Yet another US college gun slaughter - "at least 10" killed in Oregan shooting

[Azrael]

... We can all get emotional about individual cases. How about linking to the story of the small child who shot his sister? ...

That wasn't at issue. Jim Jefferies claimed that armed self-defense is ineffective, and it takes just one example to rebut his (unevidenced) ranting ... sorry, satire (perhaps sandwiched between a stream of rape jokes, all totally ironic, natch).

Since you raised it, taking the data most favourable to gun control, around 100 children die from accidental shootings per year. This pales compared to the number of children who drown (983 in 2009), who die in automobile accidents (7,497, same year), or who die in fires (682, data from CDC, table on p.272). Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but if childhood death is the concern, there should be equal focus on restricting access to swimming pools, cars, and fire risks.

All the arguments from the "most likely to die" reports fall down in the inappropriate application of generalized data to a particular where it just don't fit, since crucial variables like criminal background and suicidal ideation skew the figures, and don't apply to responsible citizens of sound mental health. As for whether guns are effective self-defense tools, research by Kleck & DeLone found not only that armed resistance is the safest course of action (pp.69-71), but counter-intuitively in the extreme, victims robbed with a gun face the lowest risk of injury! (table, p.62)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

counter-intuitively in the extreme, victims robbed with a gun face the lowest risk of injury! (table, p.62)

That bit doesn't surprise me at all. They want to rob you, not kill you, and they don't have to demonstrate their strength with physical violence - their strength is their gun.

I notice that that study doesn't mention something the study I linked to did - the equal effectiveness of mace with guns. I searched for mace in the document and it's not there.

The study I linked to also mentioned the most effective strategy - which is, where possible, to run. Trying to get help being a poor strategy sadly doesn't surprise me - the only time I've been mugged, I ran towards a group of people thinking they would help. The group hid behind a wall and the muggers caught up with me. If I'd just kept running, I'd have got away easily. Don't assume bystanders will help!

I accept the article's point about the difficulty with different groups under/over-reporting crime and how that means you need to treat raw stats with caution. It states that shootouts between armed robbers and armed resisters almost never happen. But if someone tries to mug you and they don't have a gun, and you pull out a gun, you're decreasing your chance of injury. Not so surprising.

So carry a gun if you don't want to be mugged. And as that article concludes, perhaps if we all carried guns, there would be no muggers. But if we all carried guns, how many more murders would result from the easy access to lethal force? Is that the position you're advocating? Arm everyone at all times! It's a position taken by some in the NRA. It's not a world I would want to live in.

 

[Almor]

So carry a gun if you don't want to be mugged. And as that article concludes, perhaps if we all carried guns, there would be no muggers. But if we all carried guns, how many more murders would result from the easy access to lethal force? Is that the position you're advocating? Arm everyone at all times! It's a position taken by some in the NRA. It's not a world I would want to live in.

Maybe if we all carried guns and had them out and pointed at passers by at all times, one of the reasons that American police draw their weapons even in situations where it doesn't look necessary is that drawing after it becomes necessary is likely too late, I worked with someone who'd served in the Australian police who said similar, that trying to draw a weapon against someone determined to attack you is too slow to be of much use.

So weapons at the ready everybody!
Pre-broken bottles on every pub table, guns for all!

 

[snadge]

Texas ‘good guy with a gun’ shoots carjacking victim in head — then runs away
Guns LOL.

I'll just post this again, this is what happens when untrained people start firing guns willy nilly, can you imagine the carnage in these school/college/workplace/mall shootings when everyone is armed and returning fire, in a busy place setting can you imagine how many more innocent people would die by friendly fire, how many people would die because they were shot because they were shooting and that action is misinterpreted by other people with guns.

If it wasn't such a tragic scenario it would be comedy gold.

 

[mauvais]

This pales compared to the number of children who ... die in automobile accidents (7,497, same year) ... Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but if childhood death is the concern, there should be equal focus on restricting access to swimming pools, cars, and fire risks.

At least in civilised countries, there *is* enormous focus on reducing road deaths, you numpty, rendering your whataboutery particularly stupid.

 

[Azrael]

There's a widespread campaign to ban children from riding in cars? Must've missed that one, look forward to reading up on the details you're about to post. Along with the details of the campaigns to ban home swimming pools and fryers.

Probing for consistency isn't whataboutery, but I can see why it'd suit to claim that it is.

 

[mauvais]

There's a widespread campaign to ban children from riding in cars? Must've missed that one, look forward to reading up on the details you're about to post. Along with the details of the campaigns to ban home swimming pools and fryers.

Probing for consistency isn't whataboutery, but I can see why it'd suit to claim that it is.

On reducing road deaths, you strawman-waving idiot, not banning children from cars. And cars are a great comparison, because very little is taboo in pursuit of eliminating road deaths. It's quite likely that in a couple of decades, most cars will be fully or heavily autonomous and the 'freedom' to run people over or crash into things will be abrogated. And as merely one example of what the industry is doing, not the legislators, Volvo have a corporate strategy that says that by 2020, noone will be killed in a new Volvo - and more lately, that they will assume legal responsibility for whatever their autonomous vehicles do.

So if you want a parallel, you show me the move towards non-lethal weapons, a gun manufacturer with a strategy of not making any more guns, a bunch of legislative controls that will eliminate their misuse, and a willingness of manufacturers to take on responsibility for the people that are killed by their products. And I don't suppose you can do a single bit of that.

And if you want to summon up a comparison with drownings and especially fires, then I'm sure someone can point to similar health & safety and legislative advances designed to reduce those incidents. But I suspect it'll be very difficult for you to show the same with regard to firearms.

 

[mauvais]

Oh and your study claim is shit as well, notwithstanding that it comes from a site called 'hoplofobia', as it's based on the precondition that the victim resists. Yet, as it says itself:

All 10 studies considered the effects of resistance on victim injury, and most indicated that resistance in general, and forceful resistance in particular, was associated with a higher likelihood of injury to the victim

So armed resistance is not, as you unconditionally claimed, the safest course of action. No resistance is.

It then tries to weasel out of that by claiming that noone can tell who got violent first, robber or victim, in a half-arsed and selective interpretation of the data. Wonderful stuff.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I'll just post this again, this is what happens when untrained people start firing guns willy nilly, can you imagine the carnage in these school/college/workplace/mall shootings when everyone is armed and returning fire, in a busy place setting can you imagine how many more innocent people would die by friendly fire, how many people would die because they were shot because they were shooting and that action is misinterpreted by other people with guns.

If it wasn't such a tragic scenario it would be comedy gold.

It didn't end in death or injury, but a woman in a Home Depot car park in Michigan last week witnessed a shoplifter get into his car and drive away, while the security guard tried to chase after him. She was legally carrying a concealed gun, got it out, and started shooting after the car.

He still got away. She was reported as now "helping police with their enquiries." I'm not certain if she has been charged with anything since.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'd have her on an attempted murder charge. Doing a clint over a suspected shoplifting. Fuck off with that. To be shot to death for rinsing a 10 dollar pack of beer or something. Just fuck that.

 

[Azrael]

I'll answer this time, Mauvais, but if you're unable or unwilling to discuss this without the attitude, we're through here.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're indulging in it to mask the awkward fact that there's zero campaign to ban children from cars, or to ban backyard pools. The equivalence with firearms couldn't be plainer: all parents are responsible drivers, until they're not; even if they are, they can't account for other drivers; ditto supervising kids swimming.

Your attempt to evade the point by shifting the focus to the virtues of gun runners is flimsy as it gets. I'm not defending the firearms industry, nor comparing them to the auto industry. I can accept all you say (arguendo), and it's irrelevant. This is about activists, and the consistency of their position.

 

[BandWagon]

Inglis, Florida: home to the 1,000th US mass shooting since Sandy Hook
"Just before sundown on Thursday 1 October, an old man charged across the main street of the little town of Inglis, Florida. He was expecting trouble. Someone had recklessly fired a pistol in public, and Buzz Terhune intended to have words about it.
The horror that unfolded in the next few minutes has become so mundane, so everyday, that it no longer makes national news. Terhune was marching headlong into the 1,000th mass shooting in the United States since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre almost three years ago."

That's one mass shooting a day! F****** hell.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I wouldn't be surprised if you're indulging in it to mask the awkward fact that there's zero campaign to ban children from cars, or to ban backyard pools. The equivalence with firearms couldn't be plainer: all parents are responsible drivers, until they're not; even if they are, they can't account for other drivers; ditto supervising kids swimming..

Oh come off it. Driving has a purpose, as does swimming, and that purpose is nothing to do with killing people. The purpose of a gun is to kill. That is its function. There's no equivalence here whatsoever.

 

[Idris2002]

Actually, there are rules and regulations governing backyard pools in the US, mandating fences etc. in some states.

You Don't Pass a Pool Fencing Law After a Child Drowns, Says Jeb, Who Did Just That

 

[mauvais]

Total nonsense. You claimed you wanted to see prioritisation of tackling road deaths, specifically amongst children, because the numbers were greater than those relating to firearms. Well bad luck, because the state, the industry and the market - to smash you over the head with it, this means the vast majority who have never hurt anyone with their car - have all shown themselves willing to make efforts, sacrifices and compromises to achieve that. Whether it's achieved by restricting physical access is irrelevant, although automation is exactly that, because you apparently can't demonstrate any measures at all to reduce lethality in firearms.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'll answer this time, Mauvais, but if you're unable or unwilling to discuss this without the attitude, we're through here.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're indulging in it to mask the awkward fact that there's zero campaign to ban children from cars, or to ban backyard pools. The equivalence with firearms couldn't be plainer: all parents are responsible drivers, until they're not; even if they are, they can't account for other drivers; ditto supervising kids swimming.

Your attempt to evade the point by shifting the focus to the virtues of gun runners is flimsy as it gets. I'm not defending the firearms industry, nor comparing them to the auto industry. I can accept all you say (arguendo), and it's irrelevant. This is about activists, and the consistency of their position.

theres a good few disengenous blatant lies here mixed in with a healthy dose of specious reasoning.

thirty seconds googling shows just how flagrant your lying is.

But of course you talk as if harm reduction is the same as outright banning, as if no industry or industries dedicated to reducing the the lethality of such thing exist. Worse, you appear to suggest that the car or the swimming pool has a design that is in any way comparable to a fire stick putting a hole in someone. Really you shall have to do better than that. Tools for what you say?

 

[Azrael]

That bit doesn't surprise me at all. They want to rob you, not kill you, and they don't have to demonstrate their strength with physical violence - their strength is their gun.

I notice that that study doesn't mention something the study I linked to did - the equal effectiveness of mace with guns. I searched for mace in the document and it's not there.

The study I linked to also mentioned the most effective strategy - which is, where possible, to run. Trying to get help being a poor strategy sadly doesn't surprise me - the only time I've been mugged, I ran towards a group of people thinking they would help. The group hid behind a wall and the muggers caught up with me. If I'd just kept running, I'd have got away easily. Don't assume bystanders will help!

I accept the article's point about the difficulty with different groups under/over-reporting crime and how that means you need to treat raw stats with caution. It states that shootouts between armed robbers and armed resisters almost never happen. But if someone tries to mug you and they don't have a gun, and you pull out a gun, you're decreasing your chance of injury. Not so surprising.

So carry a gun if you don't want to be mugged. And as that article concludes, perhaps if we all carried guns, there would be no muggers. But if we all carried guns, how many more murders would result from the easy access to lethal force? Is that the position you're advocating? Arm everyone at all times! It's a position taken by some in the NRA. It's not a world I would want to live in.

Nor me.

I don't want anyone with a felony conviction (or violent misdemeanor conviction) anywhere near a gun; nor do I want people who've been committed armed, unless a judge is convinced that they're no longer a threat to themselves or others. Add various other exceptions, be they restraining orders, or a propensity to get a buzzcut and stars and bars tee.

Beyond that, I want a society safe enough that people are free to keep and bear arms, but most of the time, feel no need to do so, which is pretty much the situation in the Czech Republic, Vermont, and used to be the situation in Britain. That society isn't created by forcing slight, disabled, or physically weak people to be helpless against criminal assault by threat of government violence.

 

[Vintage Paw]

If we're doing the whole "fantasy societies that have no hope of existing under capitalism" I'll plump for "society where guns aren't needed because people work together and in cooperation to create what they need, there is no inequality, and disputes are handled fairly and without recourse to violence."

 

[Azrael]

Total nonsense. You claimed you wanted to see prioritisation of tackling road deaths, specifically amongst children, because the numbers were greater than those relating to firearms. Well bad luck, because the state, the industry and the market - to smash you over the head with it, this means the vast majority who have never hurt anyone with their car - have all shown themselves willing to make efforts, sacrifices and compromises to achieve that. Whether it's achieved by restricting physical access is irrelevant, although automation is exactly that, because you apparently can't demonstrate any measures at all to reduce lethality in firearms.

I said, specifically, "... if childhood death is the concern, there should be equal focus on restricting access to swimming pools, cars, and fire risks." As you accept, there isn't. What's sauce for the goose ...

Millions of Americans own guns, and taking the figures most generous to the gun control position (to ensure I address your strongest case), only around a hundred per year are irresponsible enough to lead to the death of a child. I'd like to see the lot prosecuted for manslaughter or depraved-heart murder.

The vast majority of legal gun owners have never hurt a child, or caused a child to be hurt through their negligence.

 

[DotCommunist]

If we're doing the whole "fantasy societies that have no hope of existing under capitalism" I'll plump for "society where guns aren't needed because people work together and in cooperation to create what they need, there is no inequality, and disputes are handled fairly and without recourse to violence."

rock paper scissors.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Millions of Americans own guns, and taking the figures most generous to the gun control position (to ensure I address your strongest case), only around a hundred per year are irresponsible enough to lead to the death of a child. I'd like to see the lot prosecuted for manslaughter or depraved-heart murder.

The law-and-order fantasy. The solution to crime is more punishment. If the crime continues, keep on punishing, but that's just how the world is. Naturalising social systems as if they were 'god-given'.

 

[two sheds]

No, I'm convinced. Ban people from carrying concealed swimming pools.

 

[Azrael]

Oh come off it. Driving has a purpose, as does swimming, and that purpose is nothing to do with killing people. The purpose of a gun is to kill. That is its function. There's no equivalence here whatsoever.

What does any of that have to do with the relative risks to children, or with the consistency of safeguarding policies?

Oh, and DotComminist, unless you can offer an example of my supposed lying, please excuse me if I don't give a rat's.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What does any of that have to do with the relative risks to children, or with the consistency of safeguarding policies?

I think you're being disingenuous here. Accidental child deaths are only one issue to do with gun safety. But 100 per year is not nothing. No doubt none of those 100 involved parents who wanted it to happen, so locking them up and throwing away the key will do nothing to affect the numbers. Yet you propose this as what you would do about it. That's a bankrupt position.

 

[mauvais]

I said, specifically, "... if childhood death is the concern, there should be equal focus on restricting access to swimming pools, cars, and fire risks." As you accept, there isn't. What's sauce for the goose ...

Millions of Americans own guns, and taking the figures most generous to the gun control position (to ensure I address your strongest case), only around a hundred per year are irresponsible enough to lead to the death of a child. I'd like to see the lot prosecuted for manslaughter or depraved-heart murder.

The vast majority of legal gun owners have never hurt a child, or caused a child to be hurt through their negligence.

Even if one humours this, it's self-evident that you don't give the slightest toss about any of these outcomes either, because if you did, you would consider strategies to deal with them far broader than simple restriction of access.

The vast majority of drivers have never killed a child with their car, yet their car is designed to protect children, inside and out, all the same. Increasingly so over time. And they paid for it. Automation and mandatory adoption of safety systems is commonplace. Before long, through autonomous systems, it may be nearly impossible to manipulate a new car into killing someone. That is restriction of access.

Your inadvertent comparison with this stuff is hilarious in its inadequacy, as is your attempt to retreat into a niche of your own making. If the world had adopted your attitude, we would have no seatbelts or speed limits and our cars would be vastly more dangerous. A minor win for individual liberty and a great big loss for normal people. Fortunately it's not the case, and in fact it's now feasible that in the near future, within certain constraints, noone will be killed by them.

 

[Azrael]

If we're doing the whole "fantasy societies that have no hope of existing under capitalism" I'll plump for "society where guns aren't needed because people work together and in cooperation to create what they need, there is no inequality, and disputes are handled fairly and without recourse to violence."

What "fantasy"? I offered three concrete examples: the Czech Republic combines widespread concealed carry with a murder rate lower than many European countries; Vermont combines a murder rate well in-line with Europe's with the most liberal gun laws on earth; and when Brtain had Vermont-style laws (before WW1), it's murder rate was as low as, well, Switzerland's, the nation whose homes are awash with select-fire assault rifles.

The law-and-order fantasy. The solution to crime is more punishment. If the crime continues, keep on punishing, but that's just how the world is. Naturalising social systems as if they were 'god-given'.

As the campaign against DUI shows, law enforcement certainly has its place. I'd far rather parents be responsible, either by not keeping guns in the house, or by properly securing them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The USA locks up more than 2 million people at any one time. It certainly has the most brutal sentencing and penitentiary system in the western world. And yet... law isn't 'enforced'. That's another of the law-and-order fantasies.

 

[Azrael]

Mauvais, I fully support car safety measures, can't stand the machismo surrounding these polluting lumps of metal that spend most of their time depreciating in a garage, and wish there was a helluva lot more public transport, making many car journeys unnecessary, not to mention cutting back on climate change.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

I'd have her on an attempted murder charge. Doing a clint over a suspected shoplifting. Fuck off with that. To be shot to death for rinsing a 10 dollar pack of beer or something. Just fuck that.

Nah, to be shot to death for being suspected of rinsing a 10 dollar pack of beer.

Your version is still one of the shittiest situations a crappy world could throw up but there's still an important distinction - don't do anything wrong ever and it could still be you.

 

[mauvais]

Mauvais, I fully support car safety measures, can't stand the machismo surrounding these polluting lumps of metal that spend most of their time depreciating in a garage, and wish there was a helluva lot more public transport, making many car journeys unnecessary, not to mention cutting back on climate change.

So you support state intervention in what you're allowed to do on the road? And you support whatever needs to be done to make these lumps of metal safer? What's good for the goose, as you say...