The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[EgonSpengler]

Surely there's middle ground between giving schoolchildren loaded pistols and reducing people's access to guns in general? The one that comes most readily to mind is allowing school staff to carry concealed.

If those are the three choices, I'll take "reduce people's access to guns in general." I simply don't want to live in a place where school staff need to be armed to repel or deter an attack upon the children under their care. And I don't even have kids.

 

[Farm Boy]

There was a swat team available, on site, trained, dispatched, and deployed by the state. They sat around with their thumbs up their asses rather than do... anything. In fact, I think they actively worked to prevent some of the willing response. Sometimes **** really is just SNAFU. But... never again... I suppose. Let the angry learn chemistry.

 

[EgonSpengler]

There was a swat team available, on site, trained, dispatched, and deployed by the state. They sat around with their thumbs up their asses rather than do... anything. In fact, I think they actively worked to prevent some of the willing response. Sometimes **** really is just SNAFU. But... never again... I suppose. Let the angry learn chemistry.

Indeed. There are myriad reasons we need dramatic reform of law enforcement, and that sorry display was just one. I seem to remember another instance of an armed guard not engaging a shooter inside a school, but my memory is hazy. In that case, I think it was just one man, and he was a security guard rather than a police officer. At the same time, I think we've seen many more examples of on-campus police exercising force on students than we have of on-campus police intercepting an attacker.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

it is a reasonably safe rule of thumb that an armed guard has less stake in protecting you than you do, on average. most people also lack access to readily available armed guards in the timeframe a shooter can kill someone.

i don't know how to square that at a school though. arming students to the teeth would deter random school shooters (if every school did it, we'd never get another uvalde), but i suspect giving children guns would lead to more deaths overall and more permanently traumatized people as a result. the mental picture of a group of elementary schoolers immediately dropping a shooter without mercy is amusing as long as it isn't real though. pick quantity ideas in eu 4!

shooters that are looking to stack body counts by attacking random people pick places like this/churches/theaters because they have a lot of people in one place that are unlikely to be capable of defending themselves (for one reason or another). rather than heavy handed gun laws (which do not appear to be useful), we should probably use policy that makes rando-targeting mass shooters less likely to want to do it. i don't know what that looks like, but this style of shooting is way more common now than 40-80 years ago, despite that weapons that could inflict this kind of damage have been readily available the whole time.

 

[Lexicus]

The good news is that Uvalde showed that when the chips are down the cops will coward out. Don't be afraid of them, shoot back at them, and they fall apart like wet toilet paper

 

[EgonSpengler]

it is a reasonably safe rule of thumb that an armed guard has less stake in protecting you than you do, on average. most people also lack access to readily available armed guards in the timeframe a shooter can kill someone.

i don't know how to square that at a school though. arming students to the teeth would deter random school shooters (if every school did it, we'd never get another uvalde), but i suspect giving children guns would lead to more deaths overall and more permanently traumatized people as a result. the mental picture of a group of elementary schoolers immediately dropping a shooter without mercy is amusing as long as it isn't real though. pick quantity ideas in eu 4!

shooters that are looking to stack body counts by attacking random people pick places like this/churches/theaters because they have a lot of people in one place that are unlikely to be capable of defending themselves (for one reason or another). rather than heavy handed gun laws (which do not appear to be useful), we should probably use policy that makes rando-targeting mass shooters less likely to want to do it. i don't know what that looks like, but this style of shooting is way more common now than 40-80 years ago, despite that weapons that could inflict this kind of damage have been readily available the whole time.

The time delay and the trauma you mention should remind us of one thing that I think we always need to remember: A shooter being dropped by a fusillade of return fire is not actually the optimal outcome. Far from it. I would argue it represents a near-total failure of society. And not only are armed guards not readily available in the timeframe a shooter can kill someone, neither is the gun we may have on our hip. Unless you're prepared to live in a society where every citizen regards every stranger as a potential attacker, like Jason Bourne sitting in the diner with Marie, ready to spring into action against anyone who looks suspicious, a "good guy with a gun" will always be acting after someone has been shot.

The trauma you mention is an important point, as well. One of the top (the #1?) risk factors for developing PTSD is killing someone. Similarly, conversations about gun violence tend to focus on the fatalities, but surviving a gunshot can be permanently life-altering.

Making shooters (not just mass shooters, who make up a tiny percentage of our overall annual body count) less likely to want to do it is crucial. I expect education reform and healthcare reform, especially mental health care, would help a great deal (and I support both of those things anyway - reducing violence would be just one of the benefits, if indeed it did that). If the US was simply a less violent place, we wouldn't need stricter gun controls, so whatever might reduce violence would be a "win-win" for people on either side of the gun debate.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh yeah. More mental health professionals.

Can we make sure additional profits go through all the insurance leeches, too?

 

[AmazonQueen]

Oh yeah. More mental health professionals.

Can we make sure additional profits go through all the insurance leeches, too?

I suspect not more, just redeployed from caring from all the traumatised survivors of shootings and relatives of victims.

 

[Farm Boy]

Nah. When they're preventative, the termites are in everything everything.

 

[Samson]

If it is a service available to everyone then there would be no good reason for the insurance industry to be involved at all. If it is not available to everyone it will not be available to those who need it most.

 

[El_Machinae]

...

shooters that are looking to stack body counts by attacking random people pick places like this/churches/theaters because they have a lot of people in one place that are unlikely to be capable of defending themselves (for one reason or another). rather than heavy handed gun laws (which do not appear to be useful), we should probably use policy that makes rando-targeting mass shooters less likely to want to do it. i don't know what that looks like, but this style of shooting is way more common now than 40-80 years ago, despite that weapons that could inflict this kind of damage have been readily available the whole time.

[I've been saying this for years, but here's a 2017 version of it.

Of these high-profile shootings 'mental illness' is available as a partial explanation. [...] ... so the shortest path is to actually help with mental illness research. As interventions are brought online, the frequency of high-profile shootings would decrease. And it's the frequency that affects political support against the 2nd Amendment.

If someone gives to the NRA to protect guns rights, they could also give to research charities that literally will eventually make the problem less likely. But of course, one requires sacrifice to help other people and the other is a more purely self-interested defensive play

 

[Farm Boy]

If it is a service available to everyone then there would be no good reason for the insurance industry to be involved at all. If it is not available to everyone it will not be available to those who need it most.

"Service."

 

[Samson]

"Service."

Service in the same way as we have a National Health Service.

 

[Farm Boy]

As in the self-serving termites.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Surely there's middle ground between giving schoolchildren loaded pistols and reducing people's access to guns in general? The one that comes most readily to mind is allowing school staff to carry concealed.

There's always (usually) middle ground but I'm with @EgonSpengler in that the middle ground you are identifying seems alot closer to option one, which doesn't appeal to me at all. More guns in schools just seems like the kind of thing that is going to result in more incidents/accidents with guns in schools.

Can we make sure additional profits go through all the insurance leeches, too?

Oh don't you worry, that's a given.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, there we go. Move the guns from the schools to the mental health professionals.

 

[Lexicus]

As in the self-serving termites.

A good description of the gun industry tbh

It's more about people needing to own their own safety

Yeah, and the first thing you want to do if you're owning your own safety is get rid of your gun. It is not safe, generally speaking, to have a gun in your house.

 

[Lexicus]

It's more about people needing to own their own safety

Yeah, and the first thing you want to do if you're owning your own safety is take that gun someplace far away. It is not safe, generally speaking, to have a gun in your house.

 

[Farm Boy]

A good description of the gun industry tbh

Fair enough. But at least they aren't pretending to be other than arms dealers. Though people like to pretend their product isn't a weapon designed to kill humans when they place up the BS liability.

Still better than mental health professionals. Those are a step down.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Fair enough. But at least they aren't pretending to be other than arms dealers. Though people like to pretend their product isn't a weapon designed to kill humans when they place up the BS liability.

That's part of what makes the right abrasive... there generally isn't an unqualified right to kill people.