Slashdot Mirror
10 Confirmed Dead In Shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College
CNN and other sources report that an attacker, now in custody, shot and killed a
reported ten people, and wounded another 20, at Oregon's Umpqua Community College, about three hours south of Portland, and described by CNN as "technically a gun-free zone." Students are being evacuated to a nearby fairgrounds, and local authorities advise anyone to avoid the area of the college. Wikipedia editors are also quickly compiling information about the attack. More news on the attack is still breaking; expect updates here.
Seems like it means "opposition-free zone"
Perhaps it means that the law says "no guns allowed, unless you're a criminal and don't care about the law".
Notice all these shootings seem to be happening in "gun free zones"?
Frankly, college students are adults, they should be able to have guns on campus. Why not just make safe gun use and storage one of the first required classes? Rather than try and ban something that isn't going away, teach safe use and respect for guns and life.
Anti gun lobbyists will say this is because of guns.
Pro gun lobbyists will say this is because there weren't enough guns
The rest of the world will look at America and wonder "what social/economic/cultural problem exists where there can be a few mass shootings a year?"
Everyone will argue for a month or so. John Oliver might say something about it. But after a month, everyone will forget this has happened. Then, several months later, there will be another mass shooting in the US and the cycle repeats itself.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Well, there are a lot of gun free / highly-regulated countries with far less gun crime than the US. Maybe you should dis-empower citizens from making bad decisions / accidents. Oh, well. Slashdot, the land of libertarians, out of my cold dead (more likely dead than most countries) hands. Just wait a few more years and school shootings will be as passe and hum drum as rockets being lobbed over the Gaza / Jerusalem border.
Bye!
Perhaps it means that the law says "no guns allowed, unless you're a criminal and don't care about the law".
That is exactly what it means. I wish I had mod points, they'd be yours.
When will people understand that only law-abiding people pay any attention to laws? When will they grasp the concept that labeling something a "gun-free zone" doesn't magically do ANYTHING?
Criminals will still have guns and they'll still bring them into a "gun-free zone" no matter how many signs are posted.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Dan Hodges said it best:
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Frankly, college students are adults, they should be able to have guns on campus.
Not all college students are mature enough to own a gun responsibly. As a young college student, I could've solved a vast array of social problems with a gun, either for myself or the whole campus. It wasn't until after I left school, worked a decade and came back to school to learn computer programming that I had the maturity to deal with school, especially since I was working 80 hours a week, taking classes at night and teaching Sunday school.
What about the rights of the 100's of thousands of people that have been murdered by gun in America - what about them?
What about my right to keep and bear arms?
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
The solution is not banning guns, the solution is a proper public health system and a respect for mental health, and being willing to lock up the mentally ill for treatment.
again with the gun free zone myth.
again with the reminder that almost no place is actually chosen on that basis, but rather that almost all targets/locations are chosen on the basis of a personal connection between the shooter and the location or someone at that location (workplace/school, boss/collegue, ex-spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc).
again, you wont care because facts aren't something youre interested in
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
A mass shooting at a firing range?
You are full of shit.
Gun Free Zone means where the victims can't have guns.
Well, in all fairness ... there are plenty of other countries that are gun-free and others that allow citizens to carry guns and in both cases there are far fewer gun-related deaths than in the US.
Methinks this has very little to do with gun laws (I'm not for or against them). Maybe the US has some sort of social/cultural problem.
Your argument is faulty. Everywhere is a murder free zone, yet murders still occur. Should we legalize murder on the basis that if I murder my murderer before he/she murders me then I'll be safer? Laws are not designed in and of themselves to prevent crime. They merely describe the crime and the results if you should commit it. This is so that I can look at you, as a judge, decide I don't like you, and then have you executed for jay walking while allowing my BFF to pay a $5 fine for raping your mother.
Not really. The military wants them young because kids are easily moldable to turn into soldiers — or cannon fodder — on the battlefield.
You're right. With 1/5 the population of the US, they should be having 'several' mass shootings per year, not zero. Fucking slackers.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This situation will never really be fixed until the US wakes up to the fact that it is the only modern nation in the world that doesn't have a proper public healthcare system with guaranteed access to all, regardless of ability to pay.
Those of you who know me, know that I'm a far-right conservative, "they can take my gun from me from my cold, dead hands" type.
That being said, it is time for a national single payer health care system for everyone from birth to death, with no signups, memberships, co-pays, or anything else. Take all the money from medicare, medicaid, social security, etc. and put it into a national health service.
We have police and fire paid for by taxes, we have roads and airports paid for by taxes, we have a military, public education, and a hundred other things paid for by taxes. We have LONG since past the time of small government, yet we don't provide for the health of our citizens.
I would repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a national single payer health system. That isn't a popular idea among far-right conservatives, but it is time to do it.
People who have mental health issues need to be able to seek treatment. That is the only thing that is going to stop this sort of thing, we have people who are unstable who roam the streets and are untreated. They do something like this and everyone screams about guns.
It isn't about guns, it is about mental health care and access to it.
The answer is less guns, not more.
A right to guns does not even make sense, civilians would stand no chance against the US military. Besides, if people didn't rise up after the snowden revelations and rampant corruption, it's unlikely they are going to.
NO, the answer is health care. Plenty of other countries have more guns per capita than the US and don't suffer these issues. You know why? Because people are looked after and get the help they need, rather than some nonsense ridiculous purely free market approach.
The fact that in almost all of these incidents the shooters had mental issues should give you morons some type of hint....now, are you going to take it?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Annnd this is exactly what mod points are NOT for. They are not "I agree with you" tokens.
"That's just like, your opinion, man."
Seriously, I'll use my mod points however the fuck I like, Mr Mod Point Policeman.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The sad thing is there is no reasonable discussion or compromise on either side of gun control. The NRA is one of the largest lobbyists in Washington, but not everything they argue for is good, but they fight everything because the gun-control lobby also will give no ground.
So both sides dig their heals in and give nothing.
This is sad and a mistake. One common argument is the "gun show loophole". It is misnamed, because gun dealers have to do background checks, even at gun shows. All it means is that private citizens can buy and sell guns without background checks within the same state, yet they can do this inside or outside of a gun show.
The fear of all gun transfers being "background checked" and thus having documentation is that sooner or later the US Government will pull an Australia and seize guns, and having records will make that much easier. Right or wrong, that is the fear from gun freedom groups.
A compromise might be, "amending the constitution to make clear that the ownership and possession of guns by private citizens is a natural god given right that may only be taken away in individual cases by a court of law that rules someone mentally incompetent." In return, all gun transfers get a background check.
I'm sure some people on both sides would not like even that compromise, but it would be a start. Both sides have to give something, or nothing will happen. We don't live in a nation where one side gets everything and the other side goes home empty handed. Or perhaps we do which is why nothing changes.
---
The other issue is that the government doesn't do very much to show that it respects the rights of citizens. Everything about guns is always about more bans, more restrictions. Want to impress the gun freedom side? Perhaps repealing the 1986 ban on select-fire weapons, in return for required background checks on every transfer might be something. It would show a give and take on the issue and that citizens do have rights.
Another thing they could give would be national concealed/open carry laws, respecting the right of the population to be armed, but in return, require training and safely classes for all gun owners.
---
These are ideas and attempts to find a reasonable middle ground, to offer something to both sides and to do something that would actually fix the problem, rather than paper it over with "guns are evil/guns are wonderful" arguments which accomplish nothing.
and what about the "well regulated Militia" part?
Generally, the gun smuggling happens from north of the border, to the south... with the help of the ATF.
Yeah, an Illiberal web-site running an op-ed aiming to convince populace into obediently surrendering their rights. Surprise...
They fail, though. The only thing they even claim is "not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns". But they all (or most) did happen in a gun-free location. How do I know? Simple, if it weren't so, MotherJones would've highlighted this fact in the very title. They did a commendable job putting the 62 mass-shotings incidents over 30 years together, but, curiously, do not have a boolean column "Gun free zone Y/N" in it...
But the shooter picking a place because it is gun-free is only part of the problem. There is no one there to stop him — whether he was cunning enough to count on that or not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If a wizard suddenly made it impossible for guns to exist in America; they could not pass across any border, the ones inside the country simply turned into nothingness, do you think the rates of assault and murder would instantly go down?
Yes, I do think that getting rid of the easiest at-a-distance point-and-click method of murder would result in lower murder rates.
Call me crazy...
Or do you think someone can commit mass murder on this scale with knives and baseball bats?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
When will people understand that only law-abiding people pay any attention to laws? And that is precisely why having "Speed Limit 30" in residential areas is a total waste of money. When will they grasp the concept that abeling something with a speed limit doesn't magically do ANYTHING? People will still drive through your neighborhood at 90 miles per hour no matter how many signs are posted.
The places with the highest rates of gun violence all have bans on guns
Incorrect. Places like Japan, Australia, Canada, UK, on and on all have strict gun control laws and very low rates of gun violence.
Israel has very low rates of gun violence too, but many people are packing. And soldiers always carry their rifles — even when going to beach for R&R — with two magazines each. It is not uncommon to see a girl in a bikini guarding a gun-pyramid, while her girlfriends are swimming, for example...
Whatever the reasons for lower gun-violence in Japan or Israel or what have you, the ban on weapons is certainly not the only reason. Whether it is even a contributing factor is not at all obvious.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You've just compared *all* homicides between two countries, as opposed to *gun* homicides to attempt to explain how it's a *gun* problem in one of those countries. I'll leave it to you to work out the flaws in that argument.
The places with the highest rates of gun violence all have bans on guns.
What total nonsense. The country with the highest rate of gun deaths in the world is - according to wikipedia - Honduras. Up until 2007, carrying guns, concealed or otherwise, was completely legal in this country. Today it is still legal to purchase and own firearms. So, no ban.
Some others on the list have bans, but it's clear that there is no correlation between ownership rates, legal status, and death rates. So, banning guns doesn't stop people getting killed, and widespread gun ownership doesn't either. You can point to counterexamples in both cases. America has the highest rate of gun ownership, and while it doesn't lead the world in gun-related deaths (it's only at number thirteen, mainly behind fairly lawless countries I'd argue, but that's a tough call), it's certainly up there.
America does however lead the world in mass shootings - and that list doesn't even include school massacres (How is that even a thing? It's a serious question). Mass shootings are something different to regular gun violence. We're not talking about armed robberies, or criminals shooting each other down in the street. We are talking about crazy people. I don't think there's any reason to believe that America is home to more crazy people than anywhere else - I've been there plenty of times and Americans as a rule are polite, hospitable, pleasant and reasonable. It's a nice place.
So why do crazy people in America have such easy access to deadly weapons?
Norway, at the top of the list is misleading. In fact, many of the others are also misleading. This list includes years 2009 to 2013. At the top are countries with just 1 or 2 incidences, but not large populations. Expanding out the years and you find in many cases no more incidences. Apply some statistics and you will find with just 1 incidence and no others over more years just does not support the thesis of the linked article. It is not stastically significant. What might appear true over a small data range is often shown to be untrue over a larger data range.
Israel has very low rates of gun violence too, but many people are packing. And soldiers always carry their rifles — even when going to beach for R&R — with two magazines each. It is not uncommon to see a girl in a bikini guarding a gun-pyramid, while her girlfriends are swimming, for example...
Whatever the reasons for lower gun-violence in Japan or Israel or what have you, the ban on weapons is certainly not the only reason. Whether it is even a contributing factor is not at all obvious.
Israel is in an active war zone, this tends to change things a lot.
Japan, Australia, the UK and other countries with sane gun laws have murders, but almost no mass killings. The reason for this is the lack of firearms, whether you like to admit it or not, the abundance of guns is directly correlated with a high number of shootings. This is true for a lot of countries where guns are abundant (whether they're legal or not).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What is Mexico's fault is restricting their citizens' ability to defend themselves from criminals while also having a corrupt and ineffective police force. Fortunately, some politicians and citizens are trying to change that. http://www.vice.com/video/the-...
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs