The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Lexicus]

In one, a handgun is barely less lethal than a rifle.

You are completely wrong and have no idea what you're talking about. I mean, having three times as many bullets to fire before reloading alone makes an enormous difference before you even factor in the vast difference in muzzle velocity that makes AR-15 bullets so much more lethal than handgun bullets....

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not denying that a rifle is *more* lethal than a military rifle. I'm casting doubt that any law passed so far has had a meaningful impact on the number of people who have *actually died in mass shootings*, or more importantly shootings in general.

Beyond studies, this should be something we can look up directly. And decide after that whether it's worth the legislation. Could be that I'm wrong and we've seen a decline in deaths per mass shooting after each law passes, or at least a trend over a few decades.

 

[Commodore]

If I link you studies (hard to come by since you know they aren’t allowed to be done) showing you why rifles in mass shootings are much more deadly are you going to change your mind?

That they are more deadly is irrelevant though because rifles are not the weapon of choice for mass shooters. Most mass shootings are carried out with pistols or shotguns.

It doesn't matter how deadly a particular weapon is if hardly anyone is using that weapon to kill people.

 

[Estebonrober]

I'm not denying that a rifle is *more* lethal than a military rifle. I'm casting doubt that any law passed so far has had a meaningful impact on the number of people who have *actually died in mass shootings*, or more importantly shootings in general.

Beyond studies, this should be something we can look up actually. And decide after that whether it's worth the legislation.

No it’s not. You have no comparison to make it too except that after the assault rifle ban lapsed mass murder shot through the roof. With some years of lag time in there.

 

[Estebonrober]

That they are more deadly is irrelevant though because rifles are not the weapon of choice for mass shooters. Most mass shootings are carried out with pistols or shotguns.

It doesn't matter how deadly a particular weapon is if hardly anyone is using that weapon to kill people.

Except most “mass shootings” by FBI statistics aren’t want we are trying to prevent with say a rifle magazines ban.

Solutions for the guy who murders his whole family and then himself are nothing short of gun bans.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No it’s not. You have no comparison to make it too except that after the assault rifle ban lapsed mass murder shot through the roof. With some years of lag time in there.

Wait. Do we really not have data on guns used in mass shootings to go with their casualties? It seems like that would be obviously useful information to support (or refute) ban attempts.

Solutions for the guy who murders his whole family and then himself are nothing short of gun bans.

You'd need more than guns for that one, sadly.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not denying that a rifle is *more* lethal than a military rifle. I'm casting doubt that any law passed so far has had a meaningful impact on the number of people who have *actually died in mass shootings*, or more importantly shootings in general.

Beyond studies, this should be something we can look up directly. And decide after that whether it's worth the legislation. Could be that I'm wrong and we've seen a decline in deaths per mass shooting after each law passes, or at least a trend over a few decades.

Well - shocker - you are certainly wrong when it comes to other countries, many of which have actually passed gun control laws and seen mass shooting deaths decline to zero with significant declines in overall gun violence as well.

But additionally, our entire goddamn point is that everything done up to now has clearly been insufficient.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well - shocker - you are certainly wrong when it comes to other countries, many of which have actually passed gun control laws and seen mass shooting deaths decline to zero with significant declines in overall gun violence as well.

I was under the impression that the countries you're probably referencing generally don't...and didn't...have mass shootings at anywhere near the rate of the US regardless. Like what was the before/after rate in a country like Denmark? Denmark has basically no history of this.

If we look at another country, like Russia, they had 21 people die and many more injured last October, where a student got his hands on both a firearm and was able to set off a bomb. Russia has a law against guns with > 10 rounds.

But additionally, our entire goddamn point is that everything done up to now has clearly been insufficient.

What *is* sufficient, and what about a particular change makes you think we get there?

 

[Estebonrober]

Wait. Do we really not have data on guns used in mass shootings to go with their casualties? It seems like that would be obviously useful information to support (or refute) ban attempts.



You'd need more than guns for that one, sadly.

First it depends on how you define mass shootings as commodore in disingenuously trying to point out. In spontaneous mass murders high capacity/high velocity rifles are almost always the weapon of choice.

Second the thing about it requiring more than a gun ban to stop the family homicide type mass shooting is disingenuous as well. It can be done with an axe, but it is much more likely to happen when a firearm is available. There are all sorts of “duh” psychological reason why this is and I can only imagine you are sticking to talking points rather than thinking about the actual rationality of those points.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

First it depends on how you define mass shootings as commodore in disingenuously trying to point out. In spontaneous mass murders high capacity/high velocity rifles are almost always the weapon of choice.

Second the thing about it requiring more than a gun ban to stop the family homicide type mass shooting is disingenuous as well. It can be done with an axe, but it is much more likely to happen when a firearm is available. There are all sorts of “duh” psychological reason why this is and I can only imagine you are sticking to talking points rather than thinking about the actual rationality of those points.

It was more an aside noting how common DV is, far more common than mass shootings akin to the type that sparked this thread, yet basically won't make national headlines despite that they're more typical and have a larger death count (exceptions for famous people).

It really comes down to how much we care about the deaths vs controlling people. That's the bottom-line equation regardless of political stance. It'd be nice if we had a less noisy way to project "this level of legislation can expect that many deaths to guns on average", and it at least seems like we should have access to information to make this kind of estimate.

In reality, people don't care about the deaths as much as they like to signal that they care. If they really cared, these mass shootings wouldn't be a major point of emphasis. It's not that they aren't tragedies, it's that there are many more tragedies happening constantly at a much larger scale that don't even make the news/get considered. To me, pushing legislation emphasizing tragedies where year to year the death count is in the hundreds and then ignore death counts in the 1000's+ from a wide range of sources signals that the politicians/media in question care more about signaling than they do actual tragedy.

It's similar to the visceral reaction to 9/11, where its victims are glorified while many other brave/nice/great people who didn't deserve to die remain forever anonymous. I'm sure we have our own guesses as to why that is, but the reason can't reasonably be described as "tragedy aversion", that's for sure.

~~~

Is it really correct to call these "spontaneous mass murders"? Some are, but some it seems are planned in advance to a significant extent.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm not denying that a rifle is *more* lethal than a military rifle. I'm casting doubt that any law passed so far has had a meaningful impact on the number of people who have *actually died in mass shootings*, or more importantly shootings in general.

Beyond studies, this should be something we can look up directly. And decide after that whether it's worth the legislation. Could be that I'm wrong and we've seen a decline in deaths per mass shooting after each law passes, or at least a trend over a few decades.

You should look at Toronto shootings to compare. Also, ask what type of success mass shootings have in other countries, and what the kill rate is when they choose the alternative methods

 

[Estebonrober]

It was more an aside noting how common DV is, far more common than mass shootings akin to the type that sparked this thread, yet basically won't make national headlines despite that they're more typical and have a larger death count (exceptions for famous people).

It really comes down to how much we care about the deaths vs controlling people. That's the bottom-line equation regardless of political stance. It'd be nice if we had a less noisy way to project "this level of legislation can expect that many deaths to guns on average", and it at least seems like we should have access to information to make this kind of estimate.

In reality, people don't care about the deaths as much as they like to signal that they care. If they really cared, these mass shootings wouldn't be a major point of emphasis. It's not that they aren't tragedies, it's that there are many more tragedies happening constantly at a much larger scale that don't even make the news/get considered. To me, pushing legislation emphasizing tragedies where year to year the death count is in the hundreds and then ignore death counts in the 1000's+ from a wide range of sources signals that the politicians/media in question care more about signaling than they do actual tragedy.

It's similar to the visceral reaction to 9/11, where its victims are glorified while many other brave/nice/great people who didn't deserve to die remain forever anonymous. I'm sure we have our own guesses as to why that is, but the reason can't reasonably be described as "tragedy aversion", that's for sure.

~~~

Is it really correct to call these "spontaneous mass murders"? Some are, but some it seems are planned in advance to a significant extent.

I can extrapolate. The same time a nation of 300 million with guns suffers 45k dead a 30 million nation without guns suffers about 2000 dead. So that’s roughly a 60% percent reduction in gun deaths if I did my math right. More importantly none of these other countries have the level of random spontaneous murders we have. We almost average one a month. Despite our number that is deeply unsettling.

Spontaneous is what I’m trying to stop. I’d consider anything with u see a month of planning pretty spontaneous. It would stop a lot of dying.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You should look at Toronto shootings to compare. Also, ask what type of success mass shootings have in other countries, and what the kill rate is when they choose the alternative methods

Speaking of Toronto, the thread in 2018 isn't a bad example. The van attack killed 10, injured 16...and the person in question stopped to provoke police. Attempting suicide by cop after killing 10. What happens if that guy decides to keep going with it until he's forcibly stopped?

I can extrapolate. The same time a nation of 300 million with guns suffers 45k dead a 30 million nation without guns suffers about 2000 dead. So that’s roughly a 60% percent reduction in gun deaths if I did my math right. More importantly none of these other countries have the level of random spontaneous murders we have. We almost average one a month. Despite our number that is deeply unsettling.

I strongly suspect more at play than just the variance in gun law. What we need to see is change across *one* country before/after its laws to make a singular attribution with any confidence.

Again, the % of that 45k dying to spontaneous mass shootings is low. The mass shootings should not reasonably be our point of emphasis if we want to reduce deaths. We should care, but less than we care about activities that kill 50x to 100x more people.

 

[Gorbles]

People can care about more than one thing at once. The difference is domestic violence (to use your selective example) is a problem many countries have, whereas regular mass shootings is only really a problem one country has (certainly, in the West). There are other countries that have had this problem, and managed to sort it.

These attempts to appeal to other types of violence and death are trite, and often invoked as a deflection instead of a serious attempt to discuss the problem. Ironically, considering what you're accusing people of signalling of. For example, domestic violence in the US is affected by gun ownership. This is a paywall link, but the first one I found and it's late at night for me here. I'm sure folks can find more / an alternative source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence-statistics.html.

Also, something was recently done about it anyway.

 

[mitsho]

Just because one thing is worse, doesn't mean you shouldn't do the obvious thing either. Do what you can and then go on to the next thing.

As for assault rifles, in this case it helps to go back to history and look at axe murderers. You know, the one you know perfectly well from any horror film. It's become a trope. If you just look at a Wikipedia list of famous cases, you see many of them taking place in the American Midwest around 1900.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder?wprov=sfla1

Why did so many murderers use the axe? Because it was available. Every household had one, you needed it. It was a common tool. It isn't anymore. So we don't have axe murderers anymore. It's so much easier to pick up a gun or an assault rifle. So the axe has become a tool again. All is fine. But the assault rifle or the gun isn't a tool. And that's the point.

 

[El_Machinae]

Speaking of Toronto, the thread in 2018 isn't a bad example. The van attack killed 10, injured 16...and the person in question stopped to provoke police. Attempting suicide by cop after killing 10. What happens if that guy decides to keep going with it until he's forcibly stopped?

So, how do you think the rest of the story would have played out if he had also had cheap and easy access to firearms?

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: The El Paso Dayton thread (all 15 pages of it) has been merged into this thread, because this is where gun control arguments take place and, despite yesterday's warning, the EPD thread had turned into yet another gun control discussion.

 

[Arwon]

I'm not denying that a rifle is *more* lethal than a military rifle. I'm casting doubt that any law passed so far has had a meaningful impact on the number of people who have *actually died in mass shootings*, or more importantly shootings in general.

Beyond studies, this should be something we can look up directly. And decide after that whether it's worth the legislation. Could be that I'm wrong and we've seen a decline in deaths per mass shooting after each law passes, or at least a trend over a few decades.

Do you need me to find you graphs of pre-and post-1996 in Australia?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Do you need me to find you graphs of pre-and post-1996 in Australia?

I wouldn't mind seeing those, if it's not out of your way.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Good to know that Tucker Carlson has reassured the idiot demographic that white supremacists "mean well and are trying their best" before going into hiding...errrr, taking a long planned vacation that has nothing to do with the current controversy whatsoever.