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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."
In a typical year, just over 300 people are killed by those things in the US.
I guess we need to make sure everyone is armed and ready to fire at all times in the whole country. That way we'll have fewer shootings.
Going to the gym? Wear an ankle holster. Going to Starbucks? Pack your trusty 12-gauge. /sarcasm
Not a mass shooting, that is a terrorist attack: "1 to 3 suspects on loose"
But I am yet to see anyone change their pre-existing opinion as a result of these discussions.
I understand that this is important news, but it doesn't really seem to fit with Slashdot's theme of news for nerds. I suppose if it were at some event that was tech/nerd related there would be enough of a reason, but this apparently has nothing to do with either of those things.
But I suppose it will generate a lot of page views and ad impressions for Dice as people rehash the same arguments over and over again.
And now Obama will go up to his podium and act sad and say things like "we must do something," "guns are bad," etc., etc. But nothing will be done (as usual) because everyone refuses to address the real problem here - the mental health status of the individual pulling the trigger. The cat's out of the bag people. People are gonna get guns if they want them bad enough regardless of what feel good regulations we pass. The real issue at hand is helping the mentally ill so they don't get to the point where they want to pull the trigger.
So, we have no idea who did it or why.
But The President is already calling for new gun control laws.
And I'm expecting to hear within the next couple of days that this could have been prevented if we'd not stripped the Feds of the authority to do mass surveillance on the US population...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
another mass shooting. And we in the U.S. are worried about terrorists?
captcha: ceases ... as in, "the gun violence and the people who think the violence is acceptable without any kind of reform, never ceases to amaze me."
Dollars to donuts the terrorists approached the facility in automobiles, fully legal, with no barriers to owning as many as needed. Why can't the government pass laws restricting civilians from vehicle ownership if they fail an investigation into their background? Sure, hundreds of thousands of people, mainly poor and black, will be denied vehicles, but, think of the children!
So the terrorists may have killed a few people, but we have lots of people in this country. And they are much too cowardly (and their god is much too ineffective) for them to take from us any of our beloved political leaders. So in my mind the terrorists have lost again.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I went to the local gun range today and was chatting with the owner. His business spiked since the Paris shootings, with weekly concealed carry classes booked solid through February. With this he's going to have his best Christmas sales season in years.
I'm not sure what scares me more -- random shootings, or the thought of so many yokels with concealed carry permits who've only fired a gun once or twice in their, now life trying to return fire (or thinking they can).
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Less guns means less gun violence.
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-...
This is how far America has come? 14 dead is no longer considered a "mass" shooting, just a plain old everyday event?
Less guns means you believe in magic.
No, it's another reason to relax gun laws. Making it easier for non-criminals to own and carry firearms would make the country a safer place.
I have to come down on the non-gun side here... the people attacked are developmentally disabled, which means that they are members of a class who would not be permitted firearms in the first place, independently of whether or not the general population were more likely to be carrying guns.
So in this specific instance, relaxed gun laws would have had zero effect.
Which is perhaps the point of the attack.
Or perhaps the point is that guns with longer range, such as rifles, outclass short range weapons in a firefight.
Or perhaps the point is that it's ridiculous to ban so-called "assault weapons" just because they look more dangerous, like red cards look faster, and therefore get stopped more often for speeding tickets.
Or perhaps there was no point to the attack... which would be impossible for some to accept, I know: many people have a deep need to blame something or someone other than the perpetrator.
Doesn't sound much like disgruntled employees or suicidal students...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Not a mass shooting, that is a terrorist attack: "1 to 3 suspects on loose"
Well then clearly, we should get an international coalition together, and begin bombing strategic targets in San Bernardino.
The definition of a mass shooting is an event where 3 or more people are shot.
We should do it by total weight, instead.
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
Follow up the thread. You'll then understand why I deliberately used "less guns".
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.
Arm the robots
Whatcouldpossiblygowrong
Have gnu, will travel.
(do you think that these guys would have been able to killed or wounded 14 in a crowd and then just DRIVE AWAY if any substantial number of the crowd had been armed?)
Make that "killed or wounded 28". Last number I saw was 14 of each.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
New York tried that. This is one example of a weapon specifically constructed* for the buyback and the several hundred dollars paid per gun turned in.
*It works. So you would literally have to shut down every hardware store and confiscate 2x4s and plumbing supplies to "get guns off the street". Good luck with that.
Have gnu, will travel.
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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
The 2nd Amendment isn't primarily for protection from a violent society.
This isn't tech news/news for nerds.''
Sure it is.
Guns are tech, and lots of "nerds" are "gun nuts" and vice-versa. Misuse of this tech, and moves to restrict or ban it, is very much "news for nerds". (Especially since finding legal workarounds for the protections on one constitutional right creates precedent that can be applied to others - like free speech and the press, in the form of an open internet.)
(The model rocket guys found out, a couple decades back, that model rockets are "weapons", too, as far as uncle sam is concerned.)
It's also "stuff that matters". (I notice that you didn't even bother to question that.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Lol. "Sensible speech control". This is going places.
That's a lot of families affected for what might be an office dispute. Wonder what the DMV Christmas parties are like?
Take a number, we will be able to answer your question in about 2 hours...NEXT!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
By your logic I could shoot a single morbidly obese person at sea level and be labelled a mass shooter, or shoot 50 people in Low-earth orbit and potentially not be. Or did you mean by total mass? Then again that becomes dangerously tautological.
I was attempting irony.
If 3 people equals a mass, then any time 3 people show up at a zoning meeting to complain about a proposed speed bump on a street where they commute to work, that's a "mass protest", and the Supreme Court has ruled that you can relegate any "mass protest" to a "free speech zone", meaning "not the zoning hearing".
So if we accept this definition of a "mass", then we can easily suppress any dissent over any public policy whatsoever, simply by declaring any opposition by three or more people something that should take place in a "free speech zone" for the duration of the "protest", and relegate them to the boiler room in the subbasement while we decide whatever the hell we want to decide, and no one says anything when we ask "Is there any opposition to this going through?", because they're all in the boiler room, and don't get to hear or answer the question.
So it's kind of annoying that we tend to inflate things out of all proportion for political purposes.
Hence my use of irony to draw attention to the stupidity of doing so.
Three guys driving up in an SUV, shooting up the place, and driving away must be quite an office dispute. Sounds more like an intra-office war over a red stapler.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Wasn't that supposed to be the way things worked in the Old West? Funny, you'd think that if that had been such an effective technique, it would have spread, instead of being fairly uncommon even in places where going open-carry was once supposed to be the norm.
I'll let others debate the wisdom of adding even more ammunition ricocheting about, but what I find more interesting is that supposedly the entire nation of Germany (not exactly known for being "faint-hearted") fires off less police ammunition in an entire year than a single SWAT raid in Atlanta uses.
The USA believes that guns are magic and can solve all problems. Don't like being told you can't smoke in a diner? Stand Your Ground and shoot the employees! Laid off? Go back and klll them all! Don't like Planned Parenthood? Exterminate! Rejected for a date? Blow away your school!
I really don't care if gun ownership is restricted or not in the abstract. My house is chock-full of things that can kill people. Heck, I have cabinets full of bottles with more than 3 ounces each in them! Whether you have a gun or not is less important than how responsibly you use it. If certain people can be reliably be determined to be prone to irresponsible use of guns - or for that matter, for anything, then it's not unreasonable for the rest of us to want to limit their access.
Something needs to be done, and I doubt that simply passing laws is going to solve it. We've gotten to the point where mass shootings are like Windows Virus alerts - so common that people have begun to give up even taking notice. Ho-hum, here we go again.
Numbers of guns aside (we are talking 300 million plus here) there is the issue of the Constitution. You have to remember that in the US the Constitution is above Federal law. All laws have to conform to it, it overrides, and thus the rights in the Bill of Rights section of it are rather sacred and protected.
Now if can be changed, but it is quite hard. It's only happened 17 times (the first 10 came in when the Constitution was first signed). First an amendment hast to be introduced. That requires either 2/3rds of both houses of Congress to vote for it. If either doesn't meet that super majority, it isn't introduced. Otherwise is requires 2/3rds of states to apply to congress to call a national convention for the purpose of amending the Constitution (this has never happened).
However that doesn't amend the Constitution, just introduce an amendment. Then it goes to the states themselves. 3/4ths of the states must then vote to ratify the amendment the Constitution. If enough states don't ratify, it doesn't become law.
So getting rid of the second amendment would requires a VERY large amount of Americans to support it to happen. And pure numbers don't matter, distribution does since it comes to the states. Even if 100% of the population in the populous states wants an amendment, if enough of the less populous don't want it, it can't happen.
Well, without getting rid of the second amendment, a gun ban can't happen. There have been numerous court rulings affirming that it is an individual right, as the other rights are, and thus the government can't just ban gun private ownership. They can regulate it, and they do, but they can't outright ban it without changing the Constitution which would be real, real, unlikely to happen.
Troll.
You're clearly going to have to do better than that.
Nothing fantastical about having drastically fewer guns in circulation. It's just a highly unpopular idea in the U.S. At the very least I would imagine that sort of initiative curbing down the annual firearm homicide rate to levels typical of other developed countries, since it's overwhelmingly attributed to street thugs whom just as easily do the deed with legal guns. Highly organized groups may still manage to access weapons (as seen in France) but short of keeping tabs through surveillance there's fuck all you can do about that.
I'm wondering, could the government simply buy both the guns and gun licenses back?
No.
Make it voluntary, and make it worth doing (ie buy the guns back for more than they are worth). Would that even work, or is it just a complete waste of money?
Waste of money. Gun "buy-backs" are mostly used to get rid of (and get more than scrap value for) worthless rusted-out scrap guns and untraceably dispose of stolen guns and guns used in murders or other crimes. (Then there was that bad divorce where the gun collector's disgruntled wife stole his multi-million-buck collection and handed it to the cops for pennies on the dollar, just to annoy, and cause trouble for, her estranged hubby.) Pay enough and you'll also get people buying (or making!) cheap guns to "sell back". But you'll never get any substantial number of privately owned decent guns - even if you paid the much higher price that they'd bring at a gun store, rather than the usual pittance. Armed people are generally armed because they WANT to be armed, not because it's cheap.
The whole 'cold dead hands' thing is troubling. I've never understood why people need so much fire power.
Look into the origin of the right: The people who wrote the Second Amendment had just OVERTHROWN their LEGITAMATE (but recently gone tyrannical) GOVERMENT. They were trying to set things up so that they would be able to do so if they needed to again while simultaneously deterring a repeat - both of tyranny and its needed overthrow.
The Second Amendment isn't about duck hunting. It's about revolutions and avoiding tyranny and genocide. It's about defending yourself against bad guys - at the retail and wholesale level - rather than depending on others to do it for you (and to put your interests ahead of their own). The "cold dead hands" crew believe it is, not just their right, but their DUTY, to be armed. Like fire insurance, being armed and competent to use arms is a price you pay to mitigate rare-but-costly disasters.
Is our society really that violent? Crime stats say otherwise.
Our society is not very violent, despite all the hype. People of European descent have substantially lower victimization (murder, robbery, etc.) rates than the same ethnic group in "The Old Country". People of African descent have substantially lower victimization rates than the same ethnic group THEIR old country. Ditto with Asia, South and Central America, etc.
When comparing rates, watch out for some gotchas:
- The US counts a murder when there's a body and signs of foul play. The UK counts a murder when there's a con viction.
- If daddy kills his three kids, his wife, and then himself (or makes an attempt to kill himself) the US counts four murders and a suicide, while Japan counts five suicides. ("Family Suicide")
and so on.
- Count "crimes", not just "gun crimes". (You're just as dead if you're clubbed or cut to death as if you're shot, but the latter is a higher percentage where guns are available then where they're not. Also: You're more likely to survive a shooting, and if you survive you'll generally recover more quickly and completely from a shooting than a clubbing or stabbing.)
But while you're at it, don't forget to count the dead in wars, "ethnic clensing", and other organized and government/power-group sanctioned mayhem. Armed populations strongly deter such activities - compare the last 2 1/2 centuries in Eurasia (with their world wars and genocides) vs. the US (one revolution, one "Civil War", the frontier expansion conflicts, various civil rights movements. The rest is mostly getting dragged into stuff "over there" - often by "our" own "leaders" working in interests other than that of the general population.)
It has been observed that EVERY genocide has been preceded by the disarmament of the victim population. "Never again" includes "... will we be disarmed and powerless."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So by "right hands" you mean any and all hands willing to carry one with no criminal intent. It seems police forces discourage civilians to draw weapons in the vast majority of cases as lack of training (both for high stress situations and proficiency) can lead to serious mistakes or exaberations. Such as killing the wrong person, provoking fire, etc. With a weapon drawn on you personally, drawing back would cease to be vigilantism but frankly, having a gun drawn on you and intention to kill, there's scant chance to fire back in time.
More victims of a "gun free zone." Basically all mass shootings happen in gun free zones. I guess the gunmen didn't see the no guns sign. They should make the sign bigger. If they tried this kind of shit in my state (Wisconsin) there would be return fire. NOBODY here with a concealed carry permit obeys those bullshit signs.
So a guy gets into an argument, runs home, tells his friends, the three of them decide to suit up, grab their 'long rifles' and a bunch of pipe bombs and head back to the community center and shoot it up??? Wow.
"My house is chock-full of things that can kill people. Heck, I have cabinets full of bottles with more than 3 ounces each in them! Whether you have a gun or not is less important than how responsibly you use it."
Killing is a gun's sole utility. None of your other household items share that quality. In a pinch, of course they could do the job, given you have enough strength to overwhelm your opponent, or they're left unaware. Responsibility is kind of a moot point of comparison given how difficult it is to "accidentally" kill someone with a wrench.
Instead, there is silence on that topic because citizens using guns in self defense save lives.
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:
* https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed/
And not by a small amount: by 4.5x (450%). You're actually much safer being unarmed, statistically speaking.
Yawn. That argument has been total bullshit since the day it first oozed out of someone's ass. Shootings happen in all kinds of places, and good guys with guns never, ever stop bad guys with guns. It's a fantasy, and we should stop basing policy on fantasies.
So far the USA is averaging more than one mass-shooting (involving 4 or more people) per day this year. Ever wondered how non-US people view US gun culture? Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This is how far America has come? 14 dead is no longer considered a "mass" shooting, just a plain old everyday event?
If you can prevent yourself from reacting emotionally to it (which with dead bodies, grieving families, and the injustice, is quite understandable) you realize that in any other context, the word "mass" or "massive" is used to describe a quantity much larger than 14. That, and ignorance of the legal definition of a mass murder (3 or more bodies) are the only reasons anyone would question the use of that word.
We really need media control.
No. Because someone (or some group) would have the power to decide what gets censored and what doesn't. And that power would be abused horribly eventualy, there's no way to avoid it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Moslems have killed over 130 people in Europe this year
Moslems have killed over 60,000 people in the Middle East this year
Moslems have just killed 14 people in California
Isn't it time to ban *ISLAM*?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Or you live in any developed country other than the USA...
I can't wait until these idiotic comments go out of fashion with the Right. They're about as clever and insightful as the lame puns based on Obama's name like "Obummer".
Yes, we all know that a gun free zone doesnt magically erect an anti gun force field. What it does do is it allows cops to arrest people who are seen with guns in these areas. It is most certainly not a fool proof method but it does allow for police officers to detain some one who might be up to something.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Putting up signs declaring a gun-free zone does not in fact establish a zone safe from guns. I would like to see legislation requiring that gun-free zones have airport-style security perimeters. THEN people might feel a little safer in them.
What is the function of an armed population? The answer is to balance the power of the people and government. They are for the protection of the people against a government that would coerce the population, that is why you have the right to bare arms in countries, so the population can respond to domestic threats. These events are an unfortunate consequence of having that freedom and any discussion about the merits of an armed population must be weighed up against that.
The question I'm wondering is why does this happen so frequently in the U.S whereas it doesn't happen in Canada or other armed populations? Making them illegal won't help because a criminal won't care if it is an illegal weapon, weapons training, whilst useful isn't helping, nor is it a law enforcement issue because police have plenty of powers of arrest.
It is fairly easy to see what the issue is *not* so is there a cultural issue driving these shootings? Are people so excluded from society that they feel this is the only option left?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In the interest of equality which the moderators at Slashdot seem obsessively concerned with recently, isn't it incredibly sexist to refer to the shooters as "gunmen"?
The jews were disarmed before they were rounded up during WWII. How did not having a way to protect themselves work out for them?
Are you seriously suggesting that the German Jews of the 1930s, if they had not had gun ownership restrictions, would have been able to successfully resist the Gestapo, SD, SS and Wehrmacht? Or that the above organizations would have said to themselves, "Whoa. Our political ideology is based on blaming 'international Jewry' for the economic woes of the Aryan German volk. Since the early '20s we've been very clear in saying we'd like to see them out of Germany entirely... one way or another. But some of them have rifles or handguns, and AMG (Ach Mein Gott!) concealed carry permits! Let's back off and not implement the Final Solution."
And, by the way, the majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Poland, Soviet territories or otherwise outside Germany. How did not being subject to Germany's confiscation of Jews' guns work out for them? How did the Warsaw uprising work out for anyone?
There are plenty of valid reasons for responsible people to own guns. To claim that one of them is because it will prevent tyranny by one's own government in the modern era is totally fucking batshit insane. Find a real justification.
"95% of all Slashdot
Moving to Switzerland, I was delighted to learn about the marriage procedures.
EVERYONE gets "married" in the local council offices. You can bring some witnesses along, you can dress up nice, but you can't sing, pray or do anything that the mayor has not authorised. And the mayor is NOT authorised herself to permit singing blahblahblah. It's a legal process. The end. No coffee and tea, no hymns, no anecdotes, no booze. You get your 30 minute window, then you get the fuck out of the way FAST so the next marriage can proceed.
AFTER THAT, you can to the church of your choice and do a "wedding" if you want, but there's no requirement to and no obligation either.
The wedding has NO OFFICIAL STATE RECOGNITION. Never has.
And this country is resolutely Christian in its culture.
Most people willingly pay the "ecclesiastical tax" to either the protestant or catholic church organisations.
The parent is correct. There's an easy win fix to the problem, but no will to do so, cause then OH NO - TEH GAYZ WILL PERVERT OUR KIDZ !!!
Fucking Americans are fucking stupid.
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.
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Really? How about good guys with no guns vs. a bad guy with AKM + 9 mags + a handgun + a knife:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Now, I'm all for banning big guns, but small caliber pocket pistols that preferably take forever to reload, that's a different story. Can't go on a mass shooting rampage with one, won't be lethal when goes through a wall or a desk, but enough to stop a bad guy when needed. Not guaranteed of course, but better than trying to bum-rush an AKM empty-handed.
i think there plenty of other countries around the world with guns laws disagree.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
still living in the time of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... then....
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
There was a news story yesterday that the US now basically has a mass shooting once a week, but many go un- or underreported.
Sure more people die on the streets still. But there is still a difference between an accident and a murder, and it's an important one: The shooting is not an accident. It's intentional.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They'll stoop to any level to prove to us with statistics that we should erode our rights. Pitiful. Hopefully nobody really died. See http://82.221.129.208/ifyouare... (Jim Stone's site).
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The 2nd amendment isn't *at all* for protection from a violent society. It's for protection of the states from outside and/or federal combatants.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
A mass shooting a day. A week between mass shootings would be an enormous improvement.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The USA, has an average rate that's more than 1 mass shooting per day for 2015, Obviously, we're doing something wrong. Given how well things work in America, I expect we are going to have some deep and serious debates at all levels of government....about raising the threshold in the definition of Mass Shooting from 4 victims to something more reasonable. Maybe 7? 10? What do you think?
STFU is a political agenda too, you know.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Killing is a gun's sole utility.
Mine must be broken--I've put thousands of rounds through them, and the only thing they've killed is a family pet my ex-wife made me put down rather than having the vet do it.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
And, by the way, the majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Poland, Soviet territories or otherwise outside Germany. How did not being subject to Germany's confiscation of Jews' guns work out for them?
Mind you, at the time, a number of these states had restrictive gun ownership laws that were fairly similar to those of Nazi Germany. So in many cases, there was no real difference with regard to the capability (or lack thereof) for Jewish self-defence. That having been said, in this whole context it is vitally important to remember that the Nazis managed to keep the true nature of the Holocaust a secret from the majority of the population, including Jews that were still at large, or living in ghettoes and such, during the entire duration of the Third Reich. Sure, anti-semitism was widespread, and far too few people objected to "the Jews" being taken away for "deportation", or to "labor camps". These were the reasons that were publicly given for removing Jewish people from their places of residence: and to their shame, hardly anyone in the non-Jewish population batted an eyelid to this happening (as if "just" deporting an entire part of the population was a tolerable thing to happen!).
However, had they actually known that the place "the Jews" were headed to was not just "labor camps", but actual death camps - well, there is no way to say what would have happened, had people actually known this. IMHO, at least Jewish self-defence would likely have been much more pronounced: if you know that you are going to die anyway (as opposed to being sent to some labor camp, which sounds at least theoretically survivable), you become much more motivated to make any sort of attempt to fight back.
There was actually a precedent why the Nazis decided to keep the Holocaust such a state secret, even with Anti-Semitism being rampant in the population: and that was the outcome of Aktion T4. Basically, there was such a public outcry over their earlier programme to straight out kill mentally handicapped people for "reasons of public health", that the programme had to be halted. To put this into full perspective, you have to realise that this push-back against Nazi policy took place while Nazi Germany was already a fully developed police state that was at war. And still public opinion was so much against T4 happening, that the party leadership caved in. No wonder that they chose to do their dirty work in total secrecy from then on.
How did the Warsaw uprising work out for anyone?
You do realise that the main reason for the Warsaw Uprising to fail was the swinish behaviour of the Soviets in the whole matter? The Polish Underground Army started the uprising to co-incide with the Red Army reaching Warsaw in time to join in on the whole thing, which would have made the outcome of the fight a foregone conclusion. What they had not counted on was that the Polish underground fighters were, by and large, not communists - and were therefore expendable to Stalin, and were rather seen as a problem by themselves. So the Soviets patiently stopped on the outskirts of Warsaw while the uprising went on, waited until the Germans had finished off the Poles, and only then took Warsaw.
So the failure of the uprising is hardly a valid data point to argue against armed insurrections in general. You just have to time them right, and pick the right sort of allies for them to succeed.
What's wrong with that rule? It makes sense to me that a business owner wouldn't want a room full of drunk people with guns, but likewise wouldn't want to turn away potential patrons. If the person is going to ban guns in their business establishment, it makes sense that they would provide a temporary (secure) storage space so that people could check their weapons at the door.
My thinking is that the property owner can set whatever rules they want in their place of business.
There were 10 attackers according to that article, so that's 3 victims each. Do you think really think 10 attackers armed with guns and murderous intent would have only killed 3 people each?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Yeah, just as you can stab someone with a kitchen knife, you can put a few rounds into a can of beans with a firearm. Doesn't change it's purpose.
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
Moslems have just killed 14 people in California
Isn't it time to ban *ISLAM*?
There have been more than 350 mass shootings in the USA this year, and I believe this is the only one carried out by Muslims. The vast majority were carried out by Christians. Several were even referring to their Christian beliefs as part of their rationale for the shooting (including one just last week). Add in all the single shootings perpetrated by Christians in the US, and you are likely in the thousands this year alone.
That's thousands vs. 14. So if banning religions is the solution to this, which should we ban first, to get the most impact?
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.
A small number kept the German army out of the Warsaw Ghetto for six weeks. So, potentially, yes.
Furthermore, most "disgruntled employees" do not go home, get their wives, drop the kid off at grandma's, go to work, and both of them shoot the place up. Guess what folks? This was a terror attack.
OMG, this idea is brilliant. Why yes, I could use some easy money at taxpayers' expense. I would like to subscribe to your metal detector manufacturer newsletter. And your reseller newsletter. And the maintenance contract one too, please. Oh, and I think the bored staff who stand around the machines should be forced to unionize.
People talk about gun-free zones with contempt, but we need to start thinking of them as a yet-unfulfilled opportunity. Please, everyone, let this San Bernardino thing be the 9/11 to help kickstart the next security theater industry expansion. We can be the visionary grifters sucking the life out of the public in exchange for absolutely nothing of value. Chant with me: "gun-free zones! enforce them! enforce them! gun-free zones! enforce them! enforce them!"
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
So based on the chance that somebody who is trying to do right may make a mistake in judgment in the midst of a mass shooting you would condemn ALL the victims the crazy murderer might be able to shoot? That's stupid.
Personally, I'd be willing to take my chances with somebody who was trying to stop the shooter over the guy intent on creating as much carnage as possible. Yea, I might still get shot by mistake, but that's a lot less likely than getting shot on purpose by some crazy with a gun.
I'd bet you would welcome the intervention of a good guy with a gun if you and your associates where being systematically shot down by some crazy. You know you would...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
... [unlikely to be successfully] ending up a successful vigilante peacekeeper after a few hours training.
If you'd taken the training, you wouldn't be misusing the term "vigilante". One big part of it is to NOT be one.
FYI: Self-defence, (and legitimate defence of others) occurs from the time the attack on you/others (or creditable threat) begins until the time there is no further creditable threat - usually when the attacker is incapacitated and under restraint, or on the run.
It's always vigilantism if you try to hunt down the attacker once he's out of sight. (Before that, jurisdictions vary on when self defense ends and whether you're allowed to use deadly force to accomplish a citizen's arrest. For instance: Oregon did, and may still, allow you to shoot at a housebreaker even if he's dropped his gun and is running to his car: Case law said it's reasonable to believe he may be trying to get another, bigger, weapon from his vehicle to resume the attack.)
Police are just formalized, professional, vigilantes. Citizens in most jurisdictions retain many of the same powers as a civil right.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
good guys with guns never, ever stop bad guys with guns
I'm guessing that you've never, ever tried to challenge this idea.
Is this shit on /.?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
SCOTUS disagrees; self-defense is also now included.
I'd welcome security placement but of course even that doesn't guarantee safety. Shooting the shooter doesn't retroactively "protect" those who've been killed, which could include the guards. They move quickly. It's nothing to walk in to an office room, have everyone in your sights before they know what's going on, and move on to the next. By the time everyone has reason to suspect there's a shooter about, they're running the fuck out of there, not confronting the shooter: that would be stupid. A room full of people whom are carrying would not stop what's coming for them. So yeah, I'd well favor a scenario with a drastic reduction of guns in circulation over heavily armed populace.
muskets for everyone.
Your choice I guess, but allowing law abiding citizens to carry concealed is cost free and enhances security. If you want to provide armed guards, all the better. You want to make the location appear to not be a "soft target" so the shooters will move on to easier pickings... That's great, but it's expensive and doesn't really solve the problem, it just shifts it to some other location.
Look, nothing is going to stop a determined and intelligent shooter from attacking a soft target and causing a lot of carnage. But the ONLY way you stop a shooting in progress is to confront the shooter(s) with deadly force. The sooner you can confront them, the sooner you can stop the carnage. If a prospective victim happens to be armed and chooses to attempt to defend themselves, there is a reasonable chance the shooting can be disrupted and a great chance that this will save lives.
I say, Let the law abiding people defend themselves, let them carry fire arms. It's not a perfect solution, but it will help reduce body counts in mass shootings.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” OTOH Alexi Panshin, "Star Well", pointed out that a bully will be more likely to practice and rehearse for dueling, and more likely to either pick fights or take umbrage for no reason, simply for the entertainment of shooting people.
Sure, I won't deny it could reduce body counts. It's just that the 'problem' as I would frame it is that mass shootings happen, at an inexcusable rate. Softening the blow is not enough initiative to my mind. Though obviously, without getting into it, the issues do extend beyond guns themselves. I'd be relieved if apologist politicians would put their money where their mouth is and push to provide mental health care to those that need it without question, reduce poverty, etc, all things that independently are not popular with the right wing but often surface as "solutions" in sound bytes.
Poland had a fully armed military and suffered the same fate. So much for that theory...
If I'm not wrong Vigilante denotes acting outside of the law as part of it's definition. Police forces are usually authorized and given extra duties and powers on top of their normal civilian rights. The Police can be a vigilante by acting beyond the limits set by the law, but they do not otherwise fit as a vigilante.
For anyone still following this story in here and who thinks banning guns will magically make us all safer, I have a question.
We'll skip over the fact the suspects appear to have Middle Eastern ties as we don't yet know their motivation behind the event. They purchased all of the firearms legally and used them successfully to injure and / or kill a lot of people. It does appear, however, the high-capacity magazines they utilized are already illegal ( and therefore banned ) in the State of California. So the idea of merely enacting new / more laws or banning a thing only goes to show that those who plan on mass-murder, really don't put a lot of thought ( or concern ) into what other laws they may be breaking while committing whatever atrocity they've planned.
Of particular interest to me is the fact that they also had manufactured about a dozen explosive devices they had planned on using as well. ( Last I checked, the possession and / or manufacture of explosive devices are quite illegal, as is murder, but that goes without saying. )
So, for those who believe that banning guns will fix our " mass violence " problem, how do you apply that same logic to the fact that, while banned already, these two showed up with high-capacity magazines and a dozen explosives and it is only through sheer luck, incompetence or a change of heart that the explosives did not detonate leading to even greater carnage.
Head over to everyone's favorite part of the planet, the Middle East, and you get to see what explosives are really capable of when you get serious about causing mayhem on the higher end of the scale. ( Pretty sure possessing / manufacturing explosives over there is just as illegal and banned as it is here, yet seems to almost be a daily occurrence. )
So, again, I have to ask. Other than being more security theater and a feel-good law, what would the removal of guns from the equation actually do to prevent the next psychopath, lone wolf or Call of Duty inspired terrorist wannabes from killing a bunch of people when they'll simply switch to other, very much proven to be effective, methods of violence delivery ?
Well, in that case I suggest you wake up to the reality on the ground today. There are bad folks out there, poverty or not.
We live in a world where mass shootings are a reality and it's been this way for decades. I don't see that changing in the future, and no amount of welfare, law passing or hand wringing is going to change the reality. There are bad people in the world, crazy killers, hardened terrorists and more, and there is no law you can pass that will prevent them from being successful in their quest to acquire arms and kill innocent non-combatant bystanders.
We need to realize the truth here and deal with reality and stop this foolish emotional based reactionary garbage. It's time to start realizing that the primary responsibility for our own security rests with each individual being ready and able to defend their own, unencumbered by stupid laws that create "gun free zones" or prevent law abiding citizens from carrying firearms if they decide to.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Nice technical report from the police there, they had "long" guns. Were they also really big and scary?
good guys with guns never, ever stop bad guys with guns.
I don't know about that. One thing I do know is that a good woman with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun: Guard saved untold lives, officials say
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Mass shootings aren't quite the same level of reality elsewhere in the developed world. Hell that's an understatement. The per-capita population excuse for discrepancy doesn't hold any water. Offenders aren't "just bad" by and large, and certainly terrorism of the Islamic variety account for a small fraction of occurrences in the U.S. annually, let alone firearm homicide which apparently doesn't matter enough because it disproportionately affects those in impoverished areas. I don't see the advantage of shrugging at the 355 count and just accepting this as "reality" going forward. It seems people would rather keep on pretending nothing can be done as if no sacrifice is necessary.
If you can prevent yourself from reacting emotionally to it (which with dead bodies, grieving families, and the injustice, is quite understandable) you realize that in any other context, the word "mass" or "massive" is used to describe a quantity much larger than 14.
A meteorite weighing a massive number of kilograms, caused the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
That, and ignorance of the legal definition of a mass murder (3 or more bodies) are the only reasons anyone would question the use of that word.
Except that the legal definition was changed in 2015 to facilitate throwing the book at people who killed in smaller numbers.
Would the American Revolutionary War been started and won if the populace did not have guns?
We are a society in transition. Ancient systems of belief are failing. These were the (weak) basis of our (crude) morality, yet are unsupported by evidence. We need a new basis for absolute moral principles. Democracy is a threat to the stability of society because ethics can no more be decided democratically than can scientific matters. Utilitarianism that denies individuals and tries to optimize statistical parameters on society, including by the use of mass coercion and even war produces large numbers of disenfranchised who's individual suffering is ignored and who have no legal recourse. And we wonder why so many people snap. Idiots!
If certain people can be reliably be determined to be prone to irresponsible use of guns - or for that matter, for anything, then it's not unreasonable for the rest of us to want to limit their access.
So, the Pre-Crime Department? Please be specific.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The premise that "gun control would have stopped this" is a completely ignorant one.
This man had outside support and would have been able to procur weapons of any sort. He had been in contact with persons being watched by the FBI (gee, thanks FBI, nice work protecting the public!) as known terrorists. Despite any legality or embargo he would have carried it out.
This was an act of organized "terror" (read: islamic mafia); any law would not have mattered.
If someone farts in another country, the media shouts 'terrorism'. Why did it take a week or so for the media to call this a terrorist event? Were they waiting for the government to OK it? Was the media being discreet? Since when does the media wait for confirmation on anything? Might it be because with all of the invasions of your privacy, no government department really knows what's going on? Admitting this was a terrorist attack is admitting failure of the invasion of your privacy. This isn't a gun control issue, unfortunately. Wish it was but it's not. Sandy Hook was, this isn't. Just as the FBI and Homeland Security lie to us about how they've quashed events like this, this single event proves that the billions spent on invading your privacy didn't do sh*t. Money out the window while basic, standard policing should have intercepted the terrorists and prevented this event.
> Isn't it time to ban *ISLAM*?
1. You're throwing the baby out with the bath water.
2. This sets a precedent down a dangerous slippery slope -- _who_ determines _what_ is acceptable or not?
3. The problem is The Silent Majority"
4. Cars kill more people then guns but we don't ban cars simply because a few idiots don't know how to respect other's property or life.
**Education** and/or Name-and-Shame is the proper solution.
i.e. Scroll down to:
* http://www.rollingstone.com/po...
All this will lead to only one thing total electronic monitoring in America and such developed countries with compulsory tracking implants in every citizen and immigrant.
Bad guys can be prevented from having guns. Let's do that.
Your position is exactly my position. I think we should lower the threshold on which guns we allow. We already ban a lot of guns, I'd like to just bad some more. In fact I don't even think we need to ban them, it would be good enough to keep them locked in armories (shooting ranges, militia headquarters, hunting clubs).
"Wanna know why"
Yeah, it's because police stations and shooting ranges and gun stores are 0.05% of places. Less, in fact.
"You won't hear about it in the national media because there is a [conspiracy against me]"
Uh huh. Yeah, the whole world is trying to keep you down, AC.
Oh, I see you read the Washington Post. Good for you!
Look at that list. It has 10 events on it and it covers 19 years. Meanwhile, we've had 355 mass shootings this year. Case closed, the incidence of people protecting themselves with guns is practically zero. It's a fantasy.
"Armed civilians stop would-be mass shooters all the time"
No, they don't do that all the times, they do that in incredibly rare circumstances which could be mostly prevented in other ways.
And did you seriously cite with a screed from Monster Hunter Nation? Uh, okay...
By doing what, going and trying to shoot up a crowd, and seeing if I can get away from the scene before someone shoots me? I don't need to do that test, hundreds of others have already done it for me this year alone.
Whoa golly! Too bad someone didn't prevent that gangmember from having a gun! Someone should do something about that!