US: 30 shot at school, China: 22 knifed at school

[Rhaedas]

At the time there was little info to go on, and the media of course runs with every story they can. So we're dealing with semi-automatic, which just fire a few rounds a second vs. hundreds.

The fact is, while everyone is all about discussing the gun issue, it seems to be more of a mental health issue. As the saying goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Granted, the weapons used and their availability would have made a difference in the result, but without guns, who's to say that this person wouldn't have done something similar with knives, explosives, vehicles, etc?

 

[Repo Man]

At the time there was little info to go on, and the media of course runs with every story they can. So we're dealing with semi-automatic, which just fire a few rounds a second vs. hundreds.

The fact is, while everyone is all about discussing the gun issue, it seems to be more of a mental health issue. As the saying goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Granted, the weapons used and their availability would have made a difference in the result, but without guns, who's to say that this person wouldn't have done something similar with knives, explosives, vehicles, etc?

I strongly agree.

Thanks to the misguided austerity policies embraced by conservatives, more people are falling through the cracks. There are not enough psychiatric beds, treatment services or community support programs. Medication is expensive, and insurance companies routinely leave patients inadequately covered (the Affordable Care Act will hopefully address this problem by finally putting psychiatric illnesses on par with other health issues).

Mental healthcare workers have been laid off. Vulnerable people are neglected until their situation becomes acute – often after it’s too late. Many are incarcerated, often subjected to solitary confinement because prison officials don’t know what to do with them. Others are homeless – as many as 45 percent of the people living on the streets suffer from mental illness.

In the Wake of Another Mass Shooting, Let's Talk About America's Dangerously Gutted Mental Healthcare System

 

[Saturnine Pariah]

You are defending guns in a thread discussing the deaths of what twenty children and their teachers?

Really?



That is the reality of what those children faced. Now, do you wish to continue to defend guns some more?

No, I’m not justifying this needless slaughter, what I was trying to point out was that you and many other posters in this thread assumed that the weapons used were fully automatic, when in reality they were semi-auto. Big difference in terms of the semantics in the addressing which type of weapons were used in the act of this horrendous crime. The availability of full auto firearms to the public in terms of finding a fully-auto weapon, the ammo, equipment and need to purchase license for said weapon is very difficult if not improbable for anyone without the funds.
• Class 3 firearms include machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices and Any Other Weapons (AOWs).
• The tax for privately manufacturing any class 3 firearms is $200. Transferring requires a $200 tax for all class 3s except AOW’s, for which the transfer tax is $5.
• To legally possess a class 3 weapon you must complete a transfer of registration within the NFA registry.
• There are two ways for you to legally buy a class 3 gun. The first is by transfer after approval by ATF of a registered weapon from its lawful owner residing in the same State as the transferee. The second is by obtaining prior approval from ATF to make NFA firearms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)

 

[Repo Man]

At the time there was little info to go on, and the media of course runs with every story they can. So we're dealing with semi-automatic, which just fire a few rounds a second vs. hundreds.

Ah yes, the media.

 

[Repo Man]

No, I’m not justifying this needless slaughter, what I was trying to point out was that you and many other posters in this thread assumed that the weapons used were fully automatic, when in reality they were semi-auto. Big difference in terms of the semantics in the addressing which type of weapons were used in the act of this horrendous crime. The availability of full auto firearms to the public in terms of finding a fully-auto weapon, the ammo, equipment and need to purchase license for said weapon is very difficult if not improbable for anyone without the funds.
• Class 3 firearms include machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices and Any Other Weapons (AOWs).
• The tax for privately manufacturing any class 3 firearms is $200. Transferring requires a $200 tax for all class 3s except AOW’s, for which the transfer tax is $5.
• To legally possess a class 3 weapon you must complete a transfer of registration within the NFA registry.
• There are two ways for you to legally buy a class 3 gun. The first is by transfer after approval by ATF of a registered weapon from its lawful owner residing in the same State as the transferee. The second is by obtaining prior approval from ATF to make NFA firearms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)

To be fair, motivated criminals can alter legal semi auto weapons into fully automatic ones. But there is little motivation for them to do so. See The North Hollywood shootout.

 

[Repo Man]

Then there's this guy. Fischer: God Didn't Stop School Shooting Because He's A Gentleman Who Doesn't Go Where Not Wanted.

 

[Saturnine Pariah]

(In response to post #25)Yes, this does occur, the internal mechanisms and components can legally be bought separately and then put together. Yes this does happen and I will not deny that criminals or even everyday citizens do this. I’m all for tighter restrictions on these components. However I’m not going to fully blame a piece of technology that at its core is neutral for the mental instability of an individual who desperately needed medical help but never received it.(This you brought up in article in your last post #22 which was very informative)

 

[Saturnine Pariah]

Then there's this guy. Fischer: God Didn't Stop School Shooting Because He's A Gentleman Who Doesn't Go Where Not Wanted.

:facepalm:Really? This a-hole is getting involved and I thought these fundamentalist guys were bad after Columbine, blaming the teaching of evolution for the motive behind the shooting.

 

[Repo Man]

This commenter on Fark pretty well summed up my feelings. Maybe I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting there.

I've always been adamant about defending 2A rights, but this passed year has gotten me to the point that I'm willing to bring in my assault rifle and handguns if we as a nation decide that eliminating semi-automatic weapons will put an end to these things, or at least slow them down.

I've always been the "from my cold dead hands" guy, because I come from a family that has used hunting to survive for hundreds of years, and our 150 year old ranch is sort of the corner stone that our little society revolves around, so I really value my 2A rights. But I value my children's rights to be safe from crazy assholes more, and there's just no way I can protect them with MORE guns ... which seems to be the only answer the NRA peeps keep bringing up. If there had been a guard there with a gun, that probably wouldn't have done anything in this case.

There's just no way around it and we have to come to grips with that fact - no matter how much it farking sucks. Is it fair? No - it's bullshiat that us responsible gun owners get farked because of this shiat. We're responsible. We're doing it right. But if we don't make it harder to get a gun, and create a system where they are harder to access for people that shouldn't have them, and where even if they are accessed, they can't spray 100s of people at once, our kids will never be safe from this shiat.

For those of us that it's important enough to ... we will jump through the hoops and we will keep our arms. It's not to much to ask if it can help keep shiat piles like this away from assault weapons.

We may not be able to have the fun army-of-one mega guns anymore, but you can still shoot any game animal under the sun with a bolt action, and if you're talking about national defense purposes ... a 223 isn't going to stop a tank or an attack chopper or a drone, so get farking real. Anything you can do with a 223 semi auto, you can do with a high caliber bolt action ... the rest would just get you killed anyway.

http://www.fark.com/comments/7486968/81292170#c81292170

 

[Syzygys]

Here is the solution, Israeli style:

 

[Magical Realist]

For pity's sake please educate yourselves. Saying automatic, without the prefix of semi in front of it, implies a fully automatic weapon. Fully automatic weapons are severely restricted in the U.S., and are involved in a vanishingly small percentage of crimes. Please look up the crucial difference here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_firearm

You're free to advocate the banning and confiscation of semi auto weapons (there is absolutely no chance of that happening here), but please take the time to know what exactly you are advocating.

Noone said a semi-automatic was a fully automatic. I just said that semi-automatics ARE automatic weapons. This is from the first paragraph of your own referenced Wiki article:


"A fully automatic firearm is a firearm that will continue to fire so long as the trigger is pressed and there is ammunition in the magazine. Both "semi automatic" and "fully automatic" weapons are "automatic" in that the firearm automatically cycles between rounds with each trigger pull."

 

[Repo Man]

Noone said a semi-automatic was a fully automatic. I just said that semi-automatics ARE automatic weapons. This is from the first paragraph of your own referenced Wiki article:


"A fully automatic firearm is a firearm that will continue to fire so long as the trigger is pressed and there is ammunition in the magazine. Both "semi automatic" and "fully automatic" weapons are "automatic" in that the firearm automatically cycles between rounds with each trigger pull."

And as I said in the second sentence "Saying automatic, without the prefix of semi in front of it, implies a fully automatic weapon." A very large percentage of people who want to ban firearms know very, very little about them. Many surveys done in the early nineties showed that a huge percentage of people in favor of the AWB thought that it was banning military select fire weapons (switchable between semi and fully automatic). They see these weapons in movies where people hold the trigger down, and it keeps firing, and assume that the scary black rifle that looks very similar is in fact the same. When people advocate banning something that's already illegal, it makes me cringe.

I have much more sympathy for someone advocating making semi auto weapons illegal than I do for those who would ban "assault weapons". The last federal assault weapon ban was a useless (Edit: near useless) piece of legislation. As it specified cosmetic features of weapons, it resulted in cosmetic changes. California still has an AWB, and it results in silliness like this: ‘Bullet Button’ Used To Get Around California Gun Laws.

 

[Magical Realist]

I know what you said. If you assumed my saying "automatic weapons" only referred to fully automatics then that was your mistake not mine. Though I will admit I understand the difference now between semi and fully a little better than I did. Tks for the education.

 

[Repo Man]

As it is, my brother will not come back to "The People's Republic of California" because many of the weapons he owns (which are perfectly legal in Kansas) would not be legal here. For one example, he wouldn't be able to have his 100 round drum for his Ak-47 anymore. He excitedly told me about that one when he purchased it at a gun show in Tucson during the brief period when we both lived there. What made it really special was that it had a clock spring. Standard magazines use ordinary springs; if you leave the magazine loaded for long periods, the spring will fatigue, losing pressure, increasing the likelihood that the gun will jam. With a clock spring, as he excitedly informed me, "You can leave it loaded, then when you need it, you put in the key, wind it up, and it's ready to go!" When you would "need" a 100 round drum for your Ak-47 is a bit of a mystery to me - zombie apocalypse maybe? And to choose to live in Kansas over California so you can have such gadgets? Eh, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your relatives.

 

[lightgigantic]

At the time there was little info to go on, and the media of course runs with every story they can. So we're dealing with semi-automatic, which just fire a few rounds a second vs. hundreds.

The fact is, while everyone is all about discussing the gun issue, it seems to be more of a mental health issue. As the saying goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. Granted, the weapons used and their availability would have made a difference in the result, but without guns, who's to say that this person wouldn't have done something similar with knives, explosives, vehicles, etc?

Feudal japan tried (unsuccessfully) for years to keep firearms out of the country since any goof can point a gun and take out a warrior who has undergone many years of training with a sword.

I believe one of the first mass produced revolvers was called "the equalizer" along the same line of reasoning (suddenly a nerd with a gun becomes a force to be reckoned with).

As firearms become simpler to use, lighter and more effective with minimal or even no training, we see militants/rebels recruiting women and children in their armed conflicts who then instantaneously become, for practically the first time in the history of warfare, formidable opposition to even well trained combatants.

Generally contemporary society functions in placing obstacles in the form of criteria or limits or even outright bans on potentially dangerous activities. So for instance one has to pass one set of criteria to drive a motor vehicle. This is upgraded if one is driving a larger vehicle. This is upgraded again if one is driving a vehicle carrying people. This is upgraded yet again if one is driving a vehicle containing hazardous/dangerous cargo (eg fuel) to the point of driving such a vehicle in certain locations at any time is banned ... and this is just for something as simple and straight forward and pragmatic as transportation.
These issues of regulation , prohibition without due need (like for instance you can't take a semi trailer loaded with fuel on a 10 day safari across the country for no purpose no matter how dandy you think the idea is) or even outright banning are measures brought in simply to increase safety.



What makes american gun control (or more specifically, its absence) particularly unique in this case is that we are dealing with a level of regulation and authorization that is not on par for an article at the pinnacle of being expressly designed for the quick, easy and effective killing of things.
(IOW guns belong to a "high risk" category ... kind of a no-brainer I would have thought)

Obviously the less obstacles a person needs to surmount in order to fall into a regrettable or preventable action, the more likely such instances will show up and recur. This is a fundamental aspect of OH&S

Risk assessment
Further information: Risk assessment#Risk assessment in public health
Modern occupational safety and health legislation usually demands that a risk assessment be carried out prior to making an intervention. It should be kept in mind that risk management requires risk to be managed to a level which is as low as is reasonably practical.[citation needed]
This assessment should:
Identify the hazards
Identify all affected by the hazard and how
Evaluate the risk
Identify and prioritize appropriate control measures[citation needed]
The calculation of risk is based on the likelihood or probability of the harm being realized and the severity of the consequences. This can be expressed mathematically as a quantitative assessment (by assigning low, medium and high likelihood and severity with integers and multiplying them to obtain a risk factor), or qualitatively as a description of the circumstances by which the harm could arise.[citation needed]
The assessment should be recorded and reviewed periodically and whenever there is a significant change to work practices. The assessment should include practical recommendations to control the risk. Once recommended controls are implemented, the risk should be re-calculated to determine of it has been lowered to an acceptable level. Generally speaking, newly introduced controls should lower risk by one level, i.e., from high to medium or from medium to low.


Its the nature of probability that it will never be 100%, or as you say, people kill people. Probability (in terms of civil disputes of murder) of outcomes however allows us to discern that people with guns kill other people more often and in greater numbers than people with vehicles, explosives or carrots (even though james bond could probably kill someone with a carrot). Why? Because guns have unique "high risk" qualities that lend them to such outcomes.

 

[Repo Man]

I know what you said. If you assumed my saying "automatic weapons" only referred to fully automatics then that was your mistake not mine. Though I will admit I understand the difference now between semi and fully a little better than I did. Tks for the education.

If you meant semi auto that's fine. But I think in these discussions it's helpful to specify the distinction, as it's a subtle yet very important one.

 

[Balerion]

I think even most liberals get a bit queasy at the notion of gun control, not because it's a bad idea, but because gun ownership is a key tenet of our constitution. It's a conversation needs to be had; unfortunately, the two sides can't even begin because of how entrenched they are in their positions.

 

[Bells]

Here is the solution, Israeli style:

Which is already coming up:

Steve Dulan, a board member for the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners who is supporting a state bill that would allow concealed weapons in schools and other gun-free zones, said Friday that having armed teachers inside Sandy Hook Elementary School would have, "if not prevented, then perhaps minimized," the tragedy.

"We do know that armed citizens defend themselves all the time, in all kinds of different contexts," Dulan told HuffPost Live host Alyona Minkovski.

You know, as a parent of a 5 year old and a 7 year old, when I heard about this shooting this morning, I tried to imagine the fear and terror those kids would have felt when that gunman burst into their classroom and I looked at my son's faces and I cried. I cannot mentally process this along those lines. How terrified they would have been at that moment. And I imagine what would my kids do if they were in that situation. How scared would they have been. The looks on their faces and it literally reduces me to tears. And then I imagine what those parents are feeling right now thinking about their children's last moments and I cry more.

And then I read about the likes of Mr Dulan, who thinks that if the teachers were armed, then it could have been prevented or minimised and all that comes to mind is "FUCK YOU MR DULAN"..

That in the face of absolute horror, all he is worried about is that more people should be armed, because apparently, that is the best solution. Because in his mind, a shootout between a teacher and a gunman in a room full of small terrified children is a viable option.. Because a gunman storming a roomful of small children will apparently not shoot the first person who can stop him (or her) first - because apparently teachers should be armed and ready to shoot anyone who comes into their classroom - ie - have the gun on hand to open fire immediately..

 

[Asguard]

Bells the same comments were made here after the cinema shooting, by MAD or Michael if I remember rightly. That if everyone in the cinema had been armed then the gunman would have died and there would have been rainbows and unicorns. This "solution" might work in the fantasy of the gun nuts but in reality EVEN WHEN TRAINED people make mistakes. How many solders die from friendly fire in war zones and they are trained to work together, to use there weapons, to handle the stress of combat. As I said last time in a dark cinima how many people would have died if Everyone had pulled out a gun and started shooting?

The ONLY solution which will reduce the death toll from these incidents is to get ALL guns out of the hands of ANYONE who isn't in a job which requires them (defence, cops, rangers, pest controllers, security guards, farmers etc) and those who do have them locked up at there work when not in use and (potentually) increase the numbers of police and decrease response time

 

[siledre]

Violence doesn't exist because of guns, guns exist because of violence.