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 AustonT wrote:
have they though? The first officer on scene at Columbine was there within 6 minutes. Shortly thereafter the boys shot 22 people killing 10.
At Aurora the police were on scene in an. Exceptionally fast 90 seconds which stopped exactly zero shots: he was waiting for them.
What are the real odds a cop is actually on scene when a potential mass shooting starts?

Dunno. I wasn't including cases where the police arrived in my assessment of success, because, for perfectly understandable reasons, they're generally less inclined to Custer their way on into a situation. Guys with a concealed gun who happen to get caught in the middle of these are extremely rare, but in all the examples I've read, they put a stop to it one way or another right there. As soon as they draw, spree's over.

CAN they?
You can say they do but there's no proof, because there can't be. If a guy pulls out a gun in Gran Central Terminal and shoots one person and his brain explodes from an armed citizen. Is it a mass murder stopped, or a premeditated single murder quickly avenged? There's no way to answer that in data, just speculation.

 AustonT wrote:
CAN they?
You can say they do but there's no proof, because there can't be. If a guy pulls out a gun in Gran Central Terminal and shoots one person and his brain explodes from an armed citizen. Is it a mass murder stopped, or a premeditated single murder quickly avenged? There's no way to answer that in data, just speculation.

That's true, there's no way of knowing if, for example, the Clackamas guy would have gone on to kill more people, or if he was actually done. There's a not-unnoticeable pattern to these things, though, and if a shooter fits the profile - lots of ammo, possibly lots of weapons, public place, weak traditional motive at best for picking it - I don't believe it's unreasonable to assume he's probably a spree killer.

On the positive I just ordered my last magazines in anticipation of a ban. I'm good to go should a ban on magazines be re-started.

Plus I realized, if they banned all of that, I could use it as an excuse to start Single Action Cowboy shooting.

From the Reverend Jesse Jackson: "It's easier to buy a gun then coffee in America"

what I want to know is where Jesse Jackson is that you have to go through a background check at Starbucks?

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So like with every major national discussion about gun control, team anti has brought out some fascinating new terms that either don't mean what they think they mean, or mean... nothing.

Oh come on, both sides have done this. Look at the numbers of people claiming that they carry a gun for self defense and public protection, as if they were wild west gun slingers.
.

100,000 (this is the low estimate, high estimate is well into the millions) defensive gun uses a year disagrees with you Steve.

Thats not an estimate, thats a made up number.

I am sure many people use there guns for household protection, but the numbers used in public must be tiny, and vanishingly small compaired to the numbers of deaths due to people being able to carry guns in public without being questioned.

I am happy to be proven wrong and will absoultly change my mind if someone can show a public benefit. As it stands I think the cost massively out ways the benefit.

In california you do, Some people cant handle their caffeine

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
From the Reverend Jesse Jackson: "It's easier to buy a gun then coffee in America"

what I want to know is where Jesse Jackson is that you have to go through a background check at Starbucks?

Must be pretty lethal coffee.

Interestingly, whats the argument for banning M4 types vs. just a magazine limitation to 10 or 15 rounds? Its just a rifle with access to a large magazine. Its not even a powerful rifle.
if we have to go down this road I'd prefer that. Still won't stop anyone but makes the hippies feel better about themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So like with every major national discussion about gun control, team anti has brought out some fascinating new terms that either don't mean what they think they mean, or mean... nothing.

Oh come on, both sides have done this. Look at the numbers of people claiming that they carry a gun for self defense and public protection, as if they were wild west gun slingers.
.

100,000 (this is the low estimate, high estimate is well into the millions) defensive gun uses a year disagrees with you Steve.

Thats not an estimate, thats a made up number.

I am sure many people use there guns for household protection, but the numbers used in public must be tiny, and vanishingly small compaired to the numbers of deaths due to people being able to carry guns in public without being questioned.

I am happy to be proven wrong and will absoultly change my mind if someone can show a public benefit. As it stands I think the cost massively out ways the benefit.

Thats not correct. The FBI published a series of reports in the mid 1990s to his point.

The purpose of arguing against making schools harder targets than they are currently is what, exactly?

 Monster Rain wrote:
The purpose of arguing against making schools harder targets than they are currently is what, exactly?

Don't know. Cost? Some sort of Civil Liberties argument. Are there people arguing about that?

I could see in the future, elementary schools being consolidated like high schools and Jr. Highs and having more security.

What do you mean by "Consolidated" Frazzled?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What do you mean by "Consolidated" Frazzled?

Sorry good question. In the US, at least in Texas, the elementary schools are rather small. multiple elementary schools often feed into a Jr. High, and in turn multiple Jr. highs will feed into one High School. I could see consolidation into much larger elementariy schools that could have greater security on them. Its probably a cost issue.

Ahh, We have the system here too, Only problem i wee with that is a cost issue for both staff and larger facilities.
My problem with schools being armed is my the same with a high school that has barbed wire fences. They stop being places of learning and start to become high security baby sitting services.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
From the Reverend Jesse Jackson: "It's easier to buy a gun then coffee in America"

what I want to know is where Jesse Jackson is that you have to go through a background check at Starbucks?

Knowing Jesse Jackson and everything about him... He probably gets screened in the deep south.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ahh, We have the system here too, Only problem i wee with that is a cost issue for both staff and larger facilities.
My problem with schools being armed is my the same with a high school that has barbed wire fences. They stop being places of learning and start to become high security baby sitting services.

Gotcha. Frazzled personally considered his high school already a baby sitting service. Frazzled thought high school was stupid and a waste of time. Turns out he was right. he thought he hated school, but once he got out of there he learned he just hated high school. College was like paradise in contrast, even having to work to pay for it.

@Monster Rain

There isn't one. I think it stands up solidly that it's soft targets these people go after. This is to sensationalize their deaths which we can thank the media for. If we didn't even mention these people's names when this sort of thing happened then I feel that would go a long way toward reducing occurances.

@Thread

As a sidenote I feel like a lot of the non-US posters intentionally misread what is posted. And that there is a tone of superiority in their comments about how to "fix" our country.

This is frustrating to me. I currently don't own a gun. But I was raised around guns and shot them from 5 years old onward. I was taught from a young age to respect guns as a dangerous instrument. No more dangerous than a lot of the farm equipment my extended family uses and in fact quite a bit less so.

People who don't grow up in a society which permits firearms will never understand a society that does.

I'd like to go into a anthropological discussion on America's development and how it's shaped our modern nation but without all the documents I'd have to cite on hand I'll avoid it. Not to mention it would likely be dismissed anyway, much like most of the relevant points posted in this thread already.

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So like with every major national discussion about gun control, team anti has brought out some fascinating new terms that either don't mean what they think they mean, or mean... nothing.

Oh come on, both sides have done this. Look at the numbers of people claiming that they carry a gun for self defense and public protection, as if they were wild west gun slingers.
.

100,000 (this is the low estimate, high estimate is well into the millions) defensive gun uses a year disagrees with you Steve.

Thats not an estimate, thats a made up number.

I am sure many people use there guns for household protection, but the numbers used in public must be tiny, and vanishingly small compaired to the numbers of deaths due to people being able to carry guns in public without being questioned.

I am happy to be proven wrong and will absoultly change my mind if someone can show a public benefit. As it stands I think the cost massively out ways the benefit.

Fine, I was using the conservative numbers, but we'll go full bull since you want to play. I've shown these before and I've sourced and cited my facts scrupulously through out this thread. In this case the citation will be immediately below the fact, unless the fact in question is simply derived from the math.

Fact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.* Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they "almost certainly" saved their lives by doing so. Firearms are used 60 times more often to protect lives than to take lives.
*Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995,

Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.

Fact: The rate of defensive gun use (SGU) is six times that of criminal gun use.**
**Crime statistics: Bureau of Justice Statistics - National Crime Victimization Survey (2005). DGU statistics: Targeting Guns, Kleck (average of 15 major surveys where DGUs were reported)

Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.

Fact: Less than 8% of the time does a Citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.***
***Critical Incidents in Policing, FBI, 1991

Fact: Of all forms of firearm homicide, 13% are civilian legal defensive homicides.****
****Death by Gun: One Year Later, Time Magazine, May 14, 1990

Fact: For every accidental death, suicide, or homicide with a firearm, 10 lives are saved
through defensive use.

Fact: When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time not a single shot is fired.*****
*****National Crime Victimization Survey, 2000

So that's that, but you wanted the social cost? Well then...

One study* estimated a net cost to society of 20-100 billion, and included the lifetime earnings of people that die from guns, not just the true social costs. This included lost incomes of criminals killed by law-abiding citizens, and costs associated with suicides, and the “emotional costs experienced by relatives and friends of gunshot victims, and the fear and general reduction in quality of life ... including people who are not victimized”. If the same methodology were used to calculate the social savings from private gun ownership, we would see a benefit to society of half a trillion dollars, or 10% of the 1999 US Gross Domestic Product.
*The Financial Costs of Gun Violence, Linda Gunderson, Annals of Internal Medicine, Septemer 21, 1999


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hulksmash wrote:


As a sidenote I feel like a lot of the non-US posters intentionally misread what is posted. And that there is a tone of superiority in their comments about how to "fix" our country.

This is frustrating to me. I currently don't own a gun. But I was raised around guns and shot them from 5 years old onward. I was taught from a young age to respect guns as a dangerous instrument. No more dangerous than a lot of the farm equipment my extended family uses and in fact quite a bit less so.

People who don't grow up in a society which permits firearms will never understand a society that does.

I'd like to go into a anthropological discussion on America's development and how it's shaped our modern nation but without all the documents I'd have to cite on hand I'll avoid it. Not to mention it would likely be dismissed anyway, much like most of the relevant points posted in this thread already.

I personally feel a lot of farm equipment is way more dangerous then a firearm when you view it as a tool. Guns are simple, controlled and efficient. Once you know how to handle one safely the chances of an accident with one drop dramatically.

That said I'd love to see a paper on the subject you're discussing here Hulk, sounds like a good read, and you may as well make it a research paper if you need the citations any way

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

There's a gak ton out there...

Try this... I haven't read it in a while...
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

I doubt there's been a study put together on it. I'm just thinking about/looking back and remembering/finding examples where one of these guys was confronted, even briefly, by a civilian with a gun.

Yeah... just google-fu "statistics on armed citizens stopping crime"... you'll see them.

Nothing personal, however the indication I am getting from you, Seaward and Frazzled is that you don't have any source data on this topic, or you would be able to direct me to it rather than wikis and the like.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

There's a gak ton out there...

Try this... I haven't read it in a while...
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

I doubt there's been a study put together on it. I'm just thinking about/looking back and remembering/finding examples where one of these guys was confronted, even briefly, by a civilian with a gun.

Yeah... just google-fu "statistics on armed citizens stopping crime"... you'll see them.

Nothing personal, however the indication I am getting from you, Seaward and Frazzled is that you don't have any source data on this topic, or you would be able to direct me to it rather than wikis and the like.

Those are from FBI crime statistics. if you can pull those, awesome. I tend to steer clear of anything related to the FBI...Big Brother is Watching...YOU!

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

There's a gak ton out there...

Try this... I haven't read it in a while...
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

I doubt there's been a study put together on it. I'm just thinking about/looking back and remembering/finding examples where one of these guys was confronted, even briefly, by a civilian with a gun.

Yeah... just google-fu "statistics on armed citizens stopping crime"... you'll see them.

Nothing personal, however the indication I am getting from you, Seaward and Frazzled is that you don't have any source data on this topic, or you would be able to direct me to it rather than wikis and the like.

Those are from FBI crime statistics. if you can pull those, awesome. I tend to steer clear of anything related to the FBI...Big Brother is Watching...YOU!

FBI crime statistics which are almost two decades old and therefore unlikely to be representative of today.

Like I say, you haven't got any data.

I don't have anything on Spree Shooters stopped and confronted by CCW holders. Just the generic stats on Defensive Gun Use. I'll poke around at some point.

On that note, I'd suggest that Defensive Gun Uses have increased over time, even as crime has dropped, because the number of people legally carrying has increased significantly over time. I don't have direct math or sources on me for that one, I'm just inferring.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like I say, you haven't got any data.

Specifically on spree shooters? No, I don't, other than primary source reporting. I find it more than a tad disingenuous, though, to say, "Well, just because no one's published a study on spree shooting and concealed carry permit holders, there's no data available to draw any conclusions." There is, it's just looking at modern mass shootings and going, "Was it stopped by a civilian with a pistol?"

I would certainly accept the inference that more guns per capita might lead to more shooting.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I would certainly accept the inference that more guns per capita might lead to more shooting.

Yes yes snark acknowledged. Couple million prevented rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions not a good thing then?

Well then it depends upon how many rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions only occur as the perpetrators are "enabled" by such easy access to guns surely ?

As a sidenote I feel like a lot of the non-US posters intentionally misread what is posted. And that there is a tone of superiority in their comments about how to "fix" our country.

I think you'll find that's balanced out by what the non USA members are forced to put up with and feel in the threads not about America or that reference their countries/laws/etc etc

Funny that eh ?

Here is my simply argument why we should not harden our schools with added security. The US is not a militarized state under siege by attackers and assailants. Therefore, we do not need to ask our children to live everyday like they are part of a militarized state under constant attack by terrorists and assailants.

Also, this thread has taught me that the best way to protect people from gun violence is MOAR GUNZ!1!!1! It seems counter-factual, but sometimes true solutions aren't obvious; so it is possible that MOAR GUNZ!1!!!1 is the appropriate solution. I honestly don't know.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I would certainly accept the inference that more guns per capita might lead to more shooting.

Yes yes snark acknowledged. Couple million prevented rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions not a good thing then?

Where is the data?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

There's a gak ton out there...

Try this... I haven't read it in a while...
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It can be tedious but enlightening to go back to the source data.

I doubt there's been a study put together on it. I'm just thinking about/looking back and remembering/finding examples where one of these guys was confronted, even briefly, by a civilian with a gun.

Yeah... just google-fu "statistics on armed citizens stopping crime"... you'll see them.

Nothing personal, however the indication I am getting from you, Seaward and Frazzled is that you don't have any source data on this topic, or you would be able to direct me to it rather than wikis and the like.

Those are from FBI crime statistics. if you can pull those, awesome. I tend to steer clear of anything related to the FBI...Big Brother is Watching...YOU!

FBI crime statistics which are almost two decades old and therefore unlikely to be representative of today.

You're right. There will be more instances now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 reds8n wrote:
Well then it depends upon how many rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions only occur as the perpetrators are "enabled" by such easy access to guns surely ?

As a sidenote I feel like a lot of the non-US posters intentionally misread what is posted. And that there is a tone of superiority in their comments about how to "fix" our country.

I think you'll find that's balanced out by what the non USA members are forced to put up with and feel in the threads not about America or that reference their countries/laws/etc etc

Funny that eh ?

Thats your fault. You Brits need to flood the airwaves discussing all things British. Here's some potential topics.
Britain, so close to the devil, so far from Texas.
Britain, at least its not Texas.
Is it true that Stonehenge was really built by Frazzled and three thousand wiener dogs?
How come Britain can't be more like Texas?
England: why do we type everything with "our" instead of "or."
Bloody Hell, a name or a state of mind?
How many times would Britain have been invaded if we didn't have haggis?
A question for Brits: Which is worse, France or Texas?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I would certainly accept the inference that more guns per capita might lead to more shooting.

Yes yes snark acknowledged. Couple million prevented rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions not a good thing then?

Where is the data?

Same place it's always been, being ignored:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So like with every major national discussion about gun control, team anti has brought out some fascinating new terms that either don't mean what they think they mean, or mean... nothing.

Oh come on, both sides have done this. Look at the numbers of people claiming that they carry a gun for self defense and public protection, as if they were wild west gun slingers.
.

100,000 (this is the low estimate, high estimate is well into the millions) defensive gun uses a year disagrees with you Steve.

Thats not an estimate, thats a made up number.

I am sure many people use there guns for household protection, but the numbers used in public must be tiny, and vanishingly small compaired to the numbers of deaths due to people being able to carry guns in public without being questioned.

I am happy to be proven wrong and will absoultly change my mind if someone can show a public benefit. As it stands I think the cost massively out ways the benefit.

Fine, I was using the conservative numbers, but we'll go full bull since you want to play. I've shown these before and I've sourced and cited my facts scrupulously through out this thread. In this case the citation will be immediately below the fact, unless the fact in question is simply derived from the math.

Fact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.* Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they "almost certainly" saved their lives by doing so. Firearms are used 60 times more often to protect lives than to take lives.
*Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995,

Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.

Fact: The rate of defensive gun use (SGU) is six times that of criminal gun use.**
**Crime statistics: Bureau of Justice Statistics - National Crime Victimization Survey (2005). DGU statistics: Targeting Guns, Kleck (average of 15 major surveys where DGUs were reported)

Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.

Fact: Less than 8% of the time does a Citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed.***
***Critical Incidents in Policing, FBI, 1991

Fact: Of all forms of firearm homicide, 13% are civilian legal defensive homicides.****
****Death by Gun: One Year Later, Time Magazine, May 14, 1990

Fact: For every accidental death, suicide, or homicide with a firearm, 10 lives are saved
through defensive use.

Fact: When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time not a single shot is fired.*****
*****National Crime Victimization Survey, 2000

So that's that, but you wanted the social cost? Well then...

One study* estimated a net cost to society of 20-100 billion, and included the lifetime earnings of people that die from guns, not just the true social costs. This included lost incomes of criminals killed by law-abiding citizens, and costs associated with suicides, and the “emotional costs experienced by relatives and friends of gunshot victims, and the fear and general reduction in quality of life ... including people who are not victimized”. If the same methodology were used to calculate the social savings from private gun ownership, we would see a benefit to society of half a trillion dollars, or 10% of the 1999 US Gross Domestic Product.
*The Financial Costs of Gun Violence, Linda Gunderson, Annals of Internal Medicine, Septemer 21, 1999

 reds8n wrote:
Well then it depends upon how many rapes, murders, muggings and home invasions only occur as the perpetrators are "enabled" by such easy access to guns surely ?

No way to accurately suss that out that I can see. Unless you have access to a reliable crystal ball.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:

Also, this thread has taught me that the best way to protect people from gun violence is MOAR GUNZ!1!!1! It seems counter-factual, but sometimes true solutions aren't obvious; so it is possible that MOAR GUNZ!1!!!1 is the appropriate solution. I honestly don't know.

Well that's actually the subject of a research book by John Lott "More Guns, Less Crime", it's worth a read.