The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[TheMeInTeam]

Nothing can deter someone who is truly committed to an act of mass violence. That doesn't reduce the merit in making things less convenient for them in whatever ways possible.

"Whatever ways possible", taken literally, includes a large swath of things that inconvenience law-abiding people while only trivially altering the death toll from mass murder attempts vs other deaths.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

"Whatever ways possible", taken literally, includes a large swath of things that inconvenience law-abiding people while only trivially altering the death toll from mass murder attempts vs other deaths.

I've never actually met anyone who needed to carry a weapon in the course of being a law abiding citizen.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't know if that's entirely true. Canada's last shooting spree seems to have been significantly affected by the fact that we have trouble purchasing high capacity magazines

 

[Lexicus]

The thing that shook about that video. In 54 years I've never carried a weapon, never felt the need to. I've lived in poor areas of large cities during that time. I can't imagine what its like to live in a society where people feel its necessary to carry a weapon.

Thing is that in any society there will be people who feel it's necessary to carry a weapon. The US panders heavily to the "rights" of our paranoid fringe, but we don't have an exclusive just in having them.

Gun marketing in the US actively cultivates such paranoia. Seriously, leaf through some gun industry magazines and Commodore's posts suddenly make a lot more sense.

 

[Peuri]

Nothing can deter someone who is truly committed to an act of mass violence. That doesn't reduce the merit in making things less convenient for them in whatever ways possible.

Sure. I didn't mean it to be taken as that it shouldn't be done, just that soon it probably will be woefully insignificant a policy if you can just print your magazine at home anyway.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've never actually met anyone who needed to carry a weapon in the course of being a law abiding citizen.

"Whatever ways possible" implies a much larger possibility space than "firearms" or even "weapons". Lots of things can be used to harm (or worse) a relatively large number of people in a short period of time.

 

[Lexicus]

Lots of things can be used to harm (or worse) a relatively large number of people in a short period of time.

Such as?

 

[Estebonrober]

"Whatever ways possible", taken literally, includes a large swath of things that inconvenience law-abiding people while only trivially altering the death toll from mass murder attempts vs other deaths.

Be inconvenienced. I literally have no patience for this crap. Sandy Hook

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Such as?

Vehicles, makeshift explosives, sabotage of construction, dangerous chemicals mixed together (some are relatively common to access), even that old story of poisoning drug bottles. To name a few.

Some of these are relatively inconvenient to use in some contexts compared to firearms, while more accessible/easier to use in others (particularly vehicles).

Be inconvenienced. I literally have no patience for this crap. Sandy Hook

Sandy hook's body count could be trivially accomplished without any guns whatsoever, or with a wide swath of guns that aren't "assault weapons" per the idiocy of the talking heads.

I don't see why your patience is relevant to incoherent reasoning, or to the point you're quoting. Sandy hook is a drop in the bucket compared to yearly gun deaths, nearly all of which even the latest round of "gun legislation" isn't even talking about, let alone trying to stop.

 

[Estebonrober]

Sure. I didn't mean it to be taken as that it shouldn't be done, just that soon it probably will be woefully insignificant a policy if you can just print your magazine at home anyway.

I question the veracity of this statement anyways. 3d printers are easy enough sure, but they take a time and resource investment many of these shooters would not take in a normal run up to these shootings. Would it have stopped El Paso? Maybe not. Dayton? Yea more would be alive and fewer would be dead if either a) he had to reload more often or b) he used a hand or shotgun.

 

[rah]

So how many deaths are worth being allowed to own high capacity magazines?
The need for high capacity magazines isn't very high, if at all.

 

[Lexicus]

Vehicles, makeshift explosives, sabotage of construction, dangerous chemicals mixed together (some are relatively common to access), even that old story of poisoning drug bottles. To name a few.

Some of these are relatively inconvenient to use in some contexts compared to firearms, while more accessible/easier to use in others (particularly vehicles).

Sandy hook's body count could be trivially accomplished without any guns whatsoever, or with a wide swath of guns that aren't "assault weapons" per the idiocy of the talking heads.

Can you explain why the world's armies issue their infantry with assault rifles instead of these other things you mention in your list?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So how many deaths are worth being allowed to own high capacity magazines?
The need for high capacity magazines isn't very high, if at all.

A better question is "how many more deaths does making high capacity magazines lead to compared to if the same person chose to use a few handguns or an alternative method".

The true answer is "we don't know for sure", but judging from gun death statistics in general (even excluding suicide) it's not reasonable to expect much difference. How many mass shooting deaths have been prevented by "assault weapon" laws thus far? Are shooters in the last 5-10 years significantly less lethal than, say, shooters in 1970s on average?

Can you explain why the world's armies issue their infantry with assault rifles instead of these other things you mention in your list?

I can, but since it's an irrelevant red herring I won't.

 

[Estebonrober]

Vehicles, makeshift explosives, sabotage of construction, dangerous chemicals mixed together (some are relatively common to access), even that old story of poisoning drug bottles. To name a few.

Some of these are relatively inconvenient to use in some contexts compared to firearms, while more accessible/easier to use in others (particularly vehicles).



Sandy hook's body count could be trivially accomplished without any guns whatsoever, or with a wide swath of guns that aren't "assault weapons" per the idiocy of the talking heads.

I don't see why your patience is relevant to incoherent reasoning, or to the point you're quoting. Sandy hook is a drop in the bucket compared to yearly gun deaths, nearly all of which even the latest round of "gun legislation" isn't even talking about, let alone trying to stop.

I’m not trying to stop suicides. Idc. It’s m trying to stop spontaneous mass murder. I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you.

 

[Estebonrober]

A better question is "how many more deaths does making high capacity magazines lead to compared to if the same person chose to use a few handguns or an alternative method".

The true answer is "we don't know for sure", but judging from gun death statistics in general (even excluding suicide) it's not reasonable to expect much difference. How many mass shooting deaths have been prevented by "assault weapon" laws thus far? Are shooters in the last 5-10 years significantly less lethal than, say, shooters in 1970s on average?



I can, but since it's an irrelevant red herring I won't.

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?

 

[Lexicus]

I can, but since it's an irrelevant red herring I won't.

It's fairly obvious that it's much easier to pick up an assault rifle and kill 30 people than it is by any of the other methods you listed.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I can, but since it's an irrelevant red herring I won't.

How is that a red herring? Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you get to play that card. If you don't like any limits on gun ownership then say so, but don't act like we're all debating in bad faith.

hard to come by since you know they aren’t allowed to be done

Underrated comment

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is that a red herring?

Shooting at people who can kill you at > 100M and are actively trying to do so is different from shooting from < 10M away at people who are half your age or less, unarmed/unarmored, and terrified. The relative performance of weapons changes between these two scenarios. In one, a handgun is barely less lethal than a rifle. In the other, a handgun makes you a sitting duck in relative terms.

It's fairly obvious that it's much easier to pick up an assault rifle and kill 30 people than it is by any of the other methods you listed.

I'm not convinced mass vehicular manslaughter or explosives are meaningfully more difficult. I don't own a firearm and I have access to one of them regardless, as do hundreds of millions of other Americans.

 

[Estebonrober]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553937/


n a typical handgun injury, which I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ such as the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, gray bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?

The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. Nothing was left to repair—and utterly, devastatingly, nothing could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Shooting at people who can kill you at > 100M and are actively trying to do so is different from shooting from < 10M away at people who are half your age or less, unarmed/unarmored, and terrified. The relative performance of weapons changes between these two scenarios. In one, a handgun is barely less lethal than a rifle. In the other, a handgun makes you a sitting duck in relative terms.

So how was that a red herring?