Las Vegas Shooting

[Lushen]

Since people here are so intent on speaking in hypotheticals such as "if we had democrat gun control this wouldn't have happened" which cannot be proven given the facts we know at this point.....

What about a hypothetical where a man with a licensed handgun happened to be living in the room next door in the shooter.  What if this man, after hearing the shots fired, entered the room and prevented more than one clip from going off? Naw, that's impossible.  Only hypotheticals that lean towards my ideology are relevant.

 

And while America does trump other nations on crime, we don't actually have the highest homicide rates.  We have a high number of homicides, but we also have a high number of people.  The actual rates aren't that bad.

As for the idea that this is "the only country where this happens", yea gun control would limit mass shootings.  But if we're going to ban everything that has the potential to end human life we should also ban semi trucks since this happened twice (that I know of) in Europe.  Evil people with evil intentions are going to do...evil things...If they don't have guns but have plans to commit mass murder they will use homemade bombs, semis, etc.  Perhaps the reason the US has situations like this is because we have people who are inclined to commit mas murder. 

I would imagine the outrage of destroying one of our founding principals would insight more homicide than it would  prevent.  I think we've all seen those bumper stickers on trucks that say "Just try and take my gun".

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

I don't know why it's being framed as a democrat issue (well, I know WHY); I know people across the political spectrum, particularly parents, who would like to see some kind of gun control in place, and several polls bear this out (check the last graph in particular). It's frankly insane that we expect kindergarteners to go through active shooter drills in schools and not think it odd.

The myth of the good guy with a gun is largely that, a myth. Sure it happens very occasionally, but it's in something like less than one third of one percent of mass shootings. Why doesn't it happen more often in the U.S., where guns are so easy to obtain? 

Meanwhile we have multiple examples of countries where gun control is effective. Like the Onion so aptly points out, this is solely a U.S. issue.

 

[largebus]

Stocks up on Smith and Wesson today. What a country.

[Shoblongoo]

11 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Since people here are so intent on speaking in hypotheticals such as "if we had democrat gun control this wouldn't have happened" which cannot be proven given the facts we know at this point.....

Don't play that game. You know what rates, frequencies and statistical averages are.

You can never say that "if you pass policies X, Y, and Z, then this specific shooting won't happen." 

What you can say is "if you pass policies X, Y, and Z, 300 people per year die from gun violence instead of 30,000 people per year dying from gun violence. You stop the gun violence from happening in 99 out of 100 cases."

You're an engineer. You know this.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Since people here are so intent on speaking in hypotheticals such as "if we had democrat gun control this wouldn't have happened" which cannot be proven given the facts we know at this point.....

What about a hypothetical where a man with a licensed handgun happened to be living in the room next door in the shooter.  What if this man, after hearing the shots fired, entered the room and prevented more than one clip from going off? Naw, that's impossible.  Only hypotheticals that lean towards my ideology are relevant.

And how would he get into the shooter's locked room? Shoot the lock off eh? This is all just some hollywood movie. I'd rather the shooter not have access to a gun of any kind then depend on some vigilante justice like it's the romanticized Old West. And the fact is, most of us aren't asking to take all guns away cold turkey. Just one step could make a difference in the hundreds, thousands, tends of thousands of shootings this country faces. 

 

[Lushen]

8 minutes ago, Res said:

The myth of the good guy with a gun is largely that, a myth. Sure it happens very occasionally, but it's in something like less than one third of one percent of mass shootings. Why doesn't it happen more often in the U.S., where guns are so easy to obtain?

It happened at the last mass murder scene I am aware of.  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/26/hero-in-tennessee-church-shooting-proves-guns-could-reduce-crime-expert-says.html

8 minutes ago, Res said:

It's frankly insane that we expect kindergarteners to go through active shooter drills in schools and not think it odd.

Abolishing the right to bear arms and NOT having elementary schools practice drills for an active shooter doesn't make any sense.  Just because you have outlawed guns doesn't mean that it will just stop and we don't have to plan for it anymore.  Do I need to post the imagery again?   And by the way, the biggest attack at schools was done with a bomb. 

8 minutes ago, Res said:

I don't know why it's being framed as a democrat issue (well, I know WHY); I know people across the political spectrum, particularly parents, who would like to see some kind of gun control in place, and several polls bear this out (check the last graph in particular).

Because roughly 1/3 of the nation owns guns and there are enough guns for every person in the united states.

7 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

You can never say that "if you pass policies X, Y, and Z, then this specific shooting won't happen."

Exactly....Thanks for proving my point. 

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

12 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Exactly....Thanks for proving my point. 

 

...oh for fucks sake...

 

...

[Lushen]

11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

 

...oh for fucks sake...

 

<snip>

I honestly don't care about murder rates that are gun-related.  How do you expect to prove to me that removing the word "gun" will remove the word "murder"? 

 

I think I can do the opposite with ease.  In a country where 1/3 of the population owns guns which you claim is the problem and has the highest rates of murder with guns we are not anywhere on this chart.  Chile's not on here either which has the second highest gunned murder rate.  What's going on here?  It almost looks like the more murders attributed to guns, the less overall murders.

Spoiler

 

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

8 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I honestly don't care about murder rates that are gun-related.  

I'm aware. Just to prove a point--what does one who subscribes to your particular brand of conservatism believe the primary objective of gun policy should be, if not reducing the prevelance of gun violence and gun-related deaths?

[Time the Crestfallen]

11 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I honestly don't care about murder rates that are gun-related.  How do you expect to prove to me that removing the word "gun" will remove the word "murder"? 

Well that just kind of says it all, doesn't it? It says a lot that your reaction to this is just 'I don't care'.

[Res]

23 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Abolishing the right to bear arms and NOT having elementary schools practice drills for an active shooter doesn't make any sense.  Just because you have outlawed guns doesn't mean that it will just stop and we don't have to plan for it anymore.  Do I need to post the imagery again?   And by the way, the biggest attack at schools was done with a bomb.

My point is that it's not a drill done in schools in any other country. Outside of the U.S., China (with 3 x the population) has seen 10 school killings. Germany 3, Finland 2, other countries 1 or 0. It's just not something students in schools outside the U.S. ever have to consider.

[Lushen]

4 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'm aware. Just to prove a point--what does one who subscribes to your particular brand of conservatism believe the primary objective of gun policy should be, if not reducing the prevelance of gun violence and gun-related deaths?

Way to snip a portion of my post to make me look like an asshole.  I'm not sure it helps your argument though.

4 minutes ago, Magus of Flowers said:

Well that just kind of says it all, doesn't it? It says a lot that your reaction to this is just 'I don't care'.

It's the exact same principal I apply to racial inequality.  I don't care how uneven the distribution is, I care how many people are actually poor.  I don't want everyone to be poor because it would be fair as much as I want to limit the overall amount of poor people.  Likewise, I don't care about gun related murders as much as I care about the numbers of murders in general.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Time the Crestfallen]

3 minutes ago, Lushen said:

It's the exact same principal I apply to racial inequality.  I don't care how uneven the distribution is, I care how many people are actually poor.  I don't want everyone to be poor because it would be fair as much as I want to limit the overall amount of poor people.  Likewise, I don't care about gun related murders as much as I care about the numbers of murders in general.

Oh trust me, I've noticed. The fact that you complain 'only hypotheticals that lean towards my ideology are relevant' while indulging in your NRA propaganda-induced, hero fantasy bullshit while stating that you 'don't care' about statistical evidence, it becomes pretty evident that you only care about singular statistics devoid of all context, which you also complained about in the politics thread.

[Lushen]

6 minutes ago, Magus of Flowers said:

Oh trust me, I've noticed. The fact that you complain 'only hypotheticals that lean towards my ideology are relevant' while indulging in your NRA propaganda-induced, hero fantasy bullshit while stating that you 'don't care' about statistical evidence, it becomes pretty evident that you only care about singular statistics devoid of all context, which you also complained about in the politics thread.

The NRA is a joke and half the crap they post is illogical propaganda not rooted in any form of fact.  Surprised?

My posts have less to do with "citing singular facts" as they do about citing the correct facts.  The amount of deaths attributed to gun homicides is entirely irrelevant because it is impossible to determine how many of thoes homicides would have been carried out without guns.  If someone wanted to murder their wife, and they had a gun they would use it.  If their gun is taken away, does this suddenly mean he no longer wants to kill his wife?  No. So what's the point?  And how many of the times is there no point?  Until you can figure that out how, you cannot use gun statistics to suggest how much of an impact they would have on overall homicides.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

11 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Way to snip a portion of my post to make me look like an asshole.

Okay Mr. "Exactly....Thanks for proving my point."

Seriously. I here assert the primary objective of gun policy should be minimizing the societal prevalence of gun violence and gun crime.

What do you think it should be???

[Time the Crestfallen]

1 minute ago, Lushen said:

The NRA is a joke and half the crap they post is illogical propaganda not rooted in any form of fact.

And yet the only thing you've done is regurgitate their talking points almost ad verbatim.

[Lushen]

12 minutes ago, Magus of Flowers said:

And yet the only thing you've done is regurgitate their talking points almost ad verbatim.

I honestly don't know any of their talking points.  The only things I know about them are the ridiculous things they post that I end up hearing about because they're hysterical.

13 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Okay Mr. "Exactly....Thanks for proving my point."

Seriously. I here assert the primary objective of gun policy should be minimizing the societal prevalence of gun violence and gun crime.

What do you think it should be???

Preventing crime.  Note, this is different than "Preventing Gun Crime" which is why I've asked you a few times to prove to me that removing guns will suddenly cause murderers to become saints and not kill their victims.

 

 And the post I responded to with "Exactly..." had a bunch of flaws.  (reorganized your post a bit for explanation below)

59 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

A)  You can never say that "if you pass policies X, Y, and Z, then this specific shooting won't happen." 
B) What you can say is "if you pass policies X, Y, and Z, 300 people per year die from gun violence instead of 30,000 people per year dying from gun violence.
C) You stop the gun violence from happening in 99 out of 100 cases."
 

Most namely, you can't prove (C) without doing (A) because (C) requires you to use (A) at least 99 times to prove that a specific shooting wouldn't have happened and 1 time to prove that the shooting would have happened.  So there's a basic contradiction there.  (B) is even more ridiculous because it requires 30,300 uses of (A).

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Lord Raven]

32 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Way to snip a portion of my post to make me look like an asshole.  I'm not sure it helps your argument though.

You do this shit all the time. In fact, when people ask you questions, you dodge the question and you actively do not answer it. You are the furthest thing from respectable in debates.

I also fail to see how he missed any context in that.

13 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Preventing crime.  Note, this is different than "Preventing Gun Crime" which is why I've asked you a few times to prove to me that removing guns will suddenly cause murderers to become saints and not kill their victims.

I'm not sure why you're asking to prove an extreme statement, Australia in the 90s is a good example. I advise you to read up on the history of gun legislation in Australia, because gun crime went way down with stricter gun control after a mass shooting. They're much more peaceful than us as well.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Sias]

1 minute ago, Lushen said:

I honestly don't know any of their talking points.  The only things I know about them are the ridiculous things they post that I end up hearing about because they're hysterical.

Preventing crime.  Note, this is different than "Preventing Gun Crime" which is why I've asked you a few times to prove to me that removing guns will suddenly cause murderers to become saints and not kill their victims.

But you do realize that removing guns would either prevent or at least heavily impede most of the mass killings that have happened in the USA?
Sure, the angry man you cited as an example could still just go up to his wife and strangle her. The angry white man with the rifles in his hotel room however would be far less scary if he instead ran around on the street chasing people with a set of knives.

Also, sure nice that you responded to Shoblongoo's statistic depicting the developed world with another one about murder numbers on the whole globe. Gee, I wonder why you did that?

[Junk]

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

 

you do realize that handguns by far account for most of the murders in the United States , right? @Lushen

[Tetragrammaton]

2 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Isn't that what you do? Except you actually do this. Shoblongoo doesn't.

I'm not sure why you're asking to prove an extreme statement, Australia in the 90s is a good example.

Get killed by gun is such a USA culture.

I'm sure I will miss those Hollywood blockbusters if they pass the gun control law.

[Lushen]

5 minutes ago, Junk said:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

 

you do realize that handguns by far account for most of the murders in the United States , right? @Lushen

Yep!  Which is why I find some liberal spokespersons that say "Well we don't need assault rifles" as a means to creep into abolishing the right to bear arms by asking a baby step hysterical because very few homicides even use rifles compared to guns.

 

6 minutes ago, Sias said:

But you do realize that removing guns would either prevent or at least heavily impede most of the mass killings that have happened in the USA?

Yea it probably would.  But self defense shooting save American lives too.  We know that self defense is fairly rare when it comes to gun use but how do we know that homicide prevention by guns will prevent more homicides than self defense will save?  I tend to believe that murderers are bad people who are going to do a bad thing because that's what they do.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Tryhard]

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

We don't want to do it. We'd rather have our guns.

I've just kind of accepted this. I suppose it's a big hobby, or at least I hope that's all people do with their guns. The people who talk about keeping guns for defence or government insurrection honestly scare the shit out of me.

1 hour ago, Res said:

It's frankly insane that we expect kindergarteners to go through active shooter drills in schools and not think it odd.

These are actually a thing? Holy shit.

There's a reason (actually, multiple reasons) that I doubt I will ever really want to visit America, to be honest.

[Lushen]

14 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I'm not sure why you're asking to prove an extreme statement, Australia in the 90s is a good example. I advise you to read up on the history of gun legislation in Australia, because gun crime went way down with stricter gun control after a mass shooting. They're much more peaceful than us as well.

This is actually a good thing to look into.  I couldn't find anything on Australia specifically but...brace yourself...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Graphs from https://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/

 

Also, Chicago after it increased regulation.

Spoiler

 

Edited October 3, 2017 by Lushen

[Shoblongoo]

27 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Preventing crime.  Note, this is different than "Preventing Gun Crime" which is why I've asked you a few times to prove to me that removing guns will suddenly cause murderers to become saints and not kill their victims.

...

This is like saying preventing the unlawful taking of property should be the objective of laws against burglary. Therefore we shouldn't have laws against breaking-and-entering because thieves don't become saints when you ban burglary; they still shoplift, rob, defraud, scam, and embezzle.

What nonsense.

 

Edited October 3, 2017 by Shoblongoo