On the recent mass killing in Texas

Meh No one in their right mind would plan to kill many (let's say more than 2) people with a knife. Besides, weren't acid attacks becoming dreadfully common in London, a few years back?

 

They did, but I think always personal rather than mass attacks.

 

Reading down the wiki page there is an answer to this:

In May 2016, Al-Qaeda's Inspire published an article entitled. “O Knife Revolution, Head Toward America.” The magazine urged Muslims to kill “the intelligentsia, economic and influential personalities of America,” by low-tech methods including stabbing attacks on the grounds that such assaults are “easy options that do not require huge efforts or man power, but the result is parallel to the big operations or even more.”

In October 2016, Rumiyah, the online propaganda and recruitment magazine published by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) told followers that holy warriors down through Muslim history have “struck the necks of the kuffar” in the name of Allah, with "swords, severing limbs and piercing the fleshy meat of those who opposed Islam.” The magazine advised its readers that knives are easy to obtain, easy to hide, and deadly, and that they make good weapons in places where Muslims might be regarded with suspicion.
​

I said before I do not get it. It does not require "huge efforts or man power" to make a car bomb. I am really glad they have gone this route though.

 

Thanks for not being condescending, but I am amazed you managed to miss that the point was "if guns become less available, those who plan mass killings may choose other methods that exist already". No one said that currently the firearm isn't the weapon of choice for US mass-killings.

 

Look, if you are determined enough and either skilled in high school physics and chemistry or willing to look up recipes on the web, you can create a chemical or incendiary weapon that put guns to shame in killing potential, just from the items available from stores in virtually any country.

But such attacks don't happen as often. Why is that? I believe it's because just killing isn't the goal of those shootings. They're usually revenge killings, so I suspect the psychology behind them is more about perpetrators having the power over their tormentors and watching them die, rather than simply removing them with a bomb. And for such purpose, guns are the most effective tool readily available in the US.

 

*SIGH*

"You need guns to fight against a tyrannical government" is absolute BS. Your machine gun isn't going to do jack **** against the US airforce. The people who want free access to guns are the same people who want a tyrannical government (see Jan 6 21 coup attempt)

"If you ban guns then they'll just start using something else" is slippery-slope BS. Other countries that have their guns under control don't have this problem with any statistical significance.

"If you ban guns then only criminals will have them" is more BS from the same people who think that persecuting transgender people will somehow curb cisgender male violence. Restricting gun availability makes it far more difficult for wackos to get them AS DEMONSTRATED BY EVERY OTHER SANE COUNTRY.

We don't make progress because the NRA own the soulless republican party and they only care about their money and not people's lives.

I am disgusted, frustrated, and tired of this crap.

 

My suggestion is creating a quick Catch-22:

Say that people exhibiting signs of mental illness cannot buy a gun. Then say that seeking to buy a gun (which has only one purpose: to kill) is a sign of mental illness, because no person in their right mind wants a deathstick. So anyone trying to buy a gun is automatically barred from buying one due to the desire to buy a gun.

Yay.

 

And what about people who want a gun for actual legal purpose? Hunting (putting down invasive or overpopulated species that threaten ecological stability is important), sport or self-defense? Honestly, after hearing news from US, if I ever were to visit, I'd buy a gun for self-defense. I don't feel such need here.

 

Yeah, but is there a crazy epidemic of acid attacks in Europe? Is there a crazy epidemic of knife attacks in the UK?

Maybe there is, I don't know. I've read of occasional attacks for sure, but they seem to be relatively rare.

Meanwhile in the U.S. there is an out of control school shooting epidemic.. not to mention gun violence epidemic in general.

That's why I find this argument weird. Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

I obviously never held a gun, but can imagine it's not that difficult to understand & handle.
Which highlights the whole problem compared to other weapons..deadly, no escape possible, range and not complicated.
I fully agree with Mary, it's just disgusting how they are sold like birthday presents.

 

If this hypothetical were true, we'd see it happening in countries like the UK and Australia (and more besides). The fact that it hasn't (to anywhere near the same degree compared to mass violence involving forearms) has some bearing on hypotheticals like these.

Maybe a better question would be: and? Do you think this hypothetical harm means that guns in the US shouldn't be less available?

 

Depends on what kind of likeness in degree you can expect. Japan has sarin attacks, Uk has sulfuric acid attacks. Relative numbers may also be due to cultural differences. My OP argument mentioned that treating the causes (why these people decide to kill) may be a safer route to diminishing the attacks; simply removing one of the main weapons doesn't seem enough imo.

 

I'm not really looking for what is "enough"; we're looking at harm reduction. You can't get rid of violence itself, so "enough" is kind of a moving target.

Which is why I asked if you thought making firearms harder to access would result in a reduction of harm.

The UK is still better for not having guns (though it's more that they're heavily regulated). Takes a lot more acid to kill someone, for starters. Hence, my question. I'm trying to relate your "what if" to something concrete; literal.

 

In the short-term, it is rather obvious that limiting access to firearms will reduce the number of this kind of attack (which, at any rate, is relatively uncommon - despite being by far more common in the US than elsewhere). In the longer-term, however, it may well not lead to sustainable reduction.
Like Samson noted, it really isn't that difficult to create a small bomb out of everyday materials, which can kill (and, unlike with firearms, make it easier for the killer to remain uncaught).
If the actual will/reasons to kill remain, I doubt the removal of firearms will do more than just slow down the events for a few years.

It seems logical to expect that the difficulty in committing such an attack lies primarily in having the will to do it. If one does, they can find resources to succeed.

 

Yes. I had an M/10 assault rifle issued to me during my first 4 weeks in the service and as someone who has trained with it, these types of rifles have no business being made available to civilians whatsoever. They are specifically designed to unload a barrage of projectiles (or suppressing fire) at mid to long range in a military context, so all this talk about 'we need access to such weapons for home protection or whatever' is imo nonsense. It's a product of a very unhealthy, harmful and entitled gun culture.

 

We're kinda going in circles here. It seems logical to expect that if humans worked like this, other countries would have widespread problems. They dont, ergo, you can't presume the US will suddenly be different. Not convincingly at least. It's your suggestion, so you kinda need something in the way of evidence.

Even despite that, given that you think it would reduce violence in the short-term, that still seems acceptable. The overall impact will be less lives lost, even considering your suggested scenario.

 

As Korean-New Zealander I find it really tragic that this keeps on happening in America for eons now and yet conservatives in America are just as gun happy as ever. In both Korea and New Zealand we don't have this sort of violence... like ever and we are just as angry and dysfunctional as America.

 

Fox News was outraged at Biden and Democrats using this to blame the guns industry etc, then tonight Tucker Carlson blamed the internet, big pharma and covid/lockdowns (but he made sure to let us know he wasn't blaming Fauci).