time or legislative or lobbying expertise. It's a lop-sided struggle"

Mostly everybody that follows the gun control issue knows you are wrong on this.

Google "Michael Bloomberg Gun Control Organizations".

That will get you started on the pathway to finding the truth. Follow the money.

Bloomberg's involvement and financial support doesn't make it any less a David Vs Goliath effort when faced with a massive, century old industry group, with far deeper coffers than Bloomberg's financial contribution.

Any compelling argument or data that guns aren't a massive problem or that business as usual is a viable solution?

T

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

If someone breaks into my house in australia, even if he has a gun, it is very unlikely I will be shot because he knows I will not have a gun. In all probability just tied up while he takes what he wants. Police can deal with it later.

In US because people have guns a break and enter can have a gun death so easily.

In australia there are very few deaths from police pulling over drivers as they know the driver is very unlikely to have a gun, its usually a chat and a ticket and on your way. In the US because police must assume the worst they must consider ebery driver to be armed with a gun so it makes the police more aggressive and trigger happy so as a general rule, in a gun culture, more are shot.

Says a lot about society when even police are so scared they would rather shoot someone instaed of themselves being shot, simply because a person has a right to own a gun.

That mindset needs to change so that the norm is for the public not to have guns then the police are not prone to shoot.

If you dont have that then the police will continue to shoot for the slightest thing. A product of their own own freedom.

Not to mention how easy is is for accidental shootings by kids.

A product of their own wrongly perceived freedom that the rest of the world can see but the US is blinded by idiocy.

Yes, I'm sure a wife or daughter are on board with that, while being raped, when you're tied to a chair.

Gun advocates love bringing in ridiculous scenarios to support their claims. So how many wives and daughters are raped in Australia in situations where husbands were sitting right there and could have shot the perp if they had only had a gun in their closet?

Try and rationalize 30,000+ gun deaths a year with scenarios that rarely ever happen.

You are doing the same thing most non-Americans do. You are trying to penalize legal owners of guns for the sins of the criminal element.

More gun laws are not the solution. There are some 30,000 laws on the book now, and the criminals aren't worried about them.

They don't follow the laws, hence the word, criminals.

As I have said before on this thread...enforce the existing laws with mandatory prison sentences for any crimes committed when a firearm is used.

Get the bad guys off the streets and your violent crime rates will go down.

Uh, we might need to deport a few million of those illegals to really do a bang up job.

United States already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. And research has shown that once you incarcerate over 2% of any particular community, increased incarceration actually increases crime:

* You increase the number of children going up without fathers, which dramatically increases crime rates

* You increase the number of people spending their time in the prison system, among hard-core criminals

* Most of all, you decrease the legitimacy of law enforcement and the justice system in the culture of the community. Once it seems like everyone you know has been getting locked up, getting locked no longer acts as a deterrent and law enforcement in general appears unfair and not worth respecting.

As far as what gun control would do to decrease gun violence, I already expressed that in detail, which was of course ignored:

I think there should be significantly stricter gun-control, primarily to reduce three major factors behind gun deaths:

1) Middle-men buying guns legally to then be resold illegally, without repercussions

2) Quick and easy access to guns increasing the deadliness of crimes of passion and attempted sucide

3) A huge unreguated gun supply providing a critical mass making it easy for guns to be present in crime, both because it's so easy for criminals to acquire guns with the huge supply, and because guns are often brought into the situation by non-criminals, which both increases the likelihood of criminals acquiring guns and increases the likelihood of criminals using guns when they otherwise wouldn't.

However, even more than gun control, one the biggest things we need in America is a different attitude towards guns. They aren't tools for keeping you safe, they make you less safe, as has been proved over and over again. Now, that doesn't mean that I think they should be banned - we allow cars even though driving in a car doesn't make us safe either. But we should regulate them as such - guns should be registered just like cars are, and we should be working to take measures that make them safer.

* Why should a driving license take far more work to acquire than a gun license?

* Why is there constant safety research to improve cars while gun death research is completely ignored, and even attempts to research are blocked by Congress under lobbying from the NRA?

* And too many traffic tickets and you can lose your driver's license, but it takes a felony before you lose your inherent right to own a gun?

I'm not going to try and stop you from owning a gun. But we should work to take measures that will make that gun less likely to be used in a crime or violence. And you should realize that the gun is a tool that makes life slightly more dangerous for you and your family and your neighbors, not less. That's true for accidents, murders, and suicides - all three are less likely if you don't have your own gun present, and there's a ton of research behind that. We can try to have a logical conversation about this, or we can continue with the constant emotionalism and immaturity that seems to only infect the American gun debate. If we as Americans were reasonable about this issue for even a single political cycle, it would change a lot.

With exception of the occasional nutter that goes of the reservation every year or two, the vast majority of gun violence is very isolated and limited to bad neighborhoods full of bad people. Cracked out gang banger with nothing to lose don't think twice about shooting up a house full of people.

Here are the gun death rates by state. But keep claiming that the problem is just "bad neighborhoods full of bad people" and "the occasional nutter".

It's all those bad areas full of evil Black people in Alaska and Wyoming and Montana that are leading to so many gun deaths.

I swear, I've never seen a place, even online, where racist claims expressed as casually and as ignorantly as they are here.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Bangkok Herps

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

Here are some more helpful charts:

Gun ownership by state:

Deaths due to firearm by state:

Sort of seems...logical....and....obvious....doesn't it?

lostoday · September 8, 2015

Here are some more helpful charts:

Gun ownership by state:

Deaths due to firearm by state:

Sort of seems...logical....and....obvious....doesn't it?

When you have a long border with Canada you need guns. Remember the time they burned the house?

capcc76 · September 8, 2015

Yes, I'm sure a wife or daughter are on board with that, while being raped, when you're tied to a chair.

Gun advocates love bringing in ridiculous scenarios to support their claims. So how many wives and daughters are raped in Australia in situations where husbands were sitting right there and could have shot the perp if they had only had a gun in their closet?

Try and rationalize 30,000+ gun deaths a year with scenarios that rarely ever happen.

You are doing the same thing most non-Americans do. You are trying to penalize legal owners of guns for the sins of the criminal element.

More gun laws are not the solution. There are some 30,000 laws on the book now, and the criminals aren't worried about them.

They don't follow the laws, hence the word, criminals.

As I have said before on this thread...enforce the existing laws with mandatory prison sentences for any crimes committed when a firearm is used.

Get the bad guys off the streets and your violent crime rates will go down.

Uh, we might need to deport a few million of those illegals to really do a bang up job.

United States already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. And research has shown that once you incarcerate over 2% of any particular community, increased incarceration actually increases crime:

* You increase the number of children going up without fathers, which dramatically increases crime rates

* You increase the number of people spending their time in the prison system, among hard-core criminals

* Most of all, you decrease the legitimacy of law enforcement and the justice system in the culture of the community. Once it seems like everyone you know has been getting locked up, getting locked no longer acts as a deterrent and law enforcement in general appears unfair and not worth respecting.

As far as what gun control would do to decrease gun violence, I already expressed that in detail, which was of course ignored:

I think there should be significantly stricter gun-control, primarily to reduce three major factors behind gun deaths:

1) Middle-men buying guns legally to then be resold illegally, without repercussions

2) Quick and easy access to guns increasing the deadliness of crimes of passion and attempted sucide

3) A huge unreguated gun supply providing a critical mass making it easy for guns to be present in crime, both because it's so easy for criminals to acquire guns with the huge supply, and because guns are often brought into the situation by non-criminals, which both increases the likelihood of criminals acquiring guns and increases the likelihood of criminals using guns when they otherwise wouldn't.

However, even more than gun control, one the biggest things we need in America is a different attitude towards guns. They aren't tools for keeping you safe, they make you less safe, as has been proved over and over again. Now, that doesn't mean that I think they should be banned - we allow cars even though driving in a car doesn't make us safe either. But we should regulate them as such - guns should be registered just like cars are, and we should be working to take measures that make them safer.

* Why should a driving license take far more work to acquire than a gun license?

* Why is there constant safety research to improve cars while gun death research is completely ignored, and even attempts to research are blocked by Congress under lobbying from the NRA?

* And too many traffic tickets and you can lose your driver's license, but it takes a felony before you lose your inherent right to own a gun?

I'm not going to try and stop you from owning a gun. But we should work to take measures that will make that gun less likely to be used in a crime or violence. And you should realize that the gun is a tool that makes life slightly more dangerous for you and your family and your neighbors, not less. That's true for accidents, murders, and suicides - all three are less likely if you don't have your own gun present, and there's a ton of research behind that. We can try to have a logical conversation about this, or we can continue with the constant emotionalism and immaturity that seems to only infect the American gun debate. If we as Americans were reasonable about this issue for even a single political cycle, it would change a lot.

With exception of the occasional nutter that goes of the reservation every year or two, the vast majority of gun violence is very isolated and limited to bad neighborhoods full of bad people. Cracked out gang banger with nothing to lose don't think twice about shooting up a house full of people.

Here are the gun death rates by state. But keep claiming that the problem is just "bad neighborhoods full of bad people" and "the occasional nutter".

It's all those bad areas full of evil Black people in Alaska and Wyoming and Montana that are leading to so many gun deaths.

I swear, I've never seen a place, even online, where racist claims expressed as casually and as ignorantly as they are here.

You made this about race more than I.

No doubt about it, there are some back wood, alcohol drinking, teeth optional, hillbilly, freeman survivalist hate the IRS gun toting types living in Alaska and Wyoming, but common . . . . . that is not the US or how the vast majority of how the US is. Not even close.

Number of homicides in 2012:

Alaska - 34 - (12 of which were firearm deaths)

Wyoming - 15 - (9 of which were firearm deaths)

I have lived in LA, Atlanta and Memphis.

I have also lived in some other really nice areas with almost zero crime rate. In fact, I have a house in one area where I can only recall maybe 2 murders since the early 2000s (one was a drunk vacationer from Memphis of all places, and a crazy local boy that raped and killed a young women on vacation).

Let's talk about LA, Memphis and Atlanta.

All three cities have areas that have virtually no crime. These suburbs are heavily patrolled and it keeps the rift raft out. You, however, can go a half mile or a mile outside of these suburbs and it is a war zone. People are getting raped, mugged and shot all the time. Literally night and day.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-20/table_20_murder_by_state_types_of_weapons_2013.xls

beechguy · September 8, 2015

@Chuckd

This whole pointless sidetrack into hammers and chairs and nail hammers began with one poster making an analogy between guns and cars, and my attempt to show the uselessness of such analogies.

I allowed myself to fall into the trap of getting sidetracked into a pointless vortex of idiocy to which I contributed.

If anyone wants to discuss the various facts and credible research data I've listed, I'm happy to engage.

For the record, I'm by default against the curtailment of any freedoms, be they sexual, privacy, speech, movement or whatever. However, many freedoms *are* curtailed to some extent or other, sometimes necessarily so and at other times, unnecessarily so.

Based on the data, and all the research I've read, I have come to the conclusion that the freedom to own guns needs severe curtailment for the greater good. If you don't agree, I respect that. I would respect it more if you could show me some good reasons that stand up to scrutiny.

T

It wasn't a useless analogy, and I explained the point in a subsequent post. I'm sorry it went over your head, do you think it would help if I wrote slower?

beechguy · September 8, 2015

What all this amounts to is the vast majority of the gun control enthusiasts only have a plan for removing guns from the hands of law abiding US citizens.

One went so far as to mention amnesty, ala Australia. If one considers that any person affected by an amnesty is someone that is breaking the law, they might then realize how completely foolish that idea becomes.

Legal gun owners are exactly that...legal gun owners. They have no need for amnesty since they have broken no laws.

So, let's look at amnesty for illegal gun owners. Many of them are going to reside in high crime areas where weapons are already abundant. Why would they give up their only means of self preservation just to feel all warm and cuddly about gaining amnesty?

Amnesty is a non-starter.

How about a gun buyback program. you ask?

Because historical information is they don't really work. Google is your friend.

So now what do we do? Call up the National Guard and invade Baltimore, Detroit, DC, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles et al and take the weapons away from the bad guys?

One thing to do is enforce existing laws. We don't need any more laws. There are something like 30,000 currently at work.

What we need is rigid enforcement of the laws to include mandatory prison terms for any person convicted of a crime where a weapon was involved.

That might get some of the bang banger's, drug dealers and violent illegal immigrants off the streets and send some messages to others that are contemplating a life of crime.

The other pressing problem is identifying those mentally ill individuals that might present a threat to themselves and others. Legislation could be used to require the medical profession to insure those same mental problems would be identified and treated accordingly. This particular category is where the real mass shooting are coming from.

Let's stop this ridiculous charade of disarming the legal gun owners. That isn't going anywhere.

It worked in Oz regardless of the naysayers.

I thought the US was a 'can do' country. But despite its rhetoric it is a 'cannot do' country.

The first problem with that, is I, and millions of other U.S. citizens, have no desire to live like sheep in nanny state.

Tep · September 8, 2015

It worked in Oz regardless of the naysayers.
I thought the US was a 'can do' country. But despite its rhetoric it is a 'cannot do' country.

The US "can do" only those things that are Constitutional.

Population of Australia -- 23,888,800

Population of US -------- 321,773,000

Population of California---38,802,500

Population of Texas-------26,956,958

Apples and oranges.

Thank you Chuck for consulting your friend Google and providing population statistics for Australia. I have lost track in the decades away form the place. Now perhaps you or your friend could provide some sensible explanation of what these numbers have to to with the issue. The US and Australia are more alike than different. No doubt you and others can spend days and weeks of fruitful banter picking all these apart and responding according to ideological alignment, although it does get old quite quickly actually. Those numbers are meaningless irrespective of what fruit you are eating at the moment.

Your first sentence is actually a key and relevant difference between the two countries that does not negate the proven effectiveness of the implementation of stricter gun control legislation with the use of tactics such as amnesty and buy back. I had to give up my guns when I became ineligible under the new legislation. Had I remained in Australia and remained eligible to retain my firearms license, then I would not have had to do this except for a few pieces that had to be disposed of quietly in the desert.

The real issues that pro-gun people want to talk about are the racial and socio-economic ones but they have to tie themselves in knots to avoid being obviously disgustingly bigoted. Even on these grounds, though, I don't think you can really discriminate much between Australia and the US. Australia may have a different coloured under-class but the same root causes and outcomes prevail there as they do in the US.

You didn't understand my "apples and oranges" reference?

I apologize for using a rather common reference to making comparisons between two objects that are not similar in any manner.

I'll try and use more flowery sentence structure in the future so you won't get confused with the common man approach.

The population figures were provided to emphasize the relative differences between undertaking anything such as the gun control instituted by the Australian government in 1996 dealing with a population of something less than 30 million as opposed to dealing with a population of some 320 million. In addition, the Australian government was dealing with six states while any attempt to control weapons in the US would be dealing with 50 states and the various laws on the books of each and every one.

And that doesn't even address the Second Amendment, does it.

Apples and oranges.

The 'common man' and his honest, down-home folksy common sense. I get your schtick. Also called simple-minded.

Just want some substance to the idea of how size matters in this case, which is about the presumptive implementation of gun controls using methods that have proven successful in other countries. The US cannot implement national legislation? Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely.

And I thought you used to be in management. Let's give it the 'Old College Try'. Don't let the fruit get in the way. They are meaningless non sequiturs.

beechguy · September 8, 2015

Tep: Simple minded? That would be logic and common sense, obviously several on here wouldn't know anything about that. And who ever told you Obamacare was humming along nicely, also probably misinformed you about the gun control situation in the U.S.

capcc76 · September 8, 2015

It worked in Oz regardless of the naysayers.

I thought the US was a 'can do' country. But despite its rhetoric it is a 'cannot do' country.

The US "can do" only those things that are Constitutional.

Population of Australia -- 23,888,800

Population of US -------- 321,773,000

Population of California---38,802,500

Population of Texas-------26,956,958

Apples and oranges.

Thank you Chuck for consulting your friend Google and providing population statistics for Australia. I have lost track in the decades away form the place. Now perhaps you or your friend could provide some sensible explanation of what these numbers have to to with the issue. The US and Australia are more alike than different. No doubt you and others can spend days and weeks of fruitful banter picking all these apart and responding according to ideological alignment, although it does get old quite quickly actually. Those numbers are meaningless irrespective of what fruit you are eating at the moment.

Your first sentence is actually a key and relevant difference between the two countries that does not negate the proven effectiveness of the implementation of stricter gun control legislation with the use of tactics such as amnesty and buy back. I had to give up my guns when I became ineligible under the new legislation. Had I remained in Australia and remained eligible to retain my firearms license, then I would not have had to do this except for a few pieces that had to be disposed of quietly in the desert.

The real issues that pro-gun people want to talk about are the racial and socio-economic ones but they have to tie themselves in knots to avoid being obviously disgustingly bigoted. Even on these grounds, though, I don't think you can really discriminate much between Australia and the US. Australia may have a different coloured under-class but the same root causes and outcomes prevail there as they do in the US.

You didn't understand my "apples and oranges" reference?

I apologize for using a rather common reference to making comparisons between two objects that are not similar in any manner.

I'll try and use more flowery sentence structure in the future so you won't get confused with the common man approach.

The population figures were provided to emphasize the relative differences between undertaking anything such as the gun control instituted by the Australian government in 1996 dealing with a population of something less than 30 million as opposed to dealing with a population of some 320 million. In addition, the Australian government was dealing with six states while any attempt to control weapons in the US would be dealing with 50 states and the various laws on the books of each and every one.

And that doesn't even address the Second Amendment, does it.

Apples and oranges.

The 'common man' and his honest, down-home folksy common sense. I get your schtick. Also called simple-minded.

Just want some substance to the idea of how size matters in this case, which is about the presumptive implementation of gun controls using methods that have proven successful in other countries. The US cannot implement national legislation? Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely.

And I thought you used to be in management. Let's give it the 'Old College Try'. Don't let the fruit get in the way. They are meaningless non sequiturs.

Nope, Obama care is a disaster.

chuckd · September 8, 2015

Thank you Chuck for consulting your friend Google and providing population statistics for Australia. I have lost track in the decades away form the place. Now perhaps you or your friend could provide some sensible explanation of what these numbers have to to with the issue. The US and Australia are more alike than different. No doubt you and others can spend days and weeks of fruitful banter picking all these apart and responding according to ideological alignment, although it does get old quite quickly actually. Those numbers are meaningless irrespective of what fruit you are eating at the moment.

Your first sentence is actually a key and relevant difference between the two countries that does not negate the proven effectiveness of the implementation of stricter gun control legislation with the use of tactics such as amnesty and buy back. I had to give up my guns when I became ineligible under the new legislation. Had I remained in Australia and remained eligible to retain my firearms license, then I would not have had to do this except for a few pieces that had to be disposed of quietly in the desert.

The real issues that pro-gun people want to talk about are the racial and socio-economic ones but they have to tie themselves in knots to avoid being obviously disgustingly bigoted. Even on these grounds, though, I don't think you can really discriminate much between Australia and the US. Australia may have a different coloured under-class but the same root causes and outcomes prevail there as they do in the US.

You didn't understand my "apples and oranges" reference?

I apologize for using a rather common reference to making comparisons between two objects that are not similar in any manner.

I'll try and use more flowery sentence structure in the future so you won't get confused with the common man approach.

The population figures were provided to emphasize the relative differences between undertaking anything such as the gun control instituted by the Australian government in 1996 dealing with a population of something less than 30 million as opposed to dealing with a population of some 320 million. In addition, the Australian government was dealing with six states while any attempt to control weapons in the US would be dealing with 50 states and the various laws on the books of each and every one.

And that doesn't even address the Second Amendment, does it.

Apples and oranges.

The 'common man' and his honest, down-home folksy common sense. I get your schtick. Also called simple-minded.

Just want some substance to the idea of how size matters in this case, which is about the presumptive implementation of gun controls using methods that have proven successful in other countries. The US cannot implement national legislation? Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely.

And I thought you used to be in management. Let's give it the 'Old College Try'. Don't let the fruit get in the way. They are meaningless non sequiturs.

The US government can't successfully implement much of anything.

Think Amtrak, US Postal Service, Veteran's Administration, US Congress, Fast & Furious, IRS, et al.

Now extrapolate that historical knowledge into a program that is attempting to get something around 100,000,000 gun owners to hand over some 300,000,000 guns willingly and I think even an Australian might have trouble with that scenario.

And in the end, all you have done is disarm the law abiding citizens of their weapons and haven't even begun to disarm the gang banger's, drug dealers or Mexican cartels.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

" Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely."

Sorry to bust your bubble but the premiums are going up next year some 30-50% in many states and the death spiral will begin when it does. But that is off topic so I will leave it with just a link.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-premium-hikes-for-2016-ignore-them-at-your-own-risk/article/2566556

PS: Is it acceptable for me to use the simple minded phrase "bust your bubble" in this post?

Tep · September 8, 2015

Tep: Simple minded? That would be logic and common sense, obviously several on here wouldn't know anything about that. And who ever told you Obamacare was humming along nicely, also probably misinformed you about the gun control situation in the U.S.

Actually the Supreme Court of the United States informed me of the situation with Obamacare when they consistently ruled in favour of the law http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/25/politics/supreme-court-ruling-obamacare/. SCOTUS, you know that group of 5 un-elected lesbians refusing to allow Scalia's common sense to take American back to the 50's when it was 'Great Again'. Since Obamacare is off topic, then I can't really discuss it further but even though I used the most hot button issue I could think of to make a point, it piqued my interest. This site http://obamacarefacts.com/sign-ups/obamacare-enrollment-numbers/ provides a bunch of statistics. Over 16 million newly insured. Impressive by any measure.

I do not argue the point about implementing gun control in the US on the constitutional, racial, socio-economic and cultural issues that fire up the Base. I do not even argue that the US is not different from Australia and Europe and those differences impact on the way in which gun control is debated and implemented. I do, however, believe that merely having a larger population that other countries does not mean that gun control measures like amnesty and buy back, and others, cannot be implemented in the US with measurable outcomes. Whether those outcomes are an indicator of success for however that is defined by either side of the debate is another issue.

Let's circle back to the OP. Averaging more than one mass shooting a day in 2015. We have gone through the semantics of the word 'mass'; we have gone through the whole mental health diversion; countless recitations of the Bill of Rights; outright racism; and a lot of general nastiness about 'stay out of our business'. Rejecting the idea that there is a connection between mass shootings and gun control is not common sense to me and many others. I think the opinions of those people are valid and earnestly expressed irrespective of their ability to know which guns have safety mechanisms, how to break down an automatic weapon, or how many times every week they shoot holes in a piece of paper with an image of a black person drawn on it. Sorry, I mean an image of a person coloured in black ink.

Tep · September 8, 2015

Thank you Chuck for consulting your friend Google and providing population statistics for Australia. I have lost track in the decades away form the place. Now perhaps you or your friend could provide some sensible explanation of what these numbers have to to with the issue. The US and Australia are more alike than different. No doubt you and others can spend days and weeks of fruitful banter picking all these apart and responding according to ideological alignment, although it does get old quite quickly actually. Those numbers are meaningless irrespective of what fruit you are eating at the moment.

Your first sentence is actually a key and relevant difference between the two countries that does not negate the proven effectiveness of the implementation of stricter gun control legislation with the use of tactics such as amnesty and buy back. I had to give up my guns when I became ineligible under the new legislation. Had I remained in Australia and remained eligible to retain my firearms license, then I would not have had to do this except for a few pieces that had to be disposed of quietly in the desert.

The real issues that pro-gun people want to talk about are the racial and socio-economic ones but they have to tie themselves in knots to avoid being obviously disgustingly bigoted. Even on these grounds, though, I don't think you can really discriminate much between Australia and the US. Australia may have a different coloured under-class but the same root causes and outcomes prevail there as they do in the US.

You didn't understand my "apples and oranges" reference?

I apologize for using a rather common reference to making comparisons between two objects that are not similar in any manner.

I'll try and use more flowery sentence structure in the future so you won't get confused with the common man approach.

The population figures were provided to emphasize the relative differences between undertaking anything such as the gun control instituted by the Australian government in 1996 dealing with a population of something less than 30 million as opposed to dealing with a population of some 320 million. In addition, the Australian government was dealing with six states while any attempt to control weapons in the US would be dealing with 50 states and the various laws on the books of each and every one.

And that doesn't even address the Second Amendment, does it.

Apples and oranges.

The 'common man' and his honest, down-home folksy common sense. I get your schtick. Also called simple-minded.

Just want some substance to the idea of how size matters in this case, which is about the presumptive implementation of gun controls using methods that have proven successful in other countries. The US cannot implement national legislation? Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely.

And I thought you used to be in management. Let's give it the 'Old College Try'. Don't let the fruit get in the way. They are meaningless non sequiturs.

The US government can't successfully implement much of anything.

Think Amtrak, US Postal Service, Veteran's Administration, US Congress, Fast & Furious, IRS, et al.

Now extrapolate that historical knowledge into a program that is attempting to get something around 100,000,000 gun owners to hand over some 300,000,000 guns willingly and I think even an Australian might have trouble with that scenario.

And in the end, all you have done is disarm the law abiding citizens of their weapons and haven't even begun to disarm the gang banger's, drug dealers or Mexican cartels.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

" Last I heard Obamacare was humming along nicely."

Sorry to bust your bubble but the premiums are going up next year some 30-50% in many states and the death spiral will begin when it does. But that is off topic so I will leave it with just a link.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-premium-hikes-for-2016-ignore-them-at-your-own-risk/article/2566556

PS: Is it acceptable for me to use the simple minded phrase "bust your bubble" in this post?

I don't really do vernacular but don't let me stop you. While I enjoyed the film, the whole Forrest Gump 'My Mamma told me...' thing didn't really resonate with me as it clearly did with a substantial number of Americans.

There is nothing US centric about inefficiencies in large bureaucracies. I have worked in and engaged with many around the World, including at the State and Federal level in the US in my career. I would say the US State Department is the most egregious example of an agency having its head up its own arse. I could also bore everyone to death about railway and postal reform around the world as that directly relates to my work experience but that would be further off topic. As for bursting my bubble on Obamacare, I am product of a nationalised health system that took care of my parents in their final years and a strong advocate of the single payer model. I have addressed my reference to Obamacare in my reply to Beechguy.

So with the off topic stuff dealt with, we are left with the original dilemma. I do not think you can reject the connection between the gun control issue and the awful statistic of mass shootings. Defending a mechanism that prevents effective gun control in favour of being prepared to defend your liberty against a future tyrannical government armed with an array of weapons the most fevered gun nut can only fantasise about makes no sense to me and many others.

Australia and other countries have address the issue and will continue to address the issue. The US is stuck in an ideological morass.

beechguy · September 8, 2015

Tep: Simple minded? That would be logic and common sense, obviously several on here wouldn't know anything about that. And who ever told you Obamacare was humming along nicely, also probably misinformed you about the gun control situation in the U.S.

Actually the Supreme Court of the United States informed me of the situation with Obamacare when they consistently ruled in favour of the law http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/25/politics/supreme-court-ruling-obamacare/. SCOTUS, you know that group of 5 un-elected lesbians refusing to allow Scalia's common sense to take American back to the 50's when it was 'Great Again'. Since Obamacare is off topic, then I can't really discuss it further but even though I used the most hot button issue I could think of to make a point, it piqued my interest. This site http://obamacarefacts.com/sign-ups/obamacare-enrollment-numbers/ provides a bunch of statistics. Over 16 million newly insured. Impressive by any measure.

I do not argue the point about implementing gun control in the US on the constitutional, racial, socio-economic and cultural issues that fire up the Base. I do not even argue that the US is not different from Australia and Europe and those differences impact on the way in which gun control is debated and implemented. I do, however, believe that merely having a larger population that other countries does not mean that gun control measures like amnesty and buy back, and others, cannot be implemented in the US with measurable outcomes. Whether those outcomes are an indicator of success for however that is defined by either side of the debate is another issue.

Let's circle back to the OP. Averaging more than one mass shooting a day in 2015. We have gone through the semantics of the word 'mass'; we have gone through the whole mental health diversion; countless recitations of the Bill of Rights; outright racism; and a lot of general nastiness about 'stay out of our business'. Rejecting the idea that there is a connection between mass shootings and gun control is not common sense to me and many others. I think the opinions of those people are valid and earnestly expressed irrespective of their ability to know which guns have safety mechanisms, how to break down an automatic weapon, or how many times every week they shoot holes in a piece of paper with an image of a black person drawn on it. Sorry, I mean an image of a person coloured in black ink.

As I said, you have been misinformed, or, you are not properly comprehending the information on Obamacare.

As to gun control, I'm 60 years old, and have been around firearms all of my life, never personally had a problem. However, my stepfather and my mother ran a small store in a rural, small town. He carried a .38 revolver, and had positioned a .357, with the hopes he would never have to use them. Unfortunately, one day three idiots show up to rob them. He killed one, and the other two were captured and put in prison, and by the way they were all three black. The police said that they believed he saved his, and my mother's life. I suppose you think it was his fault for running an honest business, that served the community, mostly black, but he must be a racist for shooting a black man, even though he was armed with a shogun. Personally, I'm happy the 2nd Amendment permits the ownership of firearms. One person chose to do something that saved his life, and unfortunately one idiot chose to do something, that cost him his.

beechguy · September 8, 2015

If someone breaks into my house in australia, even if he has a gun, it is very unlikely I will be shot because he knows I will not have a gun. In all probability just tied up while he takes what he wants. Police can deal with it later.

In US because people have guns a break and enter can have a gun death so easily.

In australia there are very few deaths from police pulling over drivers as they know the driver is very unlikely to have a gun, its usually a chat and a ticket and on your way. In the US because police must assume the worst they must consider ebery driver to be armed with a gun so it makes the police more aggressive and trigger happy so as a general rule, in a gun culture, more are shot.

Says a lot about society when even police are so scared they would rather shoot someone instaed of themselves being shot, simply because a person has a right to own a gun.

That mindset needs to change so that the norm is for the public not to have guns then the police are not prone to shoot.

If you dont have that then the police will continue to shoot for the slightest thing. A product of their own own freedom.

Not to mention how easy is is for accidental shootings by kids.

A product of their own wrongly perceived freedom that the rest of the world can see but the US is blinded by idiocy.

Yes, I'm sure a wife or daughter are on board with that, while being raped, when you're tied to a chair.

I suppose you are correct. Its much better that we are killed instead, or that my daughter never grew up because when she was 5 accidently blew a hole in her head.

And that is just the type of gun owner I thought you would be. I try to keep an open mind, and learn new things. You have convinced me the Australian government was correct, to take away your firearms.

I'm 60 years old, always been around firearms of some type, and managed to raise my kids without any of us getting killed or injured.

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

United States already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. And research has shown that once you incarcerate over 2% of any particular community, increased incarceration actually increases crime:

* You increase the number of children going up without fathers, which dramatically increases crime rates

* You increase the number of people spending their time in the prison system, among hard-core criminals

* Most of all, you decrease the legitimacy of law enforcement and the justice system in the culture of the community. Once it seems like everyone you know has been getting locked up, getting locked no longer acts as a deterrent and law enforcement in general appears unfair and not worth respecting.

As far as what gun control would do to decrease gun violence, I already expressed that in detail, which was of course ignored:

I think there should be significantly stricter gun-control, primarily to reduce three major factors behind gun deaths:

1) Middle-men buying guns legally to then be resold illegally, without repercussions

2) Quick and easy access to guns increasing the deadliness of crimes of passion and attempted sucide

3) A huge unreguated gun supply providing a critical mass making it easy for guns to be present in crime, both because it's so easy for criminals to acquire guns with the huge supply, and because guns are often brought into the situation by non-criminals, which both increases the likelihood of criminals acquiring guns and increases the likelihood of criminals using guns when they otherwise wouldn't.

However, even more than gun control, one the biggest things we need in America is a different attitude towards guns. They aren't tools for keeping you safe, they make you less safe, as has been proved over and over again. Now, that doesn't mean that I think they should be banned - we allow cars even though driving in a car doesn't make us safe either. But we should regulate them as such - guns should be registered just like cars are, and we should be working to take measures that make them safer.

* Why should a driving license take far more work to acquire than a gun license?

* Why is there constant safety research to improve cars while gun death research is completely ignored, and even attempts to research are blocked by Congress under lobbying from the NRA?

* And too many traffic tickets and you can lose your driver's license, but it takes a felony before you lose your inherent right to own a gun?

I'm not going to try and stop you from owning a gun. But we should work to take measures that will make that gun less likely to be used in a crime or violence. And you should realize that the gun is a tool that makes life slightly more dangerous for you and your family and your neighbors, not less. That's true for accidents, murders, and suicides - all three are less likely if you don't have your own gun present, and there's a ton of research behind that. We can try to have a logical conversation about this, or we can continue with the constant emotionalism and immaturity that seems to only infect the American gun debate. If we as Americans were reasonable about this issue for even a single political cycle, it would change a lot.

Here are the gun death rates by state. But keep claiming that the problem is just "bad neighborhoods full of bad people" and "the occasional nutter".

It's all those bad areas full of evil Black people in Alaska and Wyoming and Montana that are leading to so many gun deaths.

I swear, I've never seen a place, even online, where racist claims expressed as casually and as ignorantly as they are here.

You made this about race more than I.

No doubt about it, there are some back wood, alcohol drinking, teeth optional, hillbilly, freeman survivalist hate the IRS gun toting types living in Alaska and Wyoming, but common . . . . . that is not the US or how the vast majority of how the US is. Not even close.

Number of homicides in 2012:

Alaska - 34 - (12 of which were firearm deaths)

Wyoming - 15 - (9 of which were firearm deaths)

I have lived in LA, Atlanta and Memphis.

I have also lived in some other really nice areas with almost zero crime rate. In fact, I have a house in one area where I can only recall maybe 2 murders since the early 2000s (one was a drunk vacationer from Memphis of all places, and a crazy local boy that raped and killed a young women on vacation).

Let's talk about LA, Memphis and Atlanta.

All three cities have areas that have virtually no crime. These suburbs are heavily patrolled and it keeps the rift raft out. You, however, can go a half mile or a mile outside of these suburbs and it is a war zone. People are getting raped, mugged and shot all the time. Literally night and day.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-20/table_20_murder_by_state_types_of_weapons_2013.xls

Los Angeles is a dense urban area of 10,000,000 people. Wyoming and Alaska are 800,000 people spread out over enormous states. Comparing urban populations to state populations for any sort of social statistic is ridiculous - the number of human interactions in one versus the other will differ by more than an order of magnitude.

The fact that Alaska and Wyoming have among the highest gun death rates in the USA (comparing state-to-state, like-to-like) despite their low population densities, should really be cause for concern.

Also, when you're trying to compare like-to-like, compare rates, not totals. California is the biggest state, so it has a big total, but by rate compared to population it has among the least gun deaths in the entire country.

As far as Los Angeles goes, don't be ridiculous. I lived in LA for 14 years, most of that time in Inglewood, South Central, and Gardena (on the edge of Compton). I never once saw a gun on the streets except when the cops were pulling it. That doesn't mean that there's no gun crime - there are tragic shootings, and there is regular crime like there is in every urban area, and they happened in my neighborhood - but calling it a "war zone" is ridiculous.

And you know one of the best ways to reduce the deadliness of street crime in Los Angeles? How about reducing the accessibility of guns?

Someone recently showed that there were 14,000 knife assaults in England last year. They lead to 300 deaths. You know the difference between England and the USA? In the USA, those would have been 14,000 gun assaults, not knife assaults, and there would have been 5,000 dead, not 300.

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

As I said, you have been misinformed, or, you are not properly comprehending the information on Obamacare.

As to gun control, I'm 60 years old, and have been around firearms all of my life, never personally had a problem. However, my stepfather and my mother ran a small store in a rural, small town. He carried a .38 revolver, and had positioned a .357, with the hopes he would never have to use them. Unfortunately, one day three idiots show up to rob them. He killed one, and the other two were captured and put in prison, and by the way they were all three black. The police said that they believed he saved his, and my mother's life. I suppose you think it was his fault for running an honest business, that served the community, mostly black, but he must be a racist for shooting a black man, even though he was armed with a shogun. Personally, I'm happy the 2nd Amendment permits the ownership of firearms. One person chose to do something that saved his life, and unfortunately one idiot chose to do something, that cost him his.

Of course they said that. As other threads on this forum have made evident, there are plenty of police who will say anything to justify taking a "bad guy's" life. Heck, it's not like he even needs to actually believe that he saved his mother's life - in America, we've idolized money to such a degree that it's perfectly accepted to take life for the sake of the money alone, even if the insurance was probably going to cover it.

But let's try working with facts. There are about 350,000 robberies and over 2,000,000 burglaries in the United States every year. You want to hazard a guess as to what % of those involve the robbers killing multiple non-violent, non-resistant, stranger victims? Small-time crooks robbing small-time stores don't waste time killing people they don't need to and casually adding murder raps to their scorecard except in extremely rare situations.

I'd be interested - that man who your stepfather killed, how many other storeowners and their families had he killed to that point? If we're making a reasonable deduction here, we should be working with data, right?

But, like I said, people always write their own justifications.

beechguy · September 8, 2015

As I said, you have been misinformed, or, you are not properly comprehending the information on Obamacare.

As to gun control, I'm 60 years old, and have been around firearms all of my life, never personally had a problem. However, my stepfather and my mother ran a small store in a rural, small town. He carried a .38 revolver, and had positioned a .357, with the hopes he would never have to use them. Unfortunately, one day three idiots show up to rob them. He killed one, and the other two were captured and put in prison, and by the way they were all three black. The police said that they believed he saved his, and my mother's life. I suppose you think it was his fault for running an honest business, that served the community, mostly black, but he must be a racist for shooting a black man, even though he was armed with a shogun. Personally, I'm happy the 2nd Amendment permits the ownership of firearms. One person chose to do something that saved his life, and unfortunately one idiot chose to do something, that cost him his.

Of course they said that. As other threads on this forum have made evident, there are plenty of police who will say anything to justify taking a "bad guy's" life. Heck, it's not like he even needs to actually believe that he saved his mother's life - in America, we've idolized money to such a degree that it's perfectly accepted to take life for the sake of the money alone, even if the insurance was probably going to cover it.

But let's try working with facts. There are about 350,000 robberies and over 2,000,000 burglaries in the United States every year. You want to hazard a guess as to what % of those involve the robbers killing multiple non-violent, non-resistant, stranger victims? Small-time crooks robbing small-time stores don't waste time killing people they don't need to and casually adding murder raps to their scorecard except in extremely rare situations.

I'd be interested - that man who your stepfather killed, how many other storeowners and their families had he killed to that point? If we're making a reasonable deduction here, we should be working with data, right?

But, like I said, people always write their own justifications.

Another example of reading something, and remaining ignorant. It was sometime later, but a store owner, in a neighboring community was shot and killed, even after surrendering the cash. I'll see if I can find an address, and you can tell that bullshit to his family.

The guy the stepfather killer had prior convictions, assault, drugs, etc., no murders. I'm happy the stepfather and my mother weren't the first. I suppose getting of his ass and getting a job wasn't part of his career path. Justification? Barging through the door, knocking my mother to the ground, with a loaded shotgun was enough.

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

I love how you just tried to use a store owner getting shot and killed as an argument against gun control. Ya'all really are blind when it comes to your guns, aren't you?

And that is just the type of gun owner I thought you would be. I try to keep an open mind, and learn new things. You have convinced me the Australian government was correct, to take away your firearms.

I'm 60 years old, always been around firearms of some type, and managed to raise my kids without any of us getting killed or injured.

And you've also never had to use one for self-defense, which proves that they are useless for self-defense, right?

You see how unhelpful one-person anecdotes are?

In your 60 years, while you haven't had a family member killed by a gun yet, something like 1,500,000 families have. That's why public policy decisions are made with compiled data, not one-person anecdotes.

Many people have shown clearly that when comparing like-to-like, developed countries with more accessible guns have more gun death than developed countries with less, US states with more guns have more gun deaths than US states with less, and, most significantly, American homes with gun ownership have far more gun deaths than American homes without.

I'm not looking to take your guns away. That will never happen in America, and I don't want them to take my guns either. But there are reasonable steps to take regarding gun control that can significantly reduce the overall gun supply and make it more likely that guns are kept out of criminal hands, that guns are less available to those committing crimes of passion, and that gun crimes are solved more quickly. We refuse to take those steps, which other nations have sensibly taken, because the pro-gun lobby here is so strong.

capcc76 · September 8, 2015

United States already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. And research has shown that once you incarcerate over 2% of any particular community, increased incarceration actually increases crime:

* You increase the number of children going up without fathers, which dramatically increases crime rates

* You increase the number of people spending their time in the prison system, among hard-core criminals

* Most of all, you decrease the legitimacy of law enforcement and the justice system in the culture of the community. Once it seems like everyone you know has been getting locked up, getting locked no longer acts as a deterrent and law enforcement in general appears unfair and not worth respecting.

As far as what gun control would do to decrease gun violence, I already expressed that in detail, which was of course ignored:

I think there should be significantly stricter gun-control, primarily to reduce three major factors behind gun deaths:

1) Middle-men buying guns legally to then be resold illegally, without repercussions

2) Quick and easy access to guns increasing the deadliness of crimes of passion and attempted sucide

3) A huge unreguated gun supply providing a critical mass making it easy for guns to be present in crime, both because it's so easy for criminals to acquire guns with the huge supply, and because guns are often brought into the situation by non-criminals, which both increases the likelihood of criminals acquiring guns and increases the likelihood of criminals using guns when they otherwise wouldn't.

However, even more than gun control, one the biggest things we need in America is a different attitude towards guns. They aren't tools for keeping you safe, they make you less safe, as has been proved over and over again. Now, that doesn't mean that I think they should be banned - we allow cars even though driving in a car doesn't make us safe either. But we should regulate them as such - guns should be registered just like cars are, and we should be working to take measures that make them safer.

* Why should a driving license take far more work to acquire than a gun license?

* Why is there constant safety research to improve cars while gun death research is completely ignored, and even attempts to research are blocked by Congress under lobbying from the NRA?

* And too many traffic tickets and you can lose your driver's license, but it takes a felony before you lose your inherent right to own a gun?

I'm not going to try and stop you from owning a gun. But we should work to take measures that will make that gun less likely to be used in a crime or violence. And you should realize that the gun is a tool that makes life slightly more dangerous for you and your family and your neighbors, not less. That's true for accidents, murders, and suicides - all three are less likely if you don't have your own gun present, and there's a ton of research behind that. We can try to have a logical conversation about this, or we can continue with the constant emotionalism and immaturity that seems to only infect the American gun debate. If we as Americans were reasonable about this issue for even a single political cycle, it would change a lot.

Here are the gun death rates by state. But keep claiming that the problem is just "bad neighborhoods full of bad people" and "the occasional nutter".

It's all those bad areas full of evil Black people in Alaska and Wyoming and Montana that are leading to so many gun deaths.

I swear, I've never seen a place, even online, where racist claims expressed as casually and as ignorantly as they are here.

You made this about race more than I.

No doubt about it, there are some back wood, alcohol drinking, teeth optional, hillbilly, freeman survivalist hate the IRS gun toting types living in Alaska and Wyoming, but common . . . . . that is not the US or how the vast majority of how the US is. Not even close.

Number of homicides in 2012:

Alaska - 34 - (12 of which were firearm deaths)

Wyoming - 15 - (9 of which were firearm deaths)

I have lived in LA, Atlanta and Memphis.

I have also lived in some other really nice areas with almost zero crime rate. In fact, I have a house in one area where I can only recall maybe 2 murders since the early 2000s (one was a drunk vacationer from Memphis of all places, and a crazy local boy that raped and killed a young women on vacation).

Let's talk about LA, Memphis and Atlanta.

All three cities have areas that have virtually no crime. These suburbs are heavily patrolled and it keeps the rift raft out. You, however, can go a half mile or a mile outside of these suburbs and it is a war zone. People are getting raped, mugged and shot all the time. Literally night and day.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-20/table_20_murder_by_state_types_of_weapons_2013.xls

Los Angeles is a dense urban area of 10,000,000 people. Wyoming and Alaska are 800,000 people spread out over enormous states. Comparing urban populations to state populations for any sort of social statistic is ridiculous - the number of human interactions in one versus the other will differ by more than an order of magnitude.

The fact that Alaska and Wyoming have among the highest gun death rates in the USA (comparing state-to-state, like-to-like) despite their low population densities, should really be cause for concern.

Also, when you're trying to compare like-to-like, compare rates, not totals. California is the biggest state, so it has a big total, but by rate compared to population it has among the least gun deaths in the entire country.

As far as Los Angeles goes, don't be ridiculous. I lived in LA for 14 years, most of that time in Inglewood, South Central, and Gardena (on the edge of Compton). I never once saw a gun on the streets except when the cops were pulling it. That doesn't mean that there's no gun crime - there are tragic shootings, and there is regular crime like there is in every urban area, and they happened in my neighborhood - but calling it a "war zone" is ridiculous.

And you know one of the best ways to reduce the deadliness of street crime in Los Angeles? How about reducing the accessibility of guns?

Someone recently showed that there were 14,000 knife assaults in England last year. They lead to 300 deaths. You know the difference between England and the USA? In the USA, those would have been 14,000 gun assaults, not knife assaults, and there would have been 5,000 dead, not 300.

Lol, talk about change of direction or change of subject compared to what prompted your initial response in the first place.

You guys are funny.

So we got about 20 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming out of 11,000 or 12,000 nationwide. Point is that most of these gun deaths, forget the incidence, BUT MOST of the gun homicides are occurring in crappy rural gang gilled inner city areas and rarely if ever impact the vast majority of people in the US.

21 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming changes zilch. You are the one that misused rates in inaccurate fashion.

Funny stuff.

capcc76 · September 8, 2015

^^^. Oh, and we definitely have war zones in inner city area ridden by drugs and gangs. For you to deny speaks volumes.

I have 2 residences. One is in a Nashville suburb and the other is in Destin Florida. I never lock my front doors at either residence. In fact both of my front doors right now are unlocked. Both will be unlocked while I sleep tonight.

I don't have a gun except for a 20 gauge shot gun, but I gave no shells.

I have lived in some rougher areas back in the 90s when I was in school. You had to have bars on the widows and large steel security doors or people would kick them in while you were gone during the day. These were actually cute neighborhoods, just close to the rift raft.

You can deny all you want it has to do with rift raft, that has little or no education, running around selling drugs and living in urban war zones. Shows nothing but you got your head up something or you, for whatever reason, refuse to accept the truth.

I will go home to a large, unlocked house that is the last house on top of a hill with about ever modern convenience once could hope for including wife's Lambo in the garage and key hanging on the wall. Guess what, it will still be there because the violence and BS is limited to very small areas in the US.

Bangkok Herps · September 8, 2015

Lol, talk about change of direction or change of subject compared to what prompted your initial response in the first place.
You guys are funny.

So we got about 20 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming out of 11,000 or 12,000 nationwide. Point is that most of these gun deaths, forget the incidence, BUT MOST of the gun homicides are occurring in crappy rural gang gilled inner city areas and rarely if ever impact the vast majority of people in the US.

21 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming changes zilch. You are the one that misused rates in inaccurate fashion.

Funny stuff.

Then why do ya'all need guns to defend yourselves, if this is such a non-issue for you?

Alaska and Wyoming actually have hundreds of gun deaths between them each year. Gun murders are not the only gun deaths. And it's not just Alaska and Wyoming - try to explain Arkansas and Montana up there near the top. Why are the gun death rates so much higher in Kentucky and West Virginia than in Illinois and New York? Why does Nevada and Arizona see so many more gun deaths/population than California? Why doesn't Washington state have the same gun death rate problem that Montana has? Gun deaths correlate extremely closely to gun ownership:

Actually, since your opponents have been posting so much evidence to counter you, can you even post one measly bit of proof that shows that most of the 30,000+ gun deaths a year are in "crappy rural gang gilled inner city areas", whatever that even means?

The NRA-blinded anti-gun control advocates on this thread seem to have three ways of responding:

1) One-off anecdotes. "It hasn't happened to me, so...."

2) Cherry-picked unrepresentative numbers. "Look! There's more gun murders in LA than in Wyoming!"

3) Wild baseless claims. "The only people who kill or die from guns are Black rural inner-city illegal immigrants!"

Meanwhile, they're getting hit with actual comprehensive statistics, study after study, and the dreaded...logic....in response. And not seeming to be able to come up with any of those three things in return.

Tep · September 8, 2015

Tep: Simple minded? That would be logic and common sense, obviously several on here wouldn't know anything about that. And who ever told you Obamacare was humming along nicely, also probably misinformed you about the gun control situation in the U.S.

Actually the Supreme Court of the United States informed me of the situation with Obamacare when they consistently ruled in favour of the law http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/25/politics/supreme-court-ruling-obamacare/. SCOTUS, you know that group of 5 un-elected lesbians refusing to allow Scalia's common sense to take American back to the 50's when it was 'Great Again'. Since Obamacare is off topic, then I can't really discuss it further but even though I used the most hot button issue I could think of to make a point, it piqued my interest. This site http://obamacarefacts.com/sign-ups/obamacare-enrollment-numbers/ provides a bunch of statistics. Over 16 million newly insured. Impressive by any measure.

I do not argue the point about implementing gun control in the US on the constitutional, racial, socio-economic and cultural issues that fire up the Base. I do not even argue that the US is not different from Australia and Europe and those differences impact on the way in which gun control is debated and implemented. I do, however, believe that merely having a larger population that other countries does not mean that gun control measures like amnesty and buy back, and others, cannot be implemented in the US with measurable outcomes. Whether those outcomes are an indicator of success for however that is defined by either side of the debate is another issue.

Let's circle back to the OP. Averaging more than one mass shooting a day in 2015. We have gone through the semantics of the word 'mass'; we have gone through the whole mental health diversion; countless recitations of the Bill of Rights; outright racism; and a lot of general nastiness about 'stay out of our business'. Rejecting the idea that there is a connection between mass shootings and gun control is not common sense to me and many others. I think the opinions of those people are valid and earnestly expressed irrespective of their ability to know which guns have safety mechanisms, how to break down an automatic weapon, or how many times every week they shoot holes in a piece of paper with an image of a black person drawn on it. Sorry, I mean an image of a person coloured in black ink.

As I said, you have been misinformed, or, you are not properly comprehending the information on Obamacare.

As to gun control, I'm 60 years old, and have been around firearms all of my life, never personally had a problem. However, my stepfather and my mother ran a small store in a rural, small town. He carried a .38 revolver, and had positioned a .357, with the hopes he would never have to use them. Unfortunately, one day three idiots show up to rob them. He killed one, and the other two were captured and put in prison, and by the way they were all three black. The police said that they believed he saved his, and my mother's life. I suppose you think it was his fault for running an honest business, that served the community, mostly black, but he must be a racist for shooting a black man, even though he was armed with a shogun. Personally, I'm happy the 2nd Amendment permits the ownership of firearms. One person chose to do something that saved his life, and unfortunately one idiot chose to do something, that cost him his.

Sorry but you are telling me that the information on obamacarefacts.com is incorrect? You are also telling me that SCOTUS did not rule in favour of Obamacare? Or are you just calling me stupid in the absence of anything sensible to say? Ad hominen attacks are pretty useless really.

I do not think that there is anything in what I have posted on this thread that justifies your assumptions about my response to your anecdote. Anecdotes are fine. This obviously contributed to informing your point of view. It does not inform policy however. As Stalin is reputed to have said, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic". Policy is made on the basis of statistics. The greatest good etc...

Countries with gun control do not have the incidences of mass shootings that you see in the US. The connection is quite self-evident. Pity that to a certain faction, the solution is not.

capcc76 · September 8, 2015

Lol, talk about change of direction or change of subject compared to what prompted your initial response in the first place.
You guys are funny.

So we got about 20 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming out of 11,000 or 12,000 nationwide. Point is that most of these gun deaths, forget the incidence, BUT MOST of the gun homicides are occurring in crappy rural gang gilled inner city areas and rarely if ever impact the vast majority of people in the US.

21 gun homicides in Alaska and Wyoming changes zilch. You are the one that misused rates in inaccurate fashion.

Funny stuff.

Then why do ya'all need guns to defend yourselves, if this is such a non-issue for you?

Alaska and Wyoming actually have hundreds of gun deaths between them each year. Gun murders are not the only gun deaths. And it's not just Alaska and Wyoming - try to explain Arkansas and Montana up there near the top. Why are the gun death rates so much higher in Kentucky and West Virginia than in Illinois and New York? Why does Nevada and Arizona see so many more gun deaths/population than California? Why doesn't Washington state have the same gun death rate problem that Montana has? Gun deaths correlate extremely closely to gun ownership:

Actually, since your opponents have been posting so much evidence to counter you, can you even post one measly bit of proof that shows that most of the 30,000+ gun deaths a year are in "crappy rural gang gilled inner city areas", whatever that even means?

The NRA-blinded anti-gun control advocates on this thread seem to have three ways of responding:

1) One-off anecdotes. "It hasn't happened to me, so...."

2) Cherry-picked unrepresentative numbers. "Look! There's more gun murders in LA than in Wyoming!"

3) Wild baseless claims. "The only people who kill or die from guns are Black rural inner-city illegal immigrants!"

Meanwhile, they're getting hit with actual comprehensive statistics, study after study, and the dreaded...logic....in response. And not seeming to be able to come up with any of those three things in return.

I don't need guns. I don't have guns. Most of the people using guns are the broke losers living in inner cities. That comprises a very small percentage of the population.

Here is what I do believe in . . . the right to live and do what one wants to do.

I don't need Italian sports cars, but I have them. I don't need Rolex watches, but I wear them. I don't need Dsquared jeans, but I like them. Some people like guns, so they buy them.

Its cool. Its called freedom. Freedom to be smart, freedom to be dumb, freedom to do what makes you happy to a certain extent. The US actually gives people this opportunity.

Tell me, what is your chances of going out and purchasing a Ferrari in Thailand. Lol, I imported a Lotus Elise there to drive around in Thailand and whoa it costs an arm and leg. I only did that because of the mark up on exotic cars made the purchase there an even worse option.. Not the case in the US.

What does a real Rolex cost there? What does real D'Squared jeans or an Armani Black label suit costs there in Thailand. What does an AK 47 or and AR15 costs there?

My brother is about as peace loving as it gets. He has a doctorate, married to a pharmacist wife, have 2 kids, 2 dogs picket fence (okay, no picket fence) and he has Ar15, pistols and etc. I don't like them. They make me a bit uneasy even though I grew up hunting. He will never use them against a human. Still, his choice. He likes them. They give him some pleasure. So who are you or anyone else to tell him not to have them.

We need to monitor and control the people, not their purchases. We have some seriously bad people in the world. They have no regard for human life. We need to focus of getting them off the streets and out of society.

Edited September 8, 2015 by capcc76

UKJASE · December 4, 2015

After today's US mass shooting (or maybe that should be, one of today's US mass shootings) the BBC ran this article, crunching the stats

here is one paragraph :-

So many people die annually from gunfire in the US that the death toll between 1968 and 2011 eclipses all wars ever fought by the country. According to research by Politifact, there were about 1.4 million firearm deaths in that period, compared with 1.2 million US deaths in every conflict from the Revolutionary War to Iraq.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604

Edited December 4, 2015 by UKJASE

55Jay · December 4, 2015

After today's US mass shooting (or maybe that should be, one of today's US mass shootings) the BBC ran this article, crunching the stats

here is one paragraph :-

So many people die annually from gunfire in the US that the death toll between 1968 and 2011 eclipses all wars ever fought by the country. According to research by Politifact, there were about 1.4 million firearm deaths in that period, compared with 1.2 million US deaths in every conflict from the Revolutionary War to Iraq.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604

Immigration/population figures are on steady upward trajectory while the number of natural predators declines due to urban encroachment.

If they ever got all the guns and starting reducing cars too, the population spike would soon be unsustainable, and might give rise to some unsavory, draconian policies that would make you squeal like a liberal piglet.

sandyf · December 4, 2015

The Americans can spin it any way they want if it makes them feel better, then stand back in amazement when perceived by the rest of the world as gun toting psychopaths.

Even the president advocates change but no one wants to listen, how do they think that appears to the global community.

55Jay · December 4, 2015

The Americans can spin it any way they want if it makes them feel better, then stand back in amazement when perceived by the rest of the world as gun toting psychopaths.

Even the president advocates change but no one wants to listen, how do they think that appears to the global community.

"The Americans". Is that like all British people have really bad teeth?

There seems to be a lot of people from Britian obsessed with this though. Like unhealthy obsessive/compulsive weird.

Anyway, if you are one of them, please stop being such an annoying Nanny. The Yanks will sort themselves out when they are good and ready to, just like they did you lot 200 odd years ago.

chuckd · December 4, 2015

The Americans can spin it any way they want if it makes them feel better, then stand back in amazement when perceived by the rest of the world as gun toting psychopaths.

Even the president advocates change but no one wants to listen, how do they think that appears to the global community.

How can you conceivably believe most Americans give a flying fig what the rest of the world thinks?

The current President is an empty suit. Nobody listens to empty suits.

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