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58 dead 546 wounded / injured in Las Vegas shooting 1 Oct 2017

  • Thread starter jollyjacktar
  • Start date
Bird_Gunner45 said:
Shockingly, another mass shooting with a semi-automatic rifle. At this point, the only way that the gun lobby will be convinced that some restrictions are necessary

What would you suggest for restrictions?

 
Loachman said:
Would you feel any better if he used a pump-action shotgun, rammed a rented truck through the crowd as they flooded out after the service, or barricaded the doors and lobbed Molotov cocktails through the windows?

Out of at least 300 million firearms in private hands in the US, at least 299 million were not used to commit that crime.

The problem lies not with the particular implement chosen to commit the crime, but with the person who chose to commit it, planned to commit it, and ultimately committed it.

I have previously shown numerous statistics that show that the instrument does matter. The terrorist attack in New York killed 8 with a truck. If he had a semi-automatic rifle he could have killed 26, like this idiot did, or 58 like the last one. Your argument absolutely does not hold up under any scrutiny.
 
PuckChaser said:
Your bias is showing again. The alleged gunman was legally not able to pass a background check to own firearms because of his bad conduct discharge and domestic violence conviction. It's almost like criminals don't follow laws or something...

My bias against reading about mass shootings in the US constantly and thinking that some actual action should be taken to include (but not solely) elements of gun control? You got me.

The "Criminals don't follow laws" is a poor argument. In Australia, where there is high gun control, semi-automatic rifles are so expensive that criminals have had to resort to sharing them. In the US, where they are plentiful, they are also cheap. And there is little control past the initial purchase, including requirements for proper storage, etc.
 
http://nypost.com/2017/11/06/sharpshooting-plumber-fired-shot-that-took-down-texas-church-gunman/

Sharpshooting plumber fired shot that took down Texas church gunman

By Yaron Steinbuch  November 6, 2017 | 8:28am | Updated

The man hailed as a hero for confronting the Texas mass shooter during his rampage is a sharpshooting plumber with no military background - who hit the gunman through a gap in his body armor, according to a report.

Stephen Willeford managed to shoot Devin Kelley before jumping in another man’s truck and chasing him down, the Daily Mail reported.

Kelley blew himself away after wiping out in his SUV, according to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt.

Texas Department of Public Safety chief Freeman Martin said Willeford “grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect” after Kelley left the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where he opened fire with an assault rifle and killed 26 people.

An area resident told the paper that Willeford, an avid biker who attends another church, learned about the shooting when his daughter called to say a man clad in body armor was shooting worshipers.

The local said that although Willeford has no military background, he didn’t hesitate when he came face to face with the suspect — and managed to squeeze off a round that struck the gunman, who had dropped his Ruger
AR-15 variant.

Willeford jumped into a truck driven by another local, Johnnie Langendorff, who witnessed the confrontation, and the pair gave chase.

Langendorff later told reporters about the dramatic pursuit.

“I pulled up to the intersection where the shooting happened and I saw two men exchanging gunfire, the other being a citizen of the community,” he said.

“The shooter of the church had taken off, fled in his vehicle, and the other gentleman came and he said, ‘We need to pursue him,’ that he just shot up the church. So that’s what I did. I just acted.”

He said he didn’t know who the heroic citizen was at the time.

“He was just a member of the community, and whenever he came to my vehicle in distress with his weapon, he explained very quickly what happened and he got in the truck and I knew it was just time [to go],” he said, KSAT reported.

“So we were doing about 95 mph, going around traffic and everything,” he added.

“Eventually he came to kind of a slowdown and after that, we got within just a few feet of him and he got off the road … He just lost control and that’s whenever I put the vehicle in park … The other gentleman jumped out and had his rifle drawn on him and he didn’t move after that,” he said.

Langendorff’s girlfriend, Summer Caddel, said Kelley died a few feet away from Langendorff.

The local man said Kelley was already dead when they found him.

“He was bleeding pretty bad,” the resident told the news outlet of Kelley while he was driving. “He didn’t live much longer than that.”

Martin confirmed that police had found Kelley dead.

“We are not sure if it was self-inflicted or if he was shot by a local resident,” the police official said.
 
Yes the US has a gun culture (300 million + guns and annual ammunition consumption rate of 10-12 billion rds a year), but they also have significantly more social issues, larger population, a country next door that has flooded them with drugs and illegal immigrants. Now Canada (according to Wiki) has something like 36,000 illegal immigrants, to match the US, we need to bump that to 1,000,000 even though most are not committing crimes, they still add a social burden on services that causes the system to miss even more domestic problems.

Also where the lawful gun culture exists is generally not where most of the gun homicide exists. This data is quite interesting and shows that with political and fiscal will that the US could drive it's homicide rate down within a decade if the will was there https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-us-counties-2014-zero-murders-69-1-murder/



For suicides per 100,000, the US is at 12.6 and France is 12.3, Canada 10.4, Swiss 10.7, Austria 23.8 and Germany 18.9 (source wiki)
So it's pretty clear guns are not a major driver of suicides and if you consider a country like Japan with almost no guns, you see that social issues drive suicide, not method.

 
The real problem is people are conflating tools with intent. Canada's worst mass murders took place using gasoline and a match (in the case of a Montreal nightclub arson) and dynamite (in the case of a bombing at a mine during a strike). The examples of people using trucks in places as far afield as France, London England, Edmonton and NYC to run over large numbers of people should be instructive. And of course, we have experience with people trying to murder us using home made explosives buried in the roads and ditches, using common household chemicals (the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing years ago shows how extreme that can become).

So people with murder on their minds will find a way, removing one set of tools simply directs them to look for substitutes.
 
The latest shooting shows the weaknesses in the current reporting system, had information on the shooter been in the system, he would have been denied permission to purchase firearms and rightly so. The tough part in the US is the sheer size of the country and the multitude of various jurisdictions. A deep and well funded examination of all of perpetrators of mass shooting since 1990 will likely show some common themes, those "indicators" could be complied and given out as flags that can be entered into the systems and what key phrases need to be added to ensure that a prohibition is created.   
 
Colin P said:
So it's pretty clear guns are not a major driver of suicides and if you consider a country like Japan with almost no guns, you see that social issues drive suicide, not method.

As far as method goes, for maximum lethality and minimum agony, I would say a shotgun slug, or buckshot, to the head would rank #1.

Failure with this method is likely to cause a very unpleasant injury.

Not the method of choice if simply wanting to make a gesture. eg: pills.

For those considerate of what others will find, this is a rather gruesome method to choose.



 
Or we could push for better mental health awareness.
Maybe a suicide prevention program modeled after the CAF bystander training.  I'll never know if I could have saved a couple people I knew if I was more cognizant of that stuff but it seems more helpful going forward then banning a certain style of gun. 

Of course it would extend to the work place too, like when someone is harassed or picked on. 

Maybe the US is too big and busy for people to care about the small shit until it turns into a shoot out.
 
Jarnhamar said:
Or we could push for better mental health awareness.

I remember asking one young woman why.

She said because nobody smiled at her that day.  :)



 
mariomike said:
As far as method goes, for maximum lethality and minimum agony, I would say a shotgun slug, or buckshot, to the head would rank #1.

Failure with this method is likely to cause a very unpleasant injury.

Not the method of choice if simply wanting to make a gesture. eg: pills.

For those considerate of what others will find, this is a rather gruesome method to choose.

If I ever get there, zip myself into a body bag, take sleeping pills and listen to music. Have all my documents attached to the outside of the bag. Minimal fuss and mess for the people having to deal with my body. People who jump off bridges are messy and sometimes live at least for awhile.....
 
Colin P said:
People who jump off bridges are messy and sometimes live at least for awhile.....

You're just wishing that on some Vancouver politicians, right? ;)
 
Rather than fight more almost pointless battles on gun control, work together on mental health issues, social issues and education issues. The overall social improvements will affect all types of homicides, crime, improve the economy, reduce single parent families and be generally good for the country. But then those issues don't fit neatly into the election cycle, so they charge the windmill again.
 
1 ) The Las Vegas Strip may be shut down to vehicles so that during the next mass shooting Police and Paramedics can rescue the victims.
http://www.newsweek.com/las-vegas-strip-could-close-cars-after-stephen-paddock-shooting-719204

"The 4.2-mile strip is a popular cruising destination, with out-of-state visitors driving in from Arizona, California and other states to motor down Las Vegas Boulevard and witness the throngs of tourists, shining casinos and unique architecture.

It was so crowded, that it was difficult for emergency vehicles to access and egress the scene.

Ubers, taxi cabs, buses and pedestrians could still use the city's central artery."



2 ) Randolph Mantooth - Paramedic Johnny Gage of "EMERGENCY!" - speaks about the massacre.
https://www.facebook.com/EMSWorldFans/videos/1697666436941765/

( That show premiered during my graduating year of high school. It was about a job with a future, that was exciting and far from routine, with guaranteed security. )


 
mariomike said:
As far as method goes, for maximum lethality and minimum agony, I would say a shotgun slug, or buckshot, to the head would rank #1.

Failure with this method is likely to cause a very unpleasant injury.

Not the method of choice if simply wanting to make a gesture. eg: pills.

For those considerate of what others will find, this is a rather gruesome method to choose.

If you're putting a shotgun under your chin, any type of load in a shotgun will take your head apart. I know. I've cleaned up three of them. All were birdshot.
 
recceguy said:
If you're putting a shotgun under your chin, any type of load in a shotgun will take your head apart. I know. I've cleaned up three of them. All were birdshot.

I know of one case where the front of the face, eyes and jaw were removed without killing the idiot until a prolonged period of time had passed. 
 
mariomike said:
I would say a shotgun slug, or buckshot,

recceguy said:
If you're putting a shotgun under your chin, any type of load in a shotgun will take your head apart. I know. I've cleaned up three of them. All were birdshot.

Don't take my word for it,

https://suicideproject.org/2012/11/my-suicide-attempt-2/
There is now a pellet between my right eye and my retina. I lost my upper lip most of my nose, most of my teeth, and the tip of my tongue. I have double-vision, have had four surgeries this year, and have at least a few more to go. Until recently, I didn’t know slugs were so much more powerful than shells that fire bird shot.

One knowledgeable reader of this website wrote in to suggest that those using a shotgun should consider using shotgun shells that shoot slugs, which is one piece of lead instead of a number of smaller balls of lead. Or else if using shot, to use buckshot, which can come in 0.24 - 0.36 caliber, instead of 0.05 which is used for things like clay pigeon/skeet shooting. The higher the caliber, the bigger the pellets (meaning they better maintain their speed and energy on impact), but the less of them.
http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/firearms

Shotgun suicide: Slug, buckshot or birdshot?
https://www.google.ca/search?rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-CA%3AIE-Address&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&dcr=0&biw=1280&bih=603&ei=3h4XWuGvH8uGjwPKoI3gCA&q=suicide+slug+birdshot+buckshot&oq=suicide+slug+birdshot+buckshot&gs_l=psy-ab.12..35i39k1.11021.13236.0.15531.8.8.0.0.0.0.171.1153.0j8.8.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.4.635....0.EHwrxsRnaYs

jollyjacktar said:
I know of one case where the front of the face, eyes and jaw were removed without killing the idiot until a prolonged period of time had passed.

Happens sometimes.

 
Yup- shotgun/rifle suicide attempts do sometimes result in some really atrocious survivals. The face may literally come off, but the important parts of the brain survive. Under the chin is not necessarily reliable, particularly if one flinches back in the moment of pulling the trigger
 
This thread seems to be building itself into an aide-memoire for those who want to shoot themselves.  Is that were we want to go?
 
MCG said:
This thread seems to be building itself into an aide-memoire for those who want to shoot themselves.  Is that were we want to go?

Yes. If the 'aim' of the thread is self-immolation 'end your life' hacks...  :)
 
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