"Gun Cult in the US and How to Change It" split from Las Vegas Massacre

[Infanteer]

The social problems - racial, gangs (often race-based), and lack of mental health - are key, but ease of access isn't, not by law-abiding citizens, at least, and they're the only ones affected by restrictive laws.

As I have said several times, the vast majority of homicides are gang-related, and occur in very specific neighbourhoods in large cities. Eliminate the gang problem, and the US homicide rate would look remarkably like ours. There is, strangely, no serious call to do that. It is easier to blame the tools and seek to restrict those than blame the people committing the violence and do something serious about them.

How many times have we defended our position. We've given the same answers to the same questions from those that have absolutely no intent of ever trying to comprimise. Save your breath.

I'm not looking at gangland shootings, I'm looking at mass shootings and public massacres, generally targetting random bystanders or at least killing random bystanders who are near the target.  A small percentage of the total?  Sure.  Something happening with disturbing regularity?  Flipping through Canada's history, I see Ecole Polytechnique (1989 - 14), Concordia (1992 - 4), Vernon Shooting (1996 - 10), Mayerthorpe (2005 - 5), Moncton (2014 - 3), Edmonton (2014 - 9), La Loche School (2016 - 6), Quebec Mosque Shooting (2016 - 6).  While I might of missed a few, I count 57 dead over 3 decades.  The guy in Vegas killed more than that in the span of minutes.  Look at the body counts in the US.  Texas (2017 - 26), Vegas (2017 - 58), Orlando (2016 - 49), San Bernadino (2015 - 16), Washington Naval Yard (2013 - 12), Sandy Hook (2012 - 28), Aurora Theater (2012 - 12), Fort Hood (2009 - 13), Binghampton (2009 - 14), Virginia Tech (2007 - 32).

Eliminate the gangland problem, but it doesn't address the repeated cases of public shootings in the US.  The fact that we don't have dozens of fatalities a year in schools and theaters in Canada means there is something different here - a mix of culture and legislation on access.  You can keep defending your position, and the bodies will keep piling up south of the border, so don't be surprised if nobody in Canada is sympathetic to your argument.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

The social problems - racial, gangs (often race-based), and lack of mental health - are key, but ease of access isn't, not by law-abiding citizens, at least, and they're the only ones affected by restrictive laws.

As I have said several times, the vast majority of homicides are gang-related, and occur in very specific neighbourhoods in large cities. Eliminate the gang problem, and the US homicide rate would look remarkably like ours. There is, strangely, no serious call to do that. It is easier to blame the tools and seek to restrict those than blame the people committing the violence and do something serious about them.

No one has argued that mental health issues don't have a role in repeated mass shootings. The issue is that these people have easy access to high power weaponry. As infantryman noted, countries such as Canada, Australia, Great Britain, France, and other nations with gun control seem to have lower instances of mass shootings, and lower numbers of killed, even when adjusted for population variance.

As for the gang assertion. This has been proven patently false before, but I'll post a link again. There were 1824 gang related killings in 2011 (with all natures of weapons), whereas there were 11,101 homicides and 19,766 suicides by guns the same year. Moreover, as shown before the highest per capita gun violence states are "red" states including Alabama and Mississippi, where the the top 3 highest counties for gun violence are located (conveniently in solidly rural, white areas of the states)While the source for this particular article is the huffington Post the FBI statistics and gang violence research centres data is along the same line and linked in said article.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-defilippis/do-we-have-a-gang-problem_b_5071639.html

The mental health aspect is true, but also a cop out. If the individuals weren't easily able to access high powered weaponry than these situations could be reversed, as they have been in almost the rest of the world. On a further note, why is that whenever there is a terrorist attack we don't use the "mental health" route? The vast majority of terrorists suffer from mental health issues, including depression, trauma, and drug abuse. Why is it that for some events we say "guns aren't a problem, mental health is" and for others we say, "shoes are a problem- invest billions into x-ray machines at airports" when the former is a more significant statistical problem than the latter?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You could likely cut the number of mass shootings in half, if the current laws in the US were enforced and properly funded to be effective. Since roughly 54% of the murders take place in 2% of the counties, you could effectively cut the homicide rate in the US by half by dealing with the social issues within those areas. But it would take massive political will to do so and it would take longer than 5 years to show results. So few politicians are interested.

The odds in the US of getting killed by a rifle is about 1 in 900,000 (avg. 374 killings a year out of a population of 350mil) Even with the 2 latest mass shootings included, twice as many people are going to die of a drug overdose in BC alone then all the rifle (of all types) shootings in the US.   

 

[McG]

And drug overdoses in BC have been recognized as a crisis by political leaders.  There is effort, attention and resources going toward that problem.

 

[Infanteer]

Yes, gang violence and drug epidemics are serious problems that kill lots (more) people, but don't use them as red herrings.  The relative likelihood of being killed in a public mass shooting is also immaterial when you consider that there are probably ways to mitigate occurrences, both in frequency and in severity.  Responsible citizens should be asking" why mass killings in the US happen more often and are of a greater magnitude than in other countries?", instead of just offering more thoughts and prayers and buckling down for the next 10-20 people to get mowed down in a public setting.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Responsible citizens should be asking" why mass killings in the US happen more often and are of a greater magnitude than in other countries?"

That's a fair and important question to ask.

I just read a really heartbreaking story of a mother in the latest shooting in the US who sacrificed herself using her body to shield her kids, though one of them was still hit 5 times.  Very hard to read the story without getting teary eyed (at least for me if I'm being honest).

Feelings about semi-auto rifles aside banning them doesn't seem like a viable solution, at least in the US. Guessing a significant number of Americans are ready and willing to essentially go to war to keep their guns. Were they banned tomorrow would the US send police to confiscate the weapons they know about?  I think that would require a lot more police officers, and arming them with even more semi-automatic rifles.
Do Americans who turn their rifles in/get confiscated get reimbursed for their property that the government decides to take?

Definitely think it's a culture & availability issue. With a culture so immersed in firearms and "defense against tyrannical governments" how do you begun to address either of those issues?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Yes, gang violence and drug epidemics are serious problems that kill lots (more) people, but don't use them as red herrings.  The relative likelihood of being killed in a public mass shooting is also immaterial when you consider that there are probably ways to mitigate occurrences, both in frequency and in severity.  Responsible citizens should be asking" why mass killings in the US happen more often and are of a greater magnitude than in other countries?", instead of just offering more thoughts and prayers and buckling down for the next 10-20 people to get mowed down in a public setting.

It's not a red herring, dead people are still dead regardless of method. The gun control crowd are not interested in anything but controlling guns, if offered a solution that does not involve that, they aren't interested. One should ask why mass shootings are more common since the 1990, beyond just the classification issue. Looking at that points to social issues and possible links to commonly prescribed drugs. Those issues are hard, so the politicians wail about gun control, which is a win for them either way, if they get a new law, they win. If the NRA and friends block them, they say we tried and failed to defeat the beast, so they still win as it appeared they did something. Even if they purposely put poison pills in the legislation.

There are a lot of things the US could do to reduce the number of homicides by guns within the existing framework. First enforce the existing laws, the number of people convicted of being strawmen is a joke. The ability of the current system to track prohibitions on ownership is flawed and needs fixing. There are other issues as well, fixing those things is not sexy and won't get politicians re-elected.

If you think the NRA and groups aren't interested in reducing the body count, then you are wrong. But they are not about to throw themselves under a bus to do so either. In fact there are many in the US that think the NRA is far to accommodating as it is.

 

 

[FJAG]

You could likely cut the number of mass shootings in half, if the current laws in the US were enforced and properly funded to be effective. Since roughly 54% of the murders take place in 2% of the counties, you could effectively cut the homicide rate in the US by half by dealing with the social issues within those areas. But it would take massive political will to do so and it would take longer than 5 years to show results. So few politicians are interested.

The odds in the US of getting killed by a rifle is about 1 in 900,000 (avg. 374 killings a year out of a population of 350mil) Even with the 2 latest mass shootings included, twice as many people are going to die of a drug overdose in BC alone then all the rifle (of all types) shootings in the US. 

I'm not quite sure what the purpose was in limiting the statistics in your last paragraph to only rifles which is one of the least used firearms for homicides in the US. The FBI tables for 2016 show 374 homicides by rifle out of a total of 11,004 homicides by all types of firearms. Note that this is out of a total of 15,070 homicides of all types of methods so that shooting is the cause behind 73% of homicides. Stabbings in the US (1,604) constitute 10.6%.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls

In Canada on the other hand the preferred method of killing is consistently by stabbing which accounts for roughly 35% of all homicides while shooting is roughly 30%.

https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2015001/article/14244/tbl/tbl03-eng.htm

If you want to put that in the stats of per 100, 000 then in the US 3.3 in 100,000 are murdered by a firearm each year while in Canada it is 0.44 per 100,000. That means for every Canadian murdered by a firearm in a year, 7.5 Americans will be murdered by a firearm. Please note that these are homicide statistics and do not include suicides or accidents which is another whole kettle of fish.

The overall homicide rate in the US is 15,070/350,000,000 or 4.3 per 100,000 while Canada is 516/35,000,000 or 1.47 per 100,000, a ratio of 2.9 to 1.

I don't think that there is any way to cut it other than to say that there is a gun culture issue in the US and that it has a direct effect on the number, rates and types of homicides that occur there. Maybe one of these days, Congress will grow a pair and allow the federal government to conduct some studies on the issue. :threat:

:cheers:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The stats are important when you look at legislation, because the number is not what people expect. The only time the type of firearm it is comes into play is really in the mass shooting scenario and one needs to look at why is this becoming more common, why didn't more people do this before? Yes the gun culture exists, are the politicians more interested in political battles or solving the issue, even if it means looking at things they did not plan to. If you enter into discussions with the gun lobby with "we plan on restricting gun rights" you have already lost. For all the lamenting and fist thumping, I don't see the politicians finding ways to create common ground on the gun rights side to solve issues. 

 

[daftandbarmy]

Meanwhile, in the stock market:

Why Investors Bet on Gun Sales After a Mass Shooting

Following the massacre in Las Vegas, firearm manufacturers saw their stock prices edge up.

What’s behind this grim trend? Understanding how mass shootings affect the demand for guns requires first recognizing the charged political and emotional space that guns occupy in American culture. There are a few reasons Americans buy more guns after shootings. Some describe wanting to protect themselves from violence; others worry that high-profile massacres will lead to stricter gun regulations, or a ban on the purchase of firearms entirely. Both of those impressions add some urgency to buying a gun, so demand goes up, and, in anticipation of that, so do the share prices of gun makers shortly after a shooting.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/gun-sales-mass-shooting/541809/

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Transcript of the 10 April 2014 USAF court martial of Airman First Class Devin P. Kelley:

 

[Fishbone Jones]

If a nut job wants a gun, to kill a bunch of people, they'll get one. Even confiscation of every firearm won't solve it. Unless you shut down every machine shop, take away every drill press and lathe, shut down every blacksmith shop and forge, people are going to have powerful weapons at their disposal. A single shot or double barrel shotgun will provide all the destruction you crave, with a competent operator. Whitman killed 16 and wounded 31including the stabbing deaths of his wife and mother. He used:

Remington 700 ADL (6mm) bolt action, centrefire
Universal M1 carbine. semi auto, centrefire
Remington Model 141 (.35-caliber) pump action, centrefire
Sears model 60 shotgun (12 gauge) semi auto
S&W Model 19 (.357 Magnum) revolver
Luger P08 (9mm) semi auto pistol
Galesi-Brescia (.25 ACP) semi auto pistol
Knife.
He killed and injured 11 and 31 from the 28th floor of the clock tower. The only effective firearms at that distance are the two Remingtons. The .30 carbine maybe. It fires an anemic pistol round. The bottom two are a luger and a small pocket pistol.

Point being, these were two manually operated single shot rifles. So even banning the dreaded black 'assault' rifle will do nothing if a person is intent on doing harm.

I've seen an operational AK 47 made out of a shovel.
Tim McVey used fertilizer and diesel fuel.
If a person wants to kill 20 people they'll do it by any means available to them.

Banning firearms won't do it. Simply because it is an impossibility.

The second amendment is meant to leave the population with a means to defend themselves against a corrupt government. It also possibly stopped an invasion by the Japanese. It will not be a stroke of a legislative pen that disarms Americans.

So what do they do? How do they stop it? Confiscation won't work. What viable, reasonable and accepted criteria does anyone have to stop this?

The US government with all their brain trust can't figure it out, and they know the most about it. I don't doubt all the simple off the cuff angst, ideas and solutions found here were the first things shoved off the table everytime people a lot more familiar with the problem try figure out where to go.

I believe the current restrictions, in general, not all, that we have are sufficient enough, with tweaking, would work stateside. However, no system of firearms control will stop mass killings. That's just the facts.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

07 Jun 2012 El Paso Police Dept Incident report concerning Devin Kelley and the fact that he had escaped from  a Behavioral Health Services facility. Kelly suffered from mental health issues and had been caught smuggling firearms onto Hollman AFB and making threats against his superiors:

 

[mariomike]

Please note that these are homicide statistics and do not include suicides or accidents which is another whole kettle of fish.

Speaking of statistics, about 80 per cent of the gun deaths we were sent into were ( or appeared to be ) suicides.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

I believe the current restrictions, in general, not all, that we have are sufficient enough, with tweaking, would work stateside. However, no system of firearms control will stop mass killings. That's just the facts.

But that's not the facts. At all.

- The facts CLEARLY show that countries with more restrictive gun laws have less gun related murders, less gun related accidental deaths (in 2015 there were 43 gun incidents involving TODDLERS!), and less occurrence of overall gun related crime by multiples. It's not even close.

- The facts clearly show that the "If we ban guns then only bad guys have guns" argument doesn't hold up. Australia, where there is significant gun control, has forced criminals to go without guns as semi-automatics have risen to an average of $45,000 AUD on the black market, outside the means of all but the richest criminals/gangs (which, btw, aren't coming for you).

- The facts clearly show the countries with higher gun control have less occurrences of mass shootings. The US is alone in this.

The fact that toddlers kill more Americans with guns than terrorists kill with anything should be a sign there is a problem. That the US has invaded multiple countries to stop terrorism, spent billions in intelligence agencies, altered laws to allow for spying on their own citizens, and spent billions on security measures to stop a threat that hurts less people than toddlers but refuses to consider any sort of ban on guns that repeatedly are used (seeming bi-monthly) to kill 10-50 people is an indication of a larger societal problem. Guns are part of that problem.

I get that people enjoy guns, I enjoy guns. I also enjoy fantasy football. If I read that fantasy football repeatedly caused 10-50 people to be killed I'd likely reconsider participating in it.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=Bird_Gunner45]

I get that people enjoy guns, I enjoy guns. I also enjoy fantasy football. If I read that fantasy football repeatedly caused 10-50 people to be killed I'd likely reconsider participating in it.
[/quote]

Do you drink alcohol?

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Do you drink alcohol?

I sense a red herring inbound.... yes, I drink alcohol. But if I learned that someone took beer and killed 58 people and wounded 500 with it at a concert than I'd probably reconsider.

Drinking alcohol is a personal choice that can't harm other people (directly). Being shot by a 65 year old man sporting the firepower of an infantry platoon at a country concert is not a personal choice. Heck, being shot by a toddler who's, assumedly idiotic parents, allowed to have access to a gun is not a personal choice.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

You answered too fast Bird_Gunner.

I was about to tell you, in the immortal words of Dr. McCoy: "Don't answer Jim, they're setting you up!"

;D

On the other hand, this whole discussion has strayed quite far from it's original topic and started quite far into another one we have relating to gun control.

On the other hand (back to the first one I guess, since I only have two), it has interesting societal aspects not necessarily touched on in the gun control thread. Perhaps a split to a thread that would be called "Gun Cult in the US and How to Change It".

Split topic as per OP. - mm

 

[Infanteer]

I believe the current restrictions, in general, not all, that we have are sufficient enough, with tweaking, would work stateside.

I do as well.  There needs, like in all things, to be a balance.  People who argue to simply ban guns aren't being realistic, especially when you do so in the context of the United States, where gun ownership is enshrined in the constitution.  I personally thought the Aussies went a little too far with their system and I've vigorously argued against banning semi-automatic firearms, not only for the reason you mentioned above but also as a matter of principle.  Guns in the wrong hands are the real problem, and our current system (with tweaking) does a acceptably good enough job of placing reasonable limitations on access (through the national PAL system and the unrestricted/restricted/prohibited categorization of firearms) while still allowing law-abiding citizens who wish to own and fire semi-automatic weapons to own and fire them as they wish.

 

[Infanteer]

I sense a red herring inbound.... yes, I drink alcohol. But if I learned that someone took beer and killed 58 people and wounded 500 with it at a concert than I'd probably reconsider.

Drinking alcohol is a personal choice that can't harm other people (directly). Being shot by a 65 year old man sporting the firepower of an infantry platoon at a country concert is not a personal choice. Heck, being shot by a toddler who's, assumedly idiotic parents, allowed to have access to a gun is not a personal choice.

Owning/shooting firearms is a personal choice that can't harm other people (directly).  Being run over by a 65 year old man who is driving while intoxicated is not a personal choice.

Only pointing out the logic here.