djones520 wrote: Well, how many hijackings have been attempted since then D?
One could say that the terrorists now knowing there are weapons on board has acted as a deterent.
Of course that's a pretty simplistic way of looking at that, and obviously there are other factors, but the simple truth of the matter is you can't say the program is a failure.
Firearms are not simple a means to stop a crime. They also act as a strong deterrent.
I feel pretty confident saying that program is a waste and has not been effective. There have been quite a few instances of people charging the door to the flight deck, so that has not been a deterrent. There have been multiple attempts at blowing up planes since then, even with knowing that pilots are armed, so that is clearly not a deterrent.
Besides, we already created new targets for terrorist besides planes. Why go through all the hassle of trying to hijack or blow up a plane when we make sure that the terrorists have a juice target right in the airport and present them with 500 people lined up like cattle in front of the security checkpoint. Just open fire or blow yourself up and you have instant carnage. Take one target away and they simply move on to the next.
In my opinion the two most effective changes post 9/11 was securing the flight deck with reinforced doors, and that the people on airplanes know that they should take actions. Every incidence of an actual terrorist (or just plain crazy person) trying to do anything inside an airplane have been stopped by passengers and flight crew in the back of the plane, not by pilots and not by air marshalls.
The negatives to giving guns to pilots are pretty easy to see though:
There have been multiple instance of guns being left in the airport and negligent discharges (including the cockpit), so that is indicative of a failure in the program. Compare the instances of "pilots with guns screwed up" with "pilots who stopped terrorists with guns and/or terrorists who still tried to bring the plane down even though they know that pilots are armed now" and you get a pretty good picture.
I am shocked, shocked to the very core of my being, that when I provide the study that shows clearly how pants on the head crazy the 2.5 million crimes prevented figure is, as Seaward requested, he ignore it. Shocked I tell you.
djones520 wrote: I say if you remove the places where these murderers will be safe, you will see a drop in their occurance.
Which is why so few mass shootings occur in the US, and instead almost entirely occur in parts of the world where guns are rare. Oh wait, the opposite is true.
Seriously, banning some or all guns won't solve the problem. But nor will more guns solve it. Stop fixating on guns all the fething time and maybe you'll move somewhere towards a solution, though.
Personally I hate the concept of using firearms in a major conflict in the United States. My guns ARE a fun hobby, as well as my profession and an enjoyable way to get meat "on the hoof" shall we say. I'm a historian, target shooter, hunter, tactical shooter (not competitive, I can't afford the toys you need, much less the match entry fees), and CCW holder. I'll leave the heroism to other people.
Which is a really healthy way to look at guns. If there were more folks like you then we wouldn't need to keep having this fething debate
My next buy for the curious:
*drool* can't wait to have that in my safe <3
That is such a beautiful thing.
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I certainly think so, I just need to save up... looking at selling one of my pistols, I have my 1911 now so I figure my least favorite handgun (S&W M&P 40c, nothing wrong with it, just not a huge fan of striker fired pistols) and go towards the cause. Still nice to know I can have that rifle and 400 rounds of .30-06 for it delivered to my door by the United States federal government for south of $1000. That said I couldn't order right now even if I had the money to hand, I need my Marine Corps League membership card for next year.
I also believe, if I read my Aussie gun laws right, that that particular number can go with me should I decide to make the great migration, and I want as many of my firearms to fit that category as possible... just in case. I do believe importing/exporting it is an extra pain in the arse since it counts as "war materials" or something to that effect.
*Which reinforces my favorite thing about defensive pistol use, it's a 100% level playing field. It doesn't matter how big you are, if you put in the time at the range you can defend yourself.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I also believe, if I read my Aussie gun laws right, that that particular number can go with me should I decide to make the great migration, and I want as many of my firearms to fit that category as possible... just in case. I do believe importing/exporting it is an extra pain in the arse since it counts as "war materials" or something to that effect.
Interesting. I'm not surprised bringing them in is a big pain in the arse, I'm actually surprised they're legal. I would have thought semi-auto rifles at that calibre weren't okay, but then I know very little about the specifics of gun laws over here.
Sure, we don't have an absolute, definitive answer. But we do know that 2.5 million instances a year works out at about in every 120 people. Which means, each year, that 1 in every 120 people are stopping a crime with a gun. Which is just plain screwy straight off the bat. And then we've got the break down of the figures, with more rapes stopped by guns than actual rapes or attempted rapes.
Whereas with the other figure, we know given the methodology it's likely to understate, but not by any massive amount. And given we hardly need an exact figure, just a ballpark, then we can even round up. We could say 150,000 or even 200,000, and be pretty confident we were about the mark.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I also believe, if I read my Aussie gun laws right, that that particular number can go with me should I decide to make the great migration, and I want as many of my firearms to fit that category as possible... just in case. I do believe importing/exporting it is an extra pain in the arse since it counts as "war materials" or something to that effect.
Interesting. I'm not surprised bringing them in is a big pain in the arse, I'm actually surprised they're legal. I would have thought semi-auto rifles at that calibre weren't okay, but then I know very little about the specifics of gun laws over here.
Belay my last. They are legal under a "Class D" permit (per SAPOL's website) which requires you to be a professional varmiter. (Tells you something about Aussie pests don't it?) but I was thinking of the custom .308 bolt action I'm working on for school next year, I expected it to be an issue because it's mag fed, but I've scoured the gun laws down under and it seems like there's nothing past having to get your Class B permit.
I do find it highly amusing that paintball guns and air guns are controlled under a Class A firearms permit.
A 1976 study by the state of California showed 3,052,717 crimes stopped by armed citizens in that year alone. A U.S. Gallup survey showed 1,621,377 crimes halted by armed citizens in 1993. A Los Angeles Times study found that 3,609,682 crimes were stopped in the United States in 1994 by armed homeowners and ordinary citizens. A Police Foundation study found 2,730,000.
Also from your own link. Page 8 at the bottom of the page. The study found (in it's conservative estimate) that in 1994 there was 1.5 million people who used a gun, and 4.7 million uses, defensively. And honestly, reading through that thing, it seemed like they were fishing for every means possible to make that number as small as possible.
A 1976 study by the state of California showed 3,052,717 crimes stopped by armed citizens in that year alone. A U.S. Gallup survey showed 1,621,377 crimes halted by armed citizens in 1993. A Los Angeles Times study found that 3,609,682 crimes were stopped in the United States in 1994 by armed homeowners and ordinary citizens. A Police Foundation study found 2,730,000.
Also from your own link. Page 8 at the bottom of the page. The study found (in it's conservative estimate) that in 1994 there was 1.5 million people who used a gun, and 4.7 million uses, defensively.
If you guys are going to ask for cites at least fething read them. Yeah, it mentions the survey showing those numbers. And then it points out why those numbers are complete nonsense. My quotes were pointing out why those numbers were obviously miles from reality, and why they're miles from reality.
That's the whole point - the article is saying 'yeah these cold call surveys exist, but they've got real problems, and the answer isn't more cold call surveys on gun use.' And the article you provide list numbers, but without any detail we're left to assume the same dodgy methodology producing similarly dodgy figures.
And honestly, reading through that thing, it seemed like they were fishing for every means possible to make that number as small as possible.
No, absolutely not. That's just not sensible thinking. I mean, remove guns from this and then think about the statement 'in a cold call survey with a very low rate of expected positive response is going to be significantly impacted by false positives'. You can't argue against it, it's just fething obviously true.
And then think about the survey. Think about the results - that when phoned about 1 in a 100 people said they used a gun in the last year to stop a crime. That's almost as high as the actual rate of crime victimisation. That there were more rapes stopped with guns than there were rapes or attempted rapes committed in the whole of the country.
Obviously the false positives are overwhelming the true positives.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I do find it highly amusing that paintball guns and air guns are controlled under a Class A firearms permit.
It wasn't until the last decade that paintballing was actually legal in my homestate. It was one of those nonsense pieces of law, where paintball weapons were of sufficient calibre and semi-auto that they fell into existing gun law legislation and became illegal, even though they fired you know, plastic balls with paint in them and not bullets.
Western Australia working the way it does, people just got on with ignoring the law and waiting the decade or so for the law to change. Parliament was finally prompted in to action when the WA Paintball final was a police team vs another police team
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I do find it highly amusing that paintball guns and air guns are controlled under a Class A firearms permit.
It wasn't until the last decade that paintballing was actually legal in my homestate. It was one of those nonsense pieces of law, where paintball weapons were of sufficient calibre and semi-auto that they fell into existing gun law legislation and became illegal, even though they fired you know, plastic balls with paint in them and not bullets.
Western Australia working the way it does, people just got on with ignoring the law and waiting the decade or so for the law to change. Parliament was finally prompted in to action when the WA Paintball final was a police team vs another police team
*snicker* still seems bloody silly in the first place. Paintball's clearly ridiculous "Gimme your wallet or I'll bruise you!" and while I can see an airgun being a bit dangerous... well I got my first rifle when I was twelve and I had a bb gun or two before that. So it's mind blowing that one would legislate a child's learning tool. I am convinced there is no better way to learn about firearms and firearm safety then having one's own BB gun. Not only is it yours, so you have the pride of ownership thing, at that age knocking down cans and harassing the neighborhood long tailed minibears (squirrels) is still awesome assuming you haven't been exposed to Duty of the Call Eleventy Billion: We Still Haven't Hired a Decent Writing Team.
Jumping on to another tack, a couple people else where have asked why gun owners are so sensitive about technical terms and the labeling tactics used by the media. I think this image sums it up nicely:
Now you can say that's ridiculous, but the Brady campaign already tried it with scoped bolt action rifles back in the 80s and early 90s. Not that having an Accuracy International with all the bells and whistles on it makes any one more or less a sniper if they aren't one already but regardless. The word games employed by the ban/control lobby only serve to inspire fear and spread disinformation, I think that should rightfully get everyone ticked off no matter what side of the issue you're on.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: The IRA/Provos are a good example. Very strict gun control there and they still managed to get AK-47s, M-16s, RPGs, Dragunovs and other things to make the RUC and British Army's lives a living hell. That's in a country smaller then Rhode Island too. A resistance of any decent size in the United States would be a nightmare... never mind the nightmare that would have to happen to cause a resistance movement in the first place.
You've made a slightly logical boo-boo there. The first major piece of gun control legislation in Ireland was the gun control act of 1925, however that was implemented around 2 years after the end of a civil war in Ireland that left 2000-4000 casualties.
This war included the IRA, which later split to form the Provisional and Official IRA, whom were largely the ones to make the British' lives hell.
They were able to hassle the British so much because of two things:
1) They still had weapons left over from the civil war
2) During the Troubles, they had other countries sending over shipments of weapons and actively working to help them get armed (Libya, because Gaddafi was Gaddafi).
Of course a paramilitary group that is actively being hunted by the government, and having weapons shipped to them secretly by another country is going to be able to get new weapons despite gun control laws. To think that this means gun control as a whole doesn't work would be rather silly.
Yet, bizarrely, folks like that trust cops, the majority of whom shoot to qualify and then don't touch the weapon...until they need to shoot to qualify again.
A guy that has to shoot to qualify once still has to shoot to qualify, which extends beyond what Teacher X must do absent some kind of gun trial for school carriage.
Much as a degree makes you more employable regardless of competence, a badge makes you more trustworthy regardless of firearm skill. Its a farce, but it is what it is.
You have to shoot to qualify as a CHL as well. Most cops couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
The gun debate is a smokescreen for the real issue blighting the USA: knives.
According to the BBC, more people were killed by knives last year in America than guns. A total knife ban could work, and people could adapt by learning to cut their bread/cheese/meat with a karate chop.
Of course, the NBA (National Blade Association) would probably take any attempts to ban knives to SCOTUS.
AustonT wrote: I have no illusions of shooting there but it's not the only game in town. I'm hoping to get into rifle first and then pistol. Once I get the distinguished I'll probably give it up. I prefer clay games in the long term.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I already shoot in long range matches, but its just for fun. There's no national body unless you count F/TR
Yeah there's a decent amount of competition here... lot of .22 mostly. The bonus to living near the US Olympic training center.
KalashnikovMarine wrote:
d-usa wrote: From memory I want to say that there were 3 or 4 burglary attempts in Oklahoma this year that ended with the intruder getting shot.
I know there were a couple here too.
Seaward wrote:Seems the elephant in the room's gonna weigh in shortly.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:The gun debate is a smokescreen for the real issue blighting the USA: knives.
According to the BBC, more people were killed by knives last year in America than guns. A total knife ban could work, and people could adapt by learning to cut their bread/cheese/meat with a karate chop.
Of course, the NBA (National Blade Association) would probably take any attempts to ban knives to SCOTUS.
Sounds like bull gak to me. Knives account for an average of 15% of homicides according to the UCR.
Put you keep leaping from the dark with statistics and your knife and we'll see what happens.
There are stlil more news sources that put the number of "licensed gun dealers" at closer to 150,000, but I am just going to guess that they include any kind of license (not just dealer) in their count.
AustonT wrote: I have no illusions of shooting there but it's not the only game in town. I'm hoping to get into rifle first and then pistol. Once I get the distinguished I'll probably give it up. I prefer clay games in the long term.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I already shoot in long range matches, but its just for fun. There's no national body unless you count F/TR
Yeah there's a decent amount of competition here... lot of .22 mostly. The bonus to living near the US Olympic training center.
KalashnikovMarine wrote:
d-usa wrote: From memory I want to say that there were 3 or 4 burglary attempts in Oklahoma this year that ended with the intruder getting shot.
I know there were a couple here too.
Seaward wrote:Seems the elephant in the room's gonna weigh in shortly.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:The gun debate is a smokescreen for the real issue blighting the USA: knives.
According to the BBC, more people were killed by knives last year in America than guns. A total knife ban could work, and people could adapt by learning to cut their bread/cheese/meat with a karate chop.
Of course, the NBA (National Blade Association) would probably take any attempts to ban knives to SCOTUS.
Sounds like bull gak to me. Knives account for an average of 15% of homicides according to the UCR.
Put you keep leaping from the dark with statistics and your knife and we'll see what happens.
You're never going to let that knife in the dark thing go, are you? You defend your property as best you see fit, and I'll do the same with mine.
Killkrazy, the source you're looking for is the Keck and Gertz 1995 phone survey. It's somewhat questionable, as the conclusion they come to is that upwards of 2.5 million self defense incidents took place per annum, though it's solid enough that the main complaint of it's detractors is that it's misleading due to not 'only' addressing use of guns to prevent violent crime but also guns used in other potentially life threatening situations and depending on the persons surveyed to answer truthfully.
100,000 came from a FBI report that is occasionally referenced, but I'm still trying to track down someplace with an original for you to examine. EDIT: I see some others found the source for you.
On September 9th of this year, a situation that might have turned into a murder spree was ended by an armed civilian. Sadly, it was too late for the first two victims.
"William J. Allabaugh was inside Bonnie's Food and Spirits, a local pub, reportedly making racial statements. Other patrons had also complained about Allenbaugh being armed in the bar. Allabaugh was told to leave, and while being escorted out, drew a handgun and shot a black patron, Stephen Holman in the head while he was chatting on his cell phone. Holman is in critical condition. Allabaugh then shot passerby Scott Luzetsky outside the bar multiple times, killing him. As Allabaugh walked down the street, he approached the bar owner Bob Wallace, and patron Mark Ktytor who were had gone outside and were hiding behind a car. Allabaugh pointed his gun at the two men, at which point Ktytor drew his own weapon and shot Allabaugh multiple times. Ktytor then called 911. Allabaugh is in the hospital. Authorities said that Allabaugh has been charged with Homicide and Attempted Homicide. Ktytor will not be charged." Wikipedia, sourcing the Times Tribune (sept 11 2012)
According to sources, Mr Allabaugh had his weapon illegally. Mr Ktytor had a CWP and had his weapon legally.
Thank you for the references.
Of course the quality of data produced by a survey can depend on the methodology, so I will need to check that.
You have to shoot to qualify as a CHL as well. Most cops couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
Nor can most CHLs.
How would you know?
My opinion comes from fellow cops who laugh about their "training" as well as the former rangemaster of a major California city. How 'bout you brainiac?
Well if we play our cards right we can get extensive violations of not only the Second Amendment, but also the First and Fourth Amendments. Its a trifecta of civil liberties' destruction.
Frazzled wrote: Well if we play our cards right we can get extensive violations of not only the Second Amendment, but also the First and Fourth Amendments. Its a trifecta of civil liberties' destruction.
It certainly seems like the way things are heading, doesn't it?
My opinion comes from fellow cops who laugh about their "training" as well as the former rangemaster of a major California city.
I love that you question the information, and in turn offer really crappy anecdotal evidence as some proof of expertise to refute it.
Ask a cop what they think about their training. Absent some jurisdictions, its abyssmal, as in nonexistent.
I think that comes down to the town willing to pay higher taxes to train said cops. Every city and state is different in the US. I can tell you in the Chicago area there can be vast differences in the cops from town to town. The rich towns have the good cops and the poor ones have the untrained ones. The poor ones might get subsidized by the Fed but it's often not enough to make up for it.
Random Thoughts on the Second Amendment If you follow me on Twitter, you will see I have been in the trenches for the last few days defending the second amendment against those who would leave me unable to defend myself and my wife. And yeah, I take it personally. So I thought I would share a few thoughts and knock down some common arguments I have heard against the right to bear arms in addition to my thoughts the other day.
1. Anyone who talks about the Second Amendment in terms of hunting is missing the point. Do you really think the founding fathers would have enshrined the right to hunt in the Constitution? In places where hunting was a matter of survival, there was no need for constitutional protection because no politician would be fool enough to ban it any more than anyone would ban the drinking of ordinary water. In places where it was not necessary for surival, it was too trifling a matter to constitutionalize. The founding fathers had just finished throwing off the shackles of British tyranny and they didn’t do so with sternly worded letters; they did it with guns.
Seriously, the founders believed that one had a God-given right to rebel against tyranny. The Seal of Virginia glorifies the killing of dictators. How do you expect for that to happen without guns?
Big picture, I have long referred to the First and Second Amendments as the rights of rebellion. The founding fathers believed in a moral, but not legal, right to rebel. The doctrine is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.
But at the same time, no government can legalize its own destruction. There is no legal right to secede or rebel. It is not workable. So one can only appeal to the moral right of rebellion if the government has become tyrannical. And the founding fathers did believe this could happen here. As Franklin quipped, this is a republic, if we can keep it.
But in my opinion the founders did the next best thing. Think about it. If tyranny should arise, we have the right to speak and print to warn people, to call people to arms. We have the right to assemble. And we have the right arm that crowd...
In short we have a have a right to raise an army and arm it. All of that is legal. It is simply that the moment the assembly becomes violent (remember it is a right to peaceable assembly), that it becomes illegal. In other words, preparation for rebellion is legal; but the act of rebellion is illegal and you will have to make the appeal to heaven for the righteousness of it as our founders did in 1776.
Which is not to say that we will need to rebel anytime soon. As I said to someone just this morning, I don’t expect this to happen even once in my lifetime. But as Kozinsky said in my last post, this is a doomsday provision, a last resort to be use in extremis and we cannot afford to meet that situation unprepared—i.e. unarmed.
Incidentally, even the part of the First Amendment that concerns itself with Freedom of Religion might be in part about securing the right of rebellion. As my Constitutional hero Thaddeus Stevens pointed out, tyrants often used religious suppression as a cover for political suppression. If you were a political opponent of the king, and he was Catholic and you were a Protestant, it served as a ready excuse to suppress you.
I've never seen that articulated like this...
Spoiler:
2. The Battles of Lexington and Concord were prompted by an attempt by the British to take away our arms. Those of us playing Assassin’s Creed 3 were recently reminded of this fact. See? Video games are useful after all!
Wait wut? ... need to read up on those battles...
Spoiler:
3. The fact that no one has attempted to overthrow democracy from within, in America, is not proof we don’t need the Second Amendment; it is proof it is working. Like I have repeatedly said, one of the purposes of the Second Amendment is to protect all of the other amendments. And a common response to that argument is that in 200+ years under our Constitution, no serious attempt at creating a dictatorship has ever been tried. I mean okay, maybe Aaron Burr was up to that (maybe, his exactly plans were pretty murky), and there was a brief danger that the military would bully Congress that George Washington famously diffused that could have led to a military junta if Washington hadn’t acted, but by and large no one has tried to make anyone dictator of America or anything horrible like that.
But there is a chicken and egg problem to that argument. Certainly if anyone has the impulse to become Generalissimo of America, they have to recognize that 1) it isn’t likely to work if only because we will rise up against that and 2) he or she is not likely to survive the attempt. So just as more guns lead to less crime, more guns not only protects you in case someone attempts to overthrow the republic as they did in Rome, but it discourages the attempt.
Its true that guns can sometime be a deterence....
Spoiler:
4. Liberals, please stop saying that the Second Amendment is limited to the technology of the times.How many times do I hear liberals say the Second Amendment only applies to muskets? This is particularly funny in one case because the person also maintained that the First Amendment applied to video games. Hey, the founding fathers played Pong, right?
Mind you, I am not putting down the idea of applying the First Amendment or any other part of the Constitution to modern technology. The First Amendment applies to movies, television, radio, CD’s, mp3 players, smart phones, the internet, telegraph and video games and anything else I might have left out of that sort. I think the Fifth Amendment demands that if a man is accused of rape and semen is found at the scene, that DNA testing must be performed. I believe the Federal Government has a right to create an Air Force even though there is nothing about it in the Constitution. And I believe that the Second Amendment is not frozen in the technology of the time in which it was written. That is why it guarantees a right to bear “arms” and not “muskets.”
On the other hand, I don’t take this as a right of an individual to keep and bear a nuclear weapon. It’s not that a nuke isn’t an “arm.” It plainly is. But I do believe in a reasonable limiting principle of constitutional interpretation. The Supreme Court enunciated it in Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The court was discussing whether the Contracts Clause applied to school charters and the Supreme Court ruled that it did. And in doing so it had to ask whether a charter was a “contract” within the meaning of the Constitution against the objection that the Founders never considered that it might apply to that. The Supreme Court brushed that objection aside, declaring that:
It is not enough to say, that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention, when the article was framed, nor of the American people, when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further, and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied, as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction, so obviously absurd or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument, as to justify those who expound the constitution in making it an exception.
So you have a two tiered test. The first is if you can show that if the founders realized the implications of their words they would have gone and changed what they were writing to exclude it in some fashion. Failing that, if applying the rule is either absurd or mischievous or otherwise undermines the rest of the Constitution, then the courts can carve out an exception
I think a purported right to bear nuclear weapons falls within both tests. I think if you went back in time to the founding and (after successfully convincing them you are actually from the future) you explained to the founders about nuclear weapons, they are extremely likely to have tacked on “except nuclear weapons” somewhere in the Second Amendment.
And even if they wouldn’t, a right to bear nukes does undermine democracy itself and thus is “repugnant to the general spirit” of the Constitution. If a man can build a nuke in downtown Manhattan and threaten to detonate it if he doesn’t get a harem of college cheerleaders or perhaps something more reasonable, like a 32 oz. slurpee, if a man can hold a whole city hostage this way, this is a threat to democracy itself. So I believe the courts are justified in carving out a nuclear exception to the term “arms.”
But I will add that often the very same people who believe I should not be able to own a gun don’t seem terribly worried about Iran having a nuke. Everyone believes that guns should be kept out of the hands of criminals and nutcases. Isn’t the government of Iran both?
This is one of the better retort to counter the whole strawman of... isn't a nuke protected by the 2nd Amendment?
Spoiler:
5. Historically governments have taken guns away from groups they hated.Did you know that the English have a Bill of Rights? Indeed I suspect many of you educated in America didn’t know this, nor did you know that the British had their own revolution.
If I can go off on a tangent (and since it is my blog, I can), this is a bit of ignored history in America, and I suspect in England, too. The English had their own revolution, called The Glorious Revolution of 1688 where they ran out their king, briefly became a dictatorship and then settled into something close to their current system where parliament runs the show in reality, and the king is largely a figurehead. And in that revolution there are two documents that justified their action: John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government and the English Bill of Rights.
Anyone who reads Locke’s book and the English Bill of Rights, and looks toward our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights will get a sense of deja vous. It’s very much like our founders placed those British documents in a blender and then reassembled them. For instance, the famous preamble to the American Declaration of Independence reads like a Cliff’s Notes version of Locke’s book. Indeed I once ran a “compare documents” function in Word using copies of both and virtually every word in the Declaration of Independence is taken from Locke, with only a few really notable exceptions.
Meanwhile, the English Bill of Rights is divided into two parts. The first is a list of grievances against the King justifying running him out of the country, and the second is a list of rights this newly freed England would guarantee. And if you read the list of grievances, you realize that the founding fathers in America were very intentionally aping the style of their English forefathers, when writing out their list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence.
All of this leads one to a revelation about the founders of America. What they were really doing, in writing their Declaration of Independence, was taking the principles of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and throwing it back in the faces of those in England who revered that prior revolution. They were saying, “you rightly rebelled against the crown in 1688, but you are as tyrannical over us as the king was over you.”
This leads one to discover the dirty secret of the success of our revolution. We didn’t win the war by kicking the English’s collective behinds, and our greatest ally was not the French. We won the Revolution by convincing the British we were right. This is why, for instance, the Revolutionaries called themselves Whigs and the loyalists Tories; that was the name of the two dominant political parties at the time in England, and the Whigs were associated with the Glorious Revolution and tended to recognize the justice of our cause, and the Tories did not. Our greatest allies, during the Revolution, therefore, was not the nation of France, but the English who decided we had the right of it.
(This also explains why the Federalist party believed in an alliance with England. It was not due to a love of British tyranny, but because they recognized that only half of the country was our enemy during the Revolution.)
Which is all tangential to the point I was getting to, which is to talk about the second half of the English Bill of Rights, which reads very much like the American Bill of Rights, prohibiting the English government from various abuses of power. For instance, it states “That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;” which is virtually identical to our Eighth Amendment which states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Aside from an extra “that” and changing “ought” to the more commanding “shall” they are the same.
Of course the crucial difference between the English Bill of Rights and the American one is that the English Bill of Rights was simply that: a bill. It was just another law, which could be undone by passing another law and has been so undone. By comparison, the American Bill of Rights is part of a Constitution that cannot be easily changed.
Anyway, circling around to my point, buried in the English Bill of Rights is their version of the Second Amendment: “That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence [sic] suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law[.]” As I joked repeatedly on Twitter, this is surely done because they liked Catholics better than Protestants, right?
And of course that is not the case. The fathers of the Glorious Revolution were infected with some anti-Catholic bigotry, which is why they included that limitation.
Likewise, in the American South after the Civil War the KKK and the Red Shirts and like-minded organizations set about making sure black people were disarmed using means that were formally legal and otherwise (the KKK was a terrorist organization, after all). This was not done for their benefit but so they could be more easily reduced to a state barely distinguishable from slavery—indeed often so they could be literally returned to slavery.*
Which kind of bleeds into my next point...
This part is my favorite... linking our own independence to the Glorious Revolution. I also liked the bit about "We didn’t win the war by kicking the English’s collective behinds, and our greatest ally was not the French. We won the Revolution by convincing the British we were right. "
Spoiler:
6. You can’t always trust the government to defend you. First, let us recognize a long and sad history of the unequal protection of the law by law enforcement, particularly aimed at African Americans and other minorities. The evidence that the police can be infected with racism is rifle and championed primarily by prominent liberals. For instance, Public Enemy once decried the alleged slowness of emergency response in black communities by declaring that 911’s a Joke. I don’t know if it is true or not, but how does one argue that simultaneously the cops don’t care as much about protecting your life and property while claiming that no one should be able to protect your life and property but the same police? I wonder if Al Sharpton will answer that question.
And of course that ignores the history of police brutality and racist violence by the police. I think it is particularly hard to explain to Rodney King why he should trust the police to protect his life...
Yeah, I am sorry if I part ways with my conservative brethren on that, but there is no justification for all of what you see in that video. And while I don’t endorse riots, I understand the deep frustration that drove them. They were saying, “we got it on video and you still won’t do anything about it?”
Yeah, I can’t relate to that at all.
And while I am fully convinced that OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, I am equally convinced that Mark Fuhrman was racist as all get out, and screwed up that prosecution as a result. So why should your safety be left solely in the hands of someone who might hate you for the color of your skin?
Now in all of that I don’t want to sound like I think the police are all evil or anything like that. I believe the vast majority of the police are good and honorable people who strive to provide the best protection for all of the citizens under their watch. But it has to be remembered, sometimes the police are bad or negligent.. Consider for instance the facts in the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.
The Supreme Court held in that case that even if the woman could establish that the police failed to enforce the TRO, that they were under no obligation to enforce it and thus she couldn’t sue them. Which I think is the wrong decision, but it means as a matter of law, the police don’t have to protect you. And in Ms. Gonzales’ case that is exactly what appears to have happened.
And even if the police are being as diligent as they can be, you still can’t one hundred percent depend on them. First it is a cliché to say that when seconds count the police are minutes away, because it is true. The average police response time is six minutes, during which a lot of evil can happen. Second, even when you feel rightfully threatened by someone, there can be problems with proof. If a person threatens you, but it is solely your word against his, the courts might not believe you. And of course there are situations where you know a person is dangerous but they have not been stupid enough to make an actionable threat.
Like I said most cops do their best, but they can’t be everywhere and see and hear everything, nor do I think most people would want them to. So there will always be a gap, a space where the law is not able to reach, where you have no choice but to defend yourself. And that leads to my next point.
Don't have much more to add about this... police can't be everywhere, nor are they expected to provide protection.
Spoiler:
7. A gun is a great equalizer. Back in my Patterico days I wrote a post about disabilities and gun ownership. Let me quote from that extensively:
And gun ownership by the handicapped also taps into another big philosophical belief I have about the handicapped. In a very real way, humanity is the disabled species. Think about it. Compared to other species, we are slow, weak, blind and deaf; we have little sense of smell, our teeth and “claws” are weak, etc. If left naked in the wild we would be easy supper for the other animals out there. And yet we dominate the planet for one simple reason: our brains. And those brains have allowed us to create tools that in turn makes up for our deficiencies. So we can’t run as fast as a cheetah, but we invented motor cars that allowed us to move even faster and for long periods of time. We can’t see like an eagle, so we invented the telescope and can see things no other creature can. Our brains haven’t just leveled the playing field between animal and man, but in fact gave us a critical advantage over them which is why we rule this planet and no longer have any natural predator (except ourselves).
And in no area has our brains been more critical in making up for our physical deficiencies than in combat. Now we might suspect a few tough souls like Chuck Norris or Todd Palin** could take on a grizzly bear with their bare hands, but for most of us, if we don’t have a gun we are SOL (and from my understanding, even with a gun they are hard to kill). Our only option is to run.
So to tell a disabled person that they can’t use artificial help goes directly against the grain of what we have done as humans. For instance, I have difficulty writing by hand. But it only affects my ability to write by hand, so I buy a computer and I am rendered “normal.”
Likewise, Mr. Boyd has cerebral palsy. I have known people with that condition and it almost certainly impairs his ability to win a fistfight. I’m not saying he can’t do it, but it’s almost certainly harder. Now, the anti-gun approach would tell him tough and that he would just have to remain defenseless and hope that if someone attacks him that he cops get there in time. But the second amendment allows him to say, “screw that,” and defend his own life and safety as need be.
Now yes, obviously there are some disabilities that make it unacceptably dangerous to carry a gun. We should at all times be reasonable about this and I expect as Mr. Boyd writes about this as promised, he will describe how he and others can safely operate a gun. And I would be surprised if a blind man can ever safely operate a gun. But at the same time we shouldn’t be too quick to assume a person should not own a gun.
Likewise, the same can be said for women facing down their attackers. Now I am enough of a egalitarian to believe that there are women who can beat a man in a fistfight. But let’s face it, it takes an unusually weak man or an unusually strong woman to do it. The average woman doesn’t have much of a chance. Even if a woman has a knife and the man has bare hands, one needs strength to drive a knife into another and women would still have a hard time fighting back.
But if you put a gun in her hand, and her chances get much better. You make sure she is well trained in their use, and they improve even more so.
This applies particularly to the subject of abused women. First as I noted before, most wife- and girlfriend-beating takes place in private, where the only witnesses are the victim and the perpetrator. So there is a proof problem involved in such cases. And even if you gather enough proof to get a restraining order, they don’t usually stop the abuser. Which is not to say an abused woman shouldn’t get restraining orders; they provide useful legal clarity should an altercation occur and they do occasionally deter the pig. But they aren’t some kind of magic force field that will save most women from an abusive ex. And a gun is no guarantee of their safety either; but it gives them a fighting chance.
On a related note, many liberals say that gun ownership should be limited to revolvers and not allow for semi-automatics that use clips. These are people who have apparently never fired a gun. In all bluntness, my wife has tried both and she is physically incapable of firing a revolver with any kind of accuracy. This is because a revolver requires more hand strength than a semi-automatic. As a result you have to squeeze the gun harder to pull the trigger and thus it is harder to keep it steady as you do. But she is a great shot when using our semi-automatic. :-) The same can probably be said for those with certain handicaps.
And even if you are a burly man, and don’t have compassion for those who are weaker who would like to defend themselves, too, let’s not forget that you can be outnumbered. If four men are breaking into your home, I don’t care how strong you are, you are not likely to win that fight without a gun. And that is assuming they are unarmed.
Indeed this possibility deflates the argument that you will never need a so-called assault rifle for self-defense. Liberals often argue that such weapons are only designed to kill large numbers of people, as though it is impossible to need to defend yourself against a large number of people. If four criminals are trying to break into your home, and they are armed, an assault rifle might be the difference between life and death.
I think he'd get sucked into the whole "what is an assault weapon" debate...
Spoiler:
8. Finally, it is the anti-gun left that is paranoid, not the pro-gun right. The left loves the demonize gun owners as just a bunch of crazies sitting in their basements ruminating on black helicopters and the like. But as I outlined above, there are many rational reasons to believe that individuals should be armed to defend themselves and as a rule I found my fellow gun owners to be imminently rational.
“We don’t want the wild west” is a frequent refrain by liberals. The irony is that the wild west was not what most people imagine. As Cracked demonstrates in a gloriously deflating article the west was not really that violent at all:
The Insanity:
A gloriously mustached man sits at a card game in an old saloon, surrounded by cowboys and surprisingly fresh-faced prostitutes. He looks up, and notices that the player opposite him is hiding an extra card up his sleeve. He calls him on it, the word yellow is pronounced as 'yeller,' and pretty soon they're facing off in the city square. There's a long moment before the cheater moves for his hip holster, but he's not fast enough. Quick as lightning, the gambler draws his revolver and shoots the cheat dead between the eyes.
The cowboys and prostitutes go back to their drinks, well-accustomed to this sort of random violence, as the man nonchalantly twirls his pistol and says: "Guess he couldn't read my poker face."
A hundred years of Westerns have taught us that this is how you lived and died in the Wild West. The quicker draw lived to gun-fight another day. It was essentially a roving single elimination rock, paper, scissors tournament that didn't end until you were dead.
But in Reality...
How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let's say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns with the cowboys doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More?
How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town's most violent year ever.
Sorry to break it to you folks, but pretty much every western you have ever seen is full of it. The article goes on to explain why we believe it and the short version is it started because, as Johnny Rotten once said, “tourists have money”—that is towns discovered that gullible tourists loved to hear those stories. It was an early civic version of gangsta rap, which I am convinced is equally full of crap.**
And then we continued to believe it, because as a fantasy it is frakking cool. Seriously, look at that picture on the right! Even decades later, that is just plain cool.
But as a reality there is simply no way people would have allowed things to be so continuously out of hand. It’s fun to play in the world of Red Dead Redemption, but it wouldn’t be fun to live there and thinking that world is realistic is as silly as believing Grand Theft Auto--where you can kill twenty cops and only pay a fine if you are caught--is true-to-life.
But it all reflects a deep paranoia on the part of the left. If we all have guns we are going to shoot each other over stupid crap, just like in those really cool Clint Eastwood movies. On a similar note, I have pointed out several times that if people are armed they might stop such massacres very early on and save dozens of lives. That seems to be a no-brainer to me, but this has actually led some liberals to argue that ordinary people having guns would have made things more dangerous to innocent bystanders, because ordinary citizens would fire recklessly or something.
I think that regular people, if they are armed, will generally only draw their weapon when they have a rational reason to fear for their lives or the lives of others. I think that they will generally only fire if they are left with no choice, and I think that they will generally take care that they only hit their intended target. I expect them to practice with and maintain any guns they own. On the other hand, many on the anti-gun left believe that ordinary people will generally start killing people at the slightest provocation, will shoot when unjustified and will not take the care to make sure they hit only what they intend to. Who exactly are the paranoid ones?
A while back I wrote about the depressing real life heroism we saw at the Ft. Hood, which was, ridiculously, a gun-free zone. We might also remember Victoria Soto, one of the true heroes of Sandy Hook, another gun-free-zone. Let’s let her sister describe what she did:
It came as no surprise to Carlee and Victoria’s mom that her daughter died trying to save kids.
“She was truly selfless,” Donna Soto said of her 27-year-old “Vicki,” who was shot trying to shield her first-graders from madman Adam Lanza’s assault.
Vicki ushered her tiny charges away from the door of Classroom 10 as Lanza, 20, descended. She ordered them into a closet, but six of the panicked kids got out — and Vicki dived to save them as Lanza trained his rifle on them. They all died.
“She would not hesitate to think to save anyone else before herself and especially children,” Soto’s mom told CNN. “She loved them more than life, and she would definitely put herself in front of them any day, any day, and for any reason.”
“So it doesn’t surprise anyone that knows Vicki that she did this.”
You should indeed read the whole thing and pay tribute to her bravery. But I can’t help thinking to myself, imagine if she had a gun and knew how to use it. Run that scenario through again. Maybe she could have shot back. Maybe we wouldn’t be praising her for dying for her kids, but for ending the rampage or at least making him back off and finding an easier target. And maybe the honors we are rightfully pouring on her would not have been posthumous.
Or maybe we don’t have to speculate. Consider as a counter-example, the shooting at a theater in San Antonio on Sunday night. Liberals cited this as another example of why we need to prohibit guns, but Sooper Mexican caught the real story with this superbly written headline: “Crazed Gunman Stopped from Movie Massacre by ‘Gun-Free Zone’ Sign... Oh wait. No, a woman SHOT him.” You can read what he wrote about it, here but by all indications it appears that another serious massacre was about to occur when the gunman was shot.
Which is not to say good people with guns will never be shot. Of course sometimes they will be taken by surprise, or just won’t be as good as their opponents. But having a gun at least gives them a fighting chance. Victoria Soto didn’t have that, so all she could do is try to shield her students with her own body. It’s heroic, but it might not have been necessary if her state allowed her to keep a gun in school.
Again... I'm not advocating that we'd arm every teacher... someone trained onsite may have prevented or reduced the impact.
I mean, fething hell, you can complain I'm not that polite, or maybe that I'm not that constructive in debates. But you can't complain I don't give references. That's just bs.
Psst, it was a friendly rib, Sebs. Calm down. I actually like your posts, though I disagree with you often.
_Tim?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and it strikes me as interesting that Switzerland require male citizens to join the peoples' militia and own a military grade gun they keep at home? What's the homicide rate in Switzerland?
Mind you, such a requirement in the US would probably cause more deaths. Us Yanks are a rowdy bunch.
Inherence isn't relevant, only generality is. And yes, people that are not soldiers are generally inferior to soldiers.
Might want to look into the battle of Kastelli Hill then. German Fallschirmjäger were given as hard a time by armed farmers as they were by the ANZACs. A lot of them didn't survive the landing because of men with knives and clubs.
Oh, and.... I seem to recall some other country where a bunch of citizens gathered up and formed an army and defeated professional soldiers from not only the foremost army in the world, but also mercenaries from half of Europe...
what was it called again...?
Oh, yeah, The United States.
Motivation is more important than training. Training and motivation together, though, are very, very dangerous.
That particular study has been disproven for poor methodology and researcher bias so many times as to be laughable. You'll notice only one of the participants in the study has weapons experience (where most CHL holders have to have basic training above and beyond plinking at the range, many more actually go well beyond that) is doubled up on with a ringer in the class room. It's also clear the active shooter knows who the defensive shooter is upon entry. So yes if you throw a random yahoo with a gun, no training and no mental preparation/combat mindset what so ever into an active shooter environment they won't pull a John Wayne. Shocker.
For the past few days, Americans have been weeping together and wringing our hands once again at the senseless tragedy of a mass murder inside a school. The horrific scene in Newtown, Connecticut, is now seared permanently in our collective conscience, as we search for answers. We'll look at the photograph of Adam Lanza and ask over and over again how he could have come to such a deadly crossroads.
We still know nothing about his motives, only the devastating carnage he wrought. And yet we've already heard from experts who talk about mental illness, Asperger's syndrome, depression, and autism. The chorus of gun boosters has defensively chimed in about how gun control would not have prevented this.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee offered the theory that since "we have systematically removed God from our schools, should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" (As if those heathen children deserved it?)
Thinking twice about violent video games
All the while, we continue to miss other crucial variables -- even though they are staring right back at us when we look at that photograph. Adam Lanza was a middle class white guy.
If the shooter were black and the school urban, we'd hear about the culture of poverty; about how inner-city life breeds crime and violence; perhaps even some theories about a purported tendency among blacks towards violence.
As we've seen in the past week, it's not only those living on the fringes of society who express anger through gun violence.
Yet the obvious fact that Lanza -- and nearly all the recent mass murderers who targeted non-work settings -- were middle class white boys seems to barely register. Look again at the pictures of Jared Lee Loughner (Tucson), James Eagan Holmes (Aurora) and Wade Michael Page (Oak Creek) -- a few of the mass killers of the past couple of years. (Yes, the case of Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator at Virginia Tech, the worst school shooting in our history, stands out as the exception. And worth discussing.)
Opinion: Get serious about mental health care
Why are angry young men setting out to kill entire crowds of strangers?
Motivations are hard to pin down, but gender is the single most obvious and intractable variable when it comes to violence in America. Men and boys are responsible for 95% of all violent crimes in this country. "Male criminal participation in serious crimes at any age greatly exceeds that of females, regardless of source of data, crime type, level of involvement, or measure of participation" is how the National Academy of Sciences summed up the extant research.
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How does masculinity figure into this? From an early age, boys learn that violence is not only an acceptable form of conflict resolution, but one that is admired. However the belief that violence is an inherently male characteristic is a fallacy. Most boys don't carry weapons, and almost all don't kill: are they not boys? Boys learn it.
More reading: I have Asperger's and I am just like you
They learn it from their fathers. They learn it from a media that glorifies it, from sports heroes who commit felonies and get big contracts, from a culture saturated in images of heroic and redemptive violence. They learn it from each other.
In talking to more than 400 young men for my book, "Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men," I heard over and over again what they learn about violence. They learn that if they are crossed, they have the manly obligation to fight back. They learn that they are entitled to feel like a real man, and that they have the right to annihilate anyone who challenges that sense of entitlement.
Opinion: How a boy becomes a killer
This sense of entitlement is part of the package deal of American manhood -- the culture that doesn't start the fight, as Margaret Mead pointed out in her analysis of American military history, but retaliates far out of proportion to the initial grievance. They learn that "aggrieved entitlement" is a legitimate justification for violent explosion.
The easy availability of guns is another crucial variable. After the terrible school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, Great Britain enacted several laws that effectively made owning handguns illegal in that country. The murder rate in the U.S. is more than three times higher than Britain.
And yes, boys have resorted to violence for a long time, but sticks and fists and even the occasional switchblade do not create the bloodbaths of the past few years. In 2011, more than 80% of all homicides among boys aged 15 to 19 were firearm related.
We need a conversation about gun control laws. And far more sweeping -- and necessary -- is a national meditation on how our ideals of manhood became so entangled with violence.
In school shootings, patterns and warning signs
It's also worth discussing why so many of these young mass murderers are white. Surely boys of color have that same need to prove their masculinity, and a similar sense of entitlement to annihilate those who threaten it. Perhaps the only difference is that it seems to be nearly the exclusive province of white boys to so dramatically expand the range of their revenge and seek to destroy the entire world, not simply the person or group that committed the supposed offense. Perhaps. It's a conversation worth having.
I am not for a moment suggesting we substitute race or gender for the other proximate causes of this tragedy: lax gun laws, mental illness. I am arguing only that we can never fully understand it, unless we also add these elements to our equation. Without them, the story is entirely about him, the shooter. But the bigger story is also about us.
In the coming weeks, we'll learn more about Adam Lanza, his motives, his particular madness. We'll hear how he "snapped" or that he was seriously mentally ill. We'll try to explain it by setting him apart, by distancing him from the rest of us.
Risk factors among shooters
And we'll continue to miss the point. Not only are those children at Sandy Hook Elementary School our children. Adam Lanza is our child also. Of course, he was mad -- as were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Lee Loughner, James Eagan Holmes, and Wade Michael Page -- and the ever-longer list of boys and young men who have exploded in a paroxysm of vengeful violence in recent years. In a sense, they weren't deviants, but over-conformists to norms of masculinity that prescribe violence as a solution. Like real men, they didn't just get mad, they got even. Until we transform that definition of manhood, this terrible equation of masculinity and violence will continue to produce such horrific sums.
Particularly this...
We need a conversation about gun control laws. And far more sweeping -- and necessary -- is a national meditation on how our ideals of manhood became so entangled with violence.
d-usa wrote: He has some points, look at what children and teens are being "taught" in culture and it is easy to see that violence is often presented as an answer.
It's a "come at me brah" mentality.
Well... I guess it's at least worth gnawing over.
I'm just tired of the whole "blame it on video games or rap or that we can't pray in school or etc..."... notice a trend here? Most of the time the actual donkey-cave isn't called out as an donkey-cave.
Maybe I'm getting bit jaded.
gak... I fething love violent video games/movies... I think I turned out okay!
We need a conversation about gun control laws. And far more sweeping -- and necessary -- is a national meditation on how our ideals of manhood became so entangled with violence.
Well, the author of the article is hawking a book on the subject of violence as a male past time in the US.
d-usa wrote: He has some points, look at what children and teens are being "taught" in culture and it is easy to see that violence is often presented as an answer.
It's a "come at me brah" mentality.
Well... I guess it's at least worth gnawing over.
I'm just tired of the whole "blame it on video games or rap or that we can't pray in school or etc..."... notice a trend here? Most of the time the actual donkey-cave isn't called out as an donkey-cave.
Maybe I'm getting bit jaded.
gak... I fething love violent video games/movies... I think I turned out okay!
I don't think he is blaming it as much on video games or rap, or any single particular thing. It is just more of a cultural shift and what our kids are exposed to on multiple levels.
You will always have the same age-old argument about violent video games. The question there will be if they just desensitize us more as they become more realistic. I don't think they "train" you or anything like that. But games are just a very small aspect of it.
"Violence as a culture" is getting to be included in everything that they can be exposed to. How many reality shows are there that are full of arguing and always feature some fist fight in the trailer, in the tease, in the finale, in the replay, in the recap, in the season finale "let's sit down and talk about how you all punched each other!" The famous people on the reality shows all get into physical fights and that is part of their fame. That's the "come at me brah" phenomenon. Watch reality TV and you know that all problems are solved by yelling and fighting.
Sports and music and movies all have violence as an answer. How many athletes and musicians are getting into fights. Chris Brown beats his girlfriend and gets a tattoo of her beaten face on his neck. Look kids, violence is cool and makes you cool. Of course the argument of violent lyrics and movies is as old as lyrics and movies.
Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, Youtube: violence everywhere. I'm not talking about violent TV shows or anything like that. I am talking about all the "cool" videos of groups of kids jumping each other, kicking the feth out of each other, leaving each other as bloody pulps, and putting it online for others to see how cool they are.
It's not any one thing, it's the balance of everything together that has people concerned about a "culture of violence".
I'd say this table was also relevant from Dr. Kleck's body of work, his own 2.5 million number was an average of thirteen different surveys.
And they're all the same methodology - surveys of the general public. Using the same inappropriate methodology thirteen times and then taking an average doesn't make the method work.
*snicker* still seems bloody silly in the first place. Paintball's clearly ridiculous "Gimme your wallet or I'll bruise you!" and while I can see an airgun being a bit dangerous... well I got my first rifle when I was twelve and I had a bb gun or two before that. So it's mind blowing that one would legislate a child's learning tool. I am convinced there is no better way to learn about firearms and firearm safety then having one's own BB gun. Not only is it yours, so you have the pride of ownership thing, at that age knocking down cans and harassing the neighborhood long tailed minibears (squirrels) is still awesome assuming you haven't been exposed to Duty of the Call Eleventy Billion: We Still Haven't Hired a Decent Writing Team.
Yeah. I've got really fond memories of firing a BB gun on a mate's farm when I was a kid. That kind of fun has been yet another casualty of the kids in cotton wool thing we're increasingly doing.
Now you can say that's ridiculous, but the Brady campaign already tried it with scoped bolt action rifles back in the 80s and early 90s. Not that having an Accuracy International with all the bells and whistles on it makes any one more or less a sniper if they aren't one already but regardless. The word games employed by the ban/control lobby only serve to inspire fear and spread disinformation, I think that should rightfully get everyone ticked off no matter what side of the issue you're on.
Yeah, definitely. Reading about the crazy ass shenanigans of the Brady campaign was what started me on a fairly long journey of being generally opposed to further gun control. That said, I think it's been generally positive that most of the talk this time around has been on checks on gun owners, rather than building a big list of various scary gun components. I suspect the latter will pop up soon enough, though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Seaward wrote: Just bear in mind they're coming for the violent murder trainers like Halo and Black Ops 2, too. Even the Fox idiots won't shut up about gaming.
One of my aunties posted on facebook that all these violent video games surely played a part. She even went on to say that something was giving these kids such good aim (somehow thinking that twiddling a little xbox thumbstick meant you could shoot a gun).
I fething hate facebook politics, but I couldn't stay out of that one. I mean, every developed country has loads of kids playing violent video games, but these kinds of killings aren't anywhere near as common outside of the US, so violent games just makes no sense as an explanation. Some people, though, don't seem to care that it doesn't make any sense, they don't like the idea of kids playing violent games, so they blame them when something like this happens.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Psst, it was a friendly rib, Sebs. Calm down. I actually like your posts, though I disagree with you often.
_Tim?
Oh, sorry. Missed your tone completely. Text based medium and all that. It just came in the midst of a bunch of people making some noise about me not having a reference (weirdly enough coming a couple of weeks after Seaward was complaining that it wasn't fair because I had information, so that was weird in itself...), so I missed that you might be joking. Not that I'm making excuses, it was my bad and knowing you I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. Sorry.
Oh, and it strikes me as interesting that Switzerland require male citizens to join the peoples' militia and own a military grade gun they keep at home? What's the homicide rate in Switzerland?
Mind you, such a requirement in the US would probably cause more deaths. Us Yanks are a rowdy bunch.
_Tim?
Yeah, reading about guns in Switzerland is a really good way of learning about what's really the cause of the problem. One thing that stood out is that while a big deal is made of the various controls and checks on gun ownership, they're actually not that different, on paper, to the processes in place in the US. The difference is that these processes are taken much more seriously in Switzerland, and surrounding gun culture these you don't have all the crazy 'durn government taking away our guns/freedom' nonsense.
Inherence isn't relevant, only generality is. And yes, people that are not soldiers are generally inferior to soldiers.
Might want to look into the battle of Kastelli Hill then. German Fallschirmjäger were given as hard a time by armed farmers as they were by the ANZACs. A lot of them didn't survive the landing because of men with knives and clubs.
Oh, and.... I seem to recall some other country where a bunch of citizens gathered up and formed an army and defeated professional soldiers from not only the foremost army in the world, but also mercenaries from half of Europe...
what was it called again...?
Oh, yeah, The United States.
Motivation is more important than training. Training and motivation together, though, are very, very dangerous.
Well, add in co-ordination. Even motivated, well trained troops will fair poorly when they're poorly led. Look no further than the horrendous losses the Fallschirmjäger suffered on Crete for proof of that (or for the failure of the Allied forces to secure the airfields in the same battle). Point being though, once you've got motivation an co-ordination, getting your hands on some guns is a piece of cake.
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BaronIveagh wrote: In 2005 93 people were convicted of homicide in Switzerland. Not sure how many of those were firearm related.
Most, I think its about 80% of all cases. But the murder rate overall is still very low, which is the thing that matters. Whereas the US, in comparison to other wealthy, developed nations, has a much higher murder rate. Which means guns likely are a factor to some extent, but clearly aren't the only issue, and probably aren't the major one.
d-usa wrote: He has some points, look at what children and teens are being "taught" in culture and it is easy to see that violence is often presented as an answer.
It's a "come at me brah" mentality.
Well... I guess it's at least worth gnawing over.
I'm just tired of the whole "blame it on video games or rap or that we can't pray in school or etc..."... notice a trend here? Most of the time the actual donkey-cave isn't called out as an donkey-cave.
Maybe I'm getting bit jaded.
gak... I fething love violent video games/movies... I think I turned out okay!
I don't think he is blaming it as much on video games or rap, or any single particular thing. It is just more of a cultural shift and what our kids are exposed to on multiple levels.
You will always have the same age-old argument about violent video games. The question there will be if they just desensitize us more as they become more realistic. I don't think they "train" you or anything like that. But games are just a very small aspect of it.
"Violence as a culture" is getting to be included in everything that they can be exposed to. How many reality shows are there that are full of arguing and always feature some fist fight in the trailer, in the tease, in the finale, in the replay, in the recap, in the season finale "let's sit down and talk about how you all punched each other!" The famous people on the reality shows all get into physical fights and that is part of their fame. That's the "come at me brah" phenomenon. Watch reality TV and you know that all problems are solved by yelling and fighting.
Sports and music and movies all have violence as an answer. How many athletes and musicians are getting into fights. Chris Brown beats his girlfriend and gets a tattoo of her beaten face on his neck. Look kids, violence is cool and makes you cool. Of course the argument of violent lyrics and movies is as old as lyrics and movies.
Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, Youtube: violence everywhere. I'm not talking about violent TV shows or anything like that. I am talking about all the "cool" videos of groups of kids jumping each other, kicking the feth out of each other, leaving each other as bloody pulps, and putting it online for others to see how cool they are.
It's not any one thing, it's the balance of everything together that has people concerned about a "culture of violence".
It has a place in the discussion as well.
I like how you presented it than he did... *pondering*
I believe violence in culture has always existed... it's just that the medium changes.
It is certainly worth having a discussion...
One thing I'd advocate... I'd trade in violent shows/music/games for bewbs... bewbs and ass makes the world go around The bible thumbers would have an apoplexy though!
Remember the hysteria over Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction"? Folks said that their kids would be damaged beyond repair. Funny story... so, this happened during the Superbowl halftime... my father inlaw at the time said this 5 second later: "Someone will have that screencapped and uploaded on the internet by the time you walk in the office and google it". So, I took his wager and immediately went to the office and HE WAS RIGHT! I swear to Buddha, I had the screencap on the monitor in less than 2 minutes after it happened.
I was thinking about boobs when I was typing it, especially compared to Europe.
Violence on TV and the comparison between the US and Europe is something they talk about at times. If I remember right from growing up in Germany there was a lot less violence on our TV and our computer games (they had a nice habit of banning games). So the argument was/is "there is more violence on TV/games in the US and there is more violence in the US" and the correlation/causation was implied.
But there are way more boobs and sex on German TV, but I don't think we have more std's or teen pregnancies. So go figure...
WOMEN have long complained that their faces are often the last thing men look at - and now a scientific study has proved them right.
Researchers found that virtually half - 47 per cent - of men first glance at a woman’s breasts.
A third of the "first fixations" are on the waist and hips, while fewer than 20 per cent look at the woman's face.
Not only are breasts often the first thing men look at, they also glance at them for longer than any other body part, the experts discovered, the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK reported.
It’s thought that the reason might be evolutionary, as women with larger chests and slim waists - such as Jennifer Hawkins, Lara Bingle and Rachael Finch - have higher levels of the female hormone oestrogen, indicating greater fertility.
But the researchers conceded that there could be a more prosaic explanation.
"Men may be looking more often at the breasts because they are simply aesthetically pleasing, regardless of the size," they said.
Subjects tested by researchers from New Zealand’s University of Wellington were presented with six images of the same woman, digitally altered to increase or decrease the size of her bust, waist and hips.
The scientists recorded which areas men looked at first, the number of times they looked, and how long their gaze lasted, using cameras and mirrors to measure tiny eye movements.
"Eighty per cent of first fixations were on the breasts and midriff. Men spent consistently more time looking at the breasts and also made significantly more fixations upon them than other regions," the study concluded.
It also found that men began to gaze at the "components of the hourglass figure" within 0.2 seconds.
The research also discovered that few glances were directed at the arms, lower legs and feet.
Meanwhile, at the moment, I give the Assault Weapons Ban a 50/50 shot at passing when it gets introduced in January. I predict it will have the exact same impact it did the first time around - zero reduction in firearm crimes - but hey, it'll make a lot of clueless people feel like they "did something." Meanwhile, an awful lot of gun owners will just switch from fifteen-round 9mm handguns to ten-round .45s.
Thus boosting the weapons industry, at a time when the economy badly needs a lift!
You can't beat Obama for lateral thinking.
Back on topic, as a gun owner, do you think there are too many gun related crimes? I mean, would you like to see a reduction, but you disagree on how it might be done?
Kilkrazy wrote: Thus boosting the weapons industry, at a time when the economy badly needs a lift!
You can't beat Obama for lateral thinking.
Back on topic, as a gun owner, do you think there are too many gun related crimes? I mean, would you like to see a reduction, but you disagree on how it might be done?
As a gun owner, I think there are too many crimes of all sorts. I'd like to see a zero percent crime rate. I'd like to see a reduction in firearm homicides, rapes, petty thefts, jaywalking, tax evasion, and the wearing of blue jeans on Noble Street in Anniston, Alabama, as that's apparently illegal.
I don't think proposing legislation that's proven not to work is the way to accomplish any of it.
I think we can agree that guns are not much used in crimes such as false accounting, so I would like to look at violent crime which is their natural milieu.
Kilkrazy wrote: I think we can agree that guns are not much used in crimes such as false accounting, so I would like to look at violent crime which is their natural milieu.
Okay.
Both the CDC and the National Research Council said the Assault Weapons Ban didn't do anything measurable to firearm crime rates. The Department of Justice has said that renewing the ban would make quite possibly no noticeable difference on firearm crime rates, because weapons covered under it are used in such a minute percentage of crimes to begin with.
Inherence isn't relevant, only generality is. And yes, people that are not soldiers are generally inferior to soldiers.
Might want to look into the battle of Kastelli Hill then. German Fallschirmjäger were given as hard a time by armed farmers as they were by the ANZACs. A lot of them didn't survive the landing because of men with knives and clubs.
Oh, and.... I seem to recall some other country where a bunch of citizens gathered up and formed an army and defeated professional soldiers from not only the foremost army in the world, but also mercenaries from half of Europe...
what was it called again...?
Oh, yeah, The United States.
Motivation is more important than training. Training and motivation together, though, are very, very dangerous.
Wrong on all accounts, that country was called France (plus a Prussian drill sergeant!)
Back to the point I was going to make. I watched that video that reds8n posted, and I must say I am shocked. That Tim guy (and that girl) were a disgrace to the United States. If that is an accurate representation of American youth, it's no wonder the Chinese (and the UN) are licking their lips at the prospect of overtaking America.
Andrew Jackson must be spinning in his grave!
And that's a thousand posts on Dakka. Finally, I'm above the law!!
d-usa wrote: He has some points, look at what children and teens are being "taught" in culture and it is easy to see that violence is often presented as an answer.
It's a "come at me brah" mentality.
Well... I guess it's at least worth gnawing over.
I'm just tired of the whole "blame it on video games or rap or that we can't pray in school or etc..."... notice a trend here? Most of the time the actual donkey-cave isn't called out as an donkey-cave.
Maybe I'm getting bit jaded.
gak... I fething love violent video games/movies... I think I turned out okay!
I don't think he is blaming it as much on video games or rap, or any single particular thing. It is just more of a cultural shift and what our kids are exposed to on multiple levels.
You will always have the same age-old argument about violent video games. The question there will be if they just desensitize us more as they become more realistic. I don't think they "train" you or anything like that. But games are just a very small aspect of it.
"Violence as a culture" is getting to be included in everything that they can be exposed to. How many reality shows are there that are full of arguing and always feature some fist fight in the trailer, in the tease, in the finale, in the replay, in the recap, in the season finale "let's sit down and talk about how you all punched each other!" The famous people on the reality shows all get into physical fights and that is part of their fame. That's the "come at me brah" phenomenon. Watch reality TV and you know that all problems are solved by yelling and fighting.
Sports and music and movies all have violence as an answer. How many athletes and musicians are getting into fights. Chris Brown beats his girlfriend and gets a tattoo of her beaten face on his neck. Look kids, violence is cool and makes you cool. Of course the argument of violent lyrics and movies is as old as lyrics and movies.
Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, Youtube: violence everywhere. I'm not talking about violent TV shows or anything like that. I am talking about all the "cool" videos of groups of kids jumping each other, kicking the feth out of each other, leaving each other as bloody pulps, and putting it online for others to see how cool they are.
It's not any one thing, it's the balance of everything together that has people concerned about a "culture of violence".
It has a place in the discussion as well.
You're going to get slammed for such unPC statements.
I noticed this when watching Skyfall, that Bond films had turned into just constant killfests.
It's no wonder the Chinese (and the UN) are licking their lips at the prospect of overtaking America.
I know right?
China Calls for ‘No Delay’ on Gun Controls in U.S.
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/china-calls-for-no-delay-on-gun-controls-in-u-s/ HONG KONG — The state news agency in China, the official voice of the government, has called for the United States to quickly adopt stricter gun controls in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Connecticut that left 28 people dead, including 20 schoolchildren.
According to the state medical examiner who was overseeing autopsies of the children, all of them had been hit multiple times. At least one child had been shot 11 times.
All of the children were in the first grade.
“Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said the news agency, Xinhua, which listed a series of shootings this year in the United States.
“However, this time, the public feels somewhat tired and helpless,” the commentary said. “The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States.”
China suffered its own school tragedy on Friday — a man stabbed 22 children at a village elementary school in Henan Province. An 85-year-old woman also was stabbed.
There were no fatalities, although Xinhua reported that some of the children had had their fingers and ears cut off. The attacker, a 36-year-old man, was reportedly in custody. There was no immediate explanation for his possible motives.
On Sunday, the Web site China Smack compiled a range of comments on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like service in China. One said: “They should issue a bulletproof vest to every American elementary school student as their school uniform.”
Another comment related to President Obama fighting back tears while addressing the nation on Friday:
In the face of Henan children suffering harm, did our country’s leaders shed a tear!? Why is it that when this kind of incident happens, they always pretend to be deaf and mute!? I’m not saying that our leaders have to be like Obama shedding tears, but can we at least be like others in facing the incident? Instead of the mainstream media not even covering it, hiding it, attempting to avoid it every time the country has a “special incident.”
China experienced a spate of attacks on schoolchildren in 2010, with almost 20 deaths and more than 50 injuries. In the fourth of the assaults, a crazed man beat five toddlers with a hammer, then set himself on fire while holding two youngsters.
In another of those attacks in 2010, Zheng Minsheng, 42, stabbed and killed eight primary school students in Fujian Province. Five weeks later, after a quick trial, he was executed.
My colleague Michael Wines reported at the time: “Some news reports stated that Mr. Zheng had mental problems, but most state media said no such evidence existed. Mental illness remains a closeted topic in modern China, and neither medication nor modern psychiatric treatment is widely used.”
“Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change in China,” The Associated Press reported Saturday, adding that the rampages pointed to “grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system’s ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness.”
Private ownership of guns — whether pistols, rifles or shotguns — is almost unheard of in China. Handgun permits are sometimes (but rarely) given to people living in remote areas for protection against wild animals.
The Chinese school assaults were carried out with knives, kitchen cleavers or hammers, the usual weapons of choice in mass attacks in China. As a precaution before the recent Communist Party Congress in Beijing, the sale of knives was banned in the central area of the capital.
Dr. Ding Xueliang, a sociologist at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, speaking about the Chinese tragedy on Friday, told CNN that “the huge difference between this case and the U.S. is not the suspect, nor the situation, but the simple fact he did not have an effective weapon.
“In terms of the U.S., there’s much easier availability of killing instruments — rifles, machine guns, explosives — than in nearly every other developed country.”
In a blog on the Web site of The New Yorker, the magazine’s China correspondent, Evan Osnos, wrote:
It takes a lot to make China’s government — beset, as it is, by corruption and opacity and the paralyzing effects of special interests — look good, by comparison, in the eyes of its people these days. But we’ve done it.
When Chinese viewers looked at the two attacks side by side, more than a few of them concluded, as one did that, “from the look of it, there’s no difference between a ‘developed’ country and a ‘developing’ country. And there’s no such thing as human rights. People are the most violent creatures on earth, and China, with its ban on guns, is doing pretty well!”
Japan, too, has a near-total ban on private gun ownership, and the infrequent mass attacks there — which included a tragic rampage at a primary school in 2001— typically have involved knives.
“Almost no one in Japan owns a gun,” said Max Fisher, writing in The Atlantic in July. “Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country’s infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.”
In 2006, Japan had two gun-related homicides. “And when that number jumped to 22 in 2007,” Mr. Fisher said, “it became a national scandal.”
“East Asia, despite its universally restrictive domestic gun policies, hosts some of the world’s largest firearm exporters and emerging industry giants: China, South Korea and Japan,” according to GunPolicy.org, a comprehensive global database maintained by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.
In recent weeks, Chinese police officials in Jiangsu Province seized more than 6,000 illegal guns from two underground workshops and warehouses; a retired prison guard in Hong Kong was jailed for 18 months for keeping an arsenal of guns, silencers, grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his public-housing apartment; and 17 suspected gun smugglers went on trial in Shanghai as part of a joint investigation with U.S. law enforcement officials.
In the Shanghai case, more than 100 semiautomatic handguns, rifles, shotguns and gun parts were express-mailed to China from the United States. One of the masterminds on the American end was Staff Sgt. Joseph Debose, 30, a soldier with a Special Forces National Guard unit in North Carolina. He pleaded guilty to federal charges in September.
“The defendant traded the honor of his position in the National Guard for the money he received for smuggling arms to China,” said Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “In blatant disregard for everything he was sworn to uphold, the defendant placed numerous firearms into a black market pipeline from the United States to China.”
What’s your view? Would the United States do well to emulate China and Japan, with their comprehensive bans on guns? Or is America a special case because of its Constitutional protections of gun ownership? And apropos of the Fujian attack described above, would you support similarly speedy trials and the death penalty for mass murderers of children?
Kilkrazy wrote: I think we can agree that guns are not much used in crimes such as false accounting, so I would like to look at violent crime which is their natural milieu.
Okay.
Both the CDC and the National Research Council said the Assault Weapons Ban didn't do anything measurable to firearm crime rates. The Department of Justice has said that renewing the ban would make quite possibly no noticeable difference on firearm crime rates, because weapons covered under it are used in such a minute percentage of crimes to begin with.
It doesn't work.
Would you then favour control of pistols, which are used in a large proportion of gun crimes?
That particular study has been disproven for poor methodology and researcher bias so many times as to be laughable. .
Much like the author whose book you've repeatedly recommended, despite admiting that his actual statistical analysis is utter tripe and/or faked.
But you like his version of events so you choose to accept it.
I think everyone needs to get off the idea of gun laws. For or against.
I think the main problem the US has is an Attitude problem. I'm mean, what makes a person want to shoot another in the first place!? Yes we could make it harder to kill someone by making it harder to get a gun. But some will just use a knife or something else instead if they really want to murder someone. A few weeks ago someone killed two people with a Bow and Arrow! As has been said there are plenty of countries with guns, some more or less than the US. But why do we have the gun violence?! I really don't mind laws making it at least harder to get an AR-15 or something, but there's MORE of an underlying problem in the US. I know especially guys here don't believe it, but what if it is the video games, movies, TV, and stuff? I know everyone here is going to say "I've played video games for years and I don't want to kill someone!" Yes maybe YOU don't but there are some Crazy people out there who might. There are those few crazy people who think it's okay to solve their problems with violence of any sort. Our media is filled with tons of violence. But even so there's other countries with even MORE violent media! If you've ever seen some anime you would probably know what I mean. So what the hell is it that makes us different? Is it because we are more of diverse group of people? Compared many other countries we are made up of so many more cultures and religions. You can't say it's mostly white people because even they are split up.
My first post on this thread was about where is mental health care? Not only is there a huge stigma about getting it but then on top of that we can't afford it as well. We have to pay for it like we would for any other medical need. There is some free help but hardly anyone knows it exists. Even if they knew it they knew it existed they then don't know how to use it or where to get it.
Again throw aside the gun laws argument. There is a bigger picture to this. Is it the lack of health care? Is it the poor economy? Is it religious/cultural/racial intolerance? Is it violent media?
Much like the author whose book you've repeatedly recommended, despite admiting that his actual statistical analysis is utter tripe and/or faked.
But you like his version of events so you choose to accept it.
Right.
Was there an actual study in the link all I saw was the ABC segment.
Much like the author whose book you've repeatedly recommended, despite admiting that his actual statistical analysis is utter tripe and/or faked.
But you like his version of events so you choose to accept it.
Right.
Was there an actual study in the link all I saw was the ABC segment.
While I agree with the sentiment that gun owners should be more proficient and responsible, and that guns don't magically protect you simply by owning them, that is by no means a reputable study.
Where have you been stopped from using the Daily Mail's numbers ?
I don't know of any such restriction in place ? I assume you're mistaken, again, as opposed to just making things up.
One is welcome to use whatever numbers you like, if you think that they'll stand up to scrutiny.
The Daily Mail of course didn't link to the study in question and lifted certain headline grabbing figures out of it -- which is fair enough, they're a newspaper after all. Then the article shot down its own credibility -- a common feat in the tabloid end of the media because it's a numbers game after all -- by saying how dubious the figures were owing to the varying methodologies used in collating such figures and the categorisation of the offences by the nations involved.
If one has issues with the figures or methodology used in another study or story -- such as one assumes you have with the one above -- then you are of course more than welcome to point out such flaws and explain why they are dubious.
I wonder myself how much might have changed in the decade or so since this was published.
But then again much of the data being presented -- it's a sloppy title but I'll refer to it as being from the "pro gun" POV ( although please note I do accept that this is using something of a broad brush and should not be taken as being all defining or categorising) was from a long time before that.
reds8n wrote: Where have you been stopped from using the Daily Mail's numbers ?
I don't of any such restriction in place ? I assume you're mistaken, again, as opposed to just making things up.
One is welcome to use whatever numbers you like, if you think that they'll stand up to scrutiny.
The Daily Mail of course didn't link to the study in question and lifted certain headline grabbing figures out of it -- which is fair enough, they're a newspaper after all. Then the article shot down its own credability -- a common feat in the tabloid end of the media because it's a numbers game after all -- by saying how dubious the figures were owing to the varying methodologies used in collating such figures and the categorisation of the offences by the nations involved.
If one has issues with the figures or methodology used in another study or story -- such as one assumes you have with the one above -- then you are of course more than welcome to point out such flaws and expalin why they are dubious.
So an anti-handgun lobby that writes an iffy essay by pulling quotes out of context from a variety of disparate sources, most of which were making arguments in favor of guns, really needs detailed analysis?
It cites references for its arguments, which is far better than most of the "evidence" presented thus far. -- Notable aside to to K.Mike here
You are of course free to disagree with the conclusions it draws, one assumes many Americans do.
But you haven't presented an actual counter argument aginst any of them, all you've done thus far is claim the article didn't exist/wasn't linked to, then made spurious claims to do with another source, and then claimed that this one is unfair as it's biased.
JEFFERSON CITY -- Any public school teacher or administrator with a concealed weapons permit would be allowed to carry guns in Missouri schools under a bill filed Tuesday in the state House.
Republican Rep. Mike Kelley of Lamar is sponsoring the legislation and has 24 co-sponsors, including House Speaker Tim Jones and House Majority Leader John Diehl. It comes less than a week after a gunman shot and killed 26 people – including 20 children – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Missouri law currently prohibits anyone except law enforcement from bringing a weapon into schools. But following the Connecticut school shooting, Republicans around the nation have argued that similar tragedies could be avoided in the future by arming school personnel.
"I think there is a correlation between these horrible acts of violence and the gun-free zones that have come about by the law," Republican Rep. Stanley Cox, a Sedalia attorney who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recently told the Associated Press.
Similar arguments have been made by Republican members of Congress and numerous GOP state officials, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
The idea has been decried by gun-control advocates.
“Think about what that’s saying. It’s saying the only answer to violence is more violence. The only answer to guns is more guns," Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told Politico. He went on to call the idea of arming teachers, "insane."
So far, the only other gun-related bill to be filed in Missouri would require school districts and charter schools to provide training and education about firearms safety to teachers. It also requires all first graders to participate in a gun safety program organized by the National Rifle Association.
Earlier this year, the Missouri House garnered national attention when it overwhelmingly approved legislation banning discrimination against Missourians who lawfully carry a concealed weapon. The bill never came up for a vote in the Missouri Senate.
In recent years, the Republican-controlled legislature has also lowered the age requirement for a concealed carry permit, expanded the state's self-defense law, and allowed lawmakers and staff to carry firearms in the state Capitol.
It cites references for its arguments, which is far better than most of the "evidence" presented thus far. -- Notable aside to to K.Mike here
You are of course free to disagree with the conclusions it draws, one assumes many Americans do.
But you haven't presented an actual counter argument aginst any of them, all you've done thus far is claim the article didn't exist/wasn't linked to, then made spurious claims to do with another source, and then claimed that this one is unfair as it's biased.
The counter-argument is that they're taken out of context; if you believe Massad Ayoob is saying that CCW doesn't work, I don't know to tell you. He was and remains one of the biggest proponents of the practice in the world.
Also, yes, Kalashnikov's numbers blow the disingenously-cited "study" out of the water.
Much like the author whose book you've repeatedly recommended, despite admiting that his actual statistical analysis is utter tripe and/or faked.
But you like his version of events so you choose to accept it.
Right.
Was there an actual study in the link all I saw was the ABC segment.
This is the full text of the November 2001 Violence Policy Center study Unintended Consequences: Pro-Handgun Experts Prove That Handguns Are A Dangerous Choice for Self-Defense.
What is a study then ?
The counter-argument is that they're taken out of context; if you believe Massad Ayoob is saying that CCW doesn't work, I don't know to tell you. He was and remains one of the biggest proponents of the practice in the world.
I took it as saying that he was wrong with the conclusions he's drawn.
Also, yes, Kalashnikov's numbers blow the disingenously-cited "study" out of the water.
In your opinion.
This study however is dated after most of the statistics quoted/used by him.
In addition some of the claims he made are based around/upon the work of Mr. Lott, whose methodology and willingness to lie and distort the figures to suit his facts we've already covered.
An actual study, or something that someone wants to call a study? Was Lanza's weapon an assault rifle just because a lot of anti-gun groups say it was? No, it wasn't. People use words wrong to lend credibility to the incredible frequently. It's a favorite tactic of Fox News, in fact.
I took it as saying that he was wrong with the conclusions he's drawn.
And having read far, far, far more of his work, I take it as an anti-gun policy shop pulling a quote out of context in order to make it seem like the author's saying something he's not. Another favorite tactic of the Fox News crowd.
Wrong on all accounts, that country was called France (plus a Prussian drill sergeant!)
Yeah, except they weren't time travelers to go back and help Burgoyne surrender at Saratoga. Granted, France was willing to sell us all the guns we wanted before then, but...
An actual study, or something that someone wants to call a study? Was Lanza's weapon an assault rifle just because a lot of anti-gun groups say it was? No, it wasn't. People use words wrong to lend credibility to the incredible frequently. It's a favorite tactic of Fox News, in fact.
I'm still not sure how it has anything to do with the situation. My understanding of it was the AR was left in the car and had zero impact on events.
BaronIveagh wrote: I'm still not sure how it has anything to do with the situation. My understanding of it was the AR was left in the car and had zero impact on events.
Nah, he apparently did the murdering with the AR-15, and then offed himself with one of the handguns. The long gun left in the car was a Saiga shotgun, if memory serves.
Nah, he apparently did the murdering with the AR-15, and then offed himself with one of the handguns. The long gun left in the car was a Saiga shotgun, if memory serves.
Ok, just read what the coroner posted and it seems he used the rifle and both pistols, but left a shotgun in the car. And a .22 rifle at home that he did his mother in with [4 in the head]. Early reports I had seen claimed he left the AR in the car with the shotgun and just used the pistols.
That particular study has been disproven for poor methodology and researcher bias so many times as to be laughable. .
Much like the author whose book you've repeatedly recommended, despite admiting that his actual statistical analysis is utter tripe and/or faked. But you like his version of events so you choose to accept it.
Right.
I mentioned Lott's book once and fully admit the issues with his work. I recommend Doctor Kleck's work which has issues of it's own as Sebs and I have discussed extensively.
As to the study you showed just watch the video. The "active shooter" clearly knows who the defender is in every class room and from what I understand (I have seen this "study" a few times before) all but one of the defenders had even range experience much less a CCW course. You'll also notice they stacked the deck against him (the one individual in the study with range experience) with a second active shooter. That said I actually agree with the only valid conclusion you can draw from this study/video footage. Just carrying a gun is not enough. Nor was it ever. To paraphrase Colonel Jeff Cooper simply having a weapon does not make you armed. Having a gun won't make you safe instantly. Having a gun, training with it regularly, practicing situational awareness and a combat mindset will make you safer.
I can do all sorts of experiments with a bias to make things say what I want to. Doesn't meant they're reliable or even true results.
Meanwhile, at the moment, I give the Assault Weapons Ban a 50/50 shot at passing when it gets introduced in January. I predict it will have the exact same impact it did the first time around - zero reduction in firearm crimes - but hey, it'll make a lot of clueless people feel like they "did something." Meanwhile, an awful lot of gun owners will just switch from fifteen-round 9mm handguns to ten-round .45s.
I agree that the Assault Weapons ban did nothing useful. But I think your summary that a return to that terrible bill is the only possible end result is a bit of a dodge, to be honest. Perhaps a more meaningful method would be to attempt to focus solutions towards more substantial efforts, like universal background checks and improved mental health services.
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Seaward wrote: By the way: remember when I said they'd be coming for Black Ops 2, too?
And you count a vague survey question that talks simply about a reduction, and not of an actual ban as proof of that?
CDK wrote: Canada has far more guns per capita than the US but they don't have NEAR the gun violence we do.
Yes. It's not the guns that are the problem. Watch Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore is an NRA member. What we need to do is address the other problems that lead to gun violence.
HUGHSON, Calif. (AP) — A former Marine applauded for voluntarily guarding a central California elementary school apparently misrepresented his service history, U.S. Marine Corps officials said Thursday.
Craig Pusley showed up for a second day of guard duty Thursday at Hughson Elementary School, this time in civilian clothes after wearing military fatigues the day before. He was gone by midmorning, after Unified School District Superintendent Brian Beck discovered discrepancies about Pusley's military service and asked him to leave.
A day earlier, Pusley, 25, told The Modesto Bee he was a sergeant in the Marine Reserve and had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Pusley said he was unemployed and using his reservist pay to support his wife and 3-year-old child.
Capt. Gregory A. Wolf, a Marines spokesman, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Pusley never served overseas and was discharged in 2008 as a private after serving less than a year at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. He also is not a reservist.
Laura Fong, the principal at Hughson Elementary School, wouldn't comment on the controversy Thursday because she said she didn't know all the facts. But she said it was a "very heartwarming thing" when the former Marine showed up Wednesday, and his presence made her and the staff feel safer.
Before the controversy, parents in the small agricultural community 100 miles southeast of San Francisco thanked Pusley for guarding their children and bought him cups of coffee.
"In the beginning, I thought it was a good idea, because as a parent I was concerned about safety with everything going on," Amber Navarro, 26, said while picking up her first-grader at the school. "He seemed like a really nice guy."
Pusley, who did not respond to calls for comment from the AP, told the Bee he had responded to a call on Facebook for veterans to help protect schools in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. A Facebook group called Veterans on Watch, created this month, is circulating a White House petition that calls for the employment of competent veterans as armed security guards in America's schools, and 2,239 people have signed it so far.
"It would act as a deterrent to have a well-trained first responder on hand to neutralize the situation as soon as possible," said Chad Walker, a former combat medic in the Army and one of the group's founders.
WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tenn., reported that another former Marine, Staff Sgt. Jordan Pritchard, stood guard in front of Gower Elementary in Nashville on Wednesday. Pritchard, who has two children at the school, said he wanted to provide extra security to students and teachers.
Wolf, the Marines spokesman, said the Marine Corps contacted Pritchard, requesting that he stop wearing his uniform outside the school. At no point was the former Marine asked to stop standing in protection of his son's school, Wolf said.
Former Marines are prohibited from wearing their uniform in public, except for military funerals, memorial services, weddings, inaugurals, and parades on national or state holidays.
According to the Official Military Personnel File, Pritchard served from 2003 to 2011 as a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense specialist. He was a staff sergeant and served in Afghanistan.
Marine Corps officials declined to say whether Pusley would face any legal repercussions for lying about his deployment history. However, it's unlikely he will since his fabrication was related to an act of generosity.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law aimed at people making phony claims of heroism on the grounds that it violated First Amendment free speech rights.
___
Wozniacka reported from Fresno, Calif.
I know it feels like you are doing something, but what good does it really do to stand there?
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: Michael Moore is an NRA member.
ha, ahHa. HAHA!
Oh look it's you. Maybe you should start a new thread for this it should be a doozey.
Michael Moore is as much a member of the NRA as my cat is a member of the Canine species just because I pay for a lifetime membership in the National Canine Assosiation.
My opinion comes from fellow cops who laugh about their "training" as well as the former rangemaster of a major California city. How 'bout you brainiac?
The assumption that, until demonstrated otherwise, all shooters are essentially equal. And the well supported notion that the vast majority of shooters respond to stress in the same way, as regards accuracy; something which I imagine is only exacerbated by surprise caused by, for example, serving as a school principle.
So, basically, an induction from tangentially related statistics, and what is to my mind a fairly sound assumption. Plus, I'll add this now, a guess that the difference between the number of hours spent in traing (CHL) isn't significantly different from the number of hours spent training (non-CHL).
That particular study has been disproven for poor methodology and researcher bias so many times as to be laughable. You'll notice only one of the participants in the study has weapons experience (where most CHL holders have to have basic training above and beyond plinking at the range, many more actually go well beyond that) is doubled up on with a ringer in the class room. It's also clear the active shooter knows who the defensive shooter is upon entry. So yes if you throw a random yahoo with a gun, no training and no mental preparation/combat mindset what so ever into an active shooter environment they won't pull a John Wayne. Shocker.
While I agree that the methodology was poor, I'm not certain to what degree a combat mindset will necessarily prepare someone to be ambushed in an otherwise safe location such that they're likely to summarily end a rampage. This doesn't mean that I think CCW permits are useless, or that I intend to demonize them as many do, but I also think that a great many opponents to gun control overstate the effectiveness they would have in the prevention of tragedy.
Not that this should be surprising to anyone, as usual, with respect to American politics, I consider the right answer to be somewhere between all the sensationalism engaged in by active proponents.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: Michael Moore is an NRA member.
ha, ahHa. HAHA!
Oh look it's you. Maybe you should start a new thread for this it should be a doozey.
Michael Moore is as much a member of the NRA as my cat is a member of the Canine species just because I pay for a lifetime membership in the National Canine Assosiation.
According to wikipedia he has a lifetime membership, though he joined with the intention of becoming its president, then dismantling it from the inside.
He gave up.
That particular study has been disproven for poor methodology and researcher bias so many times as to be laughable. You'll notice only one of the participants in the study has weapons experience (where most CHL holders have to have basic training above and beyond plinking at the range, many more actually go well beyond that) is doubled up on with a ringer in the class room. It's also clear the active shooter knows who the defensive shooter is upon entry. So yes if you throw a random yahoo with a gun, no training and no mental preparation/combat mindset what so ever into an active shooter environment they won't pull a John Wayne. Shocker.
While I agree that the methodology was poor, I'm not certain to what degree a combat mindset will necessarily prepare someone to be ambushed in an otherwise safe location such that they're likely to summarily end a rampage. This doesn't mean that I think CCW permits are useless, or that I intend to demonize them as many do, but I also think that a great many opponents to gun control overstate the effectiveness they would have in the prevention of tragedy.
Not that this should be surprising to anyone, as usual, with respect to American politics, I consider the right answer to be somewhere between all the sensationalism engaged in by active proponents.
If you have a combat mindset/proper mental state you shouldn't let your awareness drop to the white zone for anything other then sleep. You should have a plan for every situation in the basic sense. "Okay if someone came through that door, there's these options." that's the type of thing that increases your effectiveness. Because you've thought it through, the thinking's done, now it's reacting which shaves seconds in a situation where an extra second means getting ventilated. That's the type of thing I mean by mindset.
Knowing what you're doing would also significantly help those college kids getting shot up with SIM rounds in the study we're talking about.
There's been multiple situations where an active shooter has been engaged or stopped by a CCW holder. The Clackamas Mall Shooting is the most recent example though correlation isn't causation so we can't say for sure that being engaged by an armed individual is what caused the shooter to withdraw and suicide. Closer to home (literally five minutes up the road) an active shooter attacked New Life Church and was brought down by a female parishioner with her CCW. It has and does happen when the Active Shooter is in an area that permits CCW. As we've noted, a shooter choosing such a location that allows such is rare.
I'm also not saying or any one else will be hyper effective or the end all solution to active shooters. I am saying however that me, or any other carry holder on scene and armed is a better chance to end the active shooter's spree sooner rather then later. On a more personal note I also find it's a much higher likelihood for me walking out of the building instead of being pulled out in a body bag or on a gurney, and I'm in massive favor of that.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: Michael Moore is an NRA member.
ha, ahHa. HAHA! Oh look it's you. Maybe you should start a new thread for this it should be a doozey. Michael Moore is as much a member of the NRA as my cat is a member of the Canine species just because I pay for a lifetime membership in the National Canine Assosiation.
According to wikipedia he has a lifetime membership, though he joined with the intention of becoming its president, then dismantling it from the inside. He gave up.
I hope they sent him a camouflage tea cozy or something, we sure do appreciate the dues though! That does not however invalidate Auston's point.
Oh and finally:
Thanks Mr. President! Another salesman of the year award for 2012, cinching it in the critical fourth quarter! I'd say he's got a good shot at 2013, but there should be stiff competition from Dianne Feinstein
If you have a combat mindset/proper mental state you shouldn't let your awareness drop to the white zone for anything other then sleep. You should have a plan for every situation in the basic sense. "Okay if someone came through that door, there's these options." that's the type of thing that increases your effectiveness. Because you've thought it through, the thinking's done, now it's reacting which shaves seconds in a situation where an extra second means getting ventilated. That's the type of thing I mean by mindset.
But the vast majority or CCWs do not actually do that. Nor, I would argue do the vast majority of CCW ex-mils. The larger point being that, if you define 'combat mindset' as how someone would regard a situation as though they were in combat, you exclude most US citizens and most members of the military.
Most people do not have, as you describe, combat mindsets. And if they do, they are not exhibited outside of military situations.
There's been multiple situations where an active shooter has been engaged or stopped by a CCW holder. The Clackamas Mall Shooting is the most recent example though correlation isn't causation so we can't say for sure that being engaged by an armed individual is what caused the shooter to withdraw and suicide. Closer to home (literally five minutes up the road) an active shooter attacked New Life Church and was brought down by a female parishioner with her CCW. It has and does happen when the Active Shooter is in an area that permits CCW. As we've noted, a shooter choosing such a location that allows such is rare.
Edit= Wrong button.
But it has not been demonstrated that Gun-Free-Zones are targetted in exception to their rate of existence.
dogma wrote: But the vast majority or CCWs do not actually do that.
Are you certain?
Frankly, situational awareness and the Cooper scale have been taught in more than one civilian class I've attended. I can't talk about non-civilian, but what KM refers to as the combat mindset is not an uncommon or unimportant theme.
I don't think I have ever heard about the Cooper scale, but I usually always try to have situational awareness. Looking across areas that I am getting ready to enter or cross, making sure I look all around me frequently, knowing alternate routes if the way I am going is no longer ideal.
Same with driving, although that is most likely due to my emergency driving courses. Scan all mirrors about every 10 seconds, know what is going on in all the lanes next to your car at all times, scanning the road ahead and being aware if traffic is slowing down or acting weird 1/4 or 1/2 mile ahead so you can start reacting to that now.
I also don't go into any public space without making sure I check and see where all the emergency exists are.
dogma wrote: But the vast majority or CCWs do not actually do that.
Are you certain?
Frankly, situational awareness and the Cooper scale have been taught in more than one civilian class I've attended. I can't talk about non-civilian, but what KM refers to as the combat mindset is not an uncommon or unimportant theme.
No-one can be certain either way, since there isn't a licensing test for concealed pistol shooting carriers, to enable the data to be collected
However, common sense informs us that soldiers are trained for combat is because without the training they are less effective. Obviously ordinary people, without training, are less effective.
Proper training would also prevent most gun accidents.
d-usa wrote: I don't think I have ever heard about the Cooper scale, but I usually always try to have situational awareness. Looking across areas that I am getting ready to enter or cross, making sure I look all around me frequently, knowing alternate routes if the way I am going is no longer ideal.
Same with driving, although that is most likely due to my emergency driving courses. Scan all mirrors about every 10 seconds, know what is going on in all the lanes next to your car at all times, scanning the road ahead and being aware if traffic is slowing down or acting weird 1/4 or 1/2 mile ahead so you can start reacting to that now.
I also don't go into any public space without making sure I check and see where all the emergency exists are.
After all the chcoclate and rum I've had this year, I've been trying to avoid scales.
Thanks Mr. President! Another salesman of the year award for 2012, cinching it in the critical fourth quarter! I'd say he's got a good shot at 2013, but there should be stiff competition from Dianne Feinstein
Obama has sure been good for the gun lobby. I might just vote Republican in 2012 just to stop the gun runs and to be able to buy some ammo again...
Thanks Mr. President! Another salesman of the year award for 2012, cinching it in the critical fourth quarter! I'd say he's got a good shot at 2013, but there should be stiff competition from Dianne Feinstein
Obama has sure been good for the gun lobby. I might just vote Republican in 2012 just to stop the gun runs and to be able to buy some ammo again...
Too late. After the ban you'll never have to spend money on guns and ammo again.
I didn't see an opt out option when I went through LaGuardia this month. Man thats a small airport.
All of them have the option, they are just very bad at putting up the legally required signs informing you of their rights.
At the few airports I went through last year they have a big line that feeds into several smaller lines that either have the metal detector or the VirtualStripSearchTM, I can usually manage to work my way to the traditional line. If I get the machine I always opt out.
They get snippy alot, but they always comply. Last time I flew out of OKC they tried to make me wait because nobody could pad me down right now even though they were all there. After having me stand to the side for about 5 minutes they asked me "are you sure you don't just want to go to the machine, it will be a lot faster". I just asked them in a nice friendly voice "are you intentionally delaying me so that I will change my mind and exercise my legal right to opt out?". Can you imagine that somebody was able to search me 30 seconds later .
If you have a combat mindset/proper mental state you shouldn't let your awareness drop to the white zone for anything other then sleep. You should have a plan for every situation in the basic sense. "Okay if someone came through that door, there's these options." that's the type of thing that increases your effectiveness. Because you've thought it through, the thinking's done, now it's reacting which shaves seconds in a situation where an extra second means getting ventilated. That's the type of thing I mean by mindset.
If you have a combat mindset/proper mental state you shouldn't let your awareness drop to the white zone for anything other then sleep. You should have a plan for every situation in the basic sense. "Okay if someone came through that door, there's these options." that's the type of thing that increases your effectiveness. Because you've thought it through, the thinking's done, now it's reacting which shaves seconds in a situation where an extra second means getting ventilated. That's the type of thing I mean by mindset.
Sounds like a delightful way to live your life.
Secure and aware? I think so. Awareness and a proper mental state doesn't stop you from doing anything or enjoying a gellato or something. So don't make it out to be some hyper vigilant robot mode.
Here's a brief run down on the Cooper color code. Col. Jeff Cooper is my guru on self defense, so when I say combat mind set I'm mostly referring to his terminology.
The color code, as originally introduced by Jeff Cooper, had nothing to do with tactical situations or alertness levels, but rather with one's state of mind. As taught by Cooper, it relates to the degree of peril you are willing to do something about and which allows you to move from one level of mindset to another to enable you to properly handle a given situation. Cooper did not claim to have invented anything in particular with the color code, but he was apparently the first to use it as an indication of mental state.[6]
White: Unaware and unprepared. If attacked in Condition White, the only thing that may save you is the inadequacy or ineptitude of your attacker. When confronted by something nasty, your reaction will probably be "Oh my God! This can't be happening to me."
Yellow: Relaxed alert. No specific threat situation. Your mindset is that "today could be the day I may have to defend myself". You are simply aware that the world is a potentially unfriendly place and that you are prepared to defend yourself, if necessary. You use your eyes and ears, and realize that "I may have to shoot today". You don't have to be armed in this state, but if you are armed you should be in Condition Yellow. You should always be in Yellow whenever you are in unfamiliar surroundings or among people you don't know. You can remain in Yellow for long periods, as long as you are able to "Watch your six." (In aviation 12 o'clock refers to the direction in front of the aircraft's nose. Six o'clock is the blind spot behind the pilot.) In Yellow, you are "taking in" surrounding information in a relaxed but alert manner, like a continuous 360 degree radar sweep. As Cooper put it, "I might have to shoot."
Orange: Specific alert. Something is not quite right and has your attention. Your radar has picked up a specific alert. You shift your primary focus to determine if there is a threat (but you do not drop your six). Your mindset shifts to "I may have to shoot that person today", focusing on the specific target which has caused the escalation in alert status. In Condition Orange, you set a mental trigger: "If that person does "X", I will need to stop them". Your pistol usually remains holstered in this state. Staying in Orange can be a bit of a mental strain, but you can stay in it for as long as you need to. If the threat proves to be nothing, you shift back to Condition Yellow.
Red: Condition Red is fight. Your mental trigger (established back in Condition Orange) has been tripped. "If 'X' happens I will shoot that person".
The USMC uses condition Black, although it was not originally part of Cooper's Color Code. Condition Black: Catastrophic breakdown of mental and physical performance. Usually over 175 heartbeats per minute, increased heart rate becomes counter productive. May have stopped thinking correctly. This can happen when going from Condition White or Yellow immediately to Condition Red.
If you have a combat mindset/proper mental state you shouldn't let your awareness drop to the white zone for anything other then sleep. You should have a plan for every situation in the basic sense. "Okay if someone came through that door, there's these options." that's the type of thing that increases your effectiveness. Because you've thought it through, the thinking's done, now it's reacting which shaves seconds in a situation where an extra second means getting ventilated. That's the type of thing I mean by mindset.
Sounds like a delightful way to live your life.
Well haven't you ever watched a good horror movie, and right after getting into the shower thought - "well this wasn'ty the brightest idea"
dogma wrote: But the vast majority or CCWs do not actually do that.
Are you certain?
Frankly, situational awareness and the Cooper scale have been taught in more than one civilian class I've attended. I can't talk about non-civilian, but what KM refers to as the combat mindset is not an uncommon or unimportant theme.
No-one can be certain either way, since there isn't a licensing test for concealed pistol shooting carriers, to enable the data to be collected
However, common sense informs us that soldiers are trained for combat is because without the training they are less effective. Obviously ordinary people, without training, are less effective.
Proper training would also prevent most gun accidents.
There isn't a test as far as I know, but non-military and non-police people in Ohio have to take a training course to get a concealed carry license. Many other states have similar requirements, so this idea that people with concealed carry permits have no training is false. They might not have extensive training, but there are training requirements they have to meet.
In Texas there is definitely a CHL test. There is a written test and a shooting test. The Wife made a perfect score on the written test and near perfect on the shooting test. (and then hit a curb with the van after grrr...)
The test is not difficult though if you have a brain and weren't completely asleep during the class.
Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
Kilkrazy wrote: Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
Define appropriate training.
Define who gets to define appropriate training. It sounds stupid but it matters.
Kilkrazy wrote: Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
I just checked, there is a test as part of the course in Ohio, which is good.
But if you're presuming there was a test, why were you saying there wasn't a test?
Kilkrazy wrote: Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
I just checked, there is a test as part of the course in Ohio, which is good.
But if you're presuming there was a test, why were you saying there wasn't a test?
Hordini is from Ohio? O.o
also: Glad to know there's a test for my concealed carry I should study.
Just watched the NRA speech, he seemed to be covering a lot of points brought up vigorously in the 90's about how it's the medias fault. Not a widespread and engrained gun culture.
My thoughts when they were talking
NSFW
Please don't embed vids with words we don't allow on the site. Thanks. Reds8n
Yeah though sensationalizing these shooters is a valid concern.
the Shield program sounds really interesting.
In other news online weapons parts and ammo distributor Brownell's has received orders equivalent to 3.5 YEARS worth of demand for the popular Magpul "P-mag" for the AR-15 in the last couple days
No it isn't. It is shoveling the blame off on someone else. It is no different than the statement of "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".
It is taking part of the problem, the part that appeals to you, and defending it without considering the rest of the circumstances.
the Shield program sounds really interesting.
While it sounds interesting, the entire press conference is a farce.
Rather than actually comment on the issues, he continually blamed the media and politicians for "demonizing guns" and kept pushing for the "armed guards in every school". He also made a statement which made me laugh quite hard in "Can't we put a police officer in every single school?".
The majority of elementary, middle, and high schools already have an armed police presence in the form of a school resource officer.
How much good does that do in these kind of instances?
I know for a fact that the college I go to has armed police proportional to the number of students.
In other news online weapons parts and ammo distributor Brownell's has received orders equivalent to 3.5 YEARS worth of demand for the popular Magpul "P-mag" for the AR-15 in the last couple days
Gasp!
People buy things up in response to scaremongering? Say it ain't so!
It happens all the time. We see the same thing happen when the "leaked" new prices for GW come out.
No it isn't. It is shoveling the blame off on someone else. It is no different than the statement of "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".
It is taking part of the problem, the part that appeals to you, and defending it without considering the rest of the circumstances.
So taking a minority problem with low percentages of occurring, blowing it up with scaremongering and made up words, not to mention giving the shooter the infamy/notoriety couldn't possibly have a negative side effect? I'm not saying it's the only concern, or the sole problem. I'm saying it is one of several. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Next time, I'll just let you do all the talking for both of us since you're clearly psychic.
the Shield program sounds really interesting.
While it sounds interesting, the entire press conference is a farce.
Rather than actually comment on the issues, he continually blamed the media and politicians for "demonizing guns" and kept pushing for the "armed guards in every school". He also made a statement which made me laugh quite hard in "Can't we put a police officer in every single school?".
The majority of elementary, middle, and high schools already have an armed police presence in the form of a school resource officer.
How much good does that do in these kind of instances?
I know for a fact that the college I go to has armed police proportional to the number of students.
Sandy Hook seemed short of an SRO, so we don't seem to have much data now do we? Also last I checked most colleges are rather large compared to the average elementary school, and the residents in more need of actual policing then grade schoolers (Except that paste eating ring in Mrs Anderson's 4th Grade class gotta take them down)
In other news online weapons parts and ammo distributor Brownell's has received orders equivalent to 3.5 YEARS worth of demand for the popular Magpul "P-mag" for the AR-15 in the last couple days
Gasp!
People buy things up in response to scaremongering? Say it ain't so!
It happens all the time. We see the same thing happen when the "leaked" new prices for GW come out.
Yes thank you, it's not surprising, just interesting for scale's sake. Now run along.
No it isn't. It is shoveling the blame off on someone else. It is no different than the statement of "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".
It is taking part of the problem, the part that appeals to you, and defending it without considering the rest of the circumstances.
So taking a minority problem with low percentages of occurring, blowing it up with scaremongering and made up words, not to mention giving the shooter the infamy/notoriety couldn't possibly have a negative side effect? I'm not saying it's the only concern, or the sole problem. I'm saying it is one of several. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Next time, I'll just let you do all the talking for both of us since you're clearly psychic.
the Shield program sounds really interesting.
While it sounds interesting, the entire press conference is a farce.
Rather than actually comment on the issues, he continually blamed the media and politicians for "demonizing guns" and kept pushing for the "armed guards in every school". He also made a statement which made me laugh quite hard in "Can't we put a police officer in every single school?".
The majority of elementary, middle, and high schools already have an armed police presence in the form of a school resource officer.
How much good does that do in these kind of instances?
I know for a fact that the college I go to has armed police proportional to the number of students.
Sandy Hook seemed short of an SRO, so we don't seem to have much data now do we? Also last I checked most colleges are rather large compared to the average elementary school, and the residents in more need of actual policing then grade schoolers (Except that paste eating ring in Mrs Anderson's 4th Grade class gotta take them down)
In other news online weapons parts and ammo distributor Brownell's has received orders equivalent to 3.5 YEARS worth of demand for the popular Magpul "P-mag" for the AR-15 in the last couple days
Gasp!
People buy things up in response to scaremongering? Say it ain't so!
It happens all the time. We see the same thing happen when the "leaked" new prices for GW come out.
Yes thank you, it's not surprising, just interesting for scale's sake. Now run along.
Why debate with someone who thinks its perfectly constitutional to have random searches of houses for contraband?
As to the noteriety and fame aspect of the "sensationalizing" of these shooters, I believe the great poet of the people Marshal Mathers said it best:
Eminem wrote:See what these kids do is hear about us totin' pistols
And they want to get one cause they think the gak's cool
It works along the same lines. If people laud a person's name over and over, or they're under constant media scrutiny, there is a chance that messed up people are going to think, "Wow, look at this kid from Connecticut, he's like totally famous." You don't see it as a valid concern because you're not the type of person that just wants to be known.
Look back to the "major" attacks in this country. Shootings like Columbine, Aurora, Oregon, Virginia Tech, Luby's Massacre (I don't know this because I was young when it happened). Look at the OKC bombing as well... Who do we remember about these events? The victims? the emergency responders that helped after the events, or the people that committed the attack?
KalashnikovMarine wrote: ...this is actually an excellent point Frazzled. I'm going to go make better use of my time and play with the new Dachshund puppies at the pet store.
WOOF WOOF.
Did I mention the neighbor in the office next to me, now has six? He has three that are theirs, and they are fostering three as well. He sent a picture of 4 on the sofa. Wow.
Frankly, situational awareness and the Cooper scale have been taught in more than one civilian class I've attended. I can't talk about non-civilian, but what KM refers to as the combat mindset is not an uncommon or unimportant theme.
Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
dogma wrote: Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
I don't know. If it at least gets you thinking about it, that's a step in the right direction. I'd love to have everyone spend a week at Gunsite prior to getting their first handgun, but it's just not going to happen.
dogma wrote: Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
I don't know. If it at least gets you thinking about it, that's a step in the right direction. I'd love to have everyone spend a week at Gunsite prior to getting their first handgun, but it's just not going to happen.
Live in East LA for month. You'll be paranoid forever.
Frankly, situational awareness and the Cooper scale have been taught in more than one civilian class I've attended. I can't talk about non-civilian, but what KM refers to as the combat mindset is not an uncommon or unimportant theme.
Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
Colonel Cooper's been teaching it to cops, civilians and military for decades, and plenty of his students have "met the elephant" and lived to tell about it. So yes I'd say it's quite possible.
Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
No, but it helps.
My own parents brought be up to assume that every last person you meet will try to kill you, rob you, or con you. So far I've survived being shot, stabbed, and being run over by a bus, a jeep, and a taxi (not all at once). I've had three resuscitations. I've been poisoned (2x), drown (3x), and dragged through barbed wire by an out of control vehicle. I've been attacked by wolves, dogs, bears, rams, and men. I've fallen off a cliff once. I've been thrown off twice. I've been exposed to rare and exotic diseases. I even caught one that was dug up on an archeological dig. (Risks they do not mention in the literature...)
So, yeah, from my point of view, assuming everything is going to go south rapidly at any given moment is probably a safe bet. Even as I type this, I can see the doorway behind me in the mirror.
Absent military training or, more importantly, combat experience; do you think that instruction would have given you a 'combat mindset' such that you would assume the worst in any situation?
No, but it helps.
My own parents brought be up to assume that every last person you meet will try to kill you, rob you, or con you. So far I've survived being shot, stabbed, and being run over by a bus, a jeep, and a taxi (not all at once). I've had three resuscitations. I've been poisoned (2x), drown (3x), and dragged through barbed wire by an out of control vehicle. I've been attacked by wolves, dogs, bears, rams, and men. I've fallen off a cliff once. I've been thrown off twice. I've been exposed to rare and exotic diseases. I even caught one that was dug up on an archeological dig. (Risks they do not mention in the literature...)
So, yeah, from my point of view, assuming everything is going to go south rapidly at any given moment is probably a safe bet. Even as I type this, I can see the doorway behind me in the mirror.
Kilkrazy wrote: Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
I just checked, there is a test as part of the course in Ohio, which is good.
But if you're presuming there was a test, why were you saying there wasn't a test?
I didn't say there wasn't a test. I don't know what tests every state might use.
Colonel Cooper's been teaching it to cops, civilians and military for decades, and plenty of his students have "met the elephant" and lived to tell about it. So yes I'd say it's quite possible.
Well, had been. And his general instruction was not about combat rsponse, but firearm safety.
Yeah, I got into antique dealing and invested in an IT firm to get away from the family business after the 3rd time I had to be resuscitated. The IT firm is now circling the drain as it's customers keep going under, but the antique business is doing great. I've moved more antique guns this month than I have in long time. Even had someone in about the 1795 contract musket.
Yeah, I got into antique dealing and invested in an IT firm to get away from the family business after the 3rd time I had to be resuscitated. The IT firm is now circling the drain as it's customers keep going under, but the antique business is doing great. I've moved more antique guns this month than I have in long time. Even had someone in about the 1795 contract musket.
Thats serious antiques. You don't wear a fedora and carry a bullwhip do you? If not, maybe you should.
Kilkrazy wrote: Presumably there is a test, else there would be no way of knowing that the person had understood the training. Unless it is just a box-ticking exercise.
My suggestion is that appropriate training leading to a licence should be required for all guns.
Define appropriate training.
Define who gets to define appropriate training. It sounds stupid but it matters.
I would not presume to do so. There is a wealth of experience in the police and services for designing such tests.
The decision on what got made law would of course be made by your elected representatives.
In my view, there should be a core gun safety test for owning any gun. The standard for carrying a gun in public should be higher and include accuracy and combat response.
I mean, no-one cares if Joe Bloggs can shoot accurately as long as he isn't wandering around the streets with a gun. We care if he is going to accidentally shoot a child or neighbour by an accidental discharge.
People who are going about the streets with a gun need to make sure they aren't likely to hit bystanders.
It truly depends on the intent of the tests. As stated, there are jurisdictions who have used such tests to create a defacto ban (several have been overturned recently in court for just such a reason). If the test and requirement is truly just like a driver's license I'd be mor eok with it, but it would have to be "shall issue." (Aka default to issue not default to not issuing on a presumption basis).
I even caught one that was dug up on an archeological dig. (Risks they do not mention in the literature...)
What disease did you catch?
An older strain of Influenza, they think (I ended up giving several blood samples to test for virii, since they were hoping that it was the 1918 strain, since that was around the period of the dig). It wasn't fun. I spent a month puking and gaking green slime. After a month it stopped, so...
Thats serious antiques. You don't wear a fedora and carry a bullwhip do you? If not, maybe you should.
No, I wear a slouch hat and a variety of trench coats depending on weather conditions and my urge to look fancy.
No, my real prize is a 1813 Sutton, made in Pittsburgh. She's a .69 smoothbore based off of, but improving on, the Charleville, that served Perry's fleet at Put in Bay before being sold south. She has her Mexican War dagger stamp and T Rangers carved in her stock, as well as a rather primitive conversion from flintlock to percussion. At the fall of Fort Donelson she was taken as a souvenir north again and spent 100+ years painted lead grey as a trophy in a GAR hall before the late Richard Vandal, also a Pittsburgh gunsmith, found her and restored her.
An older strain of Influenza, they think (I ended up giving several blood samples to test for virii, since they were hoping that it was the 1918 strain, since that was around the period of the dig). It wasn't fun. I spent a month puking and gaking green slime. After a month it stopped, so...
...you have no idea why you were sick, but have chosen the most glamorous reason.
An older strain of Influenza, they think (I ended up giving several blood samples to test for virii, since they were hoping that it was the 1918 strain, since that was around the period of the dig). It wasn't fun. I spent a month puking and gaking green slime. After a month it stopped, so...
...you have no idea why you were sick, but have chosen the most glamorous reason.
Hey, they really did. Personally, I have no fething idea, though since there was no announcement that they found that strain, I'm assuming it wasn't it. I didn't die, and was happy with that. I would like to imagine that if it had been an easy one , UPMC would have told me 'hey, you have X'. rather than shrugging and scratching and saying 'We have no idea what's doing this.' for a month while subjecting me to batteries of tests.
What was it that Frazz said a few months ago: "we have contingency plans to deal with contingency plans."
As unavoidable as it is, once someone gets it in their mind to commit heinous acts, the depths and levels they can achieve can be stunning and horrific. A well thought out or opportunistic attack could result in many, many casualties one way or another.
And if the bad guys start turning up with heavier weapons, will F-16s flying overhead and tanks on the sports fields be needed?
I watched that NRA guy on the news (doing his speech) and the above is the logical conclusion to what he is proposing.
The problem is in the end, even a total ban on civilian gun ownership would likely not stop things like this. We've had people go crazy in the police and military too.
Yeah, because everyone in the US has a great, well paying, work from home job that they can just live anywhere. Hell, I make all sorts of money and I can't do that, for a variety of reasons.
And if the bad guys start turning up with heavier weapons, will F-16s flying overhead and tanks on the sports fields be needed?
I watched that NRA guy on the news (doing his speech) and the above is the logical conclusion to what he is proposing.
The problem is in the end, even a total ban on civilian gun ownership would likely not stop things like this. We've had people go crazy in the police and military too.
The killdozer was a local event for me. Nutcases who are set on killing will do it. Especially the scary intelligent ones like Timothy McVeigh or the Aurora shooter (the man wired his apartment with an explosive complex enough that it took three days to disarm and was like nothing EOD had ever seen before, that counts for scary smart)
KalashnikovMarine wrote: Nutcases who are set on killing will do it. Especially the scary intelligent ones like Timothy McVeigh or the Aurora shooter (the man wired his apartment with an explosive complex enough that it took three days to disarm and was like nothing EOD had ever seen before, that counts for scary smart)
I concur that you can't legislate against the likes of Timothy McVeigh (US), Anders Brevik (Norway) or Derek Bird (UK), but most of us just accept that these things happen from time to time. We don't build up a gun collection to protect ourselves against events that we are statistically unlikely to be involved in. Meanwhile said gun collections do lead to separate incidents that could have been prevented by the guns not being there.
Flashman wrote: I concur that you can't legislate against the likes of Timothy McVeigh (US), Anders Brevik (Norway) or Derek Bird (UK), but most of us just accept that these things happen from time to time. We don't build up a gun collection to protect ourselves against events that we are statistically unlikely to be involved in. Meanwhile said gun collections do lead to separate incidents that could have been prevented by the guns not being there.
Trust us, it does work.
We don't build up gun collections for that reason, either, if we build them at all.
Some of us do carry guns due to the fact that there are triple the amount of guns in America as there are people in the United Kingdom, so your chances of ending up on the wrong end of one are a bit greater.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: Nutcases who are set on killing will do it. Especially the scary intelligent ones like Timothy McVeigh or the Aurora shooter (the man wired his apartment with an explosive complex enough that it took three days to disarm and was like nothing EOD had ever seen before, that counts for scary smart)
I concur that you can't legislate against the likes of Timothy McVeigh (US), Anders Brevik (Norway) or Derek Bird (UK), but most of us just accept that these things happen from time to time. We don't build up a gun collection to protect ourselves against events that we are statistically unlikely to be involved in. Meanwhile said gun collections do lead to separate incidents that could have been prevented by the guns not being there.
Trust us, it does work.
Neither do I. I build up my collection of firearms for a wide variety of reasons and while taking down a mass shooter is a very small portion of the broader reason of defensive carry. Nor will your solutions work best for the United States. Different country, different culture, different laws.
For the record, between myself, my friends and my business associates, we have several hundred firearms. Not one of them caused a "separate incident" this year and several of them stopped "separate incidents" that would have gone quite poorly for the individual wielding the weapon had they been unarmed. But then what's a little rape or a mugging now and then right?
Flashman wrote: I concur that you can't legislate against the likes of Timothy McVeigh (US), Anders Brevik (Norway) or Derek Bird (UK), but most of us just accept that these things happen from time to time. We don't build up a gun collection to protect ourselves against events that we are statistically unlikely to be involved in. Meanwhile said gun collections do lead to separate incidents that could have been prevented by the guns not being there.
Trust us, it does work.
We don't build up gun collections for that reason, either, if we build them at all.
Some of us do carry guns due to the fact that there are triple the amount of guns in America as there are people in the United Kingdom, so your chances of ending up on the wrong end of one are a bit greater.
What a logicly flawed argument... We need more guns because there is so many guns...
Flashman wrote: I concur that you can't legislate against the likes of Timothy McVeigh (US), Anders Brevik (Norway) or Derek Bird (UK), but most of us just accept that these things happen from time to time. We don't build up a gun collection to protect ourselves against events that we are statistically unlikely to be involved in. Meanwhile said gun collections do lead to separate incidents that could have been prevented by the guns not being there.
Trust us, it does work.
We don't build up gun collections for that reason, either, if we build them at all.
Some of us do carry guns due to the fact that there are triple the amount of guns in America as there are people in the United Kingdom, so your chances of ending up on the wrong end of one are a bit greater.
What a logicly flawed argument... We need more guns because there is so many guns...
Not his argument at all Steve, and I'll note that you, Steve, son of Steve, and quite possibly grandson of Steve knowing how you Brits like naming traditions ( ) never responded to the numbers I gave you a couple pages ago.
What Seaward is saying, is that only an idiot takes a knife or his bare hands to what in all likelihood is going to be a gun fight.
Baron, could you cite your source for those numbers please? Not that I disbelieve you, but better to have everything on the table.
Numbers: United States Population: 314,960,029 Violent Crimes: 1,203,564
United Kingdom Population: 62,698, 362 Violent Crimes: 2,090,000
Really?
How often are people going to keep bringing up erroneous stats? For about the millionth time, violent crime in the UK is recorded differently. For example, affray is considered a violent crime - this is why stats are misleading...
How often are people going to keep bringing up erroneous stats? For about the millionth time, violent crime in the UK is recorded differently. For example, affray is considered a violent crime - this is why stats are misleading...
Yes, I'm aware of the affray thing. However, I'm also aware that for 2002 (the year in question) those rates are for convictions, not actual crimes, in the UK.. The Home office does not count it a murder until someone is found guilty of it. The US, it's a murder as soon as it happens.
How often are people going to keep bringing up erroneous stats? For about the millionth time, violent crime in the UK is recorded differently. For example, affray is considered a violent crime - this is why stats are misleading...
Yes, I'm aware of the affray thing. However, I'm also aware that for 2002 (the year in question) those rates are for convictions, not actual crimes, in the UK.. The Home office does not count it a murder until someone is found guilty of it. The US, it's a murder as soon as it happens.
Which is an error as well, aren't 13% of the homicides in the United States found to be justifiable later on or something like that?
Whelp Senator Feinstein has gone and proposed confiscation. With the critical language being a "Compulsory" buyback of firearms. Even on an emotional high that's going nowhere fast.
Especially with the President and Harry Reid slamming the brakes on the emotional freight train. Regardless of the conclusions of the Biden commission, which I may or may not disagree with, I can agree that taking steps to freeze this and not legislate from knee jerk emotional reactions, or opportunistic hijacking of the same like Senator Feinstein is an excellent move.
I think if the NRA had caved on "assault weapons" and high caps yesterday something might've changed. Now? I don't think the AWB's getting out of committee, much less anything else. Especially since, if you believe the Gallup numbers, more Americans believe this is a mental health services issue than a guns issue.
Seaward wrote: I think if the NRA had caved on "assault weapons" and high caps yesterday something might've changed. Now? I don't think the AWB's getting out of committee, much less anything else. Especially since, if you believe the Gallup numbers, more Americans believe this is a mental health services issue than a guns issue.
Certainly is helping the gun stores have a great 4th Quarter though. Also ensuring my employment for the next couple decades.
d-usa wrote: The Obama presidency certainly has been great for the firearms industry.
It really has. I haven't bought into the AR-15 craze yet, but I caught myself strongly considering a Colt 6920 or even a Rock River Arms build just the other day. Then common sense told me to wait until the crazy dies down and the AWB fails to pass and not pay nearly 200% of standard retail.
d-usa wrote: The Obama presidency certainly has been great for the firearms industry.
I assume it's because focusing on gun laws would be political suicide in the USA.
Sure, but the THREAT of new gun laws is what's great for the industry.
It is. Ammo sales went through the roof the first time he was elected. Even I bought a couple hundred rounds for my rifle. Kinda glad I did though. 4 years later I still haven't had to buy anymore. Hopefully I get orders soon. Cook County (Chicago) just tried to pass a huge ammunition tax, and when they do things, the rest of the state tends to fall in line.
I don't get to shoot that often. Places to fire rifles in Illinois are hard to come buy. If I want to site my scope in, I generally have to wait until I get back to Michigan. So most of the ammo I've bought over the last 4 years has been for my shotguns. I bought a box of 100 shells of #7 shot, and a few boxes of 20 of various sizes for ducks and geese.
Dependant on where i'm stationed at next, I'll probably start bulk buying more often.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
The UCR Program collects offense information for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
How often are people going to keep bringing up erroneous stats? For about the millionth time, violent crime in the UK is recorded differently. For example, affray is considered a violent crime - this is why stats are misleading...
And how is it not? It is the same as Assault over here.
And how is it not? It is the same as Assault over here.
No it isn't. At common law in the US assault is to place a person under threat of violence. Affray is to cause another to fear for his legitimate safety as a result of the threat or commission of violence towards another, separate person.
So, if you threaten to hit someone you would be assaulting that person, and potentially committing affray against any witnesses.
The British definition of violent crime includes offences which are not included in the US definition.
The US definition of aggravated assault only includes attacks or threatened attacks with weapons.
In the UK, any personal contact can be an assault. For example, you could be charged with assault for spitting on a person, or pinching their bottom. I am not saying that the courts are filled with bottom pinchers, but the kind of punch-up that happens outside pubs at closing time, is recorded in the violent crime statistics in the UK, but not in the USA.
You may find that 1 million such crimes is excessive. We do not know the rate of similar crimes in the USA. It might be 10 million more, so it is pointless to discuss unless we can find the data.
Now we know that the weapon crime rate in the USA is over 800,000 a year, we will be able to compare the weapon crime rate in the UK, if we can find the data for it.
Kilkrazy wrote:
The principle was established in law a few years ago, that mental "wounds" are a form of assault.
Assault in the 4th degree, IIRC.
Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK, any personal contact can be an assault. For example, you could be charged with assault for spitting on a person, or pinching their bottom. I am not saying that the courts are filled with bottom pinchers, but the kind of punch-up that happens outside pubs at closing time, is recorded in the violent crime statistics in the UK, but not in the USA.
Actually, those can be assault (what constitutes assault varies from state to state) in the US, but it's common assault rather than aggravated assault. Mind you, it's still assault. So is swearing at someone while invading their personal space in some states.
New York is the only state where assault requires an actual injury. (One can only imagine the US statistics if the swearing/personal space thing were practiced there)
Kilkrazy wrote: In the UK, any personal contact can be an assault. For example, you could be charged with assault for spitting on a person, or pinching their bottom. I am not saying that the courts are filled with bottom pinchers, but the kind of punch-up that happens outside pubs at closing time, is recorded in the violent crime statistics in the UK, but not in the USA.
Actually, those can be assault (what constitutes assault varies from state to state) in the US, but it's common assault rather than aggravated assault. Mind you, it's still assault. So is swearing at someone while invading their personal space in some states.
New York is the only state where assault requires an actual injury. (One can only imagine the US statistics if the swearing/personal space thing were practiced there)
But the fact is that the figure you posted use the official US violent crime stats which only includes Aggravated Assault. The UK figure includes every type of assault.
Kilkrazy wrote:
The principle was established in law a few years ago, that mental "wounds" are a form of assault.
Assault in the 4th degree, IIRC.
Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK, any personal contact can be an assault. For example, you could be charged with assault for spitting on a person, or pinching their bottom. I am not saying that the courts are filled with bottom pinchers, but the kind of punch-up that happens outside pubs at closing time, is recorded in the violent crime statistics in the UK, but not in the USA.
Actually, those can be assault (what constitutes assault varies from state to state) in the US, but it's common assault rather than aggravated assault. Mind you, it's still assault. So is swearing at someone while invading their personal space in some states.
New York is the only state where assault requires an actual injury. (One can only imagine the US statistics if the swearing/personal space thing were practiced there)
I am talking about the definitions used by the FBI and DoJ for national crime statistical analysis.
The point is that "assault" without a weapon is not included in the US national violent crime data, but it is in the UK.
Dr. Gratia-Hupp weighs in on the CT shooting. Again Dr. Gratia-Hupp is a former Texas law maker, concealed carry advocate and survivor of the Luby's Diner Massacre.
On another note I've been seeing a lot of tweets, comments, even heard a couple irl debates where the anti-gun side's argument ended up at: "You violence loving gun owners should all die!" I really gotta wonder why the loony left (and these guys are so nuts they should be a parody... not an actual person) immediately gets so deranged and violent when it comes to a cause. None of the gun owners I know are like that... I have to say I'm glad these dems choose not to own weapons, I'd be extremely nervous around them if they had firearms. Maybe they realize they're horrible scum and are projecting what they'd do if they had guns on everyone else? I know it's not all of the opposing group, the folks here on Dakka have been reasonable and a couple here and there else where... but I've been seeing this a lot.
But the fact is that the figure you posted use the official US violent crime stats which only includes Aggravated Assault. The UK figure includes every type of assault.
Ok, then rather than look at just England, we'll spread our gaze across Europe.
This comes from the Harvard Law Review in a study of the effectiveness of banning guns in preventing murders. The numbers are all from the closest data to 2003.
Nation Handgun Policy Murder Rate per 100k Year
A. Belarus banned 10.40 late 1990s
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Poland allowed 1.98 2003
Russia banned 20.54 2002
B. Luxembourg banned 9.01 2002
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Belgium allowed 1.70 late 1990s
France allowed 1.65 2003
Germany allowed 0.93 2003
C. Russia banned 20.54 2002
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Finland allowed 1.98 2004
Norway allowed 0.81 2001
Notes: This table covers all the European nations for which the information
given is available. As in Table 1, the homicide rate data comes
from an annually published report, CANADIAN CENTRE FOR JUSTICE
STATISTICS, HOMICIDE IN CANADA, JURISTAT
According to several sources, despite the highest gun ownership in Western Europe Norway also has the lowest murder rate.
my understanding was it was to test if there was an actual correlation between gun bans, specifically handguns (as Europe's most common firearm ban), and a reduction in violent crime, specifically murder. The reason murder was selected is that it was both the most consistent between countries and considered the most accurately reported statistic.
Their conclusion was there was no actual correlation between murder and gun bans. Access to firearms does not appear to be a driving factor in total murders per capita. Statistically, they observed that many of the nations with more liberal firearm ownership laws tended to lower murder rates in that approx period, but this was not hard and fast.
I'm finding it impossible to find numbers that give a clear break down of same measurements. But we can look at it this way. Based on reported numbers Britain has 8 times the violent crime per citizen then the US. Granted, they measure more categories differantly, that cannot be argued. To the level of 8 times more thought?
If you are trying to make the claim that America has a more violent culture, because of our gun laws, then Britain would have to have significantly lower rates of violent crime. And given such a large disparity, I highly doubt that you will find what your looking for if you were just to compare the same statistics.
I've heard it said before, though I have no idea if it's true, that the UK doesn't include unsolved crimes involving firearms in their firearm crime rate statistics, thus under-reporting firearm crimes since the handgun ban. Can any of our British comrades confirm or deny?
Seaward wrote: I've heard it said before, though I have no idea if it's true, that the UK doesn't include unsolved crimes involving firearms in their firearm crime rate statistics, thus under-reporting firearm crimes since the handgun ban. Can any of our British comrades confirm or deny?
I checked the Home Office site, and unless unsolved crimes are not recorded, then what you've heard is false. Page 55.
Crime in the UK is measured in a number of ways, making it difficult to assemble complete and reliable data without a large amount of research that I am not prepared to do for the sake of a discussion on the internet.
First, crime is recorded separately in England and Wales to Northern Ireland, and to Scotland. The population of England and Wales is about 56 million out of a total population of about 63 million. We can expect a higher rate of firearms offences in NI thanks to the various paramilitary terrorist organisation.
Second, the police only record as crimes, incidents which satisfy them that a substantive crime has occurred. This has been criticised particularly in the case of rapes, which are accused of being under-reported by the police.
Third, the British Crime Survey is an annual survey of a large sample on their personal experience of crime. It is used by the Home Office to compare and correct the data from the police reports.
Lastly, violent crime is also surveyed by the National Health Service Accident and Emergency reporting. In other words, when casualties present to hospitals, the reason is recorded. This allows violent crime stats to be cross-checked between three data sources.
Kilkrazy wrote: We can expect a higher rate of firearms offences in NI thanks to the various paramilitary terrorist organisation.
Not entirely certain that would be the case, due to the differences in gun law between England and Wales/N Ireland. I can say that, while firearms were used in a higher percentage of murders per 100k in Ireland proper than the UK, their overall murder rate was with in 0.01% of each other.
Again, I don't see how the presence or absence of guns is making a big difference in this.
Honestly, I'm not sure why it's all that relevant a discussion. Only the lunatic fringe is talking about a complete ban, and the "assault weapon" ban being proposed has already had a chance to show us it doesn't do much, if anything, to affect the firearm crime rate in the States, because next to nobody uses "assault weapons" when they commit a crime.
Yeah yeah, it references Britains violent crime rate, but when you examine all of the other points in there it's pretty telling.
I doubt that few would disagree with the view that higher gun ownership doesn't always result in more murders. Canada and Norway are living proof of this.
I've never bought into the view that all gun owners are right wing fanatics, and I've always said that people should be able to defend homes/property/business against armed raiders.
I also said that I wouldn't get involved in American gun discussion (something I know nothing about) because I hated it when they were lecturing us on the NHS!
To sum up 40 pages of posts: Not all American gun owners are bad, second amendment mentions bare arms, and Merry Christmas
One last final point. Some people say that the second amendment gives Americans the right to overthrow a tyrannical government, but how does that square with Article III, section 3 of the constitution, that deals with treason if you wage war against it? It being the American government. Do the two not cancel each other out?
(CNN) -- The National Rifle Association responded Friday to a chorus of voices calling for gun control in the wake of last week's horrific mass shooting in Connecticut by doubling down on its own position: more guns, not fewer, provide true security.
After one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history -- 20 children and seven adults killed, not including the gunman -- polls show that a slight majority of Americans favor restrictions on guns. Conservative Democrats and even some Republicans who have supported gun rights have said they are open to discussing gun control.
But the NRA made its position clear: The prominent gun rights organization will not budge an inch toward discussion of gun control. To the contrary, the group announced it will fund a team that will design a program to get armed security personnel on school grounds across the country.
"You know, five years ago, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said.
Lapierre's response 'irresponsible' But what if the gunman, Adam Lanza, had been confronted by a trained security guard?
"Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared?" LaPierre asked.
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said.
LaPierre's position sets the stage for a contentious battle between the NRA, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, and the Obama administration, which has promised quick action on "real reforms" to gun laws.
This week, President Barack Obama tapped Vice President Joe Biden to lead a task force to start formulating those reforms and, with the White House's support, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said she will introduce legislation to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.
Gun owners fear new legislation could tread on their rights
The NRA had remained silent in the wake of last week's school massacre as the debate on gun control was shaped by these moves in Washington. That changed Friday when it drew a line in the sand, providing its alternative vision for protecting American children through armed security personnel at all schools.
"Why is the idea of a gun good when it's used to protect the president of our country or our police, but bad when it's used to protect our children in our schools?" LaPierre asked.
"We need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work -- and by that I mean armed security," he said, reading from a prepared statement.
The NRA executive appeared aware that he was staking a bold position in front of a divided public that recent polls suggest is leaning toward tightening gun laws. In case he wasn't, protesters interrupted his address twice, shouting anti-NRA slogans and bearing banners in front of his podium, including one that said "NRA killing our kids."
LaPierre spoke exactly one week after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. Across the nation, church bells rang in remembrance of the victims. The NRA was among those groups that observed a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m., the same time as last week's massacre.
Residents in Newtown and across the country paused for a moment of silence in memory of the victims. Many websites went dark momentarily to mark the moment.
Funerals for five of the victims -- school psychologist Mary Sherlach, behavioral therapist Rachel Marie D'Avino and students Grace Audrey McDonnell, Olivia Rose Engel and Dylan Christopher Jack Hockley -- also took place Friday.
A slight majority of Americans favor major restrictions on guns: 52%, up 5 points from a survey taken in August after the July shooting inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people died, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday.
More than 195,000 people have signed an online White House petition supporting new gun control legislation.
Yet the NRA has support among many Americans who believe that taking steps to limit access to guns is not the answer.
One CNN reader summed up the pro-gun argument this way: "We ... put undercover, plain clothed air marshals on our planes to protect us when we fly. I fully support the same in our schools to protect my children. Every school should have one," Ali wrote.
"A cop in every school is a much better solution than a holster on every teacher's belt. But it doesn't go far enough. This is an attempt to contain the problem to schools and avoid the broader discussion," another CNN commenter wrote.
Parents defend right to keep guns in the home
Others pointed to the apparent contradiction among conservatives who want to reduce public spending but also support the NRA's idea to arm schools. Who will pay for the thousands of armed guards? several CNN readers asked.
Many suggested taxes on guns that could fund such a program.
Why own a military-style rifle
The NRA envisions a "National School Shield Emergency Response Program" where qualified police, military, security personnel and others organize to protect schools.
Schools remain a target for criminal gunmen because they are not protected by armed security the way other important institutions are, LaPierre said.
Policies banning guns at schools create a place that "insane killers" consider "the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.
Former congressman Asa Hutchinson will lead the school security project.
Armed personnel will be part of the security model but not the only component, Hutchinson said.
"School safety is a complex issue with no simple, single solution," he said. "But I believe trained, qualified, armed security is one key component among many that can provide the first line of deterrence as well as the last line of defense."
NRA power and money go a long way in states
The NRA, with its roughly 4.3 million members, is the standard bearer for protecting the Second Amendment. It is also the source of hefty campaign donations.
During the 2012 election cycle, the NRA donated $719,596 to candidates. Republicans received $634,146 of that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' analysis of federal campaign data.
Some $85,450 went to Democrats, many of them in states that are considered more conservative when it comes to gun control laws.
The NRA's point man on its school security study, Hutchinson, received $7,000 from the organization for his 2000 congressional campaign, and $7,450 in 1998.
Looks like some of the people in this thread helped put this statement together. Congrats on calling it!
On a trolling note, I think we should simply abolish public school and replace it with mandatory 12 years of Boot Camp. That would give our students the skills they need to protect not only themselves and the nation, but also Democracy!
Kilkrazy wrote:
I am talking about the definitions used by the FBI and DoJ for national crime statistical analysis.
The point is that "assault" without a weapon is not included in the US national violent crime data, but it is in the UK.
So let's remove the cause of error. The UNODC defines assault as a bodily attack resulting in serious bodily injury but excludes sexual assault and assaults that led to death.
Kilkrazy wrote:Shall we get back to the data?
I think we should.
It's unfortunate this data only goes to 2008 but it does indicate a pattern of violence that has not radically changed; otherwise it would have been trumpeted from the roof tops on your island home.
The UK less NI produced about 500,000 assaults per year from 2003-2008
The US produced about 900,000 in the same period. (obviously I'm simplifying, the link is for pendant pleasure).
Oh noes one number is higher than the other!
The UK's population is somewhere between 1/5 and 1/6 that of the US and yet her assault rate is more like half. That indicates a much greater prevalence of violence, namely assault. Somewhere to the tune of about 270:100,000 in the US and about 800:100,000 in the UK less the clover patch.
You are missing the crucial point -- which I have already mentioned twice before and which has been pointed out by other users -- that the USA assault data only includes attacks with weapons, while the UK data includes attacks without weapons and also sex crimes, which are not included in the US data.
Until we are able to find data for US assaults without weapons ("simple assault", in FBI/DoJ terminology) it is worthless to compare the two sets of data.
In plain language, the comparison is bollocks, not the dog's bollocks.
How many attempted public or school shootings have been foiled by armed security or by someone with concealed carry? How many people have been injured in accidents or unintentional shootings by armed security and concealed carry members of the public?
Actually the idea of members of the public carrying hidden guns so they can be a hero one day would concern me a little if I was living in the US. The potential for escalating situations by having more people pull guns, or just having people mis use them and end up injuring the wrong people, seems a fairly great risk as compared to the risk of someone just deciding to shoot me dead. Sure, some people carry knives in the UK to rob people, I'm not convinced we'd all be better off if we all had knives in our pockets.
Sounds like Columbine had armed security present and Virginia Tech had a whole police department on campus. So it would seem to having armed people on the scene does nothing to prevent these kind of things.
The NRA is also comparing the idea to Air Marshals, an agency that has not stopped a single terrorist attack even though they were on the same plane. That is not an agency I would hold up as your model.
d-usa wrote: Sounds like Columbine had armed security present and Virginia Tech had a whole police department on campus. So it would seem to having armed people on the scene does nothing to prevent these kind of things.
They had a campus police department, but that doesn't mean they were actually on the scene when the shooting happened (they weren't). It's like a small town having a police department, they still can't be on every block and every building at once. If I recall correctly, Virginia Tech's response time was also pretty crappy, unfortunately.
Howard A Treesong wrote: How many attempted public or school shootings have been foiled by armed security or by someone with concealed carry? How many people have been injured in accidents or unintentional shootings by armed security and concealed carry members of the public?
Actually the idea of members of the public carrying hidden guns so they can be a hero one day would concern me a little if I was living in the US. The potential for escalating situations by having more people pull guns, or just having people mis use them and end up injuring the wrong people, seems a fairly great risk as compared to the risk of someone just deciding to shoot me dead. Sure, some people carry knives in the UK to rob people, I'm not convinced we'd all be better off if we all had knives in our pockets.
– Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas. Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack. Total dead: Zero.
– Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two.
– Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
– Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates — as well as the “trained campus supervisor”; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
– Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman’s head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
– Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
Wherein the armed civilian dies himself, but saves a kid from the crazed gunman. He was, interestingly, the first shooter to wound the gunman, who was wearing a bulletproof vest.
d-usa wrote: Sounds like Columbine had armed security present and Virginia Tech had a whole police department on campus. So it would seem to having armed people on the scene does nothing to prevent these kind of things.
They had a campus police department, but that doesn't mean they were actually on the scene when the shooting happened (they weren't). It's like a small town having a police department, they still can't be on every block and every building at once. If I recall correctly, Virginia Tech's response time was also pretty crappy, unfortunately.
And an armed guard in a school is going to do what exactly when the bad guy starts shooting up children at the other end of the school?
And an armed guard in a school is going to do what exactly when the bad guy starts shooting up children at the other end of the school?
I might point out, if you've ever been to a school with armed guards, there's not just one of them. One of the schools I've done business with required a network overhaul that pulled part of their internal alarm system. Every time we pulled and replaced one of the teacher's panic buttons, there were two armed guards in the room the entire time that panic button was deactivated.
And an armed guard in a school is going to do what exactly when the bad guy starts shooting up children at the other end of the school?
I might point out, if you've ever been to a school with armed guards, there's not just one of them. One of the schools I've done business with required a network overhaul that pulled part of their internal alarm system. Every time we pulled and replaced one of the teacher's panic buttons, there were two armed guards in the room the entire time that panic button was deactivated.
So if the argument was "we need armed guards" and the counter arguments is "Columbine had them and Virginia Tech had them", then the counter argument is simply "We need more armed guards then"?
d-usa wrote: Sounds like Columbine had armed security present and Virginia Tech had a whole police department on campus. So it would seem to having armed people on the scene does nothing to prevent these kind of things.
They had a campus police department, but that doesn't mean they were actually on the scene when the shooting happened (they weren't). It's like a small town having a police department, they still can't be on every block and every building at once. If I recall correctly, Virginia Tech's response time was also pretty crappy, unfortunately.
And an armed guard in a school is going to do what exactly when the bad guy starts shooting up children at the other end of the school?
Hopefully respond as quickly as possible and either stop the shooter, or at least distract him before further help arrives. Being at the other end of a school building is a lot different than being at the other end of a small town or at the other end of a college campus.
The point is, having an armed guard is not a magic fix that is always guaranteed to work, but it increases the options and increases response time. An armed guard has an option other than fleeing for his life or lunging at the shooter while unarmed and getting shot like some of the staff and faculty at Sandy Hook.
What about getting shot like the staff and faculty and students at Columbine?
If the NRA is right about their idea that "putting armed guards in school" is the answer, and we are going to ignore history, then the liberals are also right about their idea that "more gun laws" are the answer. Because both were present at Columbine and both were equally effective.
And an armed guard in a school is going to do what exactly when the bad guy starts shooting up children at the other end of the school?
I might point out, if you've ever been to a school with armed guards, there's not just one of them. One of the schools I've done business with required a network overhaul that pulled part of their internal alarm system. Every time we pulled and replaced one of the teacher's panic buttons, there were two armed guards in the room the entire time that panic button was deactivated.
So if the argument was "we need armed guards" and the counter arguments is "Columbine had them and Virginia Tech had them", then the counter argument is simply "We need more armed guards then"?
I think it's fair to point out that the Columbine guard was a Sheriff's deputy, and police procedure for dealing with an active shooter was pretty different when Columbine happened. Back then, police would usually trying to contain the situation and wait for backup, but nowadays they are more likely to try to gain entry, even if they are alone. A good example of this is the Alrosa Villa shooting in Columbus, Ohio where Dimebag Darrell and several other people were killed. The first officer on the scene knew there was an active shooter, he entered the rear entrance alone and killed the shooter. There were more officers who went in the front entrance, but Officer Niggemeyer arrived first and went in the back by himself, but the point is, they all entered the building immediately and stopped a shooting that was still in progress. When Columbine happened, the officers waited a long time to enter the school, and it was all over by the time they actually went in.
In the case of Virginia Tech, the police response time was slow in general, and was further slowed by Cho barricading the entrances of the building he was in with chains.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
d-usa wrote: What about getting shot like the staff and faculty and students at Columbine?
No one on the staff and faculty were armed, other than the Sheriff's deputy, who left the building, traded shots with one of the shooters from outside of the building, and did not reenter the building after that.
There are some pretty specific reasons the armed guard was ineffective during the Columbine shooting, particularly that he seems to have taken a pretty passive role when dealing with the shooters, and police since Columbine tend to react at least a bit more aggressively when it comes to building entries during active shooter scenarios.
Also, allowing trained teachers to carry concealed in schools would be a bit different than having an armed guard or two in a school.
Another part of the problem is, our sample size is pretty friggin' small. A guard was ineffective at Columbine, the campus police responded slowly at Virginia Tech. That doesn't mean that guard or campus police responses are always going to be ineffective.
Another fact is that this is not going to last more than 5 years.
Schools are already strapped for cash, and the same people screaming for more security will scream against raising the taxes to pay for them and either teachers will be laid off or security will be relaxed.
It's a knee jerk reaction to something that will not be fixed by this. It's another case of "at least we are doing something" even though it does nothing.
These kids are 0.006% of people killed by guns this year alone. Lets be realistic and admit that school shootings are not the problem here.
d-usa wrote: Another fact is that this is not going to last more than 5 years.
Schools are already strapped for cash, and the same people screaming for more security will scream against raising the taxes to pay for them and either teachers will be laid off or security will be relaxed.
It's a knee jerk reaction to something that will not be fixed by this. It's another case of "at least we are doing something" even though it does nothing.
These kids are 0.006% of people killed by guns this year alone. Lets be realistic and admit that school shootings are not the problem here.
I get your arguments... and they're valid.
Simply put, having an armed present on campus and/or armed citizen in the population isn't a cure-all.
Can you agree that it gives those who are being shot at a chance to survive? Isn't that what we're really talking about?
d-usa wrote: Another fact is that this is not going to last more than 5 years.
Schools are already strapped for cash, and the same people screaming for more security will scream against raising the taxes to pay for them and either teachers will be laid off or security will be relaxed.
It's a knee jerk reaction to something that will not be fixed by this. It's another case of "at least we are doing something" even though it does nothing.
These kids are 0.006% of people killed by guns this year alone. Lets be realistic and admit that school shootings are not the problem here.
Oh, I agree with you that school shootings are really more of an anomaly statistically, and I'm not saying we need to have armed guards in every school. I'm just not ready to say that they're always going to be ineffective or unable to stop a shooting in progress. Whether or not a shooting is stopped is going to depend on some extremely situational factors. An armed person is going to increase the chances of being able to stop a shooter, but it is not a guarantee. The chances of stopping a shooter with an armed citizen or guard present is going to be a lot higher than the basically 0% chance of stopping a shooter if all the victims are unarmed though.
And yeah, a lot of schools are already screwed financially, but that's a whole other can of worms.
d-usa wrote: What about getting shot like the staff and faculty and students at Columbine?
If the NRA is right about their idea that "putting armed guards in school" is the answer, and we are going to ignore history, then the liberals are also right about their idea that "more gun laws" are the answer. Because both were present at Columbine and both were equally effective.
Come on D-Usa, you know the answer is MOAR GUNZ! It has always been MOAR GUNZ, and will always be MOAR GUNZ! Until we make something even MOAR BETTER than a gun!
These kids are 0.006% of people killed by guns this year alone. Lets be realistic and admit that school shootings are not the problem here.
And, as I pointed out, Harvard Law studies have shown that gun bans have no correlation to murder rates. They just use something else.
My view is this: as long as madmen are using guns, they're not using bombs. Bombs are harder to stop, easier to build, and can be made out of the contents of the average kitchen and garage. A man with a gun can kill dozens in a min. A man with a bomb can kill hundreds in a second.
My view is this: as long as madmen are using guns, they're not using bombs. Bombs are harder to stop, easier to build, and can be made out of the contents of the average kitchen and garage. A man with a gun can kill dozens in a min. A man with a bomb can kill hundreds in a second.
As I said pages ago there is no reason to presume that a man willing to go on a shooting spree is willing to put in the effort required to learn how to make a bomb, much as a man willing to make a bomb isn't necessarily willing to go on a shooting spree. The two simply aren't very tightly related, as Columbine and various incidences of domestic terrorism have shown.
dogma wrote: The two simply aren't very tightly related, as Columbine and various incidences of domestic terrorism have shown.
Um... Dogma, at Columbine they did use improvised explosives. The Aurora gunman did produce a large, complicated bomb. Frequently mass killings are not spur of the moment events that are enabled by the presence of firearms. They're very commonly things that the killer has put a great amount of time and effort into. David Hernandez Arroyo took the time to acquire better than average body armor for his attack at Tyler Courthouse.
If you want to talk domestic terrorism, McVeigh put a great deal of time into selecting his target for the OK City bombing, looking for a specific combination of Federal offices with the best chance of minimizing damage to surrounding structures.
Here's one for you to mull over, and granted, I'm taking this from wikipedia: Investigators have discovered that use of prescription drugs, primarily anti-depressants, is a commonality shared among perpetrators of the last six acts of mass violence which include Adam Lanza (Newtown Connecticut) James Holmes (Aurora Colorado) Cho Seung Hui (Virginia Tech) Steven Kazmierczak (Northern Illinois University)) Jeff Weise (Red Lake Minnesota) and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine). Additionally, concern has been raised over the discovery of such drugs accumulating in the Nation's drinking water supply due to their wide spread use
I don't know what Canada's rates are like with anti-depressant use, but maybe we should stop complaining about guns and look more closely at the US heavily medicated culture. Because a lot of these drugs now have side effects like 'Causes suicidal thoughts' or my favorites: 'may cause bouts of unreasonable aggression' and 'may cause long term alterations to brain chemistry'.
Kilkrazy wrote: You are missing the crucial point -- which I have already mentioned twice before and which has been pointed out by other users -- that the USA assault data only includes attacks with weapons, while the UK data includes attacks without weapons and also sex crimes, which are not included in the US data.
d-usa wrote: McVeigh didn't care to much about minimizing damages. He was also a fan of having a daycare in the building.
Sorry, that's not born out by trial testimony. McVeigh actually turned down the 40 story Federal Building in Arkansas on the grounds of excessive collateral damage to non-Federal targets. It was Federal agents, their friends and families he was targeting. One interesting thing that an EOD tech mentioned to me was that the explosive McVeigh used should not have done as extensive damage as was done to the building, except that the building had been built substandard, without many of the called for metal reinforcements most modern buildings have.
dogma wrote: The two simply aren't very tightly related, as Columbine and various incidences of domestic terrorism have shown.
Um... Dogma, at Columbine they did use improvised explosives.
Yes I'm aware, that's the point. As I explained, whether or not someone is willing to build and use a bomb is not tightly related to their willingness to use firearms. As examples of this I pointed to Columbine and incidences of domestic terrorism as events involving the usage of explosives, despite the wide availability of firearms, which would seem to indicate that guns do not prevent people from employing bombs.
Frequently mass killings are not spur of the moment events that are enabled by the presence of firearms.
Spur of the moment or not, the presence of firearms clearly enables mass killings. However, eliminating firearms will not make them go away, nor does sound regulation seek to eliminate firearms; but instead make them more difficult to obtain (and not just as regards mass killers).
At any rate, most mass killing do not involve meticulous planning. Planning yes, but not to the extent of bomb construction, which is why we see so few mass killings involving explosive devices.
Here's one for you to mull over, and granted, I'm taking this from wikipedia: Investigators have discovered that use of prescription drugs, primarily anti-depressants, is a commonality shared among perpetrators of the last six acts of mass violence which include Adam Lanza (Newtown Connecticut) James Holmes (Aurora Colorado) Cho Seung Hui (Virginia Tech) Steven Kazmierczak (Northern Illinois University)) Jeff Weise (Red Lake Minnesota) and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine). Additionally, concern has been raised over the discovery of such drugs accumulating in the Nation's drinking water supply due to their wide spread use
I don't know what Canada's rates are like with anti-depressant use, but maybe we should stop complaining about guns and look more closely at the US heavily medicated culture. Because a lot of these drugs now have side effects like 'Causes suicidal thoughts' or my favorites: 'may cause bouts of unreasonable aggression' and 'may cause long term alterations to brain chemistry'.
Shocking though it may seem, people who are taking anti-depressants tend to suffer from depression. Given this, it seems odd to point at the drugs and not the underlying mental illness.
As to side-effects, they've always been there, their presence isn't about changes in the drugs available, but in awareness of their effects. And of course they cause long-term alterations to brain chemistry, that's what mood altering drugs are supposed to do.
At any rate, most mass killing do not involve meticulous planning. Planning yes, but not to the extent of bomb construction, which is why we see so few mass killings involving explosive devices.
Sadly, that is a trend very much limited to the United States. Most of the rest of the world, mass killings still typically involve bombs.
Shocking though it may seem, people who are taking anti-depressants tend to suffer from depression. Given this, it seems odd to point at the drugs and not the underlying mental illness.
As to side-effects, they've always been there, their presence isn't about changes in the drugs available, but in awareness of their effects. And of course they cause long-term alterations to brain chemistry, that's what mood altering drugs are supposed to do.
Dogma, you have to be trying really hard to miss my point. I'm not talking the same anti-depressants that they used to prescribe, I'm talking things like serotonin inhibitors
Most of the symptoms that would lead a person to commit an act like this are not typically symptoms of depression. They are however, side effects of a certain class of anti-depressants (SSRIs), particularly what's known as 'discontinuation syndrome' or 'anti-depressant withdrawal'. Symptoms of the discontinuation syndrome can include agitation, anxiety, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, worsening of mood, dysphoria, crying spells or mood lability, overactivity or hyperactivity, depersonalization, and memory/concentration difficulties. These are on top the lingering side effects of headache, increase in suicidal thoughts, and sexual dysfunction. Onset is 1-7 days after taking an SSRI for a month or more, and can last months.
In about 11% of cases, these effects were permanent.
The most powerful side effects of this class come from a drug known as Paroxetine, commonly sold under the name Paxil. It's effect on young people was so marked that the European Medicines Agency's (EMEA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use issued warnings to doctors not to prescribe it to children and young adults due to it's negative effects on them, including most of the above.
One of the other characteristics were almost all of the shooters were young men who had been taking anti-depressants. I think that if we were to look, we'd find they were all taking SSRIs.
Dogma, you have to be trying really hard to miss my point. I'm not talking the same anti-depressants that they used to prescribe, I'm talking things like serotonin inhibitors
Then that's what you should have said. I am not a mind-reader, and what you wrote previously didn't even insinuate the above.
Also, the class of antidepressants you're referring to includes fluoxetine (Prozac), which is hardly a new drug.
Most of the symptoms that would lead a person to commit an act like this are not typically symptoms of depression.
I've had to re-write this several times, and I hope this is civil:
I've been depressed before. In fact, I'm at high risk for affliction because of my family history. You don't have to believe me, and I suspect that you most likely will not, but one of things that accompanies the loss of valuation of the self is the loss of valuation of everything else. I'm callous at the best of times, but I've found ways and means to mitigate that callousness in my personal life. I'm not going to delve deeper into my own history on account of an internet argument, but I will say that any claim that typical symptoms of MDD do not indicate a desire to rampage is absolutely false; and indicative of a poor understanding of what MDD actually is.
I have been/was/is (does it ever really go away?) been diagnosed with Massive Depressive Disorder (I prefer "Clinical Depression" because MDD can apparently be confusing... I had one person think it was Bipolar... >.< and while I can concur on valuation... I can't say I ever had a desire to "rampage".
I've had to re-write this several times, and I hope this is civil:
I've been depressed before. In fact, I'm at high risk for affliction because of my family history. You don't have to believe me, and I suspect that you most likely will not, but one of things that accompanies the loss of valuation of the self is the loss of valuation of everything else. I'm callous at the best of times, but I've found ways and means to mitigate that callousness in my personal life. I'm not going to delve deeper into my own history on account of an internet argument, but I will say that any claim that typical symptoms of MDD do not indicate a desire to rampage is absolutely false; and indicative of a poor understanding of what MDD actually is.
Dogma, I'm largely going by what I read and a friends experiences. What you're describing sounds like very severe MDD, but MDD like everything else in mental illness has a lot of variety. My understanding of it is most people who suffer from it are more likely to act against themselves than to lash out at another. In very intense examples it can resemble psychosis.
Diz tended toward the 'self loathing' end of the spectrum. She slipped her schedule about three days and got to experience discontinuation syndrome first hand.
I don't know your experiences, I can only go on what she told me, but according to her it was a thousand times worse than she had ever been before. She had been experiencing 'mild' depression (what her shrink told her, supposedly, not having experienced it first hand) before they prescribed Paxil to her (without disclosing all it's possible side effects) but discontinuation syndrome hit her hard enough that she literally tried to step out in front of a bus within two days of the earliest possible onset. I'm not sure how you'd view that, but I'd call it a several degree of magnitude difference.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: I have been/was/is (does it ever really go away?) been diagnosed with Massive Depressive Disorder (I prefer "Clinical Depression" because MDD can apparently be confusing... I had one person think it was Bipolar... >.< and while I can concur on valuation... I can't say I ever had a desire to "rampage".
I haven't either but I can see, knowing the symptoms of MDD, how some people might manifest such a desire.
She had been experiencing 'mild' depression (what her shrink told her, supposedly, not having experienced it first hand) before they prescribed Paxil to her (without disclosing all it's possible side effects) but discontinuation syndrome hit her hard enough that she literally tried to step out in front of a bus within two days of the earliest possible onset. I'm not sure how you'd view that, but I'd call it a several degree of magnitude difference.
I would guess that you were trying to blame someone other than your friend, for her death.
I don't really have enough experience with anti-depressants to comment. I took a lot of them. They made me fat and screwed with my head. I'm no longer fat (by fat I mean went from 172lbs to over 230lbs) and you'd have to tie me down and forcibly inject me to get me to take them again. They got me through a critical time period... but those things are scary.
I would guess that you were trying to blame someone other than your friend, for her death.
Well, if she was dead, you'd have a point. After she got out of the hospital, they slowly phased her off Paxil and switched her to something else. She's been ok for a year now, and isn't taking anything at all now.
Kalashnikov, I can say, reading all the things I have lately, I'm glad that I've absolutely refused any medication for my 'mental illnesses' (ICD) as they wanted to put me on SSRId as well. (Speed before that) I'll pass.
So after everyone has begun blaming everyone else (such as the NRA blaming violent video games, movies, the media and pretty much everything else but guns) Tycho and Gabe at Penny Arcade have come in with this:
Spoiler:
It’s rare, but not completely unheard of, for us to check in on some political thing. It’s something we’re reticent to do; it’s easy to do wrong, and usually is, and so we avoid it the same way you might avoid any other treacherous pit.
The trouble is that, occasionally, an entity can dig a trench of this kind entirely around you, and it cannot be avoided. For the purposes of the metaphor, flight is impossible; I know you are enthusiastic about games, and have already begun to devise a method of escape. I appreciate it! Let me know.
You may resent such incursions as today’s strip, and rest assured, I resent them also. I vastly prefer our ordinary business, which may be thought of as the application of psychic unguents. I don’t have any particular interest in carrying water for the Gaming Industrial Complex, which is fraught on its best day, like any human endeavor. I sure as gak don’t give it unfettered access to my children. But I couldn’t be expected to sit completely inert on a day when ALL media - every way that a society talks to itself, every form of communication - was being set up the bomb. It was beyond surreal, and drove a wedge straight through their own base of support; their choice of boogeyman made it generational. It’s the same message I heard in church circa 1986, frankly. The message discipline is incredible.
I grew up in a hunting family; I’m not afraid of guns, but I certainly don’t worship them. They are devices which throw lethal metal at high speeds. I mean, right? It stands to reason that such devices would be correlated with injury, and it stands to reason that we could discuss the extent to which these injuries could be foreseen or avoided. If you don’t want me to talk about this kind of stuff, go make your world less dumb. That will deprive me of the opportunity.
Merry Christmas, or your localized Christmas equivalent,
A Town Called Malus wrote: So after everyone has begun blaming everyone else (such as the NRA blaming violent video games, movies, the media and pretty much everything else but guns) Tycho and Gabe at Penny Arcade have come in with this:
That was my primary issue with the NRA's statement. (Though why blame guns when there's a perfectly good dead lunatic to hold responsible?). This is also the general area I bid the conservatives in the US a... well it's not fond, more of a handshake and awkward slouch into no man's land between the two entrenched forces. Both factions have issues with restricting things they don't like generally speaking, whether it's the rights of others to do things they don't like (like say get married, or play a video game) or in the other trench do terrible things like say mean things. Not grouping everyone together or anything, not saying every Rep or Dem is like that, but both parties could stand to pay a bit more attention to the constitution.
Well, if she was dead, you'd have a point. After she got out of the hospital, they slowly phased her off Paxil and switched her to something else. She's been ok for a year now, and isn't taking anything at all now.
I assumed that, in light of the discussion of suicide, that she had taken her own life. My mistake, and good that she's still on this mortal coil.
Discontinuation syndrome is terrible, however withdrawal in the wake of taking a given drug for extended periods of time is not unique to antidepressants. It sort of just goes with the territory when taking any such substance for extended periods, though severity will obviously vary.
dogma wrote: It sort of just goes with the territory when taking any such substance for extended periods, though severity will obviously vary.
Which was sort of my point. I'm thinking that these guys might represent a 'worst case scenario'. Someone still functional, but left devoid of valuation of life or empathy, and motivated by irrational anger or frustration.
There are very few things they all have in common: they're all young men (the most 'at risk' demographic), they all were taking anti-depressants. Everything else is all over the place.
While it's still rarer than being struck by lightening, it's seemingly much more frequent than in the rest of the world, even in countries with similar levels of firearm availability. So something is obviously in play here.
How do they know who has a gun and who doesn't? Only those that have a licence, and people sell guns second hand, or pass them to friends. One obvious problem with tackling gun ownership is that you just don't know for sure how many guns there are and who has them. And if anyone does break into someone's house thinking they'll be safe they'll be in for a nasty surprise. Little good can come of publishing this information.
Howard A Treesong wrote: How do they know who has a gun and who doesn't? Only those that have a licence, and people sell guns second hand, or pass them to friends. One obvious problem with tackling gun ownership is that you just don't know for sure how many guns there are and who has them. And if anyone does break into someone's house thinking they'll be safe they'll be in for a nasty surprise. Little good can come of publishing this information.
In New York, you're required to get a license in order to own a pistol. New York, as far as I'm aware, is a "may issue" state, which means the government's under no obligation to furnish you with the license just because you applied. Consequently, it wouldn't really shock me if the bulk of those folks were either active or retired LEOs of varying stripes.
In New York, you're required to get a license in order to own a pistol. New York, as far as I'm aware, is a "may issue" state, which means the government's under no obligation to furnish you with the license just because you applied. Consequently, it wouldn't really shock me if the bulk of those folks were either active or retired LEOs of varying stripes.
My understanding was that was New York City, not New York State. Further, there's a big hole in that: Native Reservations and Pennsylvania. NY and PA reciprocate, so if you have a PA license or permit, NY honors it. On the res, gun laws in general pretty much go out the window, as they typically don't have any, and are under very little obligation to enforce US law. You can't sell guns to natives on the res, but it doesn't mean natives can't sell gun to you.
Which was sort of my point. I'm thinking that these guys might represent a 'worst case scenario'. Someone still functional, but left devoid of valuation of life or empathy, and motivated by irrational anger or frustration.
A 'worst case scenario' of what? Depression? Again, I don't know why you're focusing on the medication.
The one thing we can probably agree on is that medication isn't enough. It must also be accompanied by therapy. Also, people should be more tolerant of the need for therapy, as the stigma associated with it dissuades many people from seeking it.
BaronIveagh wrote: My understanding was that was New York City, not New York State. Further, there's a big hole in that: Native Reservations and Pennsylvania. NY and PA reciprocate, so if you have a PA license or permit, NY honors it. On the res, gun laws in general pretty much go out the window, as they typically don't have any, and are under very little obligation to enforce US law. You can't sell guns to natives on the res, but it doesn't mean natives can't sell gun to you.
Really? I thought it was all of New York state. I'll have to do a little more digging.
Edit: Well, that didn't take long. Seems the reporter, the publisher, and the CEO of Gannet have all had their home addresses and phone numbers, culled from public data, posted on a few different sites around the net. I suspect people who object to this particular stunt will be calling to politely discuss their grievances over the next few days.
A 'worst case scenario' of what? Depression? Again, I don't know why you're focusing on the medication.
The one thing we can probably agree on is that medication isn't enough. It must also be accompanied by therapy. Also, people should be more tolerant of the need for therapy, as the stigma associated with it dissuades many people from seeking it.
Because it's not like people in other places don't get depressed. Even places with access to guns. What they don't have is the same prescription guidelines as the US. Further, some of the shooters, based on what limited information I was able to dig up, were not on anti-depressants to treat depression. SSRIs are used to treat several other mental issues, including ICD, which I suffer from. (There's a nightmare for you guys.) I can say from my own experiences that someone like me, an Impulsive-Compulsive, would be the worst person imaginable to have go through discontinuation syndrome. Total divorce from humanity, no thought of consequences, methodical, hyperactive, and aggressive. '
Consider this: about the age of these killers, I deliberately gave a man 3rd degree burns with a hot piece of steel and laughed as he screamed (in my defense, he started off with a gun). Do you understand why I say that adding something like discontinuation syndrome on top that would lead to things like school shootings and mass murder?
Though I do agree about the therapy thing. Though, granted, it doesn't really help some of us, I like to imagine I'm in the minority on that.
From my facebook wall in response to me posting this: "NRA within the next 48 hours: Firefighters need to be armed."
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Stupid idiot I happen to have as a friend on facebook: "More gun purchases are because of Obama's plan to continue enacting Agenda 21, this is part of it. Wouldn't doubt it if these shooters had the exact same weapons and bulletproof vests already supplied to the CT school shooting and the Batman massacre. Irony would be more outstanding than it already is!
Connect the dots dude, is pretty obvious. I know you like good conspiracy theories, you've posted enough of them in the past, but look into the early witness reports for both shootings, and the police helicopter video for the CT school shooting, and tell me what you learn from it. Also, why are the Batman shooter and CT school shooter's weapons of choice almost identical? AR-15 Bushmaster with hundreds of rounds, Glock in .40cal, 12 gauge shotgun, etc. CT school shooter had a SIG 9mms well, but still...... Look up the dots instead of replying with a youtube video, things are getting out of hand down there. if this happened under Bush admin, you'd be all over it."
My reply: I'm sorry **** but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Prp615mmDk -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fact that people believe this stuff is incredibly depressing, especially in the wake of seeing gun sales skyrocket across the states.
I'd be fething livid if a newspaper published my name and address on the Internet in connection with anything. Especially my ownership of a tool I'm morally obligated to safeguard in my absence. Why don't we make an interactive map of the people with burgler alarms and children of molestable age with profile pics for the decerning pedo.
Much like I think we have more or less agreed in that other thread. "legal" and "moral" aren't synonymous. I'd probably be inspired to beat the gak out of the editors who put that together.
True, but compiling a report of, say, all the nuclear facilities that failed their hostile intruder tests with dates and times probably wouldn't be a good thing, even though they are also public record.
I wouldn't, because they get into how security was circumvented in each location. Hanging out a sign that says 'poorly secured nuclear material here!' isn't a good idea.
Even Illinois disagrees. They've repeatedly denied access to FOID information when the media and even state attorney general has demanded it it be made open to the public.
Edit: FOID is Firearm Owner I.D. It's Illinois version of registration. The State Police are the only ones who have access to the information.
d-usa wrote: That would probably depend on state laws then. If it is public record in NY then publishing it is fine.
At the time there was no law preventing it's release. The FOIA was made, and the State Police denied it. The State Attorney General demanded they release it, and the State Legislature passed a bill protecting the information. They acted as a responsible government in that case.
d-usa wrote: Then make it more secure. Maybe a bunch of pissed of neighbors contacting their congressman will force them to make things more secure.
The only neighbors the nuclear industry has are eight foot dandelions. No one in their right mind lives next to a nuclear plant. And Congress are the ones that demanded the studies in the first place. And then did nothing about them. There have been dozens of letter writing and petition drives over the years. They have managed to do feth all.
You must have missed out on how the Washington-Big Business dynamic works. 'We the People' don't even get a reach around.
d-usa wrote: And you are advocating that "we the people" don't deserve the information we are legally entitled to if the information is bad.
The problem is what will be done with that information. Let's say I do an FOIA search and find the Government has been squirreling away a design that would allow the average homeowner to build a 40 megaton thermonuclear weapon using every day items he has around the house. Which is the right thing to do, keep it under my hat, or post it in it's entirety on the internet? Or on the cover of Time?
I hate to say it, but most people would gak on the common good to get ahead. So what if the fact you smear the information all over the public forum to make a quick buck gets people killed? It's not your responsibility that others took the information that you published and used it to rape, rob and murder hundreds, thousands, possibly millions, depending on what it is and how dangerous...
"If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." - Albert Einstein on Nuclear War.
Even Illinois disagrees. They've repeatedly denied access to FOID information when the media and even state attorney general has demanded it it be made open to the public.
No, they agree. Illinois altered its FOIA law by creating a special exemption after Madigan's office, correctly, ruled that FOID lists were public record.
Actually law enforcement already knew. The point was that random people on the internet had no business knowing. Which I can agree with.
I'm aware that law enforcement already knew. I am also aware that the point djones520 was making involved a claim to privacy with respect to the public, because he explicitly stated that fact. The point I was making, which you seem to have missed (though I could have explicitly stated it), is that the people who control firearm registries (broadly: the government) determine who has access to them. If those people decide firearm registries are a matter of public record, then they are a matter of public record.
Obviously with the government not being a monolith things are more complicated than that (as demonstrated by the Illinois case), but the general idea remains consistent.
Actually law enforcement already knew. The point was that random people on the internet had no business knowing. Which I can agree with.
I'm aware that law enforcement already knew. I am also aware that the point djones520 was making involved a claim to privacy with respect to the public, because he explicitly stated that fact. The point I was making, which you seem to have missed (though I could have explicitly stated it), is that the people who control firearm registries (broadly: the government) determine who has access to them. If those people decide firearm registries are a matter of public record, then they are a matter of public record.
Obviously with the government not being a monolith things are more complicated than that (as demonstrated by the Illinois case), but the general idea remains consistent.
There are a lot of thing that are a matter of public record (under the law) though that really shouldn't be spewed by the mass media. Example: PA keeps a list of every single person in the state of PA diagnosed with AIDs (ostensibly because it's considered a 'disability' under the law). It is, technically, a matter of public record. However, the only thing that publishing it like the gun registry list was, would be to destroy people's lives even further than they already are.
Further, the drones that process FOIA requests are not too bright at times. I've seen things released that probably should have been redacted or flat out refused due to the potential for public harm they represented.
Just because a state "keeps a list" doesn't mean it's public record. The law will state if the general public is entitled to the information.
How is knowing who is licensed to own guns going to ruin lives? It doesn't seem like that many pages ago that everybody was arguing that knowing there are armed people somewhere would make the world safer.
d-usa wrote: Just because a state "keeps a list" doesn't mean it's public record. The law will state if the general public is entitled to the information.
How is knowing who is licensed to own guns going to ruin lives? It doesn't seem like that many pages ago that everybody was arguing that knowing there are armed people somewhere would make the world safer.
I doubt it'll ruin lives. I'm not overly concerned with people knowing who is and is not armed in two counties in New York using information that's, according to many folks around the 'net who used to live there, hilariously outdated.
I think it's a bit fanciful to suggest there was no intent behind this little stunt, though, and that the intent wasn't favorable towards law-abiding gun owners.
d-usa wrote: Just because a state "keeps a list" doesn't mean it's public record. The law will state if the general public is entitled to the information.
How is knowing who is licensed to own guns going to ruin lives? It doesn't seem like that many pages ago that everybody was arguing that knowing there are armed people somewhere would make the world safer.
The general public is entitled to all government records, in theory, under the law, past a certain date. They actively re-classify some things. Others they pass laws exempting a particular piece of information.
The Federal version prohibits requests that are “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy". As does New York's law. Which is why I suggest that this may be a case of a FOIA request that should not have been granted.
Publishing a map where the licensed guns owners is a slippery slope. In itself, it doesn't bother me except it might give the criminal element information of where NOT to conduct their crimes.
Let me put it another way:
Let’s instead pretend it is a list of the names and addresses of all the people who work at planned parenthood or trained people in abortion in the New York area... and let's take it a bit further and hypothetically say it's published by a Christian organization with a title of: The killers next door, what you don’t know about the abortionists in your neighborhood.
What would be your response?
<please, don't bring in objection/support of abortion here, I'm just arguing whether "publishing" names/locations of people doing/having legal things.>
d-usa wrote: Is planned parenthood a government agency? So it has nothing to do with the situation.
And all physicians are already online in Oklahoma, including where they work. So I can already get that information.
Why does the pre-requisite need to be a government agency?
You're not answering my question.
A) It's legal to own firearms, but in NY you need to be licensed thus the state knows who and where you live.
B) In NY, it's legal to perform abortions and since they're licensed medical professionals, the state knows where they work and live.
Both A and B are legal.
If you're okay with some news agency (Gannett) publishing the whereabouts of the licensed gun owners, then you ought to be okay with Gannett (hypotetically) publishing the whereabout of those who works at Planned Parenthood.
Me... it's a slippery slope and wouldn't allow this sort of thing to happen, but I'm not sure if Gannett broke any laws.
d-usa wrote: Is planned parenthood a government agency? So it has nothing to do with the situation.
And all physicians are already online in Oklahoma, including where they work. So I can already get that information.
Why does the pre-requisite need to be a government agency?
Because government agencies are covered by various laws that state that information is either supposed to be available for public release or not. Nobody published the membership roll of the NRA (a private agency). So we are talking about the publishing of a public record, obtained legally and available for all to see.
You're not answering my question.
I did, but let me break down the straw man for you some more.
A) It's legal to own firearms, but in NY you need to be licensed thus the state knows who and where you live.
And if the law states that the names of handgun license owners is a public record and available for release to the public then there is nothing wrong with publishing it.
B) In NY, it's legal to perform abortions and since they're licensed medical professionals, the state knows where they work and live.
And I would imagine that NY is similar to Oklahoma in that the names, licenses, education, residency, and place of employment is available for all to see. I doubt that there is a special "abortion license" that classifies those providers separately.
Both A and B are legal.
Yes.
If you're okay with some news agency (Gannett) publishing the whereabouts of the licensed gun owners, then you ought to be okay with Gannett (hypotetically) publishing the whereabout of those who works at Planned Parenthood.
If I am okay with some news agency publishing the whereabouts of the licensed gun owners, then I am okay with a news agency publishing the names and addresses of physicians licensed in the state. Like I said before, Oklahoma already makes that info available by going to the state website. My information is there for all to see as is the information for my wife. Planned Parenthood is not a government agency and is under no obligation to release the list of their employees, so trying to single them out has absolutely nothing to do with government information that is a public record.
Me... it's a slippery slope and wouldn't allow this sort of thing to happen, but I'm not sure if Gannett broke any laws.
The law is the law, irregardless of personal feelings.
d-usa wrote: Is planned parenthood a government agency? So it has nothing to do with the situation.
Actually it receives government funding, so, yes, quite a few of those addresses are a matter of public record.
I do find it ironic that you're anti-gun, but in favor of actions that could potentially destroy more lives than Bosnia. The reason that the gun license thing is bad is not that it, in and of itself, is bad (though it's damn invasive) but the precedent it sets. There are lists an sets of information that would be far, far more damaging to large numbers of people's lives if published, that are 'public record'.
I did like the example someone gave of lists and pictures of all the children in a given area, and their addresses. Those too, are a matter of public record now. Imagine pedophiles cherry picking (ho ho a pun) through such a list! People don't realize that information is far, far more powerful than any gun.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
d-usa wrote: [
The law is the law, irregardless of personal feelings.
If that's true, then they certainly didn't follow it in New York when the released that information. According to the law, an 'invasive' request is to be turned down. Further, it states that to NOT be an invasive request, the addresses and identifying information have to be redacted.
This release was politically motivated, pure and simple.
d-usa wrote: Is planned parenthood a government agency? So it has nothing to do with the situation.
Actually it receives government funding, so, yes, quite a few of those addresses are a matter of public record.
Receiving public funding doesn't mean that all your records are public records. They are not a government agency, they release the relevant records that they have to. But employee lists are most likely not one of them.
And like I said over and over again now. All physicians are available already anyway. The majority (if not all) states have that information online, just click the button and go look. There is most likely not a separate "abortion" license though.
I did like the example someone gave of lists and pictures of all the children in a given area, and their addresses. Those too, are a matter of public record now. Imagine pedophiles cherry picking (ho ho a pun) through such a list! People don't realize that information is far, far more powerful than any gun.
I think people are giving themselves pretty free reign regarding the definition of "public records". AIDS patients (Health Department lists are public record!) are protected by specific privacy laws, Schools are protected by specific privacy laws. Again, if you want to compare the release and publishing of information that was legally shared then please compare them with the release of other information that was legally shared. Comparing legally released information with the hypothetical release of information that is protected by separate privacy laws and prohibited from release is dumb.
This release was politically motivated, pure and simple.
Which does not make it illegal.
I do find it ironic that you're anti-gun, but in favor of actions that could potentially destroy more lives than Bosnia.
Feel free to enlighten me how you come to the conclusion that I am anti-gun...
d-usa wrote: Is planned parenthood a government agency? So it has nothing to do with the situation.
And all physicians are already online in Oklahoma, including where they work. So I can already get that information.
Why does the pre-requisite need to be a government agency?
Because government agencies are covered by various laws that state that information is either supposed to be available for public release or not. Nobody published the membership roll of the NRA (a private agency). So we are talking about the publishing of a public record, obtained legally and available for all to see.
Yes... I'm following you...
You're not answering my question.
I did, but let me break down the straw man for you some more.
No, you didn't. You're simply arguing why the question isn't relevant.
A) It's legal to own firearms, but in NY you need to be licensed thus the state knows who and where you live.
And if the law states that the names of handgun license owners is a public record and available for release to the public then there is nothing wrong with publishing it.
Sure... I wasn't arguing if it was legal... only questioning if it should be made public.
B) In NY, it's legal to perform abortions and since they're licensed medical professionals, the state knows where they work and live.
And I would imagine that NY is similar to Oklahoma in that the names, licenses, education, residency, and place of employment is available for all to see. I doubt that there is a special "abortion license" that classifies those providers separately.
Sure... that's the crux.
State license would contain where the physician would practice, hence it'd be quite easy to determine which licensed individual is working for Planned Parenthood. However, that license would also have their home address. THAT shouldn't be made public.
Both A and B are legal.
Yes.
Glad we agree on something!
If you're okay with some news agency (Gannett) publishing the whereabouts of the licensed gun owners, then you ought to be okay with Gannett (hypotetically) publishing the whereabout of those who works at Planned Parenthood.
If I am okay with some news agency publishing the whereabouts of the licensed gun owners, then I am okay with a news agency publishing the names and addresses of physicians licensed in the state. Like I said before, Oklahoma already makes that info available by going to the state website. My information is there for all to see as is the information for my wife.
Okay... glad we have an understanding.
Planned Parenthood is not a government agency and is under no obligation to release the list of their employees, so trying to single them out has absolutely nothing to do with government information that is a public record.
And here's where you are wrong.
If you're claiming that because the state has "licensed" individual for firearms, and because of that it could be (it may not) be made public WHERE these licensee live, then you're okay with it.
My argument is that, it isn't far-fetched to correlate to which physician is working for PP and THEN correlate the physician's home address, as that information would be with the license information. Then anybody with an agenda (ie, a Christian Anti-Abortion publican) can publish a map showing WHERE the physician lives.
SLIPPERY.SLOPE.
Me... it's a slippery slope and wouldn't allow this sort of thing to happen, but I'm not sure if Gannett broke any laws.
The law is the law, irregardless of personal feelings.
There is something you can do: Quit whining about it on the internet, investigate what the laws are that affect you, and start working on getting them changed.
d-usa wrote: There is something you can do: Quit whining about it on the internet, investigate what the laws are that affect you, and start working on getting them changed.
Me "whining"?
Jeez... forget your coffee this morning? o.O
I was just pointing out what a slippery slope this is...
Oh... @Baron, D ain't "anti-gunz"... he just likes to argue.
There are a lot of thing that are a matter of public record (under the law) though that really shouldn't be spewed by the mass media. Example: PA keeps a list of every single person in the state of PA diagnosed with AIDs (ostensibly because it's considered a 'disability' under the law). It is, technically, a matter of public record.
No, it almost certainly isn't. The concept of public record refers to all non-confidential information held by a government body. In other words, records available to the public.
Further, the drones that process FOIA requests are not too bright at times. I've seen things released that probably should have been redacted or flat out refused due to the potential for public harm they represented.
FOIA requests cannot be denied on the basis of potential public harm.
d-usa wrote:Just because a state "keeps a list" doesn't mean it's public record. The law will state if the general public is entitled to the information.
How is knowing who is licensed to own guns going to ruin lives? It doesn't seem like that many pages ago that everybody was arguing that knowing there are armed people somewhere would make the world safer.
Germany 1938 wrote: I don't understand what you have against the registration of certain people's property being a matter of public record. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?
I think people are giving themselves pretty free reign regarding the definition of "public records". AIDS patients (Health Department lists are public record!) are protected by specific privacy laws, Schools are protected by specific privacy laws. Again, if you want to compare the release and publishing of information that was legally shared then please compare them with the release of other information that was legally shared. Comparing legally released information with the hypothetical release of information that is protected by separate privacy laws and prohibited from release is dumb.
I wasn't The list in question is kept by PA's department of labor. OVR applications are not protected by privacy laws, and one of the requirements in an OVR application is disclosure of your disability. Since AiDs is a disability in PA, yes, you can get the list that way, as department of labor works by different rules than the Health Department.
So don't presume you know what you're talking about when it comes to other states laws and how hte rules for them work.
To the Fethers who tried to blame this on Mass Effect, go feth youselves.
A bunch of idiots tried to blame the shooting on Mass Effect when they saw the facebook page of a guy who they thought was the killer and saw that he was a fan of the games. They got the wrong guy for one, and anyone who suggests banning art in any of it's forms is a fethtard. Sorry about the rant there, but that REALLY pisses me off.
GalacticDefender wrote: To the Fethers who tried to blame this on Mass Effect, go feth youselves.
A bunch of idiots tried to blame the shooting on Mass Effect when they saw the facebook page of a guy who they thought was the killer and saw that he was a fan of the games. They got the wrong guy for one, and anyone who suggests banning art in any of it's forms is a fethtard. Sorry about the rant there, but that REALLY pisses me off.
Mass Effect? THAT game?
Sheeet... I can think of a more violent game than THAT!
Like Demon Souls... that game was so torturous and frustrating, its no wonder no one didn't go psycho! (I'm kidding guys...).
GalacticDefender wrote: To the Fethers who tried to blame this on Mass Effect, go feth youselves.
A bunch of idiots tried to blame the shooting on Mass Effect when they saw the facebook page of a guy who they thought was the killer and saw that he was a fan of the games. They got the wrong guy for one, and anyone who suggests banning art in any of it's forms is a fethtard. Sorry about the rant there, but that REALLY pisses me off.
Yeah poor Ryan Lanza being mistaken for his brother... on the day his mother was murdered by said brother. I think it's fair to award that guy a "worst day of the year" award.
That said the guy's FB said he was into community theater... and if that's not a sign of a mentally unstable, dangerous individual, I don't know what is.
I understand most of the knee jerk reactions to gaming and games connected to violence IRL, especially when there's an ACTUAL connection, but ME's facebook page got mass spammed with thousands of hate comments about how they caused the spree. The other knee jerks cover a wide spectrum for a variety of reasons but blaming an inanimate object safely owned and used by millions upon millions of people world wide without incident mystifies me.
My theory is we've reached a point as a culture where we're so wimpy and shy of personal responsibility that even in extreme situations we can't accept that every bad thing ever past "acts of god" happen because people make choices.
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
120 specifically-named firearms
Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
Background check of owner and any transferee;
Type and serial number of the firearm;
Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration
If this goes through, every firearm I own except my 1911 becomes an NFA gun.
Here is something interesting; an interactive map showing gun owners who are licensed to carry guns within Westchester county, spurred by a newspaper who obtained this information legally over the shooting:
WarOne wrote: Here is something interesting; an interactive map showing gun owners who are licensed to carry guns within Westchester county, spurred by a newspaper who obtained this information legally over the shooting:
You must not have read the last few pages. And the legality is questionable, as under New York's FOI law, the personal information such as addresses should have been redacted.
BaronIveagh wrote: You must not have read the last few pages. And the legality is questionable, as under New York's FOI law, the personal information such as addresses should have been redacted.
