California 12/2/15...too much of this

[Maskfan]

We should be very wary of these "lists" the government makes. What is the criteria for being on these lists? How can you seek redress to remove your name if it is there by mistake? Does being on this list make you guilty until proven innocent?

Heinlein said it best: An armed society is a polite society.

[Bert]

Yeah, all those polite mass killings America has that almost never happen anywhere else. And for backup you quote a guy who thinks people should have to serve in the military to have a vote. Nice.

[Bert]

@ ViridianIV - Your argument is unintentionally funny because the NRA, who have most contributed to opposing firearm restrictions, are the lobbying wing of American gun manufacturers. You are being duped with patriotic bullshit by the very corporations that you distrust.

[Femina]

@ ViridianIV - Your argument is unintentionally funny because the NRA, who have most contributed to opposing firearm restrictions, are the lobbying wing of American gun manufacturers. You are being duped with patriotic bullshit by the very corporations that you distrust.

Corporations are shit. No one's arguing they aren't but I don't personally care whose lobbying hardest for gun rights because they are rights and therefore to be defended. RIGHTS in America are defended, each and every one, more so than a human being on trial for murder because the stakes are that much higher and effect an entire populace not merely a few. The NRA isn't arguing for gun rights so that people can shoot people, that's just something that occasionally happens, corporations don't have an ulterior motive to be trusted or distrusted beyond making money. In this instance they supply the country with weapons which can legally be used for recreation and to defend lives or certain rights if necessary. How weapons are used legally or illegally has nothing to do with patriotism (except in Texas, but Texas is crazy and no one outside Texas has any disillusions about how crazy Texas is) it has to do with our rights as citizens of the United States to use freely whatever tools necessary to protect ourselves from the harm another human being or COUNTRY would inflict upon us and the fact (which you continue not to discuss) that relinquishing our rights is relinquishing the principle upon which our country was founded, freedom. Freedom undefended stops being freedom. Freedom has been slipping away from the United States at a slow steady trickle since the Constitution was signed. Some of them freedoms that were harmful, but mostly just freedoms that made politicians less money and made everyone's lives less miserable.


Okay so there it is, it may be that you're right! It may be guns should be outlawed (but not from our Millitary right? The Government should always be armed to protect the citizens from outside threats and to protect themselves from their citizens who disagree with them? *that's sarcasm*) and it might darn well stop mass killings! It might lead to hand holding, singing, global peace and enlightenment... but it might just lead to a bunch of mass killings with Katanas because Americans quite often kill people for other reasons than simply that guns exist. The only thing that will be immediately certain is that it would lead to one more American right dissolved.

You've been very disrespectful Bert. Most of your arguments are made alongside some variation of 'America is stupid for having guns unlike us enlightened folk' and you're adept at providing your opinion for what you think is best for Americans without actually being a citizen of the United States or living under our conditions or exercising our rights. Not to sound rude, an effort you've not taken thus far, but perhaps you should consider that you don't really know what it is to be an American either culturally or intrinsically and should stop assuming that you do. Giving up constitutional rights because of terror attacks is Stupid with a capitol S, and every intelligent American knows this, it's only when they are frightened by terrorism that they ever even consider it.

[Bert]

Firstly, neither I nor anyone else arguing for more controls on guns is saying, implying, hinting at or even wishing for guns to be outlawed. That's a ridiculous and untrue statement that has no place in this discussion. And don't even start with the slippery slope stuff because we both know that is absurd. As for me not being American and therefore having no right to opine on anything American, that is equally absurd. The entire point I'm trying to make here is that Americans are strangely unable to grasp how far outside the mainstream they are when it comes to gun access. My God, you have weekly mass shootings, all around the country. These terrible killings are incredibly rare everywhere else. And you are actually arguing that if it was harder for people to access assault type guns they would just achieve similar death tolls using swords? That's an outrageous justification for what you call a right.

And about that. Your selective defense of constitutional rights is misguided on two fronts. First, almost all rights are not absolute. You have freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean you can stand on a soapbox and shout that everyone should grab a club and murder the nearest Muslim. That shit'll get you arrested. Free speech up to a point, but not if it infringes on other people's right to not get murdered. It's the same with guns. No one is saying guns should be banned, but background checks, assault weapons, these are reasonable accommodations to protect the rights of others. And secondly, the constitutional right you are referring to, the second amendment, is in no way meant to guarantee every American's right to own any gun he or she wants. The amendment is clearly meant to allow people to own guns as militia members, since at the time the U.S. couldn't afford to keep a large standing army at the ready. This was almost 250 years ago. Do you seriously think that Benjamin Franklin would argue today, in a world very far removed from single shot muzzle loaders that took a long time to reload, in favour of unlimited private gun ownership?

[Femina]

Firstly, neither I nor anyone else arguing for more controls on guns is saying, implying, hinting at or even wishing for guns to be outlawed. That's a ridiculous and untrue statement that has no place in this discussion. And don't even start with the slippery slope stuff because we both know that is absurd. As for me not being American and therefore having no right to opine on anything American, that is equally absurd. The entire point I'm trying to make here is that Americans are strangely unable to grasp how far outside the mainstream they are when it comes to gun access. My God, you have weekly mass shootings, all around the country. These terrible killings are incredibly rare everywhere else. And you are actually arguing that if it was harder for people to access assault type guns they would just achieve similar death tolls using swords? That's an outrageous justification for what you call a right.

And about that. Your selective defense of constitutional rights is misguided on two fronts. First, almost all rights are not absolute. You have freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean you can stand on a soapbox and shout that everyone should grab a club and murder the nearest Muslim. That shit'll get you arrested. Free speech up to a point, but not if it infringes on other people's right to not get murdered. It's the same with guns. No one is saying guns should be banned, but background checks, assault weapons, these are reasonable accommodations to protect the rights of others. And secondly, the constitutional right you are referring to, the second amendment, is in no way meant to guarantee every American's right to own any gun he or she wants. The amendment is clearly meant to allow people to own guns as militia members, since at the time the U.S. couldn't afford to keep a large standing army at the ready. This was almost 250 years ago. Do you seriously think that Benjamin Franklin would argue today, in a world very far removed from single shot muzzle loaders that took a long time to reload, in favour of unlimited private gun ownership?

We don't have weekly mass shootings. That's a gross overstatement. There DID happen to be a shooting last week in this one solitary instance, but that doesn't make mass shootings a weekly trend. We already have gun control in California, the very place this shooting took place in has the MOST stringent gun laws in the country, background checks and all those things you listed are things gun control deals with ALREADY in California and it happened anyway. What you're saying, apparently, is that we need gun control laws over our gun control laws with the exact same restrictions and regulations as they already have and it will somehow make it work better.

-Simply stating that the 'slippery slope' is absurd doesn't make it so.

-Not being American doesn't invalidate your opinion, it just makes your straw man judgments about America greatly obtuse. Europeans are less concerned about witnessing sex than Americans are, but I don't blanket them all as perverts and sex addicts.

-Americans are not 'oblivious' to how far out of the 'mainstream' they are with gun control, we know, but those of us that approve of owning guns don't CARE because we appreciate having access to weapons if we should ever NEED them. Just because (as a ludicrous example) it's become mainstream to jump off a cliff doesn't make it the thing to do. As I recall, everybody else was busy mainstreaming monarchies when we decided not to be.

Everything you just said from detailing the second amendment to the limitations on rights are things already dealt with legally when they are overstepped. You can't stop people from being killed, you can only discourage it, and it is discouraged through legal action against abusers in as much as its possible to do so. Punishing everybody because of the actions of a criminal isn't how any fair system of government should ever work.

[tallyho]

A mass shooting is defined as four or more deaths or woundings - you've had 355 so far this year up to San Bernardino. (1347 dead, 3,817 wounded)

You are right you don't have weekly mass shootings.

You have daily mass shootings.

It seems you only get to hear about the ones that make double figures. That's how used to it you have become as a society

Make sure you scroll down to view the graphic here - its mind blowing
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i ... n-violence

[Femina]

A mass shooting is defined as four or more deaths - you've had 355 so far this year up to San Bernardino.

You are right you don't have weekly mass shootings.

You have daily mass shootings.

It seems you only get to hear about the ones that make double figures. That's how used to it you have become.

Very well then, let's look at this from a statistical perspective using the actual evidence of studies. In the period between 2009 to NOW the highest rate of fatality per million due to public SHOOTINGS are in the order listed.

-Norway
-Macedonia
-Serbia
-Slovakia
-Finland
-Belgium
-Czech Republiv
and Finally the United States. Most if not ALL of those countries ABOVE us have restrictive firearm laws, whilst the majority of America does not.

Don't believe me? Read this! http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/compar ... nd-europe/ or any number of graphs anywhere else!

Does America have mass shootings? YES! But THIS IS NOT an 'American' problem. It is a human problem and it will never ever stop, because people will ALWAYS kill people. Why you HEAR more about it in America is because America has a higher population that most of these places and a broader obsession with media coverage. On any other continent every three or four of our States would be their own country ignoring the going ons in the next and appearing to kill fewer of our citizens than in larger countries when in reality the RATE at which we did was about average!

[tallyho]

Yes all small countries where ONE incident bumps the stats. We hear about it more in America because clearly it HAPPENS more in America.

How many of those incidents had you actually heard of in the article listed? 3? 4? 10? Out of 1000+

[Femina]

Yes all small countries where ONE incident bumps the stats. We hear about it more in America because clearly it HAPPENS more in America

The RATE is what matters. It happens more in America because there are MORE people. MORE people will always do more of something than where there are less people but that doesn't make them more likely to take any action on a person to person basis than anywhere else on the globe.

[tallyho]

Yes, but if you are 70 times bigger than a country in population terms how come your incidents are 200,300,400 times higher?
Bare in mind this is only for mass shootings - not individual murders, not accidental deaths. Add those into the mix and you are wiping out a small town each year.

[Femina]

Yes, but if you are 70 times bigger than a country in population terms how come your incidents are 200,300,400 times higher?
Bare in mind this is only for mass shootings - not individual murders, not accidental deaths. Add those into the mix and you are wiping out a small town each year.

Look you wanted to make this abut the math, not me, it isn't my fault if the paint it black 'Barbaric America' picture you'd like to believe in isn't true. The math shows very clearly that in America, we are no less likely to kill someone on a person to person basis than basically anywhere else in the developed world. Murder rates are generally higher in at least three other countries every year than they are in America. I'm not saying that people aren't killed in America, I'm not saying that deaths aren't serious, I'm not saying that the people who died didn't matter. I'm saying that what happens in America is no different from what happens anywhere else, but since nobody LIKES America (quite often including its own citizens) it's a popular pincushion for largely baseless claims and stereotypes.

[tallyho]

I like America. (been twice and not to the theme parks)
I just don't understand the logic that
You have to have easy access to guns so that you can protect yourself from all the people who have easy access to guns

[Femina]

I like America. (been twice and not to the theme parks)
I just don't understand the logic that
You have to have easy access to guns so that you can protect yourself from all the people who have easy access to guns

Because it's better than the logic of having no access to guns to protect yourself from people who have access to guns. You know why Norway is even ON the list despite having only 1 shooting? It's because that shooting was perpetrated in a country where there was basically no one to STOP his shooting spree allowing for higher fatality sprees. Either everyone should have the same opportunities and tools for survival as everyone else or a system of government might as well not be there at all for all the good its doing anybody.

[tallyho]

And yet strangely the rest of the free world manages to get by with out it...

[Femina]

And yet strangely the rest of the free world manages to get by with out it...

No. It doesn't get by any better or worse just less fair. Look at the list again. Take a detailed analysis of the USA vs the UK. The United States is roughly thirty eight times larger than the UK and guns are basically OUTLAWED in the UK yet when you take the number of shootings in the UK using the same data as the site above we come to an interesting conclusion. In the US there is a frequency of 0.88 killings per million in shooting sprees. In the UK there are .015. The United States has a population roughly five times that of the UK. Multiply the rate of the UK killings by 5 and you get .077, hardly any difference at all.

We have basically the same rate of killings, just nobody scolds and bitches at the UK about it from atop their high horse.

[Abductorenmadrid]

In the US there are 0.88 killings per million in shooting sprees. In the UK there are .015. The United States has a population roughly five times that of the UK. Multiply the rate of the UK killings by 5 and you get .077, hardly any difference at all.

We have basically the same rate of killings, just nobody scolds and bitches at the UK about it from atop their high horse.

You DON'T have the same rate of killings. You do realise that the rate is already done for you there - 0.88 per million versus 0.015 (let us be generous and call it 0.02)per million.

0.88 Vs 0.02

The rate is the rate, you dont need to adjust it by population size in the way you did - that is just, well, I don't wish to offend.

All you have said is ... if in the UK the murder rate increased by 5 times , it would be the same ! And even then you are off by a factor of 10 on the numbers you have provided - you have shown 0.077 NOT 0.77 versus 0.88.

So ... from the numbers you have given, basically if gun crime in the UK increased by a factor of 50... FIFTY times we start getting close to the USA. Check your numbers, check the math .. come back later.

AEM

[Femina]

In the US there are 0.88 killings per million in shooting sprees. In the UK there are .015. The United States has a population roughly five times that of the UK. Multiply the rate of the UK killings by 5 and you get .077, hardly any difference at all.

We have basically the same rate of killings, just nobody scolds and bitches at the UK about it from atop their high horse.

You DON'T have the same rate of killings. You do realise that the rate is already done for you there - 0.88 per million versus 0.015 (let us be generous and call it 0.02)per million.

0.88 Vs 0.02

The rate is the rate, you dont need to adjust it by population size in the way you did - that is just, well, I don't wish to offend.

All you have said is ... if in the UK the murder rate increased by 5 times , it would be the same ! And even then you are off by a factor of 10 on the numbers you have provided - you have shown 0.077 NOT 0.77 versus 0.88.

So ... from the numbers you have given, basically if gun crime in the UK increased by a factor of 50... FIFTY times we start getting close to the USA. Check your numbers, check the math .. come back later.

AEM

Okay fair enough, Math and statistics aren't exactly my strong suit and I'm not to proud to admit when I'm wrong, I'd rather live in England than America even if the rate of killings was the same. I wouldn't be generous either. .015 is what it is. Even so, that list puts America 9th on frequency and 8th on total deaths, hardly the running horse for problem child of the world, its just a favored target, and we're only including EUROPE at this point.

[tallyho]

What he said.

If you can't accept that you have had 350+ mass shooting incidents this year and allowing for the population difference and you being six times bigger, then the UK should have had maybe 50-60 incidents and we have had what 3? 4? (if that) then what can anyone say to that?

Nothing really.

So I will say nothing and sign off at this point. I will however apologize to the original poster for helping to turn this thread into exactly what he asked us not to.

Sorry dude.

Finally -
Let's all stick to being polite with each other even if we have different views (this isn't directed against anyone its just a reminder for tolerance with any future posts.)

[Femina]

What he said.

If you can't accept that you have had 350+ mass shooting incidents this year and allowing for the population difference and you being six times bigger, then the UK should have had maybe 50-60 incidents and we have had what 3? 4? (if that) then what can anyone say to that?

Nothing really.

Yes I have already acknowledged that I was incorrect with that statistic. England definitely has fewer shootings and fewer shootings per citizen, and it is entirely possible this is due to gun control.

The literal number of incidents is irrelevant to the discussion though because it comes down to the same thing 'rate per million' and our rate per million is less than 8 other countries in Europe alone, most of them countries smaller than us and with stricter gun laws. That hasn't changed. The actual number of incidents, if anything, seems to indicate that fewer people get killed per incident than in these smaller countries.

[Helpless]

A mass shooting is defined as four or more deaths or woundings

Here, I think the pot needs to be stirred. It's really not a good idea to compare the 2 countries. Different governing systems play here. How about the lifestyles, are there large comparable slums in England as in Chicago and Detroit? Also, how many of those mass shootings are murder-suicides. How many are 4 or more perps robbing a store and get shot by the shopkeeper? It happened in Iowa.

What I'm illustrating is the fact that statistics lie and can be manipulated to say whatever you want.

Unfortunately there are wolves among all the sheeple of the world and it isn't getting any better.

[sugarcoater]

For what it's worth, assuming the differences in mass shootings are primarily connected to gun control has yet to be shown. It could be connected in part to that, but I dare say there are a ton other aspects. Each shooting has a bit of a life of its own in terms of motivation, mental health, culture, gang connection, theft, suicide-murder, etc. America is so diverse and has successful and unsuccessful people living in close proximity to one another that envy, anger and jealousy are quite common, more so than in societies in which one's lot in life is based on birth alone.
I would be interested in seeing the number of mass shootings over the years from 1950 to now and look to the theories as to the differences in number.
But one cannot compare countries well in that cultures and diversity of people make so much difference. Simply look at Japan--a very refined and dignified country, yet definitely very limited diversity in terms of their people. In short, very different cultural practices and a practically homogenous population. How could one compare the rates of mass shootings between Japan and the US and look simply to gun control?

[sugarcoater]

I also wonder how long these issues will continue to be a main thread on a superheroine forum website. Though the conversation is relevant, it just seems odd to come to a site about superheroines and have such a serious topic still dominating the message board. But that's just one guy's opinion, and I'm admittedly posting on this thread every so often (while awaiting TBFE to release another soon-to-be major hit).

[Bert]

The statistics being discussed were presented by the "Crime Prevention Resource Center". The board of directors of said organization are as follows:

Edgar Browning - A far right economist.

Sheriff David Clarke - A far right cop.

Ted Nugent - A far right musician.

Brad Thor - A far right author.

Feel free to research these individuals and not take my word for their extreme political views.

This website is a pro gun information house that exists to sway public opinion in favour of unfettered access to firearms. The statistics being discussed were compiled by the site with no proof of their accuracy or methodology other than saying "The cases were complied doing a news search." As such, the numbers are completely unverifiable, and therefore useless.

If you are going to base an argument on statistics, at least quote a reliable source.

[Maskfan]

Far right meaning...?
And as for "statistics", I agree with the other author and categorize them with lies and damned lies.

I imagine there was this same conversation for rock control in the days of early man...

[Mr. X]

Since terrorism is not a gun control issue this gun control argument is moot.

If guns were illegal the Farooks would not be sitting on their couch grinding their teeth in anger and watching NCIS while cursing guns were illegal. A great deal of terrorist activity are IEDs.

Gun control is just another red herring argument.

Punish the criminal NOT everyone else.