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With all the things out there that cause so much death and mahem, why is it that guns seem to get such a, in my mind anyway, disproportionate amount of blame? I keep seeing references to Columbine and all of the students killed there along with well publicized yearly memorials, gun crimes, ect., and it seems that the news does not lose step talking about how more gun control should be put in place.
I don't ever see anything about this, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrollton,_Kentucky_bus_collision

Just to put this in context, I remember when this was on the news years ago, and there were nothing more th an scattered reports after a couple of weeks.

There were more than twice as many children killed, but there isn't any breast beating here on the news. If a teenager walked into a party blindfolded and started shooting at random, not knowing if he was going to hit someone or not, it'd be a major news item that would be hashedover for weeks. Put the same teen driving drunk in a car and hitting someone, it'd likely be a one or two day news item, quickly forgotten.
I wonder how many advocates of gun control don't think twice about driving drunk or stoned or buy drugs from Mexico.
Just some half formed thoughts I have going on at the moment. Feel free to add to this or tell me I'm up in the night.

I'd say its because by their very nature guns are made to destroy or kill - buses and cars, while they kill more on average than guns, aren't really made to kill things.

Because to some people, perceived intent supersedes reality.

A car is automatically morally superior to a firearm, even if the car kills 100,000 times more people than all firearms combined, because the car is not "Designed to kill"....as if this mattered, and as if that function did not have merit all on its own.

Second, you have these same people generally seem to equate the word "Killing" with "Murder"...which it is not, but when you are of the mind that the man who crushes another mans skull because he found this person raping his mother is no different than the man who kills another for the sake of killing...well...my opinions of this "thinking" aside, this person will view ANY weapon as a morally disgusting -idea-, let alone as a real physical object.

Thirdly, you have the camp of "It's dishonorable or too easy to use a gun!" .....This group in my experience contains the masses who may have watched too much anime and lord of the rings, and somehow attach "Honor" to the idea of people trying to hack each other apart like animals, which is simultaneously something missing when the parties are shooting at each other. These people may also be ignorant of the realities of fighting with a sword, polearm, other melee weapon, a firearm, unarmed, or in my experience...all of the above.

You have the group that projects themselves, for example, if you have ever heard the words "People shouldn't have guns. They'll get angry and shoot someone." ...well...I have five bucks towards what most of them are REALLY saying is "-I- have zero self control, and if I got mad I would physically attack someone, and I can't be unusual or weird...I HAVE to be normal! Thus, everyone else would have the same reaction as me!"

You have those who actively fear their neighbors. You have statists, who have their own interests in making sure that the peasantry cannot one day get angry and decide to knock them off their throne. You have people who cannot function without the status-quo being maintained and want to avoid the previous scenario as a result.

....I could go on and on.

Oh, but I will finish with this:

I wonder how many advocates of gun control don't think twice about driving drunk or stoned or buy drugs from Mexico.

How about politicians that advocate gun control and also carry concealed? For me, but not for thee...

However much blame you attach on the drunk driver in that incident it is still, at it's base, an accident. He didn't intend to cause those deaths. Comparing that to a massacre where the facilitating components are guns is not going to help you much as far as your argument is concerned.

It's an inherently dangerous tool. Guns give one person the ability to kill many with no more than the twitch of a finger (and generally a modicum of practice). A HAND gun is by it's very design meant to kill people and serves little other purpose. I've hunted bot large and small game with pistols and it's not practical it's a challenge.
A good comparison, though much older, is a sword. Where a bow, axe, even a spear all have functional uses out side homicide; a sword does not. Guns in a similar fashion carry the same connotation swords once held. A weapon carried by a man (or woman) ready and willing to kill another man.
Especially in a culture where guns are not a part of ordinary life they carry an even greater threat. Lack of experience makes an already deadly tool a hazard as dangerous as a downed powerline. In a culture where guns ARE a part of ordinary life, but two opposing camps are arguing their continuing legality both sides have a vested interest in inculcating the general public with two pretty basic messages: guns good and guns bad. There's plenty of room in between but the opposing camps and their supporters can't allow that space to exist lest they compromise and lose monetary and political power.
If you've taken a look at the various gun/shooting threads that have popped up on Dakka you've probably seen mattyrm's comments. He has a really good grasp on reality, where it's ok to like and respect guns and feel safer without them. But also to accept a country where the proliferation of firearms, and the firearms industry are as deeply rooted (sometimes more deeply) as the law of the land, and not feel the need to rail against it.

He didn't intend to cause those deaths.

Tell me, if someone goes to a gun range drunk, and while drunk, sweeps the line with his rifle and puts a rifle round through five or six people, does he still get a pass because he didn't have an intention of causing harm to anything but a piece of paper?

If I go to the welding shop drunk, and drop my O/A torch onto my gas lines/tanks, and blow up half the building, should I survive do I also get a pass because "But I didn't MEAAAAN to!"?

There is a point at which someones disregard for others becomes just as bad as outright malice. Getting yourself drunk or high and then operating a very dangerous machine qualifies.

Yah do not hear about school shootings with crossbows.

ifStatement wrote:However much blame you attach on the drunk driver in that incident it is still, at it's base, an accident. He didn't intend to cause those deaths. Comparing that to a massacre where the facilitating components are guns is not going to help you much as far as your argument is concerned.

I can make a bomb out of Vaseline and the salt for your water softener. If I use them for a massacre do I still get the moral high ground to site my artillery?

Yah do not hear about school shootings with crossbows.

Australia begs to differ. If someone is intent on attacking a school, they will. Crossbow, knife, gun, flamethrower (Hi Germany.)...

Political reasons. The right to own guns is in the constitution. Taking about restricting guns or easing restrictions can be used in a way to get more votes or reduce the votes of the opponent.

The news jumps on this as it helps with ratings as a murder spree would appear much more interesting at glance than a bus crash. Both have a similar result, but the one with the weapon can be played up as being brutal, there being also an easy target to throw blame and hatred at. If someone did the same with a knife it would be roughly the same, the reason they don't is it's going to be easier to walk into a place and unload a gun then run around stabbing people. Not to mention it's easier for the victims to defend themselves against a knife attack than it is against a shooting.

SOFDC wrote:There is a point at which someones disregard for others becomes just as bad as outright malice. Getting yourself drunk or high and then operating a very dangerous machine qualifies.

You do realise in the context of what you are responding to you are saying several deaths caused by a drunk driver in a car accident is comparable to a couple of guys walking into a school and shooting down a bunch of kids? That was the comparison he made and which i was commenting on.

You do realise in the context of what you are responding to you are saying several deaths caused by a drunk driver in a car accident is comparable to a couple of guys walking into a school and shooting down a bunch of kids?

Yes. Carefully read my post, specifically the last two lines.

SOFDC wrote:

You do realise in the context of what you are responding to you are saying several deaths caused by a drunk driver in a car accident is comparable to a couple of guys walking into a school and shooting down a bunch of kids?

Yes. Carefully read my post, specifically the last two lines.

I did. You seem to have gone off on a tangent about how it should be considered a guilty act regardless of intent. When I didn't say any different. I was commenting on his silly comparison between those two examples.

The difference is murder and manslaughter.

n0t_u wrote:The difference is murder and manslaughter.

No the difference is mass murder and Involuntary manslaughter.

You seem to have gone off on a tangent about how it should be considered a guilty act regardless of intent. When I didn't say any different.

No? Then how are they different? Because one was "An accident"? Again "I didn't MEAN to!" doesn't work very well as a defense in the drunk drivers case..or any similar situation.

I was commenting on his silly comparison between those two examples.

Not the best comparison in the world, but I wouldn't call it silly either.

EDIT: I am not speaking in terms of legal charges, defenses, or the like. I am trying to keep the legal side out of this as much as possible, frankly.

SOFDC wrote:EDIT: I am not speaking in terms of legal charges, defenses, or the like. I am trying to keep the legal side out of this as much as possible, frankly.

I'm not speaking in legal terms either. Mass murder and murder, manslaughter and involuntay manslaughter. They are the same thing on a legal level. It's just one statement doesn't give a good enough picture of how utterly stupid the comparison of these two events are in this context. ...and how ridiculous it is that someone would wonder why one got less news coverage than the other.

They are not the same legally, as they are legal terms used to break up the same thing depending on the circumstances behind it such as intent and state of mind.

n0t_u wrote:They are not the same legally, as they are legal terms used to break up the same thing depending on the circumstances behind it such as intent and state of mind.

You know what I mean....Involuntary manslaughter is manslaughter. Mass murder is murder.

Let me throw this into the mix:

How many times have we heard about multiple offence drunk drivers killing someone? Someone who was as dangerous with a gun is more often than not sent off to jail after a first offence.
True, it's easy to kill someone with a gun, and cars aren't meant to kill. However, the full point of my original post is about the people that combine operating a car with diminished capability through drugs or alcohol, who kill and injure people, and then essentually get ignored on the news in favor of someone with a gun.



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Some stats on drunk driving versus gun deaths:

Drunk drivers:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

By guns:

http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/09/14/2009-fbi-murder-statistics-by-state-and-type-of-weapon-used/

If I were you I would have started with that rather than comparing a drink related school bus crash with the Columbine massacre.

Rather than "throwing it into the mix" as you put it.

Being personally touched by a drunk driver I have to say I rank it murder, no matter what the law says

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote: In 2009, 10,839 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes

(http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html)

Firearm homicides
• Number of deaths: 11,493
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.7
Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2009, tables 9, 10, 11

(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm)

From these stats, just on alchohol related traffic deaths, ignoring industrial accidents causing death, home accidents causing death, and peoples bodies just giving out, I'd say alcohol debilitated people appear a bigger killer than guns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ifStatement wrote:If I were you I would have started with that rather than comparing a drink related school bus crash with the Columbine massacre.

Rather than "throwing it into the mix" as you put it.

True, just didn't think to do it earlier, but it definitely puts it out there.


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Johnny-Crass wrote:Being personally touched by a drunk driver I have to say I rank it murder, no matter what the law says

I'm with you on this. I've talked to a number of habitual drunk drivers and they excuse themselves by saying they can't be expected to drive as well while drunk. Crazy logic.

Relapse wrote:I'm with you on this. I've talked to a number of habitual drunk drivers and they excuse themselves by saying they can't be expected to drive as well while drunk. Crazy logic.

Yeah, I hate those idiots.

I don't EXPECT them to drive well while drunk.

I expect them NOT to drive while drunk...

Melissia wrote:

Relapse wrote:I'm with you on this. I've talked to a number of habitual drunk drivers and they excuse themselves by saying they can't be expected to drive as well while drunk. Crazy logic.

Yeah, I hate those idiots.

I don't EXPECT them to drive well while drunk.

I expect them NOT to drive while drunk...

I know really well several people that have been killed or maimed by drunk drivers. One of them is a man with a wife and three kids that was hit by a by a trucker on speed. The pickup he was in burned while he was trapped, fully concious as his legs were burned off at his knees.

I had a friend run over by a methhead while he was riding his bike. Killed him, the case finally closed two weeks ago and all she got was manslaughter and possession of drugs. It was disgusting.

If she had shot him she would of gotten murder.... The justice system truly is disgusting sometimes

Guns are made for one reason, and one reason only, to take another human beings life, not to defend someone's or yours, but to kill another person. Gun's should't be sold anywhere and should only be permitted to Military personal only.

I say this every time, but every American comes back with "What if a guy breaks into my house? I'm going to defend my family with what ever means I have to." Then get a bat and hit across the head with it and call the cops. There is no need to kill the guy, he's probably a bit funny in the head and hasn't had the best of times, why kill him?

Guns are the death of humanity, but people (Americans) seem to see them as some sort of "defender of the peace"... I don't know but something stupid like that. If guns weren't issued to civilians, then why have a gun, maybe cept for hunting and getting food? Cause there be no one to defend yourself because you have nothing to defend against, and the only thing they have to attack you with is their fists or a blunt object, something that anyone can overcome. I've lost a grandfather, a teacher, an uncle, and a cousin to guns, not because they broke into some house or tried to attack someone, but because some idiot decided that it was their time to go for some reason

Paratrooper, check the death stats for guns versus drunk drivers I posted.
You are proving my point, by not coming down on drunk drivers the way you do gun ownership. I'm sorry about your family, but I know more people affected by drunk drivers than guns.

Johnny-Crass wrote:I had a friend run over by a methhead while he was riding his bike. Killed him, the case finally closed two weeks ago and all she got was manslaughter and possession of drugs. It was disgusting.

If she had shot him she would of gotten murder.... The justice system truly is disgusting sometimes

That sucks.

My uncle was hit while on his bike by a truck making a right turn at a no right turn intersection while there was a red light... He lived but lost his left leg for it. It's not the same, but you have my condolences.