10 or more dead 20 or more wounded in campus massacre

[ZiprHead]

Apparently he is a neo-Nazi. ETA: shooter, not Max.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Apparently he is a neo-Nazi.

Well, that's good. I'd hate to think that regular Nazis get themselves a bad name by being associated with this type of person.

 

[skepticalbip]

Blaming the murder rate on availability of firearms (lack of gun control) is a simplistic knee jerk analysis. The homicide rate breakdown by country according to wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) per 100,000:

. Switzerland is 0.6. It has a lot of strange gun laws but by their laws "The right to acquire, possess and carry arms is guaranteed in the framework of this law"

. U.S. is 4.7. It also has a lot of strange gun laws.

. Jamaica is 39.3. It has very strict gun laws. Possession of a single round of ammunition (with no firearm) can result in jail time.

You can go through the list of homicide rates per country and find no causal relationship between homicide rate and fire arm control laws. For an understanding of homicide rate, I would think that you need to look at culture.

 

[repoman]

I wonder if you could look at the genetics of shooters. Look for things like MAO alleles.

 

[Sarpedon]

No, but they do autopsies on executed ones, and they usually find brain damage on certain areas of the brain associated with impulse control, etc.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I still wonder what would happened to US mass shooting rates if it was somehow possible to completely ban any shooting news.
The guy clearly stated his reasons for shooting which is to get famous.

While I wouldn't ban all shooting news (that could be used to cover up things) I would like to see news media restricted in how much they can talk about a terrorist incident. Present the facts, that's it. Say, no more than 2 minutes of any newscast and no more than 2 minutes/hour can be devoted to any given incident--and teasers count towards that 2 minute limit. Newspapers limited to no more than the third biggest article on the page on which they appear. I came up with this before the web was an issue and I'm not sure how to apply it to the web.

- - - Updated - - -

Yup. If the Police have been clear enough, it is that they want more people armed in situations like this. Thanks to Schumer act, a killer is required to wear a bright yellow outfit so the other armed people know who the bad guy is and shoot accordingly.

Which is quite unfortunate.

While the reports that the killer asked about people's religions and shot those answering "Christian" in the head may be true (only one second-hand claim is being reported multiple times at this point), there is not yet any indication that the killer was agnostic or atheist. A dating site profile attributed to him says only that he dislikes organized religion.

I'm wondering if he might have been abused by a priest??

 

[maxparrish]

First, America is a gun nation. It's heritage at its founding and as a frontier society has firmly rooted an acceptance of firearms for its citizens. Outside of its urban belts, hunting on America's large public lands and ranches is a part of the social fabric.

Second, America has over 100,000,000 guns, and as illegal immigration has demonstrated, rather porous borders. Gun laws won't materially reduce the plentiful supply OR demand - more likely it would just criminalize a larger fraction of otherwise law abiding citizens.

Third, state and local gun laws arm criminals and disarm citizens. New York, Chicago, Washington DC, etc have lots of anti-gun laws, along with lots of gun violence.

Last, the ONLY way government MIGHT reduce gun violence is too ACTUALLY secure the borders, ban AND CONFISCATE all handguns, and carefully regulate rifles. Even this is problematical because confiscation of handguns would likely be ineffective, only resulting in the dumping of a greater number of handguns on the black market.

Even Australia, which confiscated many guns, imposed tough laws on handguns, and which has a hostile gun culture has (reputedly) failed. I understand that gun ownership is back up to pre-ban levels. Not surprisingly, Australia has less violent crime because the character of Australians are to be more law abiding; not because they have had fewer guns.

The American character is more prone to violent crime and your solution is more guns?

Unless you are immune to reason or literacy, you could not have failed to grasp my points. Sigh...one more time:

We don't need more guns per se', we need to tolerate law abiding citizens and public officials having practical access to firearms so as to provide equal means of self-defense. That should not be difficult to grasp, even for the most fevered gun hater in America. Unless you think "the American Character" is that EVERYONE is likely to be a violent criminal, your incredulity is specious.

Of course if every gun in America could be confiscated, and 100 percent border security were instituted, and illicit manufacture of firearms were impossible then there would be no need for self-defense using firearms. But for practical and political reasons that is not going to happen. Americans love their guns, we will always have access to guns, so get over it!

The usual ritualistic incredulity and scoffing is based on little more than someone's deep emotional antipathy to the very idea of most or all guns in society - as if it were practical (or morally acceptable) to eliminate most or all guns. Hence you get utterly stupid "no gun zones" that disarm the innocent, while those inclined to murder people don't give a shit and ignore it.

So the alternative is gun realism: to create those policies that tries to limit access to criminals and the mentally ill, and that provides law abiding citizens access to firearms for self-defense.

Mexico has more gun control than we have in the US. The problem is going the other way, the guns are being smuggled from the US with weak laws into Mexico. The Canadians share the same nightmare, guns coming from the US.

Do you have some indication that this shooting would have been prevented by better border security or are you just trying to politicize this horrible event as you have accused others of doing?

Of course there is smuggling from areas that have more access to guns to areas with less access. However, if guns were very difficult to own in the US and most were confiscated, rest assured that the intense demand would put Mexican (and perhaps Canadians) into the smuggling business. If you create a scarcity, and the demand creates sufficiently high profit, smuggling will arise.

There are plenty of drug laws in Mexico too - but it doesn't stop drug smuggling. "The Gringo" has money, and many would pay high prices for access to firearms...especially organized crime and heedless criminals.

 

[maxparrish]

Dup

 

[bilby]

Not surprisingly, Australia has less violent crime because the character of Australians are to be more law abiding; not because they have had fewer guns.

WTF? Where are all these people whose character is to be more law abiding actually living? Because around here they are a bunch of feral cunts who have no regard for the law or for authority at all. Nice people, but don't take kindly to being told what to do. Mind you, this is Logan City. I expect Malcolm Turnbull's neighbors in the Eastern Suburbs are pretty law abiding.

Perhaps your thesis is that a law abiding character is a genetic trait, and that a nation founded by men and women hand-picked by the finest judges in the British legal system must, therefore, have a hereditary tendency to respect the law?

Seriously, I have seen some pretty stupid things said in my time, but this statement deserves some kind of award for "Least plausible premise ever proposed to support an argument" or something.

You would make more sense if you suggested that Australia has less gun crime because Australians have webbed fingers, due to our continent's high rainfall and marshy interior, and so cannot effectively squeeze a trigger.

 

[Underseer]

Once again, The Onion delivers:

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-36131

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

 

[AthenaAwakened]

 

[Toni]

The American character is more prone to violent crime and your solution is more guns?

Unless you are immune to reason or literacy, you could not have failed to grasp my points. Sigh...one more time:

We don't need more guns per se', we need to tolerate law abiding citizens and public officials having practical access to firearms so as to provide equal means of self-defense.

Chris Mercer was a law abiding citizen who owned multiple guns, per NRA doctrine, right up until he went on a shooting rampage on a community college campus.

So was every mass shooter in memory--right up until they weren't.

That should not be difficult to grasp, even for the most fevered gun defender in America. Unless you think "the American Character" is that EVERYONE is must be prepared to defend against a violent criminal or deranged individual , and identify such at a glance and preferably (?? not sure your actual position) neutralize the threat, your argument is beyond specious.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Unless you are immune to reason or literacy, you could not have failed to grasp my points. Sigh...one more time:

We don't need more guns per se', we need to tolerate law abiding citizens and public officials having practical access to firearms so as to provide equal means of self-defense.

Chris Mercer was a law abiding citizen who owned multiple guns, per NRA doctrine, right up until he went on a shooting rampage on a community college campus.

So was every mass shooter in memory--right up until they weren't.

That should not be difficult to grasp, even for the most fevered gun defender in America. Unless you think "the American Character" is that EVERYONE is must be prepared to defend against a violent criminal or deranged individual , and identify such at a glance and preferably (?? not sure your actual position) neutralize the threat, your argument is beyond specious.

You've just bitch-slapped and smacked down max in a few words.

In the US there is no divine right of kings but there is certainly a divine right of gun ownership. Hopefully that too will pass.

 

[Ford]

The usual ritualistic incredulity and scoffing is based on little more than someone's deep emotional antipathy to the very idea of most or all guns in society - as if it were practical (or morally acceptable) to eliminate most or all guns. Hence you get utterly stupid "no gun zones" that disarm the innocent, while those inclined to murder people don't give a shit and ignore it.

Ah, the "no gun zones," also called "gun free zones" or as they should be called....you know...everyday places.

The bemoaning of "no gun zones" that "disarm the innocent" is based upon a false notion that there was once a time when everyone was armed everywhere, and that emotional liberals ruined it by putting up "gun free zone" signs. Horseshit.

Truth is most places are "no gun zones" by default. Your kids' soccer game. The grocery store. The movie theater. Church. These places only stop being "no gun zones" when some idiot brings a gun into one. The problem with our society is that we're so in love with our guns the more sensible among us actually have to put up a sign that says in effect "hey, this is an elementary school, you shouldn't bring a gun in here, moron!"

Then when the sign goes up, ammosexuals throw a tantrum. Or if you like, express "deep emotional antipathy" to the very idea that there are some places where it is not appropriate to be armed.


And of course the "no gun zone" sign isn't going to deter a murderer. That's not the point. Declaring a "gun free zone" is an act of exasperation directed at people who can't get it through their thick skulls that you can actually go into a Chipotle and order a burrito bowl without your AR-15 to protect you. That you don't need to take your 9mm to your doctor's appointment. That you'll probably have a more productive meeting with that potential client if you don't have a Glock strapped to your hip at the Starbucks.


Fact is, you go through life in "no gun zones" all the time without even thinking about it.

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

Suicides generally take one life; that of the person doing the act. It doesn't reach out and afflict innocent strangers

I certainly disagree with this. This is almost inconceivably wrong. Murder/Suicides are incredibly and depressingly common. Usually it 'afflicts' family members but sometimes it does get to strangers as well.

To pretend that murder/suicides are somehow more than trivially different from 'normal' suicides seems fatuous to me.

The context was a response to someone who said that suicide rates in Japan were high. I'd pointed out the tiny number of gun deaths that occurred in that nation last year and the response to that was that that nation had a high number of suicides--which has fuck-all to do with gun issues, but unfortunately I entertained the comment by making the point that an individual that offs himself does not kill others in the process. Murder-suicide was outside the scope of the context.

 

[Trausti]

View attachment 4314

http://www.news4jax.com/sports/gbi-investigating-homicide-in-folkston-ga/35568592

 

[popsthebuilder]

Guns should be purchased only after thorough nonbiased psychiatric evaluation.

Mentally stable ex military marksmen should be employed by the government as armed guards at school grounds. Crime will always happen. Slautering innocent children must be stopped though. And not by removing the second ammendment.

2¢

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Guns should be purchased only after thorough nonbiased psychiatric evaluation.

Mentally stable ex military marksmen should be employed by the government as armed guards at school grounds. Crime will always happen. Slautering innocent children must be stopped though. And not by removing the second ammendment.

2¢

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

Well can we at least use the WHOLE amendment?

 

[popsthebuilder]

Guns should be purchased only after thorough nonbiased psychiatric evaluation.

Mentally stable ex military marksmen should be employed by the government as armed guards at school grounds. Crime will always happen. Slautering innocent children must be stopped though. And not by removing the second ammendment.

2¢

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

Well can we at least use the WHOLE amendment?

What do you mean? The right to bear arms? People should definitely have that right for multiple reasons. However, due to the rise in heinous crimes against innocent victims there should be a preliminary psychiatric investigation prior to the acquisition of any firearm. This should include people that have already purchased firearms before.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

 

[skepticalbip]

Guns should be purchased only after thorough nonbiased psychiatric evaluation.

Mentally stable ex military marksmen should be employed by the government as armed guards at school grounds. Crime will always happen. Slautering innocent children must be stopped though. And not by removing the second ammendment.

2¢

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

Well can we at least use the WHOLE amendment?

And the whole tenth amendment too?