That is some next level .... whatever he has going on (Mass shooting in Cali)

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**Ninjacommando**

Peregrine wrote:

Just how exactly did this evil government get into power in the first place if nobody supports them?

by getting 270 electoral votes... which has nothing to do with "People" supporting them.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
No, what they're going to do is kill the government troops and then fade back into the landscape or general populace like real insurgents do. Not something stupid like painting a target on themselves.

Rinse and repeat. The government will lose eventually.

Please go and read about the Tamils in Sri Lanka, please. They did what you described, and militarily they were very successful. They didn't just fight the army, they frequently won, defended ground and inflicted heavy casualties. When the Indian army came in as peacekeepers the Tamils routed them in a couple of days (first use of suicide bombers).

But guess what - the Sri Lankan government didn't ever stop fighting. They never just gave up. Because to explain this to you again, governments don't just give up when the fighting is in their own country. Foreign powers might give up and go home (as the beloved examples of the British in the War of Independence, or the Americans in Vietnam prove), but when it is your own country that dynamic isn't there. In order to maintain security inside your own borders governments will just keep paying the price in dead soldiers. The alternative is to stop being a government, and that's something that takes a hell of a lot more than a bodycount.

Once you understand that you might begin to understand what is needed for an actual, real revolution. A bunch of donkey-caves with guns is nowhere near what is needed.

**LordofHats**

Ninjacommando wrote:
by getting 270 electoral votes... which has nothing to do with "People" supporting them.

Because the President is the end all be all of the US government. Right. Ignore that even though it's possible to win the popular vote and still loose, we're talking margins of difference that are in the realm of a few percentage points which is hardly significant enough to produce any scenario where a super tiny minority can come to power with 0 support from everyone else.

**Peregrine**

Ninjacommando wrote:
by getting 270 electoral votes... which has nothing to do with "People" supporting them

Err, lol? You can argue that the current system is flawed because it allows a candidate with slightly less support from the population as a whole to win, but that's not even close to sufficient to elect someone with the kind of near-universal opposition that is being proposed. Either the winning candidate will have widespread support and win 270 electoral votes with 49% of the nationwide vote, or they will have extremely strong regional support and win 270 votes from key states while losing the rest by solid margins. In the first case you have a lot of support everywhere, and probably a lot of people who voted for the other guy but don't care anywhere near enough to risk their life in a violent revolution. In the second case you have areas where the rebellion can get lots of support, but a perfect scenario for the government to bomb whole towns off the map while the loyal states cheer, as long as all the nasty stuff is happening "over there" to "those people".

**LordofHats**

Not to mention that Congress exists. Congress. That political body we all pretend to hate because it spends all of its time campaigning for reelection. How exactly are they getting reelected if everyone hates them? Even if they're rigging the vote, they have to do what Russia does. Care enough about what we think that the vote can appear legitimate.

And then, how is this government even functioning if everyone hates it? I mean, you wouldn't even need an armed revolution. They'd just collapse from having no paper pushers to keep the basic functions of the state going.

**Smacks**

sebster wrote:
And when alcohol kills 80,000 and people are willing to accept that number as the cost of getting drunk and having a good time when we want, there's an argument that gun deaths are worth the price of going shooting when we please.

But that's a debate that you actually have to have in good faith, and with the basic things I outlined above accepted by all parties. The problem is that right now you aren't even close to that debate, in part because the anti-gun movement runs straight past that debate with emotive nonsense and lurches straight in to writing bad law, while the pro-gun movement avoids that debate entirely with what could be described, at best, as disingenuous bs.

It's also worth mentioning that these Analogous arguments have many flaws. Even though alcohol can be a social issue, and a contributing factor in driving and firearm deaths. My primary concern with people drinking irresponsibly is that they will hurt themselves, which might be a risk they are willing to take. My primary concern with irresponsible gun owners is that they will hurt others, who obviously aren't able to consent to being at risk.

I would characterize myself as being anti-guns. I think they are one of those things like nuclear weapons: the world would be a better place if they didn't exist. But that doesn't mean I'm pro gun control. I think if I lived in a country like the US or SA then the first thing I would do is get a gun, because it seems like one is almost required in those places. I think more than anything that points towards social issues. It's sad that the same people who are pro-guns seem also to be the ones advocating many of the root causes of gun crime such as poor wealth distribution, and lack of social support.

**Vaktathi**

Smacks wrote:

I would characterize myself as being anti-guns. I think they are one of those things like nuclear weapons: the world would be a better place if they didn't exist. But that doesn't mean I'm pro gun control. I think if I lived in a country like the US or SA then the first thing I would do is get a gun, because it seems like one is almost required in those places.

Hrm, that's quite a stretch. The US as a whole has 3.6 firearms related deaths (including suicide) per 100,000 people, and much of that is clustered around certain metro areas (i.e. most places will have a very low rate of firearms crime, but don't move to central Detroit or East LA, etc.) and it's certainly lower overall than say, Greece, while South Africa has over 4x the US rate at 17 per 100,000 people.

At least by this chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

I think more than anything that points towards social issues. It's sad that the same people who are pro-guns seem also to be the ones advocating many of the root causes of gun crime such as poor wealth distribution, and lack of social support.

There is a degree of truth in that, it does exist, though it's by no means universal in the US. I'd hardly describe my politics as anything "right" for example, but do firmly believe in the right to bear arms.

**sebster**

Smacks wrote:
It's also worth mentioning that these Analogous arguments have many flaws. Even though alcohol can be a social issue, and a contributing factor in driving and firearm deaths. My primary concern with people drinking irresponsibly is that they will hurt themselves, which might be a risk they are willing to take. My primary concern with irresponsible gun owners is that they will hurt others, who obviously aren't able to consent to being at risk.

It isn't a comparison that if you accept the deaths caused by one you must accept the deaths caused by the other. The purpose of the comparison is give a single framework that ought to be used for considering both items - that you compare the deaths and other negative consequences against the benefits and limitations of any kind of restriction.

I would characterize myself as being anti-guns. I think they are one of those things like nuclear weapons: the world would be a better place if they didn't exist. But that doesn't mean I'm pro gun control. I think if I lived in a country like the US or SA then the first thing I would do is get a gun, because it seems like one is almost required in those places. I think more than anything that points towards social issues. It's sad that the same people who are pro-guns seem also to be the ones advocating many of the root causes of gun crime such as poor wealth distribution, and lack of social support.

The world does tend to take on something of a cartoony impression of the US. We chuckle when Americans reflexively mention tea when Britain comes up, or dangerous creatures when Australia is mentioned, but we do the same thing about the US and guns.

I was only in the US a couple of months, and in that whole time the only guns I saw were on the security at the airports. I would have seen more guns in Vegas but I got sick our last day and couldn't go to the gun range.

Yeah, they have a lot of guns, but day to day the vast majority of those guns just sit in homes, under lock and key. This means your everyday experience will basically be like it is here, only stuff is a little cheaper, the restaurant service is much better and everyone loves your accent. You don't need a gun to get around.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:
Hrm, that's quite a stretch. The US as a whole has 3.6 firearms related deaths (including suicide) per 100,000 people, and much of that is clustered around certain metro areas (i.e. most places will have a very low rate of firearms crime, but don't move to central Detroit or East LA, etc.) and it's certainly lower overall than say, Greece, while South Africa has over 4x the US rate at 17 per 100,000 people.

I agree that developing countries and countries with extreme poverty have far greater rates of murder than the US, though I don't think the US problem is as easily written off as just being due to a few crime hotspots.

Looking at the figures here; http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state, you can see that California and Illinois are actually barely above the national average for gun deaths. The national capital does fit your example of a crime hotspot and leads the list with firearm murders per 100,000 of 12.46, but after that the states next in line are Louisiana at 10.16, Mississippi at 7.46, South Carolina at 5.41 and Michigan at 5.06. From there it's a pretty long spread until you get down to New Hampshire, the second least gun murder state, but even there you have a gun murder rate of 0.53, which is greater than the gun murder rate in any other developed country such as the UK, France, Germany or Australia.

So even in the least murderous states (except Hawaii, who actually do beat the average in other developed countries), there is a problem with gun homicide.

**Triton**

Peregrine wrote:
Ok, so your insurgents fade back into the general population, and the government bombs the whole town off the map and says "anyone else supporting the traitors gets the same fate". Good luck having any support left.

It's hard to believe you're a self-taught military/COIN expert.

**Smacks**

Vaktathi wrote:
I think more than anything that points towards social issues. It's sad that the same people who are pro-guns seem also to be the ones advocating many of the root causes of gun crime such as poor wealth distribution, and lack of social support.

There is a degree of truth in that, it does exist, though it's by no means universal in the US. I'd hardly describe my politics as anything "right" for example, but do firmly believe in the right to bear arms.

Yes, I apologize, I didn't mean to lump everyone together. It just seems to me that these issues are part of the same social paradigm. If you promote a dog eat dog world, then it follows that all the dogs will start to need teeth. It bothers me a great deal because it seems to be running in the opposite direction to what living in civilized society is about. It seems to be shifting from people living and working together for a common good, to individuals living and working too close together for their own good (the double meaning here is sort of deliberate).

sebster wrote:This means your everyday experience will basically be like it is here, only stuff is a little cheaper, the restaurant service is much better and everyone loves your accent. You don't need a gun to get around.

Yeah I've been to NY and NJ. It seemed nice enough (unless you needed to use the bathroom outside). I've also been to SA which was nice enough too. But I suppose if you live there it's a bit different, you're much more likely to be the victim of a crime over the long term compared to a short stay.

**Ouze**

Grey Templar wrote:
And believe me that the gun grabbers are scared of gun holders, because they don't like what they signify. That ultimate power rests with the people.

I like guns, but there are a lot of gun owners that come off as dangerous, crazy donkey-caves. That's why they are scared, but not for some deep philosophical reason, they're scared for the same reason you'd be scared if you saw a idiot with a flamethrower.

This country tolerates levels of gun violence that no other country does. I think what a lot of gun control advocates call for are often misguided, and ineffective, and should be fought simply because they won't work, but I think any writing off the entirety of their motivations as some Machiavellian plot is incredibly simplistic and wrong-headed.

Smacks wrote:
I would characterize myself as being anti-guns. I think they are one of those things like nuclear weapons: the world would be a better place if they didn't exist. But that doesn't mean I'm pro gun control. I think if I lived in a country like the US or SA then the first thing I would do is get a gun, because it seems like one is almost required in those places.

I don't consider myself as being either pro or anti-gun. I consider myself to be a reasonable person with a healthy level of respect for the US Constitution, and owning guns is a strongly embedded right in our country and culture. It ranked higher than having soldiers quartered in your very home, your right to be free from a unreasonable search, the right to a fair and swift trial with reasonable bail, and so on. The courts over the years have enshrined this. Like every right, it's not unlimited, and I respect that too. I am all for common sense gun control measures that show efficacy at solving a harm that is proportionate to this impingement on a right. There is a clear and reasonable need to prevent people from yelling "fire" inn a theater, so its a fair impingement on the first, and keeping people from being able to own a Stinger missile is probably a pretty fair impingement on the second.

SO far as "needing a gun to be in the US", it's laughable

Our country has a lot of guns, but gun ownership is a little skewed - most people who own guns own several - and I can't think of a place in the US where being armed is really a requirement with perhaps the very dangerous areas of the border, and places where wild animals might be surprised, like back country hiking*. The people who are most likely to carry a gun every day, police officers, will for the vast majority never discharge their firearm in the line of duty.**

Swimming pools are way, way more likely to kill you, and I don't see anyone here that carries around a life vest all the time either. As Sebster said, the movies really skew us I guess.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for a traditional American breakfast.

*Even then, I think pepper spray is safer to use and more effective, but fething Hiawatha I'm not, I don't know.

**But when they do, hoo boy, look out! They can't hit for gak.

**Smacks**

Ouze wrote:
I consider myself to be a reasonable person with a healthy level of respect for the US Constitution, and owning guns is a strongly embedded right in our country and culture. It ranked higher than having soldiers quartered in your very home, your right to be free from a unreasonable search, the right to a fair and swift trial with reasonable bail, and so on.

Be that as it may, something ranking higher in a poll doesn't necessarily mean it is more important. You're probably going to run into a sort of Hawthorne effect, because guns are always a talking point. I'm pretty sure if unreasonable searches and unfair trials were a daily occurrence then people would change their tune pretty damn quickly.

I think a constitution is a good idea, but only so long as it benefits society. Dogmatically waving the constitution isn't helpful in a discussion that might be about amending the constitution. I would also question if the right to bear arms really has anything to do with concealed carry or home defense. For example in Switzerland there are a lot of guns in homes for the purpose of national defense, but it it would be highly illegal to use one to shoot a burglar because that is not what they are for. They are often dismantled and hidden around the house in at least two parts, and ammunition is not kept in the house but in a centralized area. Obviously this allows a militia to be formed quickly in the unlikely event of invasion, which I think would be enough to fulfill what has been put down in the US constitution. People trying to use the constitution to argue that they have the right to carry a gun into a crowded McDonald's, or blow gak up in their back yard with an RPG, are clutching at straws (though admittedly, in the US, they have one hell of a grip).

On the matter of culture. Fox hunting was part of out heritage here until recently. You can see paintings of hunting all over the place, my auntie even has dinner mats with images of 'the hunt'. It was a quintessentially British pastime, with the red coats, and the horn and the dogs etc... But now it's gone the same way as dog fighting, and bare knuckle boxing, because modern mortality has grown to look down on cruelty for sport. So even though your culture and you constitution should be treated with care and respect, they are not in and of themselves an argument against change.

**-Shrike-**

I'm not familiar with the wording of the laws in Switzerland, but while it is essentially mandatory for males between the ages of 20-30 to own guns, surely the inability to privately own ammunition would infringe the right to bear arms as defined in the constitution.

**Dreadclaw69**

For all those focusing on changes to the law, you may wish to note the following (please note, not my own work. I found this elsewhere);

1. Elliot Rodger was being treated by mental health professionals.

2. Rodger's parents contacted law enforcement days prior to the incident, but Elliot did not present himself as an imminent threat to himself or others, so the LEOs didn't take him into custody.

3. Elliot Rodger complied with California's one handgun per 30-days requirement when he purchased each of the three handguns found in his possession.

4. Elliot Rodger waited 10-days before receiving each of his three handguns, per California law.

5. Elliot Rodger passed his three background checks, one for each of his three handguns, per California law.

6. Elliot Rodger passed a written test administered by a California DOJ Certified Instructor, per California law.

7. Elliot Rodger complied with the Safe Handling Demonstration Requirement performed in the presence of a California DOJ Certified Instructor three times, per California law.

8. Elliot Rodger complied with California's Firearms Safety Device Requirement.

9. Elliot Rodger purchased magazines in compliance with California's restrictions on magazine capacity. Each of the magazines had a ten round capacity.

Elliot Rodger had no criminal history or history of violence, his family is affluent and had significant resources, he was being professionally treated, and even when his parents were concerned and law enforcement officers were contacted, he was not deemed to be dangerous at that time.

In all honesty and candor I have no reason to believe that the system failed, or that the laws on the books didn't work. From what we know right now it seems that Elliot Rodger was able to jump through every hoop, even in California, with some of the most restrictive laws in the country when it comes to acquiring firearms.

His family was worried and called police. They didn't perceive him to be a threat. They didn't involuntarily commit him or take his firearms away.

What more could possibly be done? Better training for cops? Adding dedicated mental health professionals to the police force to assist with these types of determinations?

**-Shrike-**

That's why I mentioned about 5 pages ago that it would be much better to treat this as an isolated incident. In general, mass killings could be prevented by better mental health care, but this really was just a freak occurrence.

**Vaktathi**

sebster wrote:

I agree that developing countries and countries with extreme poverty have far greater rates of murder than the US, though I don't think the US problem is as easily written off as just being due to a few crime hotspots.

Looking at the figures here; http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state, you can see that California and Illinois are actually barely above the national average for gun deaths.

Keep in mind these states also have huge populations on their own, having high rates in specific areas is often balanced out by having huge relatively peaceful areas.

The national capital does fit your example of a crime hotspot and leads the list with firearm murders per 100,000 of 12.46, but after that the states next in line are Louisiana at 10.16, Mississippi at 7.46, South Carolina at 5.41 and Michigan at 5.06.

Louisiana and Michigan's statistics are colored strongly by New Orleans and Detroit (New Orleans had a higher murder rate than South Africa for a time IIRC).

From there it's a pretty long spread until you get down to New Hampshire, the second least gun murder state, but even there you have a gun murder rate of 0.53, which is greater than the gun murder rate in any other developed country such as the UK, France, Germany or Australia.

So even in the least murderous states (except Hawaii, who actually do beat the average in other developed countries), there is a problem with gun homicide.

In this case, we'd also want to look at the total homicide rate, as otherwise the total homicide rate is relatively similar, the gun crime rate may simply be an expression of preference for guns over say, knives or other weapons due to cultural or availability reasons (e.g. centerfire handguns are illegal and were largely universally confiscated in the UK) while the total danger level in either place is relatively constant. From what I can find, in 2012, New Hampshire had a total homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, while the UK had a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, indicating that total murders are pretty equal.

http://www.usa.com/new-hampshire-state-crime-and-crime-rate.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

**whembly**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
For all those focusing on changes to the law, you may wish to note the following (please note, not my own work. I found this elsewhere);

1. Elliot Rodger was being treated by mental health professionals.

2. Rodger's parents contacted law enforcement days prior to the incident, but Elliot did not present himself as an imminent threat to himself or others, so the LEOs didn't take him into custody.

3. Elliot Rodger complied with California's one handgun per 30-days requirement when he purchased each of the three handguns found in his possession.

4. Elliot Rodger waited 10-days before receiving each of his three handguns, per California law.

5. Elliot Rodger passed his three background checks, one for each of his three handguns, per California law.

6. Elliot Rodger passed a written test administered by a California DOJ Certified Instructor, per California law.

7. Elliot Rodger complied with the Safe Handling Demonstration Requirement performed in the presence of a California DOJ Certified Instructor three times, per California law.

8. Elliot Rodger complied with California's Firearms Safety Device Requirement.

9. Elliot Rodger purchased magazines in compliance with California's restrictions on magazine capacity. Each of the magazines had a ten round capacity.

Elliot Rodger had no criminal history or history of violence, his family is affluent and had significant resources, he was being professionally treated, and even when his parents were concerned and law enforcement officers were contacted, he was not deemed to be dangerous at that time.

In all honesty and candor I have no reason to believe that the system failed, or that the laws on the books didn't work. From what we know right now it seems that Elliot Rodger was able to jump through every hoop, even in California, with some of the most restrictive laws in the country when it comes to acquiring firearms.

His family was worried and called police. They didn't perceive him to be a threat. They didn't involuntarily commit him or take his firearms away.

What more could possibly be done? Better training for cops? Adding dedicated mental health professionals to the police force to assist with these types of determinations?

So... what you're saying is no system is perfect... eh? And no matter how many additional laws/regulations are passed, it still won't be perfect.

Having said that, the discussion ought to be centered around what are reasonable gun-control laws/regulations.

"reasonable" can be different for each state of the union... as it should be.

**curran12**

whembly wrote:

So... what you're saying is no system is perfect... eh? And no matter how many additional laws/regulations are passed, it still won't be perfect.

Having said that, the discussion ought to be centered around what are reasonable gun-control laws/regulations.

"reasonable" can be different for each state of the union... as it should be.

This. Very much this.

I find myself a lot of times in a difficult position.I want to advocate for firearm control, BUT I feel a lot of the methods being pulled out lately, especially those in reaction to a mass shooting, are not going to do anything. It's created a place where the conversation is impossible to have because both sides of the gun argument are so deeply entrenched, and there's zero room for middle ground because of that lack of reasonable middle ground.

I do feel like there can be more done to prevent firearms violence, I do feel like an avenue to aid in that is in revising or re-examining of existing gun laws. It's not a silver bullet, if you'll excuse the pun, but it can be part of something that does help the situation on a wide scale. But sadly, when you mention 'gun laws' anywhere...well, you get this conversation that we've seen, which is not helpful for anyone on either side of the conversation.

**cincydooley**

Make any of my firearms safety or marksmanship classes tax write offs and that'd be a start

**HiveFleetPlastic**

sebster wrote:
HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Well, this guy seems to have been failed by his culture. Healthier attitudes towards sex and romance might have stopped him from going off the deep end.

Possibly. He could have also been a nut who picked the one thing that wasn't handed to him on a plate to justify the murderous rampage he was always going to have. I honestly don't know.

I guess the issue is that such a conversation

I agree. I think that line's always going to be blurry with any issue, but I don't think "people's beliefs don't affect their actions at all, they just Go Insane and then pick a random reason from their beliefs" is a reasonable point of view - I think it's a point of view designed to shut down conversation about issues the person advancing it doesn't want discussed. That seems to be a pretty common thread in these shootings, where the murderer will have had a bunch of particular political views and people sympathetic to those views will be trying to avoid the association.

But the cool thing is, trying to combat awful attitudes to relationships and sex like he had gets us much broader benefits as a society than "people won't go on shooting sprees" so we can probably just go along with that and it'll be fine anyway.

sebster wrote:
Not having access to a gun probably would've helped him not kill as many people, or any at all. I'm not up on where the gun he used was actually from. If he had signs of being mentally disturbed (and the youtube video seems to be a pretty big sign) maybe someone should have confiscated it. I'm sure that would worry a lot of gun-owning Americans, though.

Now, I'm on very much on the side that having more guns in society clearly leads to more gun violence*, but given this guy stabbed to death three of his victims I don't think this is the smartest incident on which to push for gun control.

In a general sense I don't think any mass shooting in the US is a good incident to push for gun control because AFAIK their rate of people being killed by guns is so high that mass shootings don't raise it by all that much. They have so much cultural baggage around it that they need to work through before they can even have a sensible conversation on the issue, and there's a lot standing in the way of that.

But come on, the people he killed without the gun lived with him and may have been asleep at the time of the attack. The three he killed who didn't were all shot to death, and he shot an additional eight people. The only reason that doesn't seem nuts is because it's comparatively tame for a US shooting spree.

sebster wrote:
On the police front, I don't know. Should posting a video on youtube about how you're going to murder someone be illegal? Isn't it already illegal?

I'm not sure if the video was illegal (it wasn't directed specifically at anyone), nor am I sure the video was brought to police attention before the murder spree. But I think one issue is that unless a crime is committed, its pretty hard to get someone committed unless they're willing, and that appears to be the only other step. This issue isn't just about spree killers, but also really important in terms of domestic violence, where some level of intervention (even just mandatory therapy sessions) could likely have prevented a violent spiral to murder.

*Though that doesn't automatically lead to a justification for greater restrictions on guns, for a whole bunch of reasons that get hashed out in every single gun control thread.

It's sort of mental health related but I didn't actually realise prostitution was illegal in the US until discussing this with Americans.

**Dreadclaw69**

whembly wrote:
So... what you're saying is no system is perfect... eh? And no matter how many additional laws/regulations are passed, it still won't be perfect.

Having said that, the discussion ought to be centered around what are reasonable gun-control laws/regulations.

"reasonable" can be different for each state of the union... as it should be.

What is "reasonable" gun control? I'm genuinely curious as we keep hearing calls for "reasonable" or "common sense" gun control (usually from the same people implying that gun owners are murderers in waiting, condone violence, and need guns because they are under endowed) . California has been touting "common sense" gun control and that did not prevent a young man determined to cause harm. Add to that every reasonable/common sense gun control measure that comes in is never enough and just leads to another one.

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive

I've just learned that Washington, D.C.'s petition for a rehearing of the Parker case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied today. This is good news. Readers will recall in this case that the D.C. Circuit overturned the decades-long ban on gun ownership in the nation's capitol on Second Amendment grounds.

However, as my colleague Peter Ferrara explained in his National Review Online article following the initial decision in March, it looks very likely that the United States Supreme Court will take the case on appeal. When it does so - beyond seriously considering the clear original intent of the Second Amendment to protect an individual's right to armed self-defense - the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to take into account the findings of a recent study out of Harvard.

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:

If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)
Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct - that "gun don't kill people, people do" - the study also shows that Russia's murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns.

The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun - a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite - but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:

[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 - emphases in original)
It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive.

Not only is the D.C. gun ban ill-conceived on constitutional grounds, it fails to live up to its purpose. If the astronomical murder rate in the nation's capitol, in comparison to cities where gun ownership is permitted, didn't already make that fact clear, this study out of Harvard should.

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cincydooley wrote:
Make any of my firearms safety or marksmanship classes tax write offs and that'd be a start

This would be a start. Had Bloomberg spent $50 million on gun safety (as the group's name suggests) instead of astro-turfing that would have been a start.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

So, I somehow managed to make people discuss about an hypothetical war between hypothetical armed U.S. citizen against and hypothetical evil dictatorial U.S. regime. That is pretty neat. Now let us try to put that thread somehow, maybe, a little on topic.

Bromsy wrote:
My plan: Step 1 - legalize prostitution.

that's it.

I do not think it would have helped at all. I mean, obviously this guy had delusions about his own grandeur. It was not about sex to him, it was about status and respect. From what he said, it seems pretty clear to me he would have scorned the prostitutes anyway. I mean, people do not kill over not having sex. They do kill, however, about (perceived) insufferable injustice. And what this horrible human being perceived as an insufferable injustice was not being recognized as The Most Awesomest Ever. Prostitutes would not have changed that at all.

**Frazzled**

cincydooley wrote:
Make any of my firearms safety or marksmanship classes tax write offs and that'd be a start

Baby I'm liking this. With a good accountant I should be able to write off all my IDPA related activities and ammo under firearms safety and marksmanship.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

cincydooley wrote:
Make any of my firearms safety or marksmanship classes tax write offs and that'd be a start

Let me write off my range trips as "Self Defense Training" and I can get down with that

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Dreadclaw69 wrote:
whembly wrote:
So... what you're saying is no system is perfect... eh? And no matter how many additional laws/regulations are passed, it still won't be perfect.

Having said that, the discussion ought to be centered around what are reasonable gun-control laws/regulations.

"reasonable" can be different for each state of the union... as it should be.

What is "reasonable" gun control? I'm genuinely curious as we keep hearing calls for "reasonable" or "common sense" gun control (usually from the same people implying that gun owners are murderers in waiting, condone violence, and need guns because they are under endowed) . California has been touting "common sense" gun control and that did not prevent a young man determined to cause harm. Add to that every reasonable/common sense gun control measure that comes in is never enough and just leads to another one.

Exactly. To anti-gunners all gun control is "common sense"

**Easy E**

This thread needs to start the #yesallwomenneedguns as a response to this tragedy.

**Bromsy**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, I somehow managed to make people discuss about an hypothetical war between hypothetical armed U.S. citizen against and hypothetical evil dictatorial U.S. regime. That is pretty neat. Now let us try to put that thread somehow, maybe, a little on topic.

Bromsy wrote:
My plan: Step 1 - legalize prostitution.

that's it.

I do not think it would have helped at all. I mean, obviously this guy had delusions about his own grandeur. It was not about sex to him, it was about status and respect. From what he said, it seems pretty clear to me he would have scorned the prostitutes anyway. I mean, people do not kill over not having sex. They do kill, however, about (perceived) insufferable injustice. And what this horrible human being perceived as an insufferable injustice was not being recognized as The Most Awesomest Ever. Prostitutes would not have changed that at all.

I think it would have helped at least as much if not more than anything else discussed in the thread. Short of a total ban on guns, including confiscation; or an extreme societal value shift nothing is going to stop this sort of thing so we might as well have clean, healthy and safe prostitutes to help get us through these times.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Bromsy wrote:
I think it would have helped at least as much if not more than anything else discussed in the thread.

Which does not mean much if “more than anything else” still accounts for nothing.
And I am not advocating a ban on prostitution, I am just talking about this specific issue.

Bromsy wrote:
so we might as well have clean, healthy and safe prostitutes to help get us through these times.

Which times? The time where a self-inflated horrible human being believe himself above everyone and everything else, and consider not everyone being amazed at him an injustice big enough to be worth killing random bystanders? Because that is what we are looking at. It really has nothing to do with sex in the end.

**Jihadin**

Forgot high grade brass poles Bromsy

**Dreadclaw69**

Easy E wrote:
This thread needs to start the #yesallwomenneedguns as a response to this tragedy.

That ignores the four of the six murder victims who were male
- Cheng Yuan Hong
- George Chen
- Weihan "David" Wang
- Christopher Martinez

**Jihadin**

Going to have to start wearing my body armor when I go out and about