Sunday Open Thread [5.25.14]
On Friday, there was another shooting spree — this time at UC Santa Barbara — 4 dead from gunshots, 3 from knife wounds and some of the 13 in the hospital were also shot. The shooter apprently shot himself, and had more mayhem on his mind:
Brown acknowledged both the videos posted on the Internet by the suspect, as well as a sprawling 141-page biographical “manifesto” that was sent to the media. The document details Rodger’s life up until the point where he planned his “Day of Retribution.”
Brown also said the department had had three documented contacts with Rodger prior to Friday’s incident.
The suspect is believed to have started shooting at 9:27 p.m. PT in the small community of Isla Vista, Brown said. By 9:33 he had been engaged by deputies and shortly thereafter he was found dead in his car “from an apparent gunshot wound to the head.”
Brown said police found three semi-automatic handguns in the car along with more than 40 loaded magazines of ammunition. Working with the ATF, Brown said all of the weapons and ammunition were obtained legally and were registered to Rodger.
The father of one of the shooting victims asks the question I’ve been asking everytime someone with a gun steps out to slaughter a bunch of innocents:
“Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live? When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say, ‘Stop this madness?” We don’t have to live like this! Too many have died! We should say to ourselves, ‘Not one more!’”
See the father’s press conference here:
We don’t have to live like this, except by the insistence of the ammosexuals (!) who insist that their overcooked perception of danger is the reason that the rest of us are subjected to more danger than we should be. Justice would be for these people to be confined to their Red States where their fears only put their children and the children of people who think like them at risk. Because I suspect that this doesn’t start to end until the children of NRA members are dying for no reason. And then there’s this from Andy Borowitz:
When people say, “Guns aren’t the problem, mental illness is the problem,” I reply, “They’re both problems, and right now we’re not addressing either of them.”
On this upcoming Memorial Day, remember those who fought and dies to protect American freedom — but also remember the innocent Americans who give their lives as the price for fear masquerading as freedom.
So let the rationalizations, deflections and avoidance of the questions begin!
There is no denying that the NRA position is that straight forward.
I quotation comes to mind. I don’t know its author, however, it applies here perfectly:
“Evil people exit. They always will. Some people are simply born broken. They want to rape, kill, hurt, or whatever. You can prepare for them, look out for them, and do your best to be vigilant, but you cannot legislate them or counsel them to not be broken.”
The first 3 victims of this incident were stabbed. Logic dictates that if the gun were to blame, so would be the knife. It is also a reasonable conclusion that, even if he did not have a gun, he would have stabbed at least 3 more victims. This attack was very meticulously planned as many others have been. With certainty, the assumption can be made that it would have occurred no matter what weapons are banned. Perhaps a pressure cooker would have been the weapon of choice.
Most disturbing is that the perpetrator had multiple contacts with the police, as did the Washington Navy Yard murderer. Why did this not raise flags in the police department’s data analysis system?
You mention an ” overcooked perception of danger” immediately after an incident where there existed a very real danger. That real danger is why those of us that are proactive in protecting our families train in self defense, situational awareness and often choose to be armed.
The danger found on our streets is far from imaginary. Like many gun owners, I would be happy to never need to carry a weapon. Quite frankly, it is a real pain in the neck. Unfortunately, until all of the violent criminals and psychopaths disappear, there aren’t many other options.
As I have said many times, I respect your choice to distance yourself from firearms. Please show the same respect for those of us that value our freedom and choose to be safely & responsibly prepared to defend against those supposedly imaginary threats that seem to make the headlines over & over again.
There we go, the first rationalization, deflection and avoidance of the questions — all in one post!
Not rationalization, deflection or avoidance.
Just the facts.
This incident was not the fault of the gun, the knife, the NRA, lack of regulations, nor the mental health system.
It was the personal responsibility of a deranged killer. Hopefully, one day, we will be able to identify these tendencies & prevent such events from happening.
There’s no fact in your post — just more of the same BS rationalizing why everyone else has to live with the danger of your guns. And until you have an answer to the father of the murdered young man, you are ALWAYS deflecting and avoiding the issue at hand.
What law could have prevented this? I have an interesting point to Casandra’s quote
“And until you have an answer to the father of the murdered young man” The young man was not murdered, he was the murderer. He shot himself. This shows your flawed thought process and why we will never agree.
“What law could have prevented this?”
I wonder…..
@Hawkeye — We won’t ever agree because you refuse to deal with the facts right in front of you. The grieving father in that video is the father of Christopher Martinez — one of the VICTIMS of the shooter. And your complete disdain of the question of whether or not that young man — one of the VICTIMS — had any more rights to his life than you have to your guns is why there is no discussion. You can’t even muster up enough respect to be clear about who the victims are here in the rush to make sure that you get to preserve your own.
Asshole.
Well said. There is very little point in engaging these fanatics other than to expose their uncritical zeal and obsessive enthusiasm.
1). Please don’t assume that Hawkeye’s error was intentional. I’m sure that he will catch it & reply accordingly.
2). Regarding Australian crime:
” In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.
Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:
In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates…”
What makes you assume that if all guns were banned no one would have one?
After all cocaine, heroine, crack, crystal meth & many other things are completely banned yet easily available from multiple sources. Building guns is not rocket science. You cannot simply “uninvent” them.
The facts of this case are very clear. A seriously ill, sociopathic student went on a killing rampage. So far, we lack the knowledge and/or technology to stop these events. If we all continue to focus on the methods used (knives & guns), there will never be a solution to the problem. In that light, please stop skirting the issue & let us know if you have any ideas that might work.
Cassandra, when I started reading your post I was going to apologize for making the mistake of the wrong father. But seeing how you ended your post, never mind.
The facts of this case are very clear. A seriously ill, sociopathic student went on a killing rampage with legally purchased guns. (Fixed that for you.)
Because we can’t do anything about guns without opening the door to tyranny – we shouldn’t do anything about guns.
Don’t attempt to deny that is your uncritical and obsessive position.
You seem to be missing my point.
Even if he could not legally get a gun, he probably would have done so illegally.
Even if he could not get a gun at all (as if they did not exist), he would have obtained, constructed or contrived some sort of weapon. It is even possible that such a weapon would have been much more deadly than his gun. For example a pressure cooker bomb or ricin extracted from easily obtained castor beans
This murderer, like many others, appears to have been organized and above all determined. The only way to end these senseless acts is to find a way to predict them. This is a human behavior issue not a gun issue.
Yes it is. We make it far too easy for our deranged to get guns. Other countries erect obstacles. In Canada it takes sixty days to buy a gun. To get a gun in Canada you have to take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories. We could have that…. except….. TYRANNY !!
That is a fact. I’m not at all surprised that you can’t see it. You are a zealot and have left critical thinking in the rearview mirror.
After giving it some thought I need to say that I am somewhat embarrassed by my earlier post. Rather than thoroughly research what I am looking at I went in for a cheap shot and made myself look foolish by making an assumption that was not valid. This was not fair to the people who post their opinions on this forum. I will not make that mistake again.
Jason:
1). Mental health records are currently part of the NICS background check database. Unfortunately, some states such as California choose not to submit them.
The current state of mental health technology is not able to predict violence. This needs to be worked on. Saying that anyone who has ever received mental health care should not have a gun is simply wrong, especially considering that over 60% of the population has done so at some time in their life. In fact, I would bet that most individuals who seek care are less likely to commit an act of violence than those who do not seek care.
2). Most gun owners and the NRA have no opposition to requiring gun safety training. However, this training needs to be easily obtainable and free (or nearly so).
The fear amongst gun owners is that “safety training” will simply be a rouse by anti-gun zealots to implement a defacto gun ban. In Delaware, safety training is required to get a hunting license or firearms carry permit.
3). Waiting periods have been tried & proven ineffective. In the current case, the guns were purchased nearly a year ago. Most importantly, they would deny someone who urgently needs self protection their ability to do so. For example, a woman who lives alone & is being stalked by a predator.
Actually, I’m glad that you came up with an idea that did not have the word “ban” in it. Keep up the good work.
Japan had 22 gun homocides in 2007 and it was a national scandal. We could have that except tyranny.
That’s a fact.
I was waiting for the knife V gun game
Sadly, three people were stabbed and three shot dead
What the gun apologists refuse to talk about is how many were WOUNDED by the gun- and how easy is it to kill when one drives by and just shoots out the car window—-indiscriminately.
And I have never heard of a drive by knifing – one must stop their car get out and physically approach and stab the victim – it’s a deeply personal crime- and far more hard to kill multiple victims
But as some wise person said-” it’s about guns AND. Mental health- and we are doing little about either “
When a drunk driver plows through a crowd, and kills people, we blame the drunk driver, not the car. When a madman strangles or stabs people to death, we blame the madman, not the rope or the knife. But when a lunatic shoots some people, the left don’t hesitate to blame not the loony, but the gun.
The police visited Mr Rodger’s home, and I heard somewhere this morning (CNN?) that if they had just gone into his bedroom, they’d have found materials damning enough for them to have taken some sort of action. But Mr Rodger apparently exhibited no behavior which constituted probable cause to search his bedroom, and the officers might have needed a warrant. My good friends at the Delaware Liberal are very concerned about the right to privacy, but for the police to have made the discoveries which might have prevented this, they’d have had to have violated his rights to privacy.
The police are overworked as it is, investigating crimes which have already happened; few police departments have the time and resources to start investigating mental instability claims against people who have not yet committed a crime.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/yesallwomen?src=hash
When a drunk driver plows through a crowd, and kills people, we blame the drunk driver, not the car.
Actually one of the first things we do is impound the car to rule out a mechanical cause.
When a madman strangles or stabs people to death, we blame the madman, not the rope or the knife.
How many mass stranglings do we see? And we do blame the knife; certain types of knife are illegal, and many places ban concealed knives of any type.
The comparison of guns to cars, to knives, etc., fails account for one indisputable fact: a gun serves no other purpose but to kill. Absolutely blame the gun.
Contrary to Wayne LaPierre’s little poem following the murder or 20 elementary school kids at Sandy Hook, the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is NOT a good guy with a gun. Rather the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to keep the gun out of his hands in the first place.
No one knows if tighter access would have kept a gun out of this poor bastard’s hand. But that is the poorest excuse for not trying. I get a kick out of the “no law, or regulation or test would have caught this guy” before he got a gun therefore we shouldn’t try. That is bullshit brought on by 2nd Amendment fear mongers. I’m willing to bet that the first time you jerked off you weren’t sure what might happen, or if it would work at all. But, to your eventual delight, you at least tried it. Trying has its rewards.
Personally, I’ll take sorely disappointed but rejected gun buyers over the scores of dead caused by guns.
The Gun Nuts, predictably, don’t dispute the fact that their main argument is ridiculous:
I’m not surprised by all the deflection and rationalization. It is all they have.
Aint’s Taking it Any More,
Great point.
Translation: because a few social misfits decide that they want to end it all, and do so in a spectacular way which gets their names and faces plastered all over CNN, we should restrict the liberties and constitutional rights of everybody.
Sorry, but I don’t accept that, and neither have you when it comes to holding Muslims to stricter scrutiny, since terrorist attacks are far more likely to be committed by Muslim men, because that would violate the First Amendment’s protection on religious liberty. Given that homosexual males are the people most likely to spread AIDS and venereal diseases, if we were to use your logic, we should subject them to greater scrutiny, but we all know that you’d scream about privacy rights, and discrimination, about that. Young black men are far more likely to commit crimes, both with and without a firearm being involved, but if we were to suggest that young black males ought to be subjected to stricter scrutiny by law enforcement, y’all would scream raaaaacism. You strongly uphold our constitutional rights, when it comes to everything but the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
I’m not impressed. Dana just used a lot of words to say that I’m right. Just say it Dana. “Jason is right.”
@Hawkeye — thank you.
And Dana is one of those I expected to show up with the rationalizations, deflections and an avoidance of the question. One of our resident ammosexuals, if you will.
If you kill someone (or even hurt people or property in some instances), your driver’s licence or even your car could be forfeit. Even so — you will be paying through the nose for car insurance (assuming you could get it) for the better part of your life.
Via Balloon Juice, you can see the killer’s writings at the LA Times. He may have been mentally ill, but he certainly got the entire gun power trip (the same power trip that our ammosexuals bluster over with second amendment bullshit):
Besides the ready availability of killing tools killer had (in my view) a narcissistic personality disorder evidence by his sense of entitlement to pretty women. He also exhibited a characteristic that others were responsible for his own happiness. I’m not suggesting that this is endemic to our society these days, but I see it far too often so I know it’s not rare. He says that pretty girls are not attracted to him and blames the girls and even goes so far as to suggest that he is perfect and it is some defect in the girls that they are not attracted to him.
Wherever did these people get the idea that someone else other than themselves are responsible for their happiness and worth? And what about his superficial definition of pretty?
Cassandra wrote:
And that would be along the same lines as the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” It is that provision which provides the exception by which convicted felons can be barred from owning firearms.
By what due process of law could Mr Rodger have been denied his constitutional rights to own firearms? He had no criminal record, and despite having been in some sort of therapy for years, not one mental health professional raised any issue to law enforcement; the right to privacy and doctor/patient confidentiality, also part of our laws, may be involved in that.
Matthew Yglesais, not exactly a rabid reich-winger like me, noted that both the murder rate and the number of non-fatal shootings has been steadily declining in the United States, despite District of Columbia v Heller, and McDonald V Chicago, along with the passage of more concealed (and open) carry laws that the left told us would lead to greater carnage.
But we do have a new phenomenon: the loser in life, who decides that he wants to end it all, but now sees that, instead of committing suicide alone, and maybe getting one column inch on page B-7, he can go out spectacularly, in ablaze of glory, with CNN covering it 24/7, so everybody will know who he was once he’s gone. You can’t always stop the deranged, you can’t always find the deranged.
Weak.
Dave noted:
If you read some of what he wrote, his intended victims were going to be, “the hottest sorority house at UCSB and . . . every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see inside there. All those girls I’ve desired so much. They have all rejected me and looked down on me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance toward them, while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes.” But for me, this was the most telling part of what he wrote:
I’d bet a case of Mountain Dew that the girls who might have been interested in him were also “beneath” him. He was short and not athletic, but his target girls — unfortunate pun realized while writing, but still sadly appropriate — were the “the hottest sorority house ” girls, the girls who were apparently way out of his league. The not-so-hot girls, the nerd girls, the ones with whom he might have had a chance, if he had only tried, weren’t good enough for him.
Ours is a society fixated on beauty, and every cultural message we receive is full of model-type women, and men, but the vast majority of us know in which league we can play.
You’re right about what, Jason? That you could reduce crime by eliminating our constitutional rights? Well, yeah, you’re certainly right about that, and it was done, very effectively, in places like the USSR, in China, in North Korea, in Nazi Germany, just a whole host of places.
Think how much we could reduce crime by eliminating trial by jury, or the standard of innocent until proved guilty. We could wiretap every residence, maybe put marijuana smoke detectors in every home, wired straight to the police department, and we’d reduce crime dramatically. We could simply shoot everyone suspected of a crime, and really reduce prison expenses, too!
I’m not surprised by all of the deflection and rationalization, either. Nor am I surprised that NOT ONE OF THEM will address that grieving father’s central question.
We can’t do anything about guns in America because we risk tyranny. That’s it, right? Yes or no?
We can’t do anything about guns in America because we risk taking the power trip away. It is — apparently — all they have left.
That’s a good point. The world seems upside down to Dana. Uppity gays getting married and kissing on TV. A black President. At least he has his guns. That’s a part of it, but the nonsense argument at the heart is that while the rest of the world can thread the needle between tyranny and gun mayhem – we can’t.
So, Jason, which rights do you think are disposable other than our right to keep and bear arms? You must have some idea.
And yes, taking away our right to keep and bear arms is a step toward tyranny. Taking away any of our rights is a step toward tyranny.
Mr 330 wrote:
Why don’t you look at the rest of the world, where in good, democratic counties like Austria, people have actually gone to jail for Holocaust denial, in Canada and in the UK and in Germany, where offensive speech is legally punishable. The rest of the world hasn’t threaded that needle quite the way you think it has.
A key point in this tragic story; had any three of the people who reported or followed up on reports of erratic thinking and behavior, ie: his mother, his therapist or the untrained cops on the “welfare check” at the shooters home had the authority under privacy laws to request a thorough, involuntary psychiatric examination and assessment, the victims might have been spared this tragedy. Due process would have been provided with a psychiatric court ruling on this request from the three entities with contact and the victims right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness might have been served as well.
A second vital point. I read that the young killer’s therapist called his mother and alerted her to concerning behavior/idiation. Under current privacy laws, he/she was violating the patient’s privacy unless the patient had signed a waiver allowing such communication to a family member. I don’t know by reports I’ve read if such a waiver existed. This may indeed have been a very brave act by the therapist, risking their license. This current law is yet another absurdity in our mental health system.
Dana, So why can’t you just come out and say it? Is because when it is all spelled out it sound ridiculous – even to you?
Taking away any of our rights is a step toward tyranny.
Including your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without the tyrannical (oh yes they are — just read this thread) ammosexuals preserving the right of everyone to shoot at you and your children for no damn reason.
You know why gun lovers don’t want the National Institutes of Health to investigate gun violence? Because they’re afraid the researchers will find that gun-love is just another form of addictive behavior. The gun lover is getting a major dopamine rush that nothing else can give him.
Talking with Dana about it is like trying to convince an alcoholic that he’s got a problem.
A government that can order people into military service already is tyrannical. Gun lovers are fooling themselves badly on that score. Government IS tyranny, because ultimately there will be rules that people didn’t make but will have to follow.
Cassandra, here are your direct answers.
“Why did Chris die?
This question is best answered by looking at one of the most persistent & puzzling questions that has existed for centuries:
“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
It has been answered in many ways. Please consult your prefered priest, minister, rabbi, or philosophy professor for a detailed answer.
“What about Chris’s right to live? ”
See question #1
“When will this insanity stop? ”
Probably never. Sociopaths have existed since the beginning of time. Even amongst animals, certain individuals will behave aberrantly. They will kill their own kind and even consume their own offspring. Hopefully, research into the human mind will eventually find ways to predict & prevent this behavior.
The difficulty of answering these questions results in many trying to AVOID them or to RATIONALIZE by DEFLECTING blame toward physical items such as knives & guns.
Bullshit. If you can rattle on about your right to a gun while completely ignoring the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by those targeted by folks like you, then you can count yourself as part of the tyranny.
One more bit of deflection and rationalization on your part.
The same qualities that make guns effective for defense also make them effective for offense.
Pretending that “blame” is the point shows that radef is in denial about the potential for abuse of guns. Get back to us as soon as you hear about history’s first drive-by knifing.
I am fully aware that guns can be used offesivly. Many things in life have both good and bad asociated with them. Responsible people use these things for good and not evil. It is the personal responsibility of the user to do so. My guns are used responsibly and safely. Even the most mundane items can be used to hurt or kill. Society cannot possibly place controls on every single item that has a potential for abuse.
Say that the perpretartor took his BMW at 100 mph and aimed it toward the largest group of students that he could find. Many would have been killed and seriously injured. What would your response be in that case?
Unfourtunatly, for you, guns connote only the negative.That is your opinion and I respect it. Why are you so unable to respect my opinion? Are you somehow better than me? Maybe more “enlightened?”
Almost 100 years ago alcohol was the object blamed as the root of all evil. So much so that a constitutional amendment was passed to ban it entirely.
We all know how that worked out.
Geezer wrote:
Oh, I’m quite sure that, if the Democrats believe that they can somehow define gun ownership as an addictive behavior or a mental illness, and use such a definition as a way to circumvent the Second Amendment, they would do it, in a heartbeat.
Mr Geezer wrote:
Actually, I agree: conscription is tyrannical, and constitutes involuntary servitude.
I support having as few laws as are absolutely necessary to protect the rights of individuals.
Comment in moderation, due to too many hyperlinks, but I’ll give the conclusion here: The odds that an individual American will be killed by a firearm are .00279%; the odds that an individual American will be killed by an alcohol-related automobile accident are .00389%, right at 40% higher, but our good friends at the Delaware Liberal don’t want to ban automobiles, and have been rather blasé about driving while intoxicated (think of their former “drinking liberally” get togethers). But, then again, perhaps now that they are aware of the statistics, perhaps they’ll convert over to a ban-the-Buick status.
@D “The odds that an individual American will be killed by a firearm are .00279%”
That’s WAY WAY Off. How about including suicides in all of that? The actual annual death rate odds in the US is closer to 0.01% and if you multiply that by a lifetime of years, the actual odds get considerably worse.
And suicide alone is a major health hazard to such an extent that a gun is about 10 times more likely to kill it’s owner than it is to kill a stranger. …and that statistic alone is enough to makes gun ownership so utterly stupid. Stupid is as stupid does.
That’s WAY WAY Off.
Dana has a track record of lying and then banning people who point out when he lies.
As of 2010, deaths from firearms were at the rate of 10.1 per 100,000, or 0.01010%
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf
You are correct – Dana is lying. Again.
Lunatic murdered three people with a knife.
Rodger’s rampage is not a reason to enact tougher gun laws. The 11,000 to 12,000 gun-related homicides per year is another story.
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Only about 1/3 of those firearm-related deaths were homicides.
Not such a huge lie now, right?
And another one in the rationalization, deflection and avoidance business.
@cassandra_m:
Pot calling the kettle black.
Rationalizing stricter gun laws by pointing to a tragedy rather than by mentioning the other 10,000+ homicides. Avoiding actual discussion with ad hominem attacks.
Get out of your own way on this issue.
“Society cannot possibly place controls on every single item that has a potential for abuse.”
Only with guns, however, do use and abuse come down to intent.
We have seen in Florida how easily someone with a gun perceives the threat to his person as potentially lethal. Soon to come will be the first case in which two gunmen shoot each other, each one acting in self-defense.
You misunderstand my position. It’s simple: We as a society have decided that 36,000 gun deaths a year — about half by suicide — are the acceptable price of freedom. Once you acknowledge and embrace that, we have nothing more to discuss — except to set the over/under on when society will stop accepting that as the price of freedom from your imaginary “tyranny.”
Two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. are committed with guns.
@Davy : Only about 1/3 of those firearm-related deaths were homicides.
Not such a huge lie now, right?
Only for those people who are unable to read.
Dana claimed “The odds that an individual American will be killed by a firearm are .00279%”.
The odds are actually more like 0.01% – four times higher. Dana lied.
Further, according to Wikipedia, homicide rates per 100,000
Canada, 1.6. United Kingdom, 1.2. Australia, 1.0.
USA 4.8.
Gee – I wonder if there’s any link between homicide rates around four times those of comparable countries, and easy civilian access to tools for killing people?
You misunderstand my position. It’s simple: We as a society have decided that 36,000 gun deaths a year — about half by suicide — are the acceptable price of freedom.
Please supply your metric for demonstrating people in the US to be more free than those in the rest of the West.
The freedom to which I refer is the freedom to put guns in the hands of just about anyone. We have that freedom, and it costs us about 36,000 people a year.
Within a very few years, perhaps as soon as this year, firearms will kill more people than traffic accidents do. Traffic deaths peaked at over 50,000 per year, but we have lowered that figure by forcing car manufacturers to incorporate safety features and adopting stricter laws to deter drunken driving.
Someday politicians will learn that a relatively small minority of gun owners have this unhealthy attachment to their weapons and will take the sort of actions that would curtail the gun deaths. Until then, the gun lovers will continue to scare everyone else into doing what they want — you know, sort of like a guy with a gun who orders everyone to do what he says.
Geezer:
I do not see this as the acceptable price of freedom. I simply believe that guns are only a small part of the problem and not the root of the issue.
Suicide:
The suicide rate in the US is lower than that of at least 30 other countries. In some of those countries virtually no guns exist in private hands. In China it has become so bad that safety netting has been erected around some buildings in order to catch jumpers. Guns are clearly not the cause of suicides. The solution is to study why people choose to kill themselves and to diagnose these tendencies as early as possible. Banning all guns may prevent a small number of suicides but certainly not a large percentage.
Homicide:
The overwhelming majority of gun homicides are directly linked to other criminal activity such as gang violence & drugs. Those guns are mostly obtained illegally.
The NRA & almost all gun owners actively support interrupting the flow of illegal guns to criminals. On the other hand, it does not appear to be much of a priority for the government. How many gun raids have occurred in Wilmington lately? Probably none. How many investigators are assigned to the illegal firearms trade in DE? Again probably none. I would bet that well over 99% of the shootings in Wilmington last year were related to other criminal activity. Stop that activity & you will stop the killings.
The legal, sporting use of firearms is actually very safe. In fact it is one of the safest sports in the US.
The answer to gun violence is to stop this divisiveness and to work together in order to develop effective solutions that do not include bans & other useless laws. While I have said this many times, few here seem to agree. In your minds guns are evil & should be banished from existence. As long as this war continues, there will be no solution.
Guns are clearly not the cause of suicides.
They are, however, an enabler of suicides.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/
“A study by the Harvard School of Public Health of all 50 U.S. states reveals a powerful link between rates of firearm ownership and suicides. Based on a survey of American households conducted in 2002, HSPH Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management Matthew Miller, Research Associate Deborah Azrael, and colleagues at the School’s Injury Control Research Center (ICRC), found that in states where guns were prevalent—as in Wyoming, where 63 percent of households reported owning guns—rates of suicide were higher. The inverse was also true: where gun ownership was less common, suicide rates were also lower.
The lesson? Many lives would likely be saved if people disposed of their firearms, kept them locked away, or stored them outside the home. Says HSPH Professor of Health Policy David Hemenway, the ICRC’s director: “Studies show that most attempters act on impulse, in moments of panic or despair. Once the acute feelings ease, 90 percent do not go on to die by suicide.””
The freedom to which I refer is the freedom to put guns in the hands of just about anyone.
Needing guns as a tool to support the freedom to have guns seems a trifle circular, don’t you think?
Let me suggest that the average American is not noticably more free than the average citizen of other Western countries – barring, of course, the ability to acquire things that go bang and kill 36,000 of you a year. Which would imply that the ability to own guns isn’t really correlated with freedom at all.
I believe I can acquire many more varieties of cuddly novelty Kiwis than you can in the next hour. If I claimed that my ability to accumulate cuddly novelty Kiwis made me more free than you, I imagine you’d disagree.
@Dana: “Matthew Yglesais, not exactly a rabid reich-winger like me, ….
Right, but Dana is just that, as per his blog. For example: http://www.journal14.com/2014/05/24/from-around-the-blogroll-79/
If it were personal with Dana, i.e. if one of his two daughters were the victim of gun violence, I believe he would be blowing a different tune.
I can tell you, and you should notice yourselves in this very thread, that Dana is an absolutist about the interpretion our Constitution. It is virtually impossible to make an absolutist statement or rule of law about any issue, which is why we have our Courts.
Dana ought to discuss why our murder rate is very high compared to the rest of the developed world. For example: US 4.8, UK 1.2, France 1.1, Spain 0.8 per 100,000 population in 2012 per Wiki.
Do you think it may have to do with the fact our citizens are so heavily armed? For example: US 89.0, France 31.2, Spain 10.2 per 100 residents in 2007 per Wiki.
@Geezer ”The freedom to which I refer is the freedom to put guns in the hands of just about anyone. We have that freedom, and it costs us about 36,000 people a year.”
It costs much much more than that. Why is it that I feel FAR FAR safer walking around Seoul, Nagoya, Shenzhen, Sydney, Ljublijana, Dublin,…
…than I do walking around ordinary cities in the US???
There’s a large price we pay for that loss of basic freedoms that others in the world enjoy at ease.
The United States’ suicide rate is not substantially different from other developed countries’ rates. Guns are not driving the suicide rate even if guns are involved in most U.S. suicides.
Of course, I am looking at “successes” not attempts.
“Needing guns as a tool to support the freedom to have guns seems a trifle circular, don’t you think?”
Bingo. Freedom isn’t free, and the illusion of freedom isn’t either.
From one of our resident deflectors and rationalizers:
Get out of your own way on this issue.
You probably hadn’t noticed that I’m the one asking the question that you are so busily running away from. If you had actually read the post you might have gotten that. But then, you are probably still working out how the CRA crashed the economy.
“…Democrats believe that they can somehow define gun ownership as an addictive behavior or a mental illness, …”
Deflection, avoidance but most of all hysterical paranoia. That’s what you get when you ask a simple yes or no question about guns.
Gun ownership isn’t mental illness. Claiming you own guns to prevent government tyranny is.
And let’s not forget that these freedom loving gun lovers had a fit over the safe gun. Seems like their freedom loving freedom didn’t extend to people who wanted smart guns. They’re all for banning that gun. Hypocrites.
And here’s the truth… whenever these gun nuts go on about their “rights” and how “responsible” they are the rest of us see Elliot Rodger. FYI: Those women who turned him down knew what they were doing – they were smart. And if gun nuts are offended by this perhaps they should stop acting like this guy and stop offering safe haven to those like him. Elliot Rodger had problems; The NRA/gun nuts gave him the solution – a really easy one.
Unlike our local gun nuts, at least Joe the Plumber is honest:
There you have it. There is no number of dead kids, no upper limit on the amount of collateral carnage that can justify ever putting even minor obstacles in the way of psychopaths who want guns. NRA zealots no longer need to indulge in deflection. The extremist position is now perfectly clear.
Joe the plumber is Elliot Rodger.
The United States’ suicide rate is not substantially different from other developed countries’ rates.
And yet those of the States with heavy gun ownership have significantly higher suicide rates than those with low gun usage. Hmmm….