Sante Fe shooting

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**jouso**

Vaktathi wrote:
jouso wrote:

In my personal experience, and shooting gets you a lot of time next to cops doing their mandatory proficiency, you really want to help them. Being extra nice to public servants is free for the most part and gets you a lot of goodwill you might want to use later on.

They might not be there to help you as an individual, but they're part of a system that tries to make sure everything you benefit from in society works as intended.

Police absolutely have an important role to play in society.

However, particularly under the legal and professional framework in the US that surrounds police, as an individual, you have every incentive to not want to be anywhere near the police and to keep interactions, even friendly ones, to an absolute minimum.

They have no duty to protect or assist you. They can and will routinely lie to you (thats basic police work and how they usually get confessions) but lying to them is a crime. They are not required to know the law in their enforcement of it, and their ignorance of it is legally shielded, while your ignorance of the law is no defense in court. If they do something illegal they are unlikely to be held accountable without significant evidence and public pressure, but even passive resistance on my part is a crime. Their entire job is to look for, and be a professional witness to, violations of the law, even if unrelated to any whatever their immediate task was. There is a reason every lawyer and veteran cop will tell you "dont talk", no matter how trivial you think a statement may be. Even when it comes to firearms, they can and do get away with shoots that would send anyone without a badge to jail in a heartbeat and training is heavily based around paramount officer safety at all costs that frees them to shoot at the mere apprehension of a firearm being drawn.

Which ultimately comes from an unusually high proliferation of guns.

Cops are always in the edge because they believe everyone down to the old lady they're helping to cross the road may be armed and can put them on the long list of police fatalities.

**sebster**

Vaktathi wrote:
rm, depends on how you make the comparison, it's not an outrageous claim

No, it's false. You look at rates of assault or other non-lethal violent crime, and the US is smack bang in the middle of developed countries. You look at non-violent crimes, break-ins and robberies etc, and the US actually on the better end of the scale. As such, his statement "We have a high crime rate in the US" is a false statement. The US not a blasted, lawless wasteland desperate for Chuck Norris to flying kick it in to civilization. It's just another developed country, albeit one with a murder rate that is unique among developed countries, and it also happens to have gun proliferation that is unique among developed countries.

That said you I won't debate the accuracy of the claim that firearms simply existing leads to incidents of their misuse simply because they're there to be misused, that's a point I'll concede, though there's little/no direct correlation between raw numbers and homicide rates within the US itself over time (overall deaths have declined even as we have more firearms available than ever, it's the shock incidents that have spiked).

What's important to note is that shootings haven't declined, but deaths from shootings have. This is largely the result of better emergency medical care. But yes, it is important to seperate the overall murder rate from the shock incidents, but unfortuntely that's now how the politics of this issue plays out.

And I think the raw numbers of guns is the wrong stat. If a town has 100 homes, and 60 of them have one gun each then there is a gun near at hand for most people most of the time. If the next town over has 100 homes, and 1 home has 100 guns and the other 99 have no guns at all, then most people will not have a gun near at hand, despite that town having a notionally higher rate of guns to people. And note that while the US stockpile of guns has grown, the number of homes with guns has fallen by about a third in the last 60 years. Is that part of the cause of falling murder rates? Dunno.

**Grey Templar**

sebster wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:
The firearm is the trigger? Wow, that fork must have made you fat.

If a person has a problem with eating, it's a good idea not to stockpile biscuits in the pantry. This is an incredibly obvious thing. And yet with guns you pretend it isn't true, because you will not admit the reality about guns.

Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits.

We need to focus on the cause behind the violent incidents and not the tools that were used. Fortunately, US violent crime is plummeting, and the FBI crime statistics make it quite clear that the number of guns that are owned in the US has no correlation at all to crime rates at all.

**ScarletRose**

Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits

Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.

And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.

**Insurgency Walker**

ScarletRose wrote:
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits

Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.

And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.

And we regulate firearms, they come with handy books that warn you of their potential to cause damage. They are sold with trigger locks. Firearms sellers are open to federal inspection. Next!

**Grey Templar**

ScarletRose wrote:
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits

Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.

And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.

Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.

**ScarletRose**

Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.

Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.

Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.

**Grey Templar**

ScarletRose wrote:
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.

Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.

Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.

Its not relevant. Owning a gun or a specific type of gun isn't equivalent to, say, food containing arsenic or something that is purely toxic. There is a very long list of legitimate reasons to own guns. There is no legitimate reason to put arsenic or other poisons in food.

And its not hyperbole to say that having the police inspect homes to enforce safe storage of guns is a violation of the 4th amendment. Its pretty much a textbook example of what a violation would look like.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

If I had said or even suggested that recognizing that gun proliferation must mean gun bans or even increased regulations, then you would have a good point. But I said no such thing. So instead what we're looking at is a fairly crude two card trick, where you avoid my actual point and instead argue against a hypothetical, possible conclusion that some other person might have. Because you can't challenge that claim about gun proliferation, and politically you aren't willing to admit it is true, so instead you balderdash around it.

Just think about how dysfunctional this is. Imagine having this conversation with someone;
"I think pizza is bad for you."
"I disagree, we shouldn't ban pizza."

Everyone knows that's some absurd nonsense. But it is what we accept as a matter of course from the pro-gun debate. Really weird.

**Insurgency Walker**

sebster wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:
The firearm is the trigger? Wow, that fork must have made you fat.

If a person has a problem with eating, it's a good idea not to stockpile biscuits in the pantry. This is an incredibly obvious thing. And yet with guns you pretend it isn't true, because you will not admit the reality about guns.

[user]The food isn't the issue, the persons behavior is. That is an incredibly obvious thing

We have a high crime rate in the US. Even factoring out firearms related muders from the US and leavings firearm related deaths in the rest of Europe we still lead by a huge factor.

This is false. You believe false things. If you were to learn things that aren't false, you wouldn't be able to defend your gun position any more. And so I predict you will not learn correct things about US crime rates.

[/user]Ok, I'm wrong because when I say Europe because I'm not counting Eastern Europe where countries like Russia and the Ukraine that have very high murder rates pushing up the over all murder rate. So in the US the murder rate is about 4.8 per 100k. About 1/2 of that are firearms, so call it 2.4 per 100k
Now look at total for Europe which is about 3 per 100k, definitely higher. Take out all the former communist block countries and and your looking below 2.4 without removing firearms deaths.

Your school shooting number is artificially inflated by including non- firearms related incidents

They are all incidents involving guns. You have claimed a false thing. It includes non-homicide incidents, like gun safety accidents, but of course those incidents are part of the cost of gun proliferation.

[user]I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SOFDC wrote:
Off the chart as compared to?... Europe? Sure. Always have been. Even back when gun laws were roughly equivalent.

Gun laws were more similar, but rates of gun ownership were nothing alike. It isn't the laws, but the proliferation of guns that drives much higher murder rate. This is for a very simple and obvious reason - when something is likely to be near to hand, you will use it more often than when it is very rarely near to you.

[/user]Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.

People deny this because they are unwilling to admit that sometimes things you like have consequences, but things fething have consequences. I like pizza and I will still choose to eat it, but I'd be lying if I denied it was bad for me. This doesn't necessarily mean people should stop eating it, it doesn't necessarily mean society should encourage pizza makers to use healthier cheese, but it does mean that any honest conversation about pizza needs people to start with people accepting that pizza is not a health food.

The same for guns.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
In contrast we have a plethora of states in the Americas with stringent gun laws, and murder rates that would make Putin blanch.

Actually Russia has a murder rate almost triple the US. The US problem is bad, but its not 'wildly corrupt dictatorship with chronic problems with equality, justice and police corruption' bad.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Just Tony wrote:
So basically it comes down yet again to the sociopath behind the tool, not the tool itself. Why didn't the Boston Bombing have the activist out pounding the street to limit access to pressure cookers and metal fasteners? We punished the person behind that attack, not Proctor and Gamble for making the pot or Grainger for making the bolts.

Because you balance the level of benefit of an item against the level of its harm. This is not something that should need to be explained.

**Grey Templar**

sebster wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.

If I had said or even suggested that recognizing that gun proliferation must mean gun bans or even increased regulations, then you would have a good point. But I said no such thing. So instead what we're looking at is a fairly crude two card trick, where you avoid my actual point and instead argue against a hypothetical, possible conclusion that some other person might have. Because you can't challenge that claim about gun proliferation, and politically you aren't willing to admit it is true, so instead you balderdash around it.

Just think about how dysfunctional this is. Imagine having this conversation with someone;
"I think pizza is bad for you."
"I disagree, we shouldn't ban pizza."

Everyone knows that's some absurd nonsense. But it is what we accept as a matter of course from the pro-gun debate. Really weird.

You didn't say it, this time. But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.

They argue for increased regulations as well as outright bans. None of which would actually have stopped the incidents they are allegedly trying to prevent, so the only net result is disarming law abiding citizens. Its just been a steady erosion of the 2nd amendment over the years. You really can't blame people who support the 2nd for being rather jumpy and aggressive. Anybody who is the target of repeated attacks will respond like that.

People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.

**sebster**

Insurgency Walker, you might want to check the quote tags in your reply to me.

Insurgency Walker wrote:
I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.

There was one incident involving a pellet gun, therefore we should ignore the US having more than 6 times as many incidents than the other 13 countries combined. This is silly.

Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.

This is another claim that is commonly made that is totally false. No, Chicago and a handful of other cities don't account for the high rate of US murders. For all the talk, the Illinois murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000, compared to a national average of 4.5 per 100,000. Chicago isn't even enough to make Illinois that far above the national average, and well below states like Louisiana and South Carolina. DC is another thing entirely, I'll grant you that, but even then its 130 murders out of 14,000 nationwide, it isn't materially impacting the national average.

Anyhow, here's a chart that tracks gun deaths against gun proliferation per state. Note that it is gun deaths, so gun suicides play a major role, but there's no reason they shouldn't be part of the conversation.

More guns results in more gun deaths, and the correlation is pretty tight.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
You didn't say it, this time.

I've never said it, so you can stop that nonsense right now.

But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.

And you should debate with them on the points they make. I didn't make that point, and the only reason to counter the point I did make with your argument against a different argument made by different people is to balderdash your way around either contradicting or accepting the point I did make.

People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.

No, it really isn't. The NRA's position is a direct product of how they've aligned themselves with money and political power.

**Dreadwinter**

Insurgency Walker wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No, you don't understand, you're not FREE, man!

I remember when your monarch could walk the streets at night without a guard.
I think you had fewer firearms laws then too.

Correlation =/= causation. There were also fewer countries in the Balkans back in Gustav VI Adolf's time, does that mean the number of countries in the Balkans causes gun crime to drop?

You still haven't adressed the fact that rights are social constructs.

Didn't mean to imply causation. Was pointing out how your society is becoming less free. Your monarch can't freely walk the streets. Less freedom also does not mean more safety. It just means less freedom. Freedom is something we are always talking about right? Free to choose safe foods. Free to choose clean energy. Free to marry whomever you wish, worship however you wish. Free to study what you wish. Free to discuss what you wish. Only freedom can be scary, so better reign that in. For a ruling class freedom is only good to get you to the top. Then you reign that in before someone else climbs that same ladder.

But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?

Yeah! You guys rate a 2 on the Free-do-meter!(Patent Pending) Not to be confused with the Frito-meter, the second best made up meter! A 2 out of 7! Woooooooo!

But in all seriousness this is bullgak because the "divine" in whatever religion or spirituality is horsegak/doesn't exist and has absolutely nothing to do with the US Government. We are a no Magic Sky Fairy zone.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Frazzled wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:

But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?

This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.

You have not heard of inalienable rights?

Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.

Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

trexmeyer wrote:
What are the odds of someone breaking a gun out of a safe and using it to kill someone?

People have crashed cars into the front doors of gun shops and looted the contents.
http://komonews.com/news/local/thieves-crash-into-gun-shop-with-stolen-car-make-off-with-50-firearms
http://news3lv.com/news/local/police-car-crashes-into-nevada-gun-store-to-steal-firearms
http://www.nbc15.com/cw/content/news/Stolen-Oregon-gun-shop-firearm-found-in-crashed-stolen-vehicle-472408053.html

Those are just from this year. So I wouldn't find it far- fetched to find someone broke into my house and just picked up my small biometric safe, and took it home to crack open. Another huge issue is stupid people leaving guns in their cars, and the cars being broken into. Those people need to get nailed for negligence IMO.

**Insurgency Walker**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:

But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?

This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.

You have not heard of inalienable rights?

Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.

Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.

It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Insurgency Walker, you might want to check the quote tags in your reply to me.

Insurgency Walker wrote:
I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.

There was one incident involving a pellet gun, therefore we should ignore the US having more than 6 times as many incidents than the other 13 countries combined. This is silly.

Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.

This is another claim that is commonly made that is totally false. No, Chicago and a handful of other cities don't account for the high rate of US murders. For all the talk, the Illinois murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000, compared to a national average of 4.5 per 100,000. Chicago isn't even enough to make Illinois that far above the national average, and well below states like Louisiana and South Carolina. DC is another thing entirely, I'll grant you that, but even then its 130 murders out of 14,000 nationwide, it isn't materially impacting the national average.

Anyhow, here's a chart that tracks gun deaths against gun proliferation per state. Note that it is gun deaths, so gun suicides play a major role, but there's no reason they shouldn't be part of the conversation.

More guns results in more gun deaths, and the correlation is pretty tight.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
You didn't say it, this time.

I've never said it, so you can stop that nonsense right now.

But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.

And you should debate with them on the points they make. I didn't make that point, and the only reason to counter the point I did make with your argument against a different argument made by different people is to balderdash your way around either contradicting or accepting the point I did make.

People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.

No, it really isn't. The NRA's position is a direct product of how they've aligned themselves with money and political power.

Don't deflect on the pellet gun issue, that list has some flaws and I pointed out the most obvious.

Some years half of the murders in Michigan take place in Detroit, and it's not just about population density.

Your proliferation, chart didn't come through. But will look that up. Sorry about the reply tags from the earlier post. Dang my lack of forum skills

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also don't think suicide belongs in the statistics when talking about gun violence. Although suicide is an act of self violence including it seems to be used to generate fear and inflate numbers. I know people that when the hear that police are most likely to die by their own gun they walk away thinking police are being stripped of there firearms and shot with them. Not that it is a suicide issue.

**Xenomancers**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:

But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?

This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.

You have not heard of inalienable rights?

I think the problem is the claim that rights are god-given. To quote George Carlin on that particular point:

Spoiler:

But let’s say it’s true, let’s say God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has ten stipulations, okay? Ten rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week because we had to amend the Bill of Rights an additional seventeen times. So God forgot a couple of things. Like… slavery! Just fething slipped his mind. [laughing] But let’s say, let’s say God gave us the original ten. He gave the British thirteen, the British Bill of Rights has thirteen stipulations. The Germans have twenty-nine, the Belgians have twenty-five, the Swedish have only six, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fething goddamn god-given deal is that? No rights at all? Why would God give different people in different countries different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn’t sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning.

The founders were mostly Deists. When they mention the divine law they are speaking to a natural law of the universe. At least that is what I like to think - it's mostly common sense not to steal from/kill/or oppress people.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dreadwinter wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Insurgency Walker wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
No, you don't understand, you're not FREE, man!

I remember when your monarch could walk the streets at night without a guard.
I think you had fewer firearms laws then too.

Correlation =/= causation. There were also fewer countries in the Balkans back in Gustav VI Adolf's time, does that mean the number of countries in the Balkans causes gun crime to drop?

You still haven't adressed the fact that rights are social constructs.

Didn't mean to imply causation. Was pointing out how your society is becoming less free. Your monarch can't freely walk the streets. Less freedom also does not mean more safety. It just means less freedom. Freedom is something we are always talking about right? Free to choose safe foods. Free to choose clean energy. Free to marry whomever you wish, worship however you wish. Free to study what you wish. Free to discuss what you wish. Only freedom can be scary, so better reign that in. For a ruling class freedom is only good to get you to the top. Then you reign that in before someone else climbs that same ladder.

But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?

Yeah! You guys rate a 2 on the Free-do-meter!(Patent Pending) Not to be confused with the Frito-meter, the second best made up meter! A 2 out of 7! Woooooooo!

But in all seriousness this is bullgak because the "divine" in whatever religion or spirituality is horsegak/doesn't exist and has absolutely nothing to do with the US Government. We are a no Magic Sky Fairy zone.

Agreed - see response above^ - don't forget - when this nation was founded there were an equal if not more number of stupid people they had to convince to do the right thing. They had to use the right language.

**Kanluwen**

cuda1179 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
feeder wrote:
I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.

Define "negligently stored".

Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.

To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.

That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?

In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.

**Inquisitor Lord Bane**

Actually only 11 states require the reporting of lost or stolen firearms, and even those have differing sections. Example, Maryland, you only have to report handguns and "assault weapons" as lost/stolen, and in Michigan, you only have to report them if they are stolen, not lost.

EDIT: Punctuation

**Xenomancers**

ScarletRose wrote:
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.

Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.

Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.

I will reiterate again - Cigarettes kill 480k people a year in the united states (through associated diseases caused by smoking) but it is a real number. 13k people a year are killed by guns (in most of these murders a replacement weapon like a knife of even fists would have still produced a murder also). That is 37 times the number of deaths. Cigarettes are sold with a warning lable that says they can cause cancer and that you shouldn't smoke if you are pregnant. Over 40k of these deaths are caused by second hand smoke! 3x the number of deaths than guns from people smoking near other people!

Where is the national outrage on that? Where is the call to ban cigarettes? I don't hear it. Also, while tobacco companies aren't exactly popular. The NRA gets treated like an organization that supports murdering children - when in fact they are just protecting a constitutional right to bear arms. Tobacco companies have no such constitutional protection - they literally just sell a product that kills people that has no other use but to kill you.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Insurgency Walker wrote:
It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Just because you say (or quote someone) doesn't make it true. I've always found that quote quite silly, it's pretty self evident that by damned near any measure all men are NOT created equal, and while it's nice to say those rights are inalienable is it really significant or even true? My understanding of the word inalienable (remembering it's not a common word outside of America so maybe my understanding is wrong) is that it simply means something you can't give away, it can't be transferred by the possessor. Except isn't the crux of the issue not people giving away those rights but rather them being taken away, which history shows can and does happen. And it's not like they can't be given away by the possessor anyway.

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I also don't think suicide belongs in the statistics when talking about gun violence. Although suicide is an act of self violence including it seems to be used to generate fear and inflate numbers. I know people that when the hear that police are most likely to die by their own gun they walk away thinking police are being stripped of there firearms and shot with them. Not that it is a suicide issue.

I think suicide should be in a separate column, but it definitely needs to be brought up. Being able to kill yourself more easily makes you more likely to succeed. Depression is a sickness that can go various levels be treated, so less people succeeding at killing themselves is for the better.

Personally I don't have a problem with guns in America, I think a large number of guns makes deadly violence more prevalent but putting a realistic number on it is difficult because of all the other factors that feed into that statistic. I also think a large number of guns probably makes non-deadly crimes less prevalent, but again damned near impossible to put a number on that.

At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.

I drive a 60's muscle car that is far more likely to kill someone than if I drove a modern buzz box, but I still drive it because society currently at least has deemed the risk small enough to leave the choice in my hands and I'm grateful for that. I don't see it as being a hell of a lot different to allowing people to have guns as long as the random shootings remain statistically small.

**Xenomancers**

Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
feeder wrote:
I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.

Define "negligently stored".

Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.

To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.

That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?

In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.

What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.

**Ouze**

"Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.

So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.

**Kilkrazy**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
... ...

At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.

... ...

The political issue is that an increasing number of Americans don't think the level of random shootings is an acceptable price to pay.

**Xenomancers**

Ouze wrote:
"Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.

So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.

It's just putting things in perspective. How can you judge anything without perspective? True - just because something else is worse doesn't mean you should ignore another issue - it does beg the question. Why does this almost statically irrelevant issue cause people such anger. The answer is simple - it's purely political - as is cigarettes being legal. Want to sell a dangerous product here in the states? It's going to cost you a lot of money and the cigarette companies pay it.

It's true - anti smoking campaign worked. Children seeing images of people who lost their vocal cords laying over dying in a hospital bed made a real impact on people starting smoking. In the next 30 years those deaths from smoking will drop significantly. This is great! You can still buy a cigarette though and many more will die needlessly.

Maybe we should run adds showing to pain that people suffer after a mass shooting - to call on the empathy of people considering mass murder. It was effective to stop people from killing themselves and others via smoking?

While banning cigarettes would have an almost immediate drop in smoking related death - banning guns would have almost no effect on overall deaths by gun. 500 million guns in the US already - most unregistered with no real method to confiscation them. Plus confiscation carries a risk of inciting rebellion - which could potentially be catastrophic.

**Prestor Jon**

Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
feeder wrote:
I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.

Define "negligently stored".

Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.

To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.

That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?

In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.

In the instance of the Santa Fe shooter the guns were properly locked up and stored and the shooter also had access to them. He was 17 and unlike the Parkland shooter he doesn't years of violent behavior, mental instability and police interactions. It's perfectly legal in Texas and most states for minors to use guns and own long guns so the shooter in this instance had used these guns before, knew where they were stored and had access to them, none of which broke any laws or invalidated the fact that the guns were locked up when not in use. Properly securing my guns when I'm not using them doesn't mean that I'm literally the only person that could access them. Multiple people in my family can access my guns when I'm not around, that doesn't mean they aren't properly secured when I'm not there. You trust people until they prove to be untrustworthy but you can't always see it coming. Prior to the shooting did the parents know their teenage son was trying to get a date with that girl? Were they aware of his persistent behavior and prior rejections that he ignored? Did they know he felt humiliated by the most recent and public rejection and harbored a grudge against the girl that grew into a murderous rage? If the shooter hadn't acted irresponsibly with the guns previously and didn't express his feelings to his parents how were they supposed to know he had become a danger?

Do you have kids? If you do how much information do they typically volunteer about their day at school? How much communication do you get about their school day from their teachers? How much information do you get from the parents of your kids' friends about what happens at school? How much information do you have about your kids' social lives?

Sure in hindsight the teenager should have been prevented from accessing the guns in the house when he was upset and he clearly needed some help with his social life. However, that's a biased evaluation based on the outcome, what we need to do is evaluate the process that led to that decision in the first place not judge with the advantage of hindsight. What did the parents know prior to the shooting and is it reasonable to have expected them to have restricted the shooter's access to the guns based on whatever information they had at the time?

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Xenomancers wrote:
Ouze wrote:
"Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.

So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.

It's just putting things in perspective. How can you judge anything without perspective? True - just because something else is worse doesn't mean you should ignore another issue - it does beg the question. Why does this almost statically irrelevant issue cause people such anger. The answer is simple - it's purely political - as is cigarettes being legal. Want to sell a dangerous product here in the states? It's going to cost you a lot of money and the cigarette companies pay it.

It's true - anti smoking campaign worked. Children seeing images of people who lost their vocal cords laying over dying in a hospital bed made a real impact on people starting smoking. In the next 30 years those deaths from smoking will drop significantly. This is great! You can still buy a cigarette though and many more will die needlessly.

Maybe we should run adds showing to pain that people suffer after a mass shooting - to call on the empathy of people considering mass murder. It was effective to stop people from killing themselves and others via smoking?

While banning cigarettes would have an almost immediate drop in smoking related death - banning guns would have almost no effect on overall deaths by gun. 500 million guns in the US already - most unregistered with no real method to confiscation them. Plus confiscation carries a risk of inciting rebellion - which could potentially be catastrophic.

The issue with confiscation isn't rebellion, it's that it's a blatant violation of post facto protection and a logistical impossibility.

**Kanluwen**

Xenomancers wrote:

What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.

Yeah...that's not why one reports a lost gun. It's to cover your ass in case it gets used in illegal activities.

**daedalus**

Kanluwen wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:

What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.

Yeah...that's not why one reports a lost gun. It's to cover your ass in case it gets used in illegal activities.

I'd imagine that makes it significantly harder to try to fence too, but I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about the selling process for that kind of stuff.

**Easy E**

sebster wrote:
I

Sebs, that is an amazing graph. It clearly shows the correlation. Wow.

**cuda1179**

Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
feeder wrote:
I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.

Define "negligently stored".

Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.

To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.

That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?

In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?k
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.

I'm guessing you've never heard of bolt cutters or sledge hammers or hack saws?