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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.
What is the description of the shooter? Male? Female Black? Muslim? Mexican? Citizen? Legal Immigrant? Illegal Immigrant?
I would use the description "Criminal", but that's just me.
Maybe scumbag, dirtbag, douchebag, or asshole might be better options...
Pile of wormridden filth works for me too...
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...
This has become a regular event in America. We can lay a lot of responsibility for this at the feet of the terrorist NRA and the corrupt legislators they pay off, with both these latter groups little more a bunch of bootlickers to the gun manufacturers. There are more than 300 MILLION guns in this crazy nation - so many that *anyone* who wants to get a gun can get one, one way or another. America is FOURTH in death by gun, after Thailand, Nigeria and Colombia; that's the company we keep. We have more murders by gun than any developed (and many undeveloped) nations. It's a national disgrace. More people have died by gunshot in America than were killed in all our wars! The NRA *actively* lobbies to defeat laws that will keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill persons, and on and on. It's a national disgrace. What about the rights of the 100's of thousands of people that have been murdered by gun in America - what about them?
"Notice all these shootings seem to be happening in "gun free zones"?"
No?
You left out WHITE... Most of these idiots are white.
It means no one will bring guns there, because there are signs saying it's against the rules.
100% of shootings have occurred in a place with guns (by definition).
There have been many shootings in places with armed guards (D.C. Navy Base, schools with armed guards, firing ranges!). So no, not all these shootings "seem to be happening in gun free zones".
Gun violence is down across the board.
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.
I guess it means they were trying not to get shot, trying to establish a safe place, and rejecting the primacy of the gun.
Yeah, and look how well that's been working out for them.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
This has become a regular event in America. We can lay a lot of responsibility for this at the feet of the terrorist NRA and the corrupt legislators they pay off, with both these latter groups little more a bunch of bootlickers to the gun manufacturers. There are more than 300 MILLION guns in this crazy nation - so many that *anyone* who wants to get a gun can get one, one way or another.
You say that Americans having lots of guns like it's bad thing.
300 million guns in civilian hands and gun deaths have steadily dropping for the past 20 years or so. The obvious correlation is that more guns means FEWER gun deaths.
Go check your meds, you may have forgotten a couple.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
This being the internet, and specifically Slashdot, I look forward to a well-mannered, reasonable discussion about the event and surrounding possibilities with absolutely no moderator bias intervention, political fervor, or anyone being referred to as a "fuckwad".
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.
It's why the Onion's Satire just reads like more sad news these days.
Year old, but continually appropriate:
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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.
Notice all these shootings seem to be happening in "gun free zones"?
Yep, 'cause the shooters are 100% cowards. Arm more people? Wrong. There will ALWAYS be somewhere where you can't have guns, so the cowards will end up there. The answer my friend is to stop the cowards getting the guns.
"But we need them to be able to form a militia to keep our rights".
That worked out well:
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers
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.
Yes. The campuses — including this one, the public schools are all legally gun-free. A pop-tart eaten to the shape of a pistol is enough for a kid to be kicked out.
That cinema, where "a joker" killed 12 people — that movie theater was not closest to his house, but it was the only one within a 20-minute drive, that declared itself "gun-free".
In denial much?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not really. The military wants them young because kids are easily moldable to turn into soldiers — or cannon fodder — on the battlefield.
because statistically, a nation of 300 millions inhabitant *has* to have such event every now and then. I'm pretty sure that if you look at the whole European Union, at least one of such event *will* happen.
Oregon has some of the Nation’s most liberal gun laws Gun Laws in Oregon
I personally do not advocate the total abolition of guns, but in light of the repeated incidents of gun violence and mass shoots, it would seem to make sense to review what works and what doesn’t work in preventing these sad events.
For those that support total bans, this put those in areas where police protection or assistance is miles away at an awful disadvantage to criminals.
For those that resist even the most minimal of background checks and waiting periods, you are so devoted to your Gun ideology that you can’t see there is a middle ground that can save lives.
For those that scream we need to be able to stop authoritarian governments should things go wrong, that boat had sailed sometime in the early 20th Century. You aren’t going effect political change with guns – period. This group especially worries me, as they include some of the most rabid bigots you will ever run into, and are convinced the rise of minorities in America is a precursor to the end of times and a plot by the New World Order.
We need to do something better and I’m I’m tending to tighter controls not less.
Letter To Iran
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.
FWIW, most military bases are gun-free zones. You are not allowed to carry firearms unless you are an MP. Yes, it makes zero sense, but that's the actual regulation.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What does "technically a gun-free zone" mean?
It means the news media is trying to stretch the "gun-free is safer" anti-gun propaganda in the face of the public becoming aware that gun-free zones are an invitation to mass murder and virtually all mass murders (and much other victimization) now happen in them.
"Gun-free zones" disarm the law-abiding people in them (so they can't shoot back and limit the carnage - and deter it from starting in the first place, turning them into helpless victims, but don't stop the attackers. Legislation (or private decision) to make an area into such a zone makes it a magnet for both nacent mass-murders and other victimizers.
A better term for such zones might be "free-fire zone" or "victim-rich zone".
By prepending "technically a", to "gun-free zone", they can make it sound different from the "gun-free zone" of the legislation. They pay lip service to the laws' unenforceability on bad guys. They recast the zones' danger into an enforcement problem, rather than a fundamental flaw in the concept. This helps to slow the propagation of the understanding that such zones are inherently more dangerous than unrestricted areas, that "The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.".
That helps the anti-gunners in their efforts to pass MORE restrictions, making MORE areas dangerous, and to give the police more power to search and otherwise oppress people in the name of solving the problem they created.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
I would add mentally ill, but that would just be pointing out the obvious.
I love when someone's sig so perfectly matches the content of their post.
And i don't necessarily mean the shooter. If early reports prove accurate "The night before the attack, the alleged shooter appears to have had a conversation with others online about his intentions, the source said."
There's your problem right there. A person with issues made what might have been a final plea for help the night before and everyone just blew it off. Depending on what he said, at the very least he could have been held for making terroristic threats and possibly had a psych eval. Noooo. No one wants to get involved. It has f-all to do with guns. We'd rather lock up and ignore some guy with 1/2 oz of weed than commit and help the mentally ill. When the U.S. gets serious about mental health and people start getting involved instead of letting their friends self destruct, we'll see these events decrease.
In the meantime, I reserve the right to defend myself and my family. That doesn't mean playing hero. That means getting them out of harms way. If out of harms way means past an active shooter, then at least we have a chance.
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...
where do you get your facts from ? any study on the subject ?
I gotta take a moment to point this out.
The only places where " gun-free " zones work are those places where people with guns are onsite to enforce it. ( Eg: Your courtroom example )
Thus, the declaration of something being " gun-free " is pretty much meaningless unless there is someone there with a gun to enforce it.
Ironic no ?
There are also ones, where guns are very widely spread and yet gun-violence is lower than here.
But we don't need to go abroad — simply compare, say, Chicago, IL, where even a museum could not get permission to display a WW1-era rifle, with Austin, TX, where guns are easy to get... The strictness of the anti-gun laws and "regulations" (all of them obviously unconstitutional, BTW) simply does not correlate with gun-violence.
The entire US has this law known as "the 2nd Amendment", which declares arms-possession a right to be taken away from the bad, not a mere privilege to be granted to the good.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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?
"Gun free" is not intended to be a message to criminals. It is a message that in an area where guns are allowed to be carried on the streets, that they must be left behind when entering certain areas. Ie, in my home you can not bring your gun, no matter how much you whine that I will be safer if you bring your guns inside. Schools may be public but they are allowed to make restrictions on who or what can enter. Learning is easier when there are not a lot of open carry advocates walking around intimidating people.
Exercised restraint due to the large crowd.
This is a good point that gets overlooked a lot.
You'd be a complete fool to try and return fire against a target that you have not identified in a crowd. You're just as likely to add to the problem as to solve it, and even might end up being mistaken for the active shooter yourself.
I have many guns, I sometimes carry a gun (I have a CHL in Texas). I would never, ever, ever draw my gun and fire at someone unless I had a clear and open line of fire, I was 100% sure of my target, and I was directly saving lives by stopping someone who was clearly intent on killing innocent people.
If there are other people either in front of or behind him, around him, or I'm unsure of the situation, I would not draw and fire.
I'm both legally and morally responsible for every round I put downrange, I would never wish to place an innocent in harms way.
I own and carry guns responsibly, I am not "Rambo", and real life is NOT a movie.
You left out WHITE... Most of these idiots are white.
Actually, not. It turns out non-white, non-Asian, people are (currently in the US) more prone to mass murder, both offenders as a percentage of their population and as a victim-count per-capita of offender's group's population.
But their victims are more often also non-white, non-Asian, and the attacks generally "aren't news". (When was the last time you heard the national media do a big news event on a drive-by or other mass shooting in the poorer residential areas of Chicago, Springfield, New York City, Philadelphia, or DC?) It's another example of how black (or Chicano, etc.) lives DON'T matter - to the news media.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is something I can agree with mi on. People are the problem. Guns are the solution.
Right, in the world. Amongst developed nations, it's certainly number 1 in that sense, by miles and miles.
Funny how the Australian gun crackdown has a big correlation to the complete lack of massacres since 1996.
Generally, the gun smuggling happens from north of the border, to the south... with the help of the ATF.
What about those taking places on military bases? Those are technically gun-filled zones.
Wrong. They are not allowed to carry on base. Weapons are locked away in storage. Soldiers on base are defenseless against these types of attacks, which is why they are so effective.
What about those taking places on military bases? Those are technically gun-filled zones.
Actually, they're not. Firearms are locked in the arms room unless training is taking place. All ammo is locked in a different area. Every round is accounted for.
You are also not allowed to have firearms on post for day to day things (personal), those have to be registered with post security.
13F20L7 Operation Iraqi Freedom 07-08 Balad/Taji
I'm from the gun-averse camp, but I'm well aware that nothing can be done to silence the gun lobby in this country. It's in the Constitution, and we're too diverse a country to ever support taking it out. You could have daily mass shootings of 50+ people and the NRA would still defend gun rights, with millions of owners right behind them. Even background check laws will never be strengthened beyond what's there already because people are going to assume the government will be coming for their guns.
So, it seems to me that the next best thing would be to fix mental health care and make sure everyone has equal access to it. Who knows what happened, but it's most likely someone with an ax to grind who just happened to get triggered today. Right now, there's virtually no state-run inpatient mental health treatment beds outside of maybe the psychiatric ERs. You basically have to be Hannibal Lecter to get committed to an asylum now. There's also not that much support available in the community. Deinstitutionalization was supposed to get people out of the hospital -and- treat them on an outpatient basis, but they forgot the second part when states closed all the asylums.
The places with the highest rates of gun violence all have bans on guns. Please prove me wrong, show me how taking away everyone's guns will make everyone safer, but every time I read news about shootings, it is in places where people aren't allowed to carry guns.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If gun control is the answer, why is it that in at least two countries where NO guns are allowed, there are still mass shootings?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The well regulated militia part was about private citizens being able to form their own armed groups for mutual defense.
It had nothing to do with the police, national guard, or anything government run.
Even the SCOTUS has ruled on this.
Guns are forbidden on military bases like the Virginia navy yard (that has had two shootings). The only guns being carried there are the ones the MPs carry. Our solders for the most part can't have guns on military bases, it has to do with the restriction on military operations on US soil.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
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.
Yes, it's well known that most anti-gun statistics (such as this one) throw suicides and accidents in for effect.
"For effect"? Suicides and accidents are by far the largest cause of death by firearms, so concentrating only on homicides is utterly misleading. And in the U.S., death rate from firearms huge.
Are you really going to compare 2nd and 3rd world countries with a 1st world country? If you take the drug countries and war thorn countries out you're left with the US being in 1st place.
So in the US you have a 0.003% chance of being killed in your lifetime (based on average age of 82)
Compare with Canada (a direct neighbor with similar lifestyle BUT with gun control). You have a 0.0004% chance of being killed in your lifetime.
This means you are 7 times more likely to die from homicide in the US than in Canada. Now go ahead and explain how gun control doesn't minimize the problem.
I think the firing range comment was about:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/03/...
Which was most likely a result of PTSD, as they were at the range trying to help the vet get through his PTSD issues.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I wouldn't want to work where any yahoo could wander in packing and I'd have to worry about whether they had any screws loose.
Except, you do and you're just kidding yourself...
Someone with screws loose who intends to shoot people don't tend to care about "no guns allowed" rules...
The campus has its own police force who have guns and are trained to use them.
When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. Why is it that anytime there is a shooting, the first thing the unarmed people do is call people with guns?
Of all the rules at the university where I work, no-guns is among the most sensible.
Nonsense, all it does is tell me that if I bring a gun there, I'm more likely to be the only person with a gun there. It is a stupid rule. If you really want to be a gun free zone, you need the sort of protections that airports and courtrooms have. That is the only way for it to mean anything.
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.
It's not meant to deter specific planned mass shootings.
It's meant to avoid spontaneous unplanned shootings. And sometimes, if you're lucky, snag a criminal whose gun got noticed.
The way to deter mass shootings is to move away from the gun culture in general.
I stole this Sig
1) Before you go around accusing the NRA of being terrorist, ask yourself, which one of them have actually committed a terrorist act?
Timothy McVeigh. Just answering your question.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Yes. The campuses — including this one, the public schools are all legally gun-free. A pop-tart eaten to the shape of a pistol is enough for a kid to be kicked out.
That cinema, where "a joker" killed 12 people — that movie theater was not closest to his house, but it was the only one within a 20-minute drive, that declared itself "gun-free".
In denial much?
So what you're saying is that all (or virtually all) campuses are gun free, so the fact this specific campus is gun free is pretty much meaningless.
I stole this Sig
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.
You mean like the one that happened in Sydney?
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
And someone looking to shoot at people is not going to be deterred by a Class-C felony weapons charge.
"You know, I was going to shoot 25 people and get gunned down by police / incarcerated for the rest of my life, but that 15-day jail sentence for the weapons charge is just too much of a risk to take."
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"The campus has its own police force who have guns and are trained to use them"
You'd be surprised just how little training most of them actually have. You might be even more surprised how little recurring/refresher training most police get outside of very large cities. Many police fire at yearly range qualifications and that's it. Small to mid-size departments just can't afford it anymore. Even academies are cutting back on firearms training AND lowering the bar in some cases. For police that are 'gun people' they will seek out training and practice at their own expense. As for the rest... a gun is a tool required for the job, they will do the minimum required.
If you want an unsettling indicator, do some googling of officer involved shootings. When one or more officers are firing 10, 20, 30 rounds with reloads and hitting the suspect 3 and 4 times, I think it speaks to the level of skill. Yes, it's a high stress situation, but they are supposed to be trained to handle that too, no? In those situations you will perform like you train. Last training 5 years ago? Guess how you will perform...
here's the guy announcing the shooting...
(sorry for hijacking the thread)
"Regulated" as in well trained. Not as in governed by laws. A "well trained militia".
The 4th definition of "Regulated".
4. To put or maintain in order: regulate one's eating habits.
"Militia" = All able bodied males 18 to 34 years of age. Which is what makes the Selective Service and Draft legal.
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.
They did not have that many to begin with, but there were two unrelated mass-shootings in Australia in 2011 — in addition to massacres not involving a fire-arm. So much for "complete lack".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
crime is binary. Either you break the law with a specific action or you do not. There is no "sort-of" or other grey area here. You're talking like you can be a little bit pregnant. You are, or you're not.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
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.
I would never, ever, ever draw my gun and fire at someone unless I had a clear and open line of fire, I was 100% sure of my target, and I was directly saving lives by stopping someone who was clearly intent on killing innocent people
Wow that is a great attitude to have. Good on ya. /notsarcasm The US is so lucky to have a licensing system in place that guarantees all gun owners have the same do no harm philosophy and basic competency in handling firearms. Oh wait, I'm thinking of the license required to cut hair (http://www.beautyschoolsdirectory.com/faq/state_req.php). Pretty much anybody not recently incarcerated can have as many guns as they want in the US which is why we need our politicians to spend so much time and effort fighting gun control. /sarcasm
When will people understand that it's not the law, it's the enforcement that matters. A gun free zone means you can put in checks to make sure people don't bring guns in. Like metal detectors at airports, which are actually pretty effective at keeping weapons off planes.
Gun control is not about expecting criminals to obey the rules. That's dumb, only someone making a straw man argument would suggest it. The point is to make guns much harder to obtain and to make it easier to take them away from people when you find them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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?
I've never seen a home with a sign out front that says "this is a gun free home."
I wonder why that is.
Yes, criminals disregard laws - no one suggests otherwise, so that's not the end of the discussion. Because criminals disregard gun laws, in order to have lower gun related homicide and injury rates the U.S. needs a) fewer guns in circulation and b) fewer people allowed to have guns legally (e.g. mentally unstable types and known criminals).
This means:
- strict background checks and oversight of mental condition of gun owners
- no loopholes for sales without checks (e.g. gun shows) and no straw purchases
- consequences for owners that don't properly store their guns
Do these things impinge the rights of lawful gun owners? Or just put a dent in firearms sales...?
I don't know the answer to that, but we have to move the discussion beyond these lame talking points that are constantly trotted out.
From the Onion: (*)
the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs
Mass killings are the issue, not gun-related homicides. Not that the US has anything to boast about in that department either.
* Yes I know The Onion is satire. It's also right. That's the whole point of satire.
Banning guns from certain locations isn't the goal of gun-control advocates. The goal of gun control is to keep the guns out of the hands of the SHOOTER. If that means that a few law-abiding citizens can't get access to an M-16 for entertainment purposes, than so be it. Banning guns piecemeal from specific locations has never been promoted as a comprehensive solution.
When will they grasp the concept that labeling something a "gun-free zone" doesn't magically do ANYTHING?
When will gun rights advocates realize they've won? How hard is it to buy a gun in the US? Which country has the most guns? What happens after a mass shooting like this? Everyone loses their shit, nothing changes at the federal level, and the red states make it easier to get guns. Remember, the NRA isn't just on your side, its on Remington's side and boy are they doing great marketing.
Mass shootings are a red herring. I don't want guns in my kid's school because it reduces the chances of an accident happening. I'll gladly take the minuscule increased risk of becoming a mass shooting over a stressed out Mr. Jones forgetting to lock the gun drawer.
Mind sharing some statistics for that claim?
http://www.examiner.com/articl...
Sounds like you are regurgitating some hate-talk-radio host's flawed hateful email.
Really? According to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... There's been more mass killings in Australia in the 10 years after Port Arthur than the 10 before it.(But hey, at least those people were only burned to death, not shot.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Exercised restraint due to the large crowd.
This is a good point that gets overlooked a lot.
You'd be a complete fool to try and return fire against a target that you have not identified in a crowd. You're just as likely to add to the problem as to solve it, and even might end up being mistaken for the active shooter yourself.
I have many guns, I sometimes carry a gun (I have a CHL in Texas). I would never, ever, ever draw my gun and fire at someone unless I had a clear and open line of fire, I was 100% sure of my target, and I was directly saving lives by stopping someone who was clearly intent on killing innocent people.
If there are other people either in front of or behind him, around him, or I'm unsure of the situation, I would not draw and fire.
I'm both legally and morally responsible for every round I put downrange, I would never wish to place an innocent in harms way.
I own and carry guns responsibly, I am not "Rambo", and real life is NOT a movie.
So what you're saying is, there's basically zero chance of you ever being able to use your gun in the defense of anyone/anything. So why bother?
If carrying guns was illegal, people would be arrested and banged up just for possession. Push guns underground, and they become much more expensive and risky to buy. Why not just divert all the money and resources in the "war on drugs" into the "war on guns", and it'd be won inside a decade, I reckon.
So guns are not the solution to gun violence. Duly noted.
https://imgur.com/gallery/CLOx...
This covers most of what you'd want to know and look at regarding firearms statistics, both in the US and worldwide. Homicide vs gun ownership, gun assaults vs gun ownership, violent crime vs gun ownership; it compares the states within the US, all the OECD countries, and all countries. It shows what weapon is killing the most people and which people are the ones being killed. It even looks at mass shootings, including per capita rates, and overall number of deaths from mass shootings as a percentage of overall homicides.
Citations are included in most of everything, and numbers are usually taken from government bodies such as the FBI or CDC.
Norway had one massive shooting. Israel and Switzerland both have a high rate of gun ownership (though stricter laws than US and better gun training.
That leaves Slovakia, which had 1 shooting which killed 8 people, and Finland which had 2 shootings killing a total of 8 people. They don't really look like "Little Americas."
Play Command HQ online
What a shit pile of humanity that was.
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.
"Japan, Europe, both gun free zones, both with far less deaths.
Is it that difficult to get that guns kill??? Really??"
Mexico has VERY strict rules / laws about who can own a firearm and what type.
It doesn't seem to deter much of the homicides by firearm there now does it ?
Not to point out the obvious, but guns are no more responsible for death than computers are for kiddie porn.
99.9% of folks use computers with no problems, yet you would be ok with banning them because of what the .1% do with them ?
Replace " guns " with anything else and apply your ban logic to it. Alcohol, computers, cars, knowledge, etc. Does it work ?
Have you figured out yet that the tool is neutral ? It's the meatbag behind the device that's the issue. Why that is so difficult for you to understand is beyond my ability to explain.
Tell you what, throw your computer / phone away and never use them again. Not for anything YOU might do with it, rather what teh evil haxxors or kiddie porn collectors do with them. Since it's impossible to tell if you'll use it within the bounds of the law, or someday take a liking to underage porn, we should ban your use of it, regardless of how inconvenient it may be, just to satisfy your line of thinking. :|
It's also worth noting that if Virginia were a nation, it would be number 2 on that list.
Play Command HQ online
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.
Nope, in Oregon students with the proper permits are allowed to conceal carry, so it's just one more thing you are wrong about. Also, as usual, such laws failed to produce a hero because the simple truth is that 'the bad guy shoots first'.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Chris Kyle, the subject of American Sniper, was killed along with a companion at a shooting range where they had taken a disturbed individual, i believe to fire guns, let off steam, and discuss that person's problems being a veteran. Both were armed.
They can actually do better. On a Tuesday morning a few years back, a small team armed with small knives killed nearly 3,000 people.
See that "Preview" button?
I know this is an unpopular opinion on this mostly US-centric userbase here, but I just have to say this.
The NRA's "more guns is the answer" is inherently flawed for this single, simple reason: Before any good samaritan carrying a firearm can even react to a murderer, one or more people have already been shot and/or killed. How will everyone owning a gun prevent this from happening? It won't. It cannot. You're trying to divide by zero, here.
Preventing the situation from ever happening is the only sane logic.
Some people may believe that everyone owning a gun will at least minimize the impact. While it is possible that not as many people will die in these situations if everyone were carrying a gun, I fucking gaurantee you will care if it is your loved one who was killed.
Death is absolute. A single death in the hands of a psycho is one too many. It needs to be prevented, not stopped part way through a killing-spree, after one or more people have died. Taking the shooter out will not bring his victims back from the dead. He has already acheived his satisfaction.
I like to believe there are some intelligent people here, but when the gun subject comes up on this site you all turn into backwoods hillbilly NRA-cocksucking drooling morons. /end rant
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.
...did you just take the logical inverse of the premise, prove it true, and then claim that proves the premise false? And got +4 insightful?? Come on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Just because (he claims) most shootings occur in places with high gun control does not imply that all places with high gun control have lots of shootings.
Debate and think what you will, but at least do it properly.
> the homicide rate in Australia is almost exactly the same before and after the ban. This has been well debunked. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/... According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, a government agency, the number of homicides in Australia did increase slightly in 1997 and peaked in 1999, but has since declined to the lowest number on record in 2007, the most recent year for which official figures are available.
Yeah, that debunking has been well-debunked too... violent crime has been decreasing in all first world countries, and using other countries as a control shows that Australia's violent crime is higher than it should be.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
They say an armed society is a polite society. I dare say they're correct. The next time you see someone brandishing a firearm in a mall stop and look around - how many people are running up to the gunman and insulting his mother? Who is sidling up behind him to bend over so that another one can come push him from the front so that he falls down and everybody has a good laugh? Nobody. That's who.
For the record, I own a variety of firearms including some that would make some folks here "shit bricks." (Yes, they cost way too much money. However, they're an assload of fun and that paper's not going to put holes in it by itself.) In fact, I'm out of my general stomping grounds and have two firearms with me. They remain in a small safe in my trunk except when I'm in a hotel room or "out on the town." I've never used a firearm in self-defense as a civilian (unfortunately, I have fired on people firing at me while serving) and I hope I never do need to do so. Should I need to use a firearm to defend myself or other people I am comfortable making that choice though I will certainly regret having had to do so.
By no means do I ever want to take the life of a fellow human being. Now, Bambi's dad? I'll eat the hell out of him.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Looks like a terrorist attack rather than a random mass shooting. Actually I'm interested in the year before, or the year before that, or before that, or bef.... you get my point yet?
You cherry pick your stats but when you look at the long trend we still came out way on top. We've had 3 mass shootings since Port Arthur. Most have been very limited in scope due to the restriction on weapons. Port Arthur was double the following massacres combined. Prior to Port Arthur (and with the same time span) we've had 12 mass shootings.
We are 1/10th of the population, why is our chance of dying in a massacre so much lower now than it was prior to the gun laws? Why is it so much lower than 1/10th of the USA?
I was responding to the AC which posted this gem:
Funny how the Australian gun crackdown has a big correlation to the complete lack of massacres since 1996.
There was a massacre just last year. That it was classified as a terrorist attack really doesn't change that there was a mass shooting last year in Australia, not none since 1996.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It was a hypothetical situation. Not one that is likely to occur and meant as a descriptive. That you think that's the saddest indictment of American culture (and not something like the lack of uproar from the Snowden leaks) is a bit unusual. I'd suggest you're already too biased to bother explaining.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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
If that means that a few law-abiding citizens can't get access to an M-16 for entertainment purposes, than so be it.
Mission accomplished then. No law-abiding citizen may have access to an M-16 for entertainment purposes. Now there are certain organizations that may have access to an M-16 for business purposes, but no citizen may own one. Does that mean your gun control agenda has been completed, or do you want to do more?