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Mass Shooting In San Bernardino Kills At Least 14 (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Authorities say 14 people were killed and 14 others were injured in a mass shooting in San Bernardino today. Police have mounted an intense manhunt for the gunmen who fired into a conference hall where county employees had gathered at a service center for people with disabilities. CNN reports: "The suspects were armed with long guns, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told reporters. 'These were people that came prepared. ... They were armed with long guns, not hand guns,' he told reporters. Most of the victims were 'centrally located in one area of the facility,' Burguan said. Police didn't exchange gunfire with the shooters, he added."
You could mostly fix it with free mental healthcare, but judging by the opposition to Obamacare that probably isn't going to happen.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
American "gun control" laws are the equivalent of dumping a coffee cup on a forest fire. An actual gun control law is what was passed in Australia, which worked pretty much as intended. Which even suggesting in the US would probably cause another civil war. And there is a huge part of the problem.
Actually, It was Ronnie Reagan who started shuttering mental heath facilities strictly to cut spending.
He used deplorable conditions within as an excuse. Living on the street so much more attuned to
freedom of expression and libertarian damages
I'm sure that worked in France.
In 2013, the US had 3.55 gun homicides per 100k residents. France had 0.22. That's 94% less. So whatever France is doing seems to work pretty well.
In a typical year, just over 300 people are killed by those things in the US.
Huh? That number seems low. As of October 1, according to the Washington Post, there were 294 mass shootings so far in 2015, and that was still with three months left in the year. That accounted for 380 deaths so far, with well over 1,000 injured.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Even the conservative Wall Street Journal claims "the US leads the world in mass shootings." http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If these are actual AK-47s, they're considered Assault Weapons under California Law and, if unregistered, are illegal. They were banned by name in 1989.
If they're AK-47 "clones" (since AK-47 is an actual trade name, not a rifle description), then out of the box, they meet the Assault Weapon criteria established in the 2000 ban, and must have been registered at that time, or they're illegal.
To have a legal, modern rifle based on the AK-47 platform, they must remove specific features that make them an Assault Weapon. Typically this is done by mounting a 10 round magazine in a fashion that can only be removed by a tool.
If they're using a modern, AK-47 pattern rifle, with removable, 30 round magazines, the rifles are illegal, and the magazines are likely illegal (magazines greater than 10 rounds were grandfathered in in the year 2000, after than they're illegal to purchase or manufacture). Rifles like this are banned already in California.
So, very likely this attack was perpetrated using illegal rifles and magazines.
Actually, a University of Pennsylvania study (DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099) examined over 600 incidents in the Philly area, and found that carrying a gun actually increases ones chances of getting shot and killed:
False conclusion. The data can't reveal the claimed relationship.
Firstly I'm not actually arguing that Australia's gun laws aren't too strict. As a competitive pistol shooter they are seriously annoying around things like the number of shoots per pistol. Especially since I like to use different 22s for different comps and this means I have to do a stupid number of matches a year to be compliant. I also have a pistol that can be chambered for two different rounds so it counts as two separate pistols for compliance (BLERGH).
That said this whole thing started with a comment about comparing the US to Mexico. Mexico is fucked up in all kind of ways that will skew crime figures an absolute mile. I would be kinda depressed if I was living in a first world country and trying to use a developing country as a way of arguing my system was ok. Australia does not have its system perfect, and whether it made a difference is always arguable because we don't know what Australia would look like without the laws.
In the end the US has a crazy level of gun violence. That gun violence might just be a symptom of a society that has issues, or it might be an issue with firearms. I think, though, that there are limited arguments against making it harder for guns to end up in the black market, or making it harder for people to own guns. Christ they are talking about making them register flying a fucking drone, but making people register their guns and to have a valid reason to own them is too far?
As for Australia
Mass shootings in Australia since the 28-4-96 Port Arthur Massacre.
21-10-2002 - Huan Yun Xiang - 2 people killed at Monash university
29-4-2011 - Donato Anthony Corobo - 3 people killed, 3 injured
9-11-2014 - Geoff Hunt - Murder Suicide - Killed his wife and 3 kids before killing himself.
Please let me know if I've missed any.
There was a downward trend in firearm related homicides prior to 1996 but there is a significant vertical step in the trend line that occurred in 1996. See here - http://www.gunpolicy.org/firea...
Licensed gun owners in Australia:
2001 - 764,518
2010 - 873,625
2012 - 730,000
Number of registered firearms per 100 of population
2012: 12.499
2010: 12.44
2001: 11.22
See GP - who used Australia as an example of eliminating guns works. And the population increases of the US means it still had a bigger drop in homicides as compared to a gun-free Australia.
Er you might need to check your maths.
Australia's population grew by 33% (from 18 mil + 6 mil), whereas US only grew 16% (274mil + 45mil)
So punch in the numbers:
Australia 1997, 18 mil, 364 homicides = 2.02 deaths per 100k
Australia 2012, 24 mil, 297 homicides = 1.24 deaths per 100k
A reduction of 38.6%
USA 1997, 274 mil, 18208 homicides = 6.65 deaths per 100k
USA 2012, 319 mil, 14827 homicides = 4.65 deaths per 100k
A reduction of 30%
So the US still has a homicide rate over 3x that of Australia.
Also worth noting, Australia isn't gun free. People still own guns, but regulations ensure the firepower is limited, and that the owners responsible people.
good guys with guns never, ever stop bad guys with guns. It's a fantasy
A recent CDC-commissioned report found that defensive gun use happens *at least* as often (if not more often) than criminal gun use. But let's see a list of things that "never ever" happened:
In Chicago earlier this year, an Uber driver with a concealed-carry permit “shot and wounded a gunman [Everardo Custodio] who opened fire on a crowd of people.”
In a Philadelphia barber shop earlier this year, Warren Edwards “opened fire on customers and barbers” after an argument. Another man with a concealed-carry permit then shot the shooter; of course it’s impossible to tell whether the shooter would have kept killing if he hadn’t been stopped, but a police captain was quoted as saying that, “I guess he [the man who shot the shooter] saved a lot of people in there.”
In a hospital near Philadelphia, in 2014, Richard Plotts shot and killed the psychiatric caseworker with whom he was meeting, and shot and wounded his psychiatrist, Lee Silverman. Silverman shot back, and took down Plotts. While again it’s not certain whether Plotts would have killed other people, Delaware County D.A. Jack Whelan stated that, “If the doctor did not have a firearm, (and) the doctor did not utilize the firearm, he’d be dead today, and I believe that other people in that facility would also be dead”; Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux similar said that he “believe[d] the doctor saved lives.” Plotts was still carrying 39 unspent rounds when he was arrested.
Near Spartanburg, S.C., in 2012, Jesse Gates went to his church armed with a shotgun and kicked in a door. But Aaron Guyton, who had a concealed-carry license, drew his gun and pointed it at Gates, and other parishioners then disarmed Gates. Note that in this instance, unlike the others, it’s possible that the criminal wasn’t planning on killing anyone, but just brought the shotgun to church and kicked in the door to draw attention to himself or vent his frustration.
In Atlanta in 2009, Calvin Lavant and Jamal Hill broke into an apartment during a party and forced everyone to the floor. After they gathered various valuables, and separated the men and the women, and Lavant said to Hill, “we are about to have sex with these girls, then we are going to kill them all,” and began “discussing condoms and the number of bullets in their guns.” At that point, Sean Barner, a Marine who was attending Georgia State as part of the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, managed to get to the book bag he brought to the party; took out his gun; shot and scared away Hill; went into the neighboring room, where Lavant was about to rape one of the women; was shot at by Lavant, and shot back and hit Lavant, who then ran off and later died of his injuries. One of the women was shot and wounded in the shootout, but given the circumstances described in the sources I linked to, it seemed very likely that Lavant and Hill would have killed (as well as raped) some or all of the partygoers had they not been stopped. This incident of course involves a member of the military, not a civilian, so some may discount it on those grounds. But Barner was acting as a civilian, and carrying a gun as a civilian (he had a concealed carry license); indeed, if he had been on a military base, he would generally not have been allowed to carry a gun except when on security duty.
In Winnemucca, Nev., in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with 300 people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed-carry license). It’s not clear whether Villagomez would have killed more people; the killings were apparently the result of a family feud, and I could see no information on whether Villagomez had more names on his list, nor could one tell whether he would have killed more people in trying to