Slashdot Mirror
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."
It depends on the people, I would think. Lone nuts with a grudge are probably so delusional it won't stop them. Organised terrorist groups might be deterred, but then again, the guys in France didn't seem too worried about the inevitable shoot out, and came prepared with suicide vests. Alternatively, they could just change tactics and go for bombs like the Boston Marathon bombers did. Not much good being armed will be when a nail bomb blows up ten feet away from you.
I guess it could minimize fatalities, but I'm thinking of a bunch of armed people firing at each other in a relative small place and wondering if as many people would end up struck by "friendly" bullets as by the mass shooters.
The reality is that we can't prevent all mass killings. Even countries like China and Iran, with incredibly restrictive gun laws, still suffer terrorist attacks.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So everyone is talking about San Bernardino CA. Here is a twist: Did you know this was the 2nd mass shooting in the U.S. for today?
Not kidding. Earlier today in Savannah GA was another mass shooting. Another twist: This is not unusual!
On many days in the U.S., there is more than 1 mass shooting. U.S. mass shootings (meaning 4 or more people shot in an event or related events) are a daily occurrence. Starting today, we'd have to go back to November 10 to find three consecutive days without a mass shooting.
As a Canadian looking at the news flowing across the border, this boggles my mind.
Source 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/GunsA...
Source 2: http://www.theguardian.com/us-...
guess you don't live in Australia then
as rarely as it happens, when one person gets shot and killed it makes the national news.
in the US - its proberly only reported when its above 10....
when was the last shooting in the US?
I guess it could minimize fatalities, but I'm thinking of a bunch of armed people firing at each other in a relative small place and wondering if as many people would end up struck by "friendly" bullets as by the mass shooters.
Your imagination doesn't match reality.
Given how media favors gun control, every single incident where a citizen killed bystanders with "friendly fire" would be widely reported on as evidence for guns causing more harm than good.
Instead, there is silence on that topic because citizens using guns in self defense save lives.
We really need media control.
I would say, that 1st amendment has limits. If shouting "fire" in the theater will get you in jail, because of the potential psychosis and stampede, the same way mass hysteria channels CNN, NBC, FOX and MSNBC, would have a right to report only statistically representative events. This should not apply to real mainstream news - Facebook, etc, because that is how many of the people get news, and Facebook is, in a way, glorified gossip club. All television does is promotion of a cheap way to get publicity.
Before one mass shooting is reported on television, there would be a forceful reporting automobile accidents, suicides, drownings, medication overdoses, cardiac arrests, hospital errors. Statistically, death from violent terrorist attack is so statistically rare that in a year there would hardly any re-portable event.
At the same time, this would be eradication of advertising, and an incentive, for those potential mass shooters/terrorists.
For they want nothing else, but fame, glory, to be shown and talked about on the news. This needs to be stopped.
__________
I am praying for the victims tonight.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, I think you are wrong, we need more guns in the right hands... Follow me on this...
MORE guns in the hands of law abiding citizens actually provides a deterrence by making it more risky for criminals who choose to use their guns illegally. Shooters generally choose "soft" targets, places where they know guns are less common such as movie theaters or public schools for a reason. Further, having armed law abiding citizens means that it is more likely a criminal shooter will be confronted with deadly force sooner which is very likely to end the shooting event sooner as most shooters will withdraw or commit suicide when they are confronted.
So, more guns in the right hands will deter mass shootings and when they do happen (and they will) having more guns in the right hands will lower the body counts. So I conclude we need MORE guns out there, in the right hands.
Then there is the whole constitutional problem the "less guns" folks try to ignore. The only way 'less guns" works is if you go out and take the majority of the guns in circulation now and destroy them, but legally you cannot do this in any practical way I can imagine. The Second Amendment makes gun ownership a right of the people and the courts have upheld this right so you cannot take it away, short of removing the second amendment. Plus, short of going out and doing an exhaustive search for weapons (think of jackboots going door to door) and confiscating them the only people you will disarm by making guns illegal are the very people you really want to be armed. Exhaustive searches are also a constitutional problem, so you are going to need to make another change or two in that pesky bill of rights.
So stop this emotional "Less Guns" idea. Where I understand the emotional appeal, it's totally unworkable as an idea due to the Bill of Rights, will arguably have exactly the opposite affect you desire, and simply cannot solve the problem.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I'll skip the fallacies and go straight to the factual errors.
We don't need 250 million guns.
Excessive hyperbole.
310 million civil firearms in the USA in 2009
civilians who commit literally hundreds of mass shootings every year.
Excessive hyperbole.
355 mass shootings this year so far.
On the other hand
There are more criminals than cops
I was surprised but that one hods true: In 2008, 1.2M police officers vs. 2.4M incarcerated people. To put in perspective, USA represents 4.4% of the world's population and 24.7% of the world's incarcerated population.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
When "highly trained" police officers shoot nine innocent civilians [cnn.com] when trying to shoot a suspect, what are the chances that Joe Blow (who hasn't been to the range since he got his concealed carry permit) will avoid collateral damage?
Low.
It takes dedication to get a CCW, and Joe Blow will get sued for millions and become the Public Enemy of America if he screws up.
Joe Blow has skin in the game. The police don't have a legal duty to protect you.
It was actually an extremely proud moment watching people voluntarily handing their guns in to their local police station for destruction. No questions were asked by the police about the legitimacy of the gun, they just said thankyou and went about destroying them.
There is no question that our community is safer as a result of this. We also have the mentality that guns are very out of place in general society and if you actually ever see one it is definitely an uncomfortable feeling that you have. I can't imagine what it must be like to just accept that guns are part of your every day life or how that affects your own insecurities.
There have been multiple studies on this. The majority conclude that the firearms laws of 1997 had no affect on homicide by firearm rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We currently have more firearms in Australia than before the buyback in 1997 (I don't know the comparative rates though). Either way, ownership rates dropped precipitously in 1997, and as the homicide rate by firearm continued it's already established downward trend (a fairly linear trend starting well before 1997) the ownership rate has climbed.
Australia has had multiple mass shootings and other mass murders since 1997 (you often hear claims Australia has not had any).
New Zealand is the best example of sensible firearms laws. You could practically use them as a control group against Australia's too stringent laws. Most importantly, they have a lower homicide rate by firearms than Australia, and a lower overall homicide rate than Australia.
New Zealand have not restricted semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines, or particular firearm calibers. License periods are longer, and there are fewer registration requirements for firearms.
now the strategy is to rush the shooter, guns blazing if the person holding the gun shooting people will not comply.
having more armed law abiding citizens who are competent and trained on their firearms will lead to having a shooter confronted with deadly force sooner,
A practical question for your brother - If he's approaching a scene where there is a gun battle between the hypothetical competent law-abiding citizen and the active shooter bad guy, how does he know which is which?
gun related crime is down 75% from the early 90s, and gun ownership is going up. so clearly what you are saying is not true
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The 2nd Amendment has words "well regulated militia". The current situation is about as far from them as possible. So a simple court decision to reinterpret these words would be enough.
So you have the attackers running around causing carnage. Then you have a bunch of citizens trying to "help" take out the attackers. How do the citizens know who is an attacker and who is another good guy?
Armed US civilians have a track record of getting it wrong less often then police officers. Like by a factor of 5 1/2.
I can see carrying be useful if ...
We know all these things. And more. And the well-researched and legally-vetted (sometimes different) "correct" answers to a number of such questions.
Find an NRA-certified instructor. Take (first the "basic pistol" then) the "Personal Protection" classes. Then you'll know the answers, too.
I won't try to summarize the courses here. I'm not certified to give them (my wife is), and you're not paying me for them. They're inexpensive and only take a couple weekends or so.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Except most people shot in the US are contained in pockets of festering inter-generational poverty. Account for that variable and the US is just as safe as Europe if not more so.
The organized mass shootings in France are notable for their level of organization and the fact that they weren't limited to impoverished housing estates.
For Slashdot reader, the danger of being shot is the same in the US as it is in Europe. Any hysteria to the contrary is just people allowing themselves to fall prey to media propaganda.
In one incident, France managed to instantly catch up to all of the recent shootings that the media actually cares about in the US.
If anything, the prospect of well organized mass shootings and suicide bombers makes France FAR more dangerous to the average Slashdot reader.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bullshit! A long gun is:
- Difficult to conceal
- Much more powerful than a gun that isn't a long gun
- Much less powerful than crew served weaponry
- Not generally capable of projecting explosives at range
- Less able to be maneuvered at close range or in buildings
- More capable of punching through light cover
- Able to fire more powerful rounds, and at longer ranges, than other weapons
The long gun could be a rifle or shotgun. It's not obvious which from long distance glimpses, so to claim it's a "semi automatic rifle" might be wrong- it could be a shotgun.
It's tactically useful, it's descriptive, and unlike bullshit media fuckstick terms, it's *correct*. It's also common parlance among anyone who deals with guns.
Nothing will stop a bad guy with a gun. Not a good guy with a gun, not many good guys with bigger guns, not a police force that takes 15 minutes to respond, and not a disarmed population. But that is because Bad Guys are Bad Guys before guns get into the equation - victims get up and go about their day, while Bad Guys plan to do terrible things in advance and enter the victims' space intending to do harm. These aren't wild west gunfights in the street, these are more like guerilla surprise strikes.
This is dumb as hell that when someone does something horrible to someone else with a gun, we flip our shit about the gun. But I suppose you can't legislate people to be nice to each other, and it's good play to attack your opponent du jour for not doing enough to restrict the guns that "caused" the problem.
We're a melting pot of different cultures and beliefs, we welcome everyone from the doctors to the dregs of every society to come here. We embrace the diversity, which is wonderful. But that includes the assholes, the bigots, the hateful, the prejudiced, those who intend to do harm, and those who can be swayed to do it. As a people we cover almost the entire spectrum of every conceivable faith, dogma, moral structure, opinion, and incompatible code that can possibly exist in this world. As a country we throw our weight around and stick our noses into everything we can, we bring out way to the corners of the globe because it is right, and of course it is, it must be, and we welcome even those people that we offend into our lands with open arms. Even internally we divide ourselves, label our enemies as left/right wing nutjobs, draw political lines, and point fingers at each other because we didn't vote for the leaders in charge. And somehow removing legal guns from the equation will make everything perfect. It's all so simple, no wonder we're so mad at the NRA.
Naw. About one in ten carrying concealed would do it.
Reality disagrees with you.
The USA is one of the few civilized countries where you can (legally) carry a concealed gun in some places.
It is also the place with the by far most mass shootings in the civilized world. By far, as in several times more than everybody else.
How many of those shootings were stopped/ended by someone with a concealed gun?
How many of them were not, despite people having concealed guns?
How many of them were made possible in the first place because the shooters could acquire guns that in other countries they would not have gotten?
If X is the number of shootings prevented by gun-carrying citizens and Y is the number of shootings that would not have happened if it weren't so damn easy to get a gun, then X needs to be higher than Y to use it as a pro-gun argument.
I don't see that assumption being true.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You will note that those gun free zones were within larger areas with easy availability of guns, and insufficient protection between the gun free and non gun free zones.
E.g. schools in Canada don't get so many gun shootings even though they are gun free. I.e. because Canada as a whole doesn't have easy availability of guns and protection between the US and Canada is strong. But they would if the only protection Canada had from American guns was a signboard with "gun free zone" printed on it with many exclamation signs.
So being gun free is not what encourages shootings- it is the porous border between gun free and non gun free zones.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
How did the Warsaw uprising work out for anyone?
The Warsaw Uprising worked quite well. The German occupying forces were significantly weakened by Polish insurgents just prior to the arrival of the advancing Russian forces, exactly as intended. That the Russians decided to pause their advance just outside of Warsaw, allowing the decimated Germans to slaughter the remains of the Polish insurgency before capturing Warsaw for mother Russia, is no fault of the Poles.
While the Warsaw Uprising has nothing to do with confiscation of arms, this transparently dickheaded move by Russia is but one of countless reasons why Poles, generally speaking, hate them.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.