Time for a "Mass Shootings" Forum?

Oh contraire...

 

I've sorta kept my distance from this thread because I've been doing my gun-control arguing amongst friends, family, and co-workers. But seeing this article infuriates me. This guy was a trained marksman, living in TEXAS of all places, at a gun range, and he was shot to death. To the gun-"rights" crowd, there is no safer place than in a concealed-carry state next to an expert marksman with a gun in a gun range. This is when the pro-gun crowd absolutely HAS to stop this nonsense. There is no reason whatsoever for this country to have 10,000 homicides a year due to firearms. Our firearm death rate is slightly higher than the Philippines, where a Muslim insurgency has terrified the South and the political factions in government regularly assassinate each other. It is higher than South Africa, where racial retaliatory killings occur all the time. It is double that of Zimbabwe and Serbia, two places not known for their success stories. It is just shy of Mexico, where the drug gangs kill some 30,000 people a year. But that's a comparative example, the gun-nuts will reply; this is America and we deserve our freedom!

Fine, let's compare states. A lot of people will tell you that DC is the highest shooting-death state, and it's a gun-control state. That's anecdotal, but fine. What they won't tell you is who is second, third, fourth, or fifth. That would be Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Michigan. For full disclosure, the top ten firearms murder rate by state (with the percentage INCREASE or DECREASE from last year in parentheses):

1) DC (-22)
2) LA (+15)
3) MS (+15)
4) SC (+8)
5) MI (+9)
6) MD (-7)
7) MO (-14)
8) AR (18)
9) NY (-14)
10) PA (3)

And the bottom five:
51) Hawaii (-86)
50) New Hampshire (+20)
49) Rhode Island (-69)
48) South Dakota (-38)
47) Iowa (-10)

As a caveat, the reason why the percentage changes are so big for the bottom five is because they had, combined, fewer than fifty murders last year between them. Iowa led the pack with 19.

I would continue with the rest of the bottom ten, but that's three more blue states and two more red states so there's still an equal number of blue states and red states in the top, whereas blue states outnumber red states 7-3 in the bottom. High-homicide states on this list tend to be urban if they are blue states and rural if they are red states (duh). Everyone has concealed-carry. There is a discernible relationship between the number of guns in a state and its firearms rate, but that's for academics to tease out with regressions. Low-homicide states, however, appear to be exclusively small if urban or rural. There's an argument there, sure, but I think you could boil it down to a) large populations tend to breed unfamiliarity which breeds distrust and b) the South has a gun problem as seven of those ten states/areas were south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The larger point I want to address is how this sniper's death means preparing for attack at any moment, being one of the most well-trained individuals in the world, probably packing as he was killed, at a GUN RANGE, where allegedly qualified gun owners spend their days trainin' and practicin', is just absurd. If he doesn't stand a chance, what chance do we stand? And since (notice how I didn't say if - there is no arguing this point) he didn't have the time to pull out his gun and take down the shooter, and since you won't be able to as well, what peace of mind do you have by owning so many firearms, with such powerful capacity to kill? And if reducing the number of guns per capita to below that of Yemen seems so absurd to you, what alternative do you propose? We can't train anybody better than this guy, so you can't make that a priority. We can't arm ourselves any more to the teeth because right now there are enough guns to take over the rest of the world. We can't make guns more concealed-carry. We can't seem to rid this country of "evil" and "criminals" (and let's keep in mind; not every murderer has a prior criminal record), Batman-style either. What real alternative do you have to the President's gun control executive orders and the Feinstein bill?


Seriously. What alternative?

 

How did you get 51 states, are you as big a dumbass as the president and don't know how many states we have?

I do not need an alternative. Overall crime is on the way down. It doesn't matter how hard you search the interwebz to support your argument.


I do like your side carrying this argument, since we have bought five rifles since Sandy Hook and two shotguns, thousands of rounds, and reloading supplies. You are making these investments skyrocket by the day. I should have my FFL within a month. I owe that to you guys. Thanks for that!!

If you are ever a victim of a violent crime I bet you call somebody with a gun.

 

While DC is not a state, 50 states + DC = 51

 

Oh ok well lets count it as a state then. I mean what state has more armed security and secret service than DC? You know those that want to vote to take away our guns away all have armed security and Feinstein has a CCW, right? Yup that makes perfect sense. Frickin hypocrite central USA. I am going to go by the laws THEY go by. You know citizen government and all.

 

Now you know that pesky document is a tired moth eaten nuisance that only exists to hinder our government from doing what is best for us!! No worries though they have gotten adept at circumventing it.

 

I never said that, you did. If it is good enough for them then it is good enough for us. They are supposed to be our employees after all.

 

Tinker established long ago that students do, in fact, have first amendment rights but they are not absolute. To simply scream, "I have a right!" is no more compelling than y-lee and his drivel. Most recently, the Supreme Court allowed schools to limit speech that promotes alcohol or drugs in the famous "Bong hits 4 Jesus" case. Even there, Alito made it pretty clear in his concurring opinion that had the kid in that case had any political motive to his message, he likely would have gone the other way in a 5-4 opinion. Adding a gun to a political message in school is an interesting question, and who knows, it might be challenged in court by this kid.

 

Sigh... another Obama failure.

 

Fixed.

Why do you hate America?

 

First, I'm still waiting to hear from you about single-payer. Secondly, while DC doesn't get two Senators, it has roughly the same population as either Dakota, Alaska, or Vermont and when comparing geographic areas of the country is basically the equivalent of a state. Third, while overall "crime" is on the way down, gun deaths have increased steadily since - wait for it - 2004.

Look, you're not equipped with the tools to understand a lot of what's going on here, and that's okay. Americans should have a diversity of viewpoints, educational standards, and backgrounds to listen to when making decisions. But I'd like to hope you'd have just enough respect for fellow posters on here to couch calling them dumb on a slightly higher rhetorical plane than just saying "dumbass." If you lack the breadth of vocabulary to do so, there are several helpful websites, local libraries, and elementary schools that provide this service. If the chasm to bridge is so vast and yawning that even remedial assistance would be unproductive, then I would encourage that you recess from posting on P&CE until such time as you can elevate your trash-talking skill.

 

One of the worst arguments made by the gun crowd is that Chicago or DC have tough gun laws but high gun violence. No shit. They don't grow much food in DC or Chicago either, but somehow it finds its way in so that we can, you know, eat. Virginia has gun shows with no background checks in very close vicinity to DC. You have to drive about 20 miles from Chicago to buy pretty much anything.

 

Also, notice how Illinois wasn't in the top ten?

 

No, he has guns. That is all he needs

 

Have we shifted to a College Basketball discussion?

 

I would agree that the risk of mass shootings would "probably" be lessened. However, it would be impossible to measure the lessening, since most of the decrease would be deterrence of some potential shooters, who might then select a softer target. Since mass school shootings occur so rarely anyway, it would take decades of data to show such a policy was effective.

As long as we are being honest, lets go on to say that the idea of putting an armed guard in every school with the intention of "making the school safer" by, presumably lessening the risk of a successful armed attack, is up there with one of the stupidest public policy ideas I've heard recently.

There are about 130,000 public schools in the US. One armed guard at each school (larger ones might need several, though) would cost about $ 50,000 per year. Total cost = $ 6.5 billion per year. Minimum.

As you point out, an armed guard is no guarantee that a school shooting wouldnt occur. In fact, if we can extrapolate from data showing suicide and gun accidents occur far more frequently in houses with guns, it is much more likely that by putting an armed guard in every school, school shootings would INCREASE due to the accidents and suicides that would occur.

Armed guard in every school effective ? Hardly.
Cost effective ? Not even debatable. Extraordinarily bad idea.

 

I have, as well, but the same event brought us both back here:

I had seen similar ones:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/03/chris-kyle-navy-seal-dead/1887327/
A bit closer to the source, with more details:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/02/4596024/militarys-deadliest-sniper-killed.html
"Witnesses told sheriff's investigators that the gunman opened fire on the two men around 3:30 p.m., then fled in a pickup belonging to one of the victims. The Sheriff's Department didn't get a call until around 6 p.m."
I guess no one had a cell phone ...
"unnamed sources ... saying that Kyle ... and a neighbor, Chad Littlefield, 35, had taken Routh on an outing to help him deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Routh turned on the men and shot them in the back"
Because, nothing helps someone with PTSD more, than takin' them a-shootin' ...

Good luck with that.

OTOH, if someone had asked his opinion of the Second Amendment, open-carry, concealed-carry, assault rifes, large-capacity magazines, etc., 5 minutes before he was shot dead, what do you think his answer would have been?

http://www.tracetheguns.org/#/laws/8/
Amazingly, only 7 states do! Fortunately, IMO, NJ is one of the few. It also is 10 of 10 for the criteria in the article http://www.tracetheguns.org/#/states/NJ/exports/
I guess the only reason people report thefts elsewhere, is for the insurance claim. It is reportedly a double dip for straw men.