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Ask Slashdot: Can Technology Prevent Shootings?
An anonymous reader wonders if there's a technological response to mass shootings like this Sunday's attack in Orlando, Florida:
We're in for a sadly obvious debate now with all of the usual scapegoats, but instead of focusing on who's to blame, it'd be better to identify some specific actions that could actually generate real increases in public safety going forward...
If we're looking for radical changes in the way we live, does technology have a role? Is the answer smart gun technology? Mandatory metal detectors at night clubs? Better data analysis algorithms for the federal government? Bulletproof fabrics?
Share your best ideas in the comments. Could there be a technological solution to the problem of mass shootings?
If we're looking for radical changes in the way we live, does technology have a role? Is the answer smart gun technology? Mandatory metal detectors at night clubs? Better data analysis algorithms for the federal government? Bulletproof fabrics?
Share your best ideas in the comments. Could there be a technological solution to the problem of mass shootings?
Why don't you try education and common sense?
No
load "linux",8,1
And before peope start. Not all mass shootings, but most. It would stop 9 /10 of them and that is a huge step forward.
No, don't use technology to try to solve a problem that's not a techical one. This problem, the reason why some people start shootings, is a social one. Use social means to solve it.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Metal detectors might keep people from bringing in a concealed weapon, saving the occasional life when a fight escalates. They would do nothing in a situation like Pulse, as the shooter wouldn't try to pass through undetected. He'd just storm the place, shooting the guards at the entrance if need be.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Since your country seems adamant to continue provide ease of access to all sorts of guns and assault rifles, see only one solution: Lets ramp up production of Ed-209!
Maybe not the hi-tech response you expected ...
Create a superior AI. This will kill all the humans - problem solved.
No. America isn't an especially violent country. Setting aside gun crime, it's a bit more violent than England and a bit less violent than Scotland. However, America has repeatedly decided that it wants lots and lots of guns, and now with around one gun per person on average there's no way to drain that swamp. Americans will just have to live with it. Or, obviously, die with it.
Gun control is no longer an option in the US. You can impose gun control rules on citizens, but not on criminals. I often hear the excuse for not having gun control: in area's where there are more strict rules for owning a gun, there's more gun violence. That might be true, but it also proofs my point.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Australia.
What would help us a less violent surrounding, i.e. less guns. In case of Orlando , the guy was mentally I'll and violent. He should have been in treatment, but in the US you do not send the mentally ill to proper institutions (at least not right away). The thing that would help is a social security system and protection of the poor. You may supplement it by gun laws which forbid selling guns to people who are violent and crazy. In short Bernie could but it looks like you get Trump a fascitoid angry white guy who does not care about the poor or Clinton a Wall Street representative. At lest she will not scrap medicare.
go back to muzzle-loading muskets.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Denmark, Scotland, Norway, France and Belgium.
Keep letting them in and you'll see that change.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
You all remember the Virginia Tech where one of teachers was an Israeli who had a specific training and could kill the criminal but had no gun.
But I heard that is Virginia there was a mass shooting some years before. But it was NOT the arms free zone. So the students went to the parking, took their gins from their cars and shot the criminal. It's a hint.
The only method that could save you Americans from mass shooting is the perspective for the shooter to be immediately shot. So your Second Amendment is precious.
You can make ammo or buy it on the black market. Your solution - isn't.
Hey dumbass, guess what? The NRA has for years and years tried to get mandatory prison sentencing for any crime committed with a firearm. It's you and your ilk who has opposed this.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Follow the example set in Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre 20 years ago. Gun Buybacks. You need a license AND a reason for owning a semi automatic. Make guns really expensive to buy (it's amazing how well economic measures are) The only reason that most people have to own a gun is "Because they are fun to shoot"
A Tale of 2 idle hands
As in pre-crime profiling, which stirs the libertarians and the left into a lathered tizzy?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
There's this wonderful technology, it's called concealed firearms. I don't propose that drunk patrons be allowed to bring them in (although that'd be better than the status quo), but it's really a shame that no one in the staff (save for one guy at the entrance) had a concealed firearm on them. This could be over in minutes with fairly minimal casualties. In fact, had he known he would see resistance there, he would likely have gone elsewhere. Instead the police waited for 3.5 hours (!) before storming the club. That's what they usually do, since they have no legal obligation whatsoever to protect anyone or put themselves in danger (Google "no duty to protect" if you don't believe me).
No there is not. Restricting guns works in many states. I am sick of the news of mass shootings in the united states. And the news of minors shooting their parents and brothers and sisters by accident. Will they ever learn ?
Such bullshit argument.
Gun control is enforced everywhere in Europe, and we have a rate of mass shooting which is 10% of what you have guys.
Criminal or not, anyone that carry a gun without a license goes right to jail, that's it. No more complicated than this.
And you will, miraculously, you mass shooting rate will go down.
Is the answer smart gun technology?
No, because it does nothing for the billion guns in the world and people bent on crime will find a way to use a gun anyway.
Smart gun tech WOULD help prevent accidental shootings, so actually it is worth researching... But it won't do anything for this situation.
I won't say that there aren't options to take action against specific known groups who are repeatedly doing these things on a mass scale (e.g. ISIS in Syria), but I will say that technology will never be able to sufficiently protect against an evil mind that has sufficient will / determination + ingenuity + time + opportunity to take lives, on any scale. Unfortunately, absolutely none of the examples that you gave would have prevented this horrific tragedy, and trying to figure out a technological or legislative solution to prevent this from happening would be an endless exercise in futility. You're effectively describing an "arms race" type scenario. Tell me how well that works in areas with the tightest security, like Israel and prisons for example. For all that is done to suppress the violence, it cannot be fully prevented. All that would be "gained" is an ever increasing loss of freedom (both civil liberties, as well as in a pure "feeling" of being a free person). At what point would you stop giving up freedom in order to "feel" safe? Guaranteed, it would be a vicious cycle that would never end. Anyone who is willing to give up freedom for safety will only lose their freedom.
One clear sign is from the number of terrorist knife attacks in the UK (quite a few) compared to the USA (almost none).
The reason some people revert to terrorism-type attacks is that it is basically impossible to prevent them. Not even full-blown fascism can prevent terrorism. Of course, the surveillance-fanatics and the police does not want anybody to realize that, as such attacks are the things that allow them to push for even less freedom, even more surveillance and and even worse police-state.
Terrorism is something society has to live with, as trying to prevent it (for example in the utterly moronic form of a "war on terror") is futile and makes the problem worse.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No guns == no kills; Its really easy to fix... you don't need any technology. Look at Europe. no shootings, no guns. super easy!
Hahahha, funny. How are prison sentences going to stop a suicide attacker? But I guess that logic is beyond your tiny mind.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
And what kind of gunpowder eating nanorobotic technology do you have to offer to make that happen?
The big difference: Europe never allowed citizens to own guns the way the US does. Maintaining the gun control in Europe is much easier than introducing one in the US. In the US, it requires the taking back of a lot of guns, which is not likely to happen. Specially not the illegal ones.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
technology can prevent shooting, but as an aside, we would lose also democracy and freedom. Welcome 1984.
How about a robot that stabs anybody who starts shooting?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Two words:
Ban. Guns.
Problem solved. You are welcome.
(I know Americans like their guns. But guns -- especially guns in the hands of violent, disturbed people -- are the problem. More guns is not the solution).
There, feel free to mod me down now.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The Democrats solution is useless: gun control doesn't work in the US. The Republican's solution is also useless: harsher prison sentences and more guns mostly just puts more guns in the hands of hardened (by the prisons) criminals. Both of these solutions give the government more power though. What an amazing coincidence. But I digress. Police are already using programs to predict criminal behavior. I think already-public information could be used in a smart enough computer to predict the most likely shooters. These people should then be given a reason not to want the world to burn. They're most likely to be disenfranchised, mentally ill, mistreated, and feeling trapped. LISTEN TO THEM and give them a safe way out. This does not necessarily mean following a psychiatrist's recommendations. A lot of psychiatrists are arrogant and even abusive (by good intent, but nevertheless) It means assigning a case worker who is not overworked, not underpaid, and is empowered to and genuinely wants to help. Does he need a job? Is his daughter sick? Are there voices in his head? No humiliating and confusing paperwork. No standing in line for three hours only to be told to come back another day. Just have someone get in touch. Make it very easy for the highest risk individuals to receive help. Ideological reasons often have an underlying cause. Omar might tell you Islam is the one true way but if you listen hard enough you may hear "I just wanted someone to talk to, and the fellow at the temple was there for me". Even then since you have someone listening and empowered you'll know when the risk is high enough to put FBI surveillance on him.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Mandatory metal detectors at night clubs?
No, because anyone planning to murder 50 people is just going to shoot the guard(s) at the metal detector and walk in anyway.
It may prevent other crimes, crimes of passion and other such drunken disputes (however I suspect this is somehow less of a problem at a gay bar, but I have no numbers and could be wrong).
I'm still a little pissed off about this event, but here's an idea:
int bootem = 2;
int fuckem = bootem * 2;
if(sitesVisited.about("isis") > bootem && (postsMade.favoring("jihad") > bootem || threatsMade.all() > bootem)) {
deportOrImprison(me);
}
if(sitesVisited.about("isis") > fuckem && postsMade.favoring("jihad") > fuckem && threatsMade.all() > fuckem) {
droneStrike(location(this));
}
We have had a massive decline in gun violence, both in the US and abroad, and nobody really knows what the cause of the decline is. It isn't gun control or getting tough on criminals.
Furthermore, in the US, probably the single factor that sticks out most with respect to gun violence is "race": after all, despite the US's higher murder rate overall, as a "white" American, you are no more likely to get murdered than the people of Iceland, France, Denmark, New Zealand, the UK, Norway, Canada, Belgium, Israel, and Finland. But "race" (in the weird US sense) obviously doesn't cause violence per se; it must be a marker that correlates with something else.
So, given that we don't really understand what causes gun violence, and that it has been massively decreasing for poorly understood reasons, it's hard to come up with a technological solution.
Europe never allowed citizens to own guns the way the US does.
This is untrue. Restrictions have been gradually increased during the 20th Century, and have not been in place forever.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Part of Europe has been at war quite recently. Ukraine still is, but even there it's pretty calm outside the Russian invasion zone. You don't hear much about mass shootings in former Yugoslavia. So somehow it seems to work even there.
The caveat here, is that the European countries with the lowest crime rates have the highest rates of gun ownership, as well.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
Take away the guns.
Not forbidding them.Just do not make them.
Get them off the hands of people. Not only criminals, but everyone.
Going a step further : include most police officers. It works, see British constables.
Pulse and Christina Grimmie and everthing a like just should not happen.
Bulletproof fabrics?
While it is possible that we might discover some fancy new thing to stop bullets, the reality is that anything soft and easy to wear isn't effective against rifle rounds.
Even the armor worn by police officers generally won't stop most rifle rounds, or at least not completely, and it is far thicker and less comfortably than what people will really wear.
So no, this is not a solution.
But getting rid of guns will./p>
Why don't you check in with the French and see how well that worked out.
You don't need to disarm people, just stop selling them new guns. Criminals will also find it much harder to get guns then (fewer legitimate reasons to be handling them) and over time the ones in circulation will be discarded.
Before you claim it won't stop criminals getting guns, it largely does in most developed countries.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
if you want a technological solution... one accessible right now is guns and body armor. What technology do the police or military use to deal with guns? Words? Education? Do they offer the crazed gunman money?
Guns to kill or threaten the shooter... armor and tactics to avoid being injured while the deed is done.
Here someone will say "but I want the world to be full of rainbows and unicorns"... Childish.
Consider the numbers. The vast majority of the population is peaceful, law abiding, and has a strong interest in law and order. What is more... anyone will act in what they see as their self interest to defend themselves.
Consider that the error is that we haven't gone 180 degrees and encouraged MORE guns.
Vulnerability or perceived vulnerability invites attack. This is a well established and accepted strategic and tactical concept in war.
Look weak and you'll get hit. Look strong and you'll be avoided. If you WANT to be attacked in war, the best thing to do is to LOOK weak by hiding your strength. That is the nature of a trap in war. You trick the enemy into a miscalculation and destroy them. The point being... again... weakness invites attack.
If you wish to NOT be attacked... do not allow the enemy to think you are weak... either by not appearing weak or by actually being able to respond forcefully.
I'm sure I'm going to get statements like "typical american" or something equally infantile.
We'll see if any one has a substantive response to my point. I expect nothing but cowardly downvotes and idiotic insults from ACs without a hint of an argument.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Mass murder seems to be a problem unique to the USA (among countries with a rule of law, i.e. excluding hellholes).
Other countries with similar degrees of gun ownership have far fewer instances of guys going berserk and killing a bunch of people.
Which means you have to fix US society somehow.
By using social media to show people the statistics. The amount of mass shootings in the US has no parallel in the "western world".
Americans seem to think liberty and owning a gun are one and the same. So is there a solution that allows both guns for US citizens and somehow reduce mass shootings?
Gun control. At the very lease require a policy background and mental health assessment as a prerequisite to own a gun.
Why doesn't the US use is ridiculously inefficient education budget to actually educate people about guns. Guns safety, reasons for gun control and restriction.
We heard all the arguments about gun control before. The fact is that when one person in 100,000 has a gun and a bad mood tens of people can die. This does not happen in other countries with strict gun controls because it cannot.
Sometimes I see the news and yet another mass shooting in the US and the cynic in me laughs. How fucking stupid do you have to be until you do something about these awful, half-assed gun measures and the cancerous NRA lobby? -sometimes I get really fucking angry because I'm done crying about it.
America advocates peace and tranquillity in the world often accused of being some world police. Look to your own country. Some of the crime statistics are just mind boggling. War on drugs, war on terror, war on fucking everything. -where did this get you? -I humbly suggest the real "war" you should be waging is on your violent nature. It's an easy war to win. Put the fucking guns down.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
The question doesn't really make sense, in that technology is not an actor, and therefore has no ability to prevent shootings.
Various options on how to prevent shootings.
(1) Remove the required materials. Bullets and Guns. Hard to do as, due to modern technology, they aren't hard to fabricate.
(2) Make it illegal to carry the materials. We do this in the UK. It reduces shootings, but it doesn't prevent them.
(3) Make it impossible to use guns (eg surveillance, escalation, parity). Totalitarian state gone awry. This way leads to hell on earth.
(4) Remove the motive. Education and training in empathy and tolerance is possible, but will only reduce shootings.
(5) Cease to use it as a model. When authorities carry and use fire-arms they legitimise such activity. Will only reduce shootings.
(6) Smart weapons/bullets. See (1) above. It's easy enough to fabricate dumb weapons.
(7) Make the activity redundant. Once we are in a post-singularity society, then shootings won't mean very much.. (bit fantastical).
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
People generally don't use their legally owned and registered guns to commit crimes. That'd be like a burglar removing his gloves and making sure he fondles every glass surface in the house he's robbing, before he leaves.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
Gun control stops mass shootings. Plain and simple.
Technology can't do it alone.
Better add machine shop control into the mix, then. Because it's relatively easy to turn out a gun in any halfway decently equipped machine shop. You should visit the Remington Arms museum some time, and see the primitive equipment that was used to create some of the first semiautomatic and automatic weapons: foot operated lathes with stone flywheels, for one...
If you could make a thing go away by making it illegal, why wouldn't you just make murder illegal?
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
You don't need to disarm people, just stop selling them new guns.
Really? Guess that's why all those countries are seeing problems with guns being smuggled in via Eastern Europe and used in terrorist attacks. Charlie Hebdo was one such case, there's been at least two dozen stories in the last year on more smuggling attempts directly to islamist groups in each of those countries.
Om, nomnomnom...
Have mechanical limits on guns for the public to prevent rapid fire.
Max 4 rounds on rifles and shotguns, max 6 on revolvers and pistols. And a design forcing the shooter to load one by one.
It wouldn't cause big problems for hunters but it would result in a better chance for people to evade mass shootings.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I agree with nearly everything you said, except the part about what the American Constitution says. "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." As 'arms' is a rather broad term, and 'militia' is in the first part of this amendment, and militias often use "high-powered semi-automatic weaponry", it would be a reasonable conclusion to claim that the second amendment DOES support the carrying of such weapons.
The US v Miller (1939) case was interesting, in that the judge ruled a sawn-off shotgun was not protected by the second amendment, because it was not a gun used by militias. This, of course, leads to two questions: since then, the US military has deployed shotguns that qualify as 'sawn-off', so does that invalidate Miller? And does the decision imply that any weapon used by the military - or militia - is thus covered?
If the latter is true, can someone legitimately carry an M-29 Davy Crockett? (Man portable tactical nuclear bazooka, deployed with the US military 1961-1971)
This is one stupid question and can be used as an example of a stupid question.
No, it us unpossible. You can NEVER solve a social problem with a technical solution. And no gun control is NOT a solution (and I am all for gun control, which is different from forbidding them). He would be able to do it.
And having MORE guns would eliminate the mass shottings, but will end killing more people. But that we do not see as those are not as important.
You will not see 100 news articles about 1 person being killed, you will only see 1 about the 50 shot by a lunatic.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Could there be a technological solution to the problem of mass shootings?
Yes... mental health, universal background checks, universal rights to keep and bear arms, and kicking ISIS's ass...
Such bullshit argument.
Gun control is enforced everywhere in Europe, and we have a rate of mass shooting which is 10% of what you have guys.
You don't have significant ethnic enclaves (well, until recently) that are large enough they can be insular from other ethnicities, without an international border being there.
You also don't have historically based ethnic and racial economic disparity, many times enforced by economic and racial self segregation.
That was a recent piece in the New York Times Magazine, about racial segregation of schools by regions within Brooklyn, which is largely self-imposed ("we want to live in NYC for no good reason") and economically imposed ("but we can only afford to live in this economically depressed area").
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06...
Europe is just starting to have large scale emergent problems of the type that the U.S. has had for about 150 year (or 240 years, if you count Native Americans, or over 4 centuries, if you count the pre-constitutional United States as "the U.S.").
Welcome to our world. Strap yourselves in, Europe: it's going to be a bumpy ride.
It is quite simple, create a database of people allowed to have weapons and mandatory consult the database before selling any weapon to any person. BTW like you have a license to drive, you should also have a license to carry a weapon.
Until ISIS gets destroyed rather than "contained", we can expect these mass murders by Islamic terrorists to continue on a nearly monthly basis. Paris was hardly six months ago. Now we have had San Bernadino, Belgium, and Orlando. That's hundreds of people mowed down and blown up by Islamists who want to destroy anyone who isn't Islamic.
We have the technology to crush the Islamic State. Until we do it, this crap is not going to stop. Wake up USA and Europe. Face the issue and act. Innocent people are dying all over the place.
The big difference: Europe never allowed citizens to own guns the way the US does. Maintaining the gun control in Europe is much easier than introducing one in the US. In the US, it requires the taking back of a lot of guns, which is not likely to happen. Specially not the illegal ones.
There are illegal weapons in Europe too. Granted it will take some time, but there's no reason why gun control couldn't be introduced in the US, with guns withdrawn, amnesties held, illegal weapons slowly uncovered. It's not going to be a quick process, and there will need to be a change of mindset over one or more generations, but the fact that there are lots of weapons about now doesn't mean the U.S. could *never* get to a situation where guns are rare.
You cannot use technology to solve a cultural/societal problem.
Any attempt to do so will be nothing more than a "feel good" measure with no lasting impact.
I'm a brit and I'm aware of two terrorist knife attacks on UK soil. There are more than in the US and there may be more that I couldn't recall and/or find on Google but I'd characterise the number of terrorist knife attacks as "some" rather than "quite a few". Casualties in the murder of Lee Rigby: one. Casualties in the Leytonstone Tube stabbing: one. These are serious but casualties aren't on the scale of 7/7 or Mumbai.
Norway is an interesting example, apart from Brevik there have been very little gun violence.
If we look closer at the Breivik case we know that he assumed that he couldn't get a gun in Norway due to the strict gun control.
Because of this he traveled to eastern Europe to try to acquire guns illegally. This failed since the criminals there thought that there was something off with the guy and refused to deal with him.
He the tried to get guns legally in Norway and realized that the gun control weren't that strict at all.
In fact, if Breivik hadn't been able to get guns legally the how would have been out of options. Perhaps he could have tried with a knife but I doubt he would have been able to kill many that way.
Plus, a lot of civilian guns were taken by the Nazis. You can't beat German efficiency.
(i know this wont prevent shootings, but it will make them much less lethal):
Weapons with enough firepower to kill humans should have a loading mechanism which requires opening and closing a number (e.g. 10) of screws manually and a 4-6 bullets maximum in one cartridge. (The idea actually comes from a safety mechanism for electrical circuits in coal mines).
For self-defense 4-6bullets are enough. For hunting, the long reloading time does not matter. On the shooting range, reloading can happen as a service/automated.
Exceptions should be allowed only for the military and the police.
Allow the guards at these places to be armed. And keep some of these guys out of immediate line of site so an initial surprise burst of fire won't automatically take them out.
Pretty much anything else is just mental masturbation and an extension of the fantasy that the world isn't a shitty place where bad things happen and people need to stop being so occupied with bullshit that they stop ignoring their personal safety.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I have a feeling that theater/club shootings are becoming a trend, since they're: dark, crowded, noisy, and confined. They're probably the softest target for mass-shooters, so concentrating efforts there makes the most sense, followed by schools. I suggest some kind of automated shooter-suppression system, mounted up high on the walls or ceiling, in a few spots in each room. It'd detect gunshots (filtering out ones coming from speakers), and use image analysis to determine where the gun is, and then suppress it, somehow. Some kind of disintegrating anti-materiel round, perhaps, which destroys the firearm. Shooting at someone's gun is discouraged normally, since you're likely to miss it, but if a robot with perfect aim is making the shot, why not? Alternatively, upon detecting a gunshot, it could discharge a flashbang type device at the shooter, or cause dozens of loaded pistols to lower from the ceiling on tethers (suggest this at an NRA meeting for shits and giggles!), fire a net, drop a section of the floor into a padded pit, launch a cease-and-desist letter in their direction while notifying the MPAA that they're infringing IP law, etc.
In practice, I have a feeling that it'll be legally required to stop the music/movie/concert and slowly turn the lights on when a gunshot is detected.
If a bulletproof fabric were invented (helical auxetics?), civilians in ordinary situations wouldn't wear it unless it were mandated to be woven into all clothes at a high enough concentration to significantly retard bullet penetration. In practice, such fabric will almost certainly be heavy enough that it wouldn't be put into lightweight clothes (t-shirts, sheer dresses etc.), and doesn't do anything about shooters (e.g. VT shooting) that specifically aim for the head at close range.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Plus, a lot of civilian guns were taken by the Nazis. You can't beat German efficiency.
Soviet Union also tried to confiscate all guns.
For a good reason - there was real armed opposition to Soviet rule in many member states, and the central government needed to prevent or destroy this. Nothing to do with home or civil violence.
Short answer: No. Long Answer: The only way tech would stop mass shootings of any form is if we put in some sort of control circuit into guns having them detect "No Firing Zones", at that point those circuits would just be removed. Or the shooters would stick to "old" guns. The correct answer is people need to be educated, taught common sense, and a decent sense of morality. That would require a change to the education system, instead of trying to focus on test scores by the droves, schools (and parents, and the community at large) need to be paying attention to not just Kids, but also the other adults in their community for troubled people, like this individual clearly was, pretty sure they all have been in one way or another.
Or watch as this happens over and over again.
Can confirm. Here in France gun control started during Nazi occupation. In fact quite a lot of Vichy-era disruptive measures (urban code, nationalized retirement funds, corporative orders, etc.) were kept as they were or expanded upon after WW2.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Key word is attempts.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They have an incident like this maybe once a year, instead of two per month. So it appears to be going pretty well.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In my opinion, there are two factors at play here: One is people thinking that their actions will gain them something and psychopaths.
For the first, you "only" (it's hard...) need to make sure that people have something to live for. And you need to make sure that they don't risk losing that. In my opinion, terrorists succumb to the fundamentalist dogma because their lives are shit and/or they do not feel appreciated enough by their peers without proving themselves.
Modern Christianity is often about the love of Jesus and therefor the love for your neighbor. When this is actually lived, I doubt very much that someone growing up like that will ever become a terrorist. Much too often it's about something else, though. Too often it's about "if you do X, which I don't like and I believe Jesus does not like, surely Jesus will stop loving you and therefore I will stop loving you because I love Jesus more than I love you".
Imagine a child growing up like that knowing that their parents, and later their peers, will oust them unless they conform. The need for your peers' approval is strong in humans.
We're all about individuality today but only as long as it's the individuality we approve of. Look at what happens if someone honestly says they feel uncomfortable around blacks, jews or what have you. Instead of saying "That's okay. As long as you let them live in peace, you are entitled to not liking them" we want them in therapy and/or sensitivity training, the earlier the better.
Hell, look at the pedophile witch hunts. Instead of recognizing what poor bastards those people are, never going to be able to enjoy their sexuality because it inherently conflicts with the well-being of others... what happens instead is we even make cartoon drawings uf underage people illegal to sexualize. I mean deny the starving man his rotten potatoes, why don't we.
If some loner isn't bothering anyone and slowly dying inside, we might have him ostracized even more by punishing the bullies but when was the last time you saw someone sitting down with the kid and having a hot-dog with them and talking about life in general?
My opinion is that we are too preoccupied with categorizing people on race, sexuality, gender, money, religion and so on, we just don't have the time and mental energy to just walk over there and provide company. Hell, the debates I've had in my head on how it may look if I went and did X right now, even though X was a perfectly human comfort to offer. I myself have been trained so much to never show weakness and never offend, I am almost incapable of what I've written about here.
YMMV. I hear in the US people re actually much friendlier, if more superficial, than around here.
In Sunday's attacks the gun that was used was just a means to an end. The end was clear to the perpetrator. To terrorize and kill *infidels*, *to obey the order of god in order to secure a place in heaven*. The perpetrator would have used another means at another place may be, to realize his end. BTW, 3D printers can print guns as was already covered here on slashdot many times. In fact Defense Distributed designed a 3D printable gun that was similar to AR-15, that lasted nearly 650 rounds. So gun control will only take us so far.
I think its uneven development of the world and distribution of wealth. What ever be the reasons for it, but that is driving people insane and allowing them to become scapegoats at the hands of religious leaders.
...No. Next question in a headline?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Back in the 1970s homophobes murdered gay people by arson. If you stopped all mass shootings, you would still have mass killing by arson. There would still be attacks by driving SUVs into people.... The problem is violent and hateful people.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Bit of an innovative idea, but maybe lets try making it a little harder to get guns and stop promoting the idea that it is OK for an adult to have an invisible friend that talks to them and tells them who to hate. The current approach to the invisible friend problem seems to be to say "oh, I have the same invisible friend and they are totally nice" or "This bad person seems to have the wrong invisible friend, mine is totally nice". These are both unacceptable and fucking stupid responses to religious violence. It is not OK for an adult to abdicate their responsibility for their own ethical position to a supernatural entity and a book of hate. It is not OK to normalise those who do.
It is not OK to hate LGBT people. It is not OK to say "hate the sin and love the sinner" that isn't anywhere near good enough. It is not OK to send "thoughts and prayers" because in doing that you are promoting and normalising the position of having an invisible friend that hates people.
Yes, it should also be less trivial to obtain battlefield weapons, and we should stop normalising the ownership of guns, but we should do that in addition to challenging the ridiculous medieval beliefs that are distancing people from reality, gun control won't implement hate control but we should do it anyway.
Except it is being used to promote all the senseless violence that people watch all the time glorifying killing and beating the crap out of each other. You need to turn that shit off. It's the same technology used to exclude people as if they are not fit to belong culturally. They're the ones thet end up going into your schools, nightclubs and shopping malls killing people.
Add to it the commercials with billions of dollars worth of psychology behind them to fill people full of false ideals to buy buy buy things they do not need, politicians saying it's domestic terror when it is mass murder and nothing really changes and you arrive at the common point, media, television. Empty and inane, everyone else ends up with a feeling of hopelessness inside.
You already have the technology, it's just being used to program people that weapons and violence are the solution to any problem - go watch a documentary instead, better yet use the time for a real education or try reading a book. Gun laws won't change, media won't change so another spate of mass murders is inevitable, I am sorry to say.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Well, you can make it illegal, but can you actually stop it from being distributed?
As i said on another post, right now you can buy cocaine on your own city, and won't be even that hard.
And you know how many trillions of dollars were spent worldwide trying to get rid of it, don't you?
Same dudes will just put "and now selling guns too!" on their signs.
Such bullshit argument.
Gun control is enforced everywhere in Europe, and we have a rate of mass shooting which is 10% of what you have guys.
Criminal or not, anyone that carry a gun without a license goes right to jail, that's it. No more complicated than this.
And you will, miraculously, you mass shooting rate will go down.
The problem is, that's "racism", because in the US it's almost always blacks doing that, not other folks. (A few "white hispanics" and asian gangs too.) When you start to lean on them and get into that project, it will be stopped.
Also, mr bright guy, mass shootings and who carries concealed weapons illegally are two groups that rarely have members of both. Your plan would do nothing to stop mass shootings. There are so few mass shooters that there's no chance of catching them with illegal concealed weapon charges, even if they carry daily.
Chicago's trash, will kill more than 50 people in three weekends this summer, and wound far more than that. Nobody gives a shit. Because, they expect it. That stuff is a natural side-effect of the democrats' kept voting livestock in the area. Democrats created that situation because they get almost all the votes out of it, they are using the blacks to get votes.
Gun Control will not stop mass killings, If a person has decided they want to kill a bunch of people and guns are not available to them, they will use motor vehicles/home made bombs/planes. The biggest mass killings in the US did not involve guns, just box cutters and Jet aircraft.
The last shooting w/ multiple victims in Denmark (that I'm aware of), used a stolen assault rifle, that wasn't subject to the full extent of the gun-control laws. That particular oversight was/is being addressed.
Can Technology Prevent Shootings?
No.
Actually, maybe it could if it led to the extinction of humans. Then there would be no more mass shootings.
What good will stopping shootings do? There is a variety of ways to kill people.
Yes, but it's a lot, lot harder to stab or bludgeon 50 people to death than to shoot them. The whole point of guns is to make killing easier and more efficient.
There is a reason why we don't let civilians buy nuclear weapons.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You could remove all guns and mass killings will still occur.
Mix some bleach and ammonia and throw it around. Put together an explosive. Drive a car over the sidewalk. Poison the water supply. Release weaponized viral agents into a high population area.
The problem here isn't firearms, or cars, or machetes. The problem is an ideology that encourages and glorifies murder of people who don't agree with you.
Love sees no species.
So how does it work? By allowing them to have guns but making them promise, scout's honour, that they'll be really careful and not point them at themselves?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The EU has widely differing gun laws. That is gun law in Belgium is not the same as Germany or the United Kingdom. It's been over 20 years since the last mass shooting in the United Kingdom and gun laws/control are sufficiently tighter now that the same thing is very unlikely to happen again.
Also, the worst mass killing in a nightclub simply used gasoline to kill 87.
I'd argue that there's a fair number of cases where the usage of firearms probably saved lives - because when terrorists go for arson or explosives they frequently kill more people.
Worst school attack, fatality wise? Explosives
Worst night club attack? Arson
etc...
I don't read AC A human right
This is so typical. We are unwilling or unable to make the hard societal changes, so let's look for a magic solution, a technological quick fix.
No, there is no technological solution. There's probably not even any solution at this point. The US is so flooded with guns and the NRA is so powerful that gun control is essentially impossible and would be useless to try to enforce.
Welcome to "unintended side effects" of your Second Amendment. Basically, your society is fucked.
Steeling a gun, smuggling it or trying to obtain it any other way gives a chance to catch those people before they can do any harm. As long as guns are legal and easy to obtain on the other side you can't do much until the moment some crazy person pulls the trigger.
Apparently it is something like 30,000 Americans that were shot dead last year, I heard on the radio this morning.
Of course you did, which is why you now have a fucking opinion on the subject that isn't worth anything.
33,000 died via gun last year, 2/3 of the suicide. A lot of the rest were gang on gang violence.
The actual number of innocent people killed with guns is a very, very small number.
There are 320+ million guns in the US. Far more of them prevent crime than cause crime. You'd know that if you actually bothered to learn about the subject rather than get your soundbites from the radio.
You can't prevent medical errors. They are, quite literally, errors that - even with the best of controls, training and supervision, still happen. By definition something went wrong that wasn't supposed to.
You can, however, prevent 370 MASS SHOOTINGS IN THE LAST YEAR. Please compare and contrast with the UK - 4 "mass shootings" in the last decade.
For context - more US people have died by the hands of private guns since World War 2 than in all the wars since then.
It doesn't matter what strawman you pull out - you're voluntarily allowing mass shootings to happen so that you are allowed a gun yourself. If you don't see the irony in that statement, no amount of statistics are going to sway you.
These guys keep an archive of defensive gun uses:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c...
Of course - you will say that weren't spree killings or mass shootings - well it could be that a "mass shooting" was prevented in many of these single instances of defensive gun uses.
I've noticed that many people who claim guns are useless for defense are not gun owners or have never carried one for self-defense.
Someone determined to commit mass murder will find a way. Don't blame guns.
France and Belgium have huge gun control - way more comprehensive than the US - yet they have mass shootings as well.
Do you honestly believe that terrorists looking for a body count will obey gun control laws?
Gun control existed in Germany before 1933, but this was imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, which after World War I also tried to control the weapons in civilian hands, because it was feared that Germany was trying to bypass limits on the weaponization of its army by handing the weapons to apparent civilians and form militias to replace the regular army.
Of those 30k deaths, how many do you think were caused by 'high-powered firearms'? What does that even mean? The vast majority of shootings are by handguns, which is probably isn't what you're thinking of when you think of high-powered firearms.
You actually are reading the constitution backwards. The constitution not only grants explicit rights to 'the people' to keep and bear arms, but it further does not grant the federal government the right to regulate it, thus it's retained by the people per the 9th Amendment.
It's worth noting the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment: 'the security of a free state'. Everything I've read on the subject points to the idea that 'the people' need the ability to defend themselves from an oppressive government, ie 'a free state'. You can do that with pitchforks if you like (and you trust your fellow citizens enough to carry them around you), but I'd prefer to have high powered firearms.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Yes, but it's a lot, lot harder to stab or bludgeon 50 people to death than to shoot them.
Who says bludgeon is the alternative? The bad guys use incendiaries or explosives.
Because there could be no good technical solution to a human problem. If there were, then humans will just stop being humans and start being some kind of half robots.
Of course, it could be. After all, it's a choice about what kind of society we want. A choice i won't make, but i am not i position of choosing anything, anyway.
What does it mean, "appended to the end of comments you post"
Technological countermeasures to be used in public places have to be affordable, practical, and non-lethal. If deployed accidentally, they cannot cause serious injury or places like Pulse would never install them, much less deploy. Too much liability and risk of ending the business. What options remain, particularly in larger arenas where thousands gather? It's a 3-D world, so gated security can only do so much. Terrorists can parachute into a stadium, for example. Gas? Dangerous to some, so liability. Useless on weaponized drones, which now much be in any practical countermeasures conversation. Super-sticky goo? It would prevent attacker from moving, but also his targets from getting away. Works on both people and machines. Sonic weapons to stun nervous system like a stun grenade, but installed in ceiling? I don't know anything about these or their risks, so have no opinion to offer on any facet of their use. EMT for consumer electronics would usually work. An informed technical attacker would have shielding. Really there's only so much you can do, and so many ethical viewpoints to consider. What's more important, early intervention, or freedom from unwarranted arrest? Societies have to not only list their values, but rank them in priority, agreeing what law to live under for the best of the most, if that's the chosen value.
You can and we do prevent medical errors. Look up any of the research on surgical checklists for a very specific example of preventing medical errors, but there are many others. We may not be able to prevent ALL medical errors, but we also can't prevent ALL mass shootings. There's room for improvement on both fronts.
Mass shooters killing themselves is a product of mass shooters that engage people that are armed don't live long enough to be mass shooters. They get dropped before they kill enough people to be considered mass shooters.
Its ironic that you called your post statistics because you didn't consider how your stats would be biased.
As to armor, I'm giving you two technological things that professionals use to deal with this situation and which are statistically proven to be very effective. You don't like them? Buy running shoes, buy a potted plant disguise, or die like a rat.
I really don't care. My point was to talk about technological solutions that work as evidenced by the professional opinion and the statistics. You are personally free to do whatever.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Before jumping on me, please try to argue with my ideas, and not with me personally. I do not own a gun, I am not even american, but I have visited the US a few times, and I work with americans on a daily basis.
One thing I know, back from when I was a child, was that guns are sort of like nuclear weapons. If you know somebody had a gun, or that there even was the slightest possibility that they had one, criminals would normally avoid them. Usually it was foreign businessmen, or off-duty law enforcement, but by default, the mentality I saw in every stupid ass punk that would try to make a living by stealing.
I don't think the average pro gun confiscation american realizes that even though criminality seems high now, how high it will be if everybody was sure nobody had guns. They keep bringing the Europe argument, but in most large cities in Europe, people don't go out after a certain hour, and it's something relatively normal. Yes, the suburbs are safer, but only because usually they have a dedicated police patrol around the clock (perks of living in rich neighborhoods).
But still, you will never hear on the news about the fact that there were let's say 10 houses broken into this week. It's just not news, and people get the (mistaken) idea that wow how safe it must be there, compared to us where some guy broke into 1 house in a month and got shot.
Think about all the mixed religions, languages, and people who are in the US from all over the world. The average criminal would never risk getting shot for a mere wallet let's say. Of course not, he's not stupid. But where there are no guns, even $50 is well worth the trouble.
Normally what I noticed in that in the US crimes involving guns are incredibly broadcasted on the news for some reason, and I don't mean mass-shootings, I mean some robbery gone wrong, some idiots starting a fight and devolving to guns, and so on. That kinda drives the average person to believe there is a gun problem.
Just my 2 cents, as a non american, I think banning guns would skyrocket petty crimes. I know they exist even now, but still, probably not even close.
I just read today, on the UK motorway, lorry trucks are being robbed and destroyed using knives and rocks, and if you call the police, they won't even show up because it's not a violent crime, it's just stealing, and they will come when they have time to certify the damage and give you a paper you can take to the insurance and that's it.
It seems that what we really need is a bunch of new laws that will make it very very very illegal to commit suicide. With double penalties for committing suicide with a gun.
Australia enacted gun control in 1996 and bought back guns to reduce the number in ciculation. Their murder has been dropping ever since.
Indeed!
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...
In 2013, there were 5723 murders recorded in the FBI stats.
https://www.nationalgangcenter...
In 2012, there were 2,363 gang-related homicides (2103 data not provided yet it seems), but it seems fair that around 2,000 gang-related homicides occur every year. In other words, about 40% of all murders in the US are gang-related homicides. With an estimated 770,000 gang members accounting for 40% (about 2300) of all murders, the rest of the population (314.8M) produced about 3360 murders, or about 1.06 murders per 100,000 non-gang people. This is clearly on par with other countries who do not have similar gang problems.
From the FBI numbers above, it also seems that black-on-black murders are quite disproportionately represented. At about 17% of the population, black-on-black murders were also about 40% of the total (2245). White-on-white murders were slightly higher as an absolute number (2,509) but there are 195.6M whites compared to 53.6M blacks. The numbers say that blacks murder blacks at 4.1 per 100,000; whites murder whites at about 0.77 per 100,000. Blacks also murdered 409 whites; whites murdered 189 blacks.
Nonsense. That only worked because Ghandi was facing a civilized opponent, although many would like you to believe otherwise.
There was nothing civilized about British rule in India. Let's not forget the partition, either. Everything the British did there was shit and they did not withdraw until the economic writing was on the wall telling them to leave. It wasn't to be nice, tool.
Just try this against Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Isis, North Korea
You mean, against the insane? That wouldn't work even if it worked against the British (it didn't) because all those guys were insane.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://www.neighborhoodscout.c...
The countdown for the Top 30 Murder Capitals of America:
Rank City
30 Chicago Heights, IL
29 Baton Rouge, LA
28 Buffalo, NY
27 Hattiesburg, MS
26 East Chicago, IN
25 Birmingham, AL
24 Desert Hot Springs, CA
23 Compton, CA
22 Myrtle Beach, SC
21 Fort Pierce, FL
20 Harvey, IL
19 Bridgeton, NJ
18 Flint, MI
17 Rocky Mount, NC
16 Pine Bluff, AR
15 Petersburg, VA
14 Newark, NJ
13 Baltimore, MD
12 Harrisburg, PA
11 Jackson, MS
10 Wilmington, DE
9 Trenton, NJ
8 Riviera Beach, FL
7 New Orleans, LA
6 Camden, NJ
5 Detroit, MI
4 Gary, IN
3 St. Louis, MO
2 Chester, PA
1 East St. Louis, IL
" Is the answer smart gun technology?"
No, only the Australian and British NO gun technology works, but you don't want that, so you'll have to live with this.
And let's see how that changes?
Gang-related murders within that 800K-1M subgroup accounts for about 1/2 of all murders in the US.
What makes you think that you can't use technology to solve a cultural problem?
"more aligned with the ideas of the NRA: Everyone considered "trustend [sic] and reliable" had the right to bear arms"
Umm...that concepts predates the NRA by 100 years or so...
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
How unusual that someone wants to address this logically. Ok, let's start. First, list all the causes of death. What? Shootings are way, way, way down the list? hmmm, let us address those other things first.
Here's the thing: guns are REALLY SIMPLE MACHINES. A gun can have fewer moving parts than a ballpoint pen. You can make a lethal (though inefficient and awkward) gun in the plumbing department of Home Depot. Any competent machine shop or home hobby machinist can make a basic gun with tools they already own. Even a more sophisticated automatic or semi-automatic gun can be made with relative ease; it's only things like superb accuracy or high reliability that are harder to engineer. Which means that guns ARE NOT GOING AWAY, EVER. They may be harder to buy legally, but we've seen how well that keeps people from drugs. Add to that the fact that if you're hellbent on killing folks, there are other ways to do it. Pipe bombs, poison koolaid, even just plowing a truck through a crowd... there will never be a shortage of ways to kill people.
I have a girlfriend whose name doesn't end in
You mean like straw purchasers in the US. The ones the justice dept gives slaps on the wrist to.
Confiscated. Being forced to take a extreamly low amount for your legaly owned possession is still confiscation. (Yes forced, either take our low amount or we come take the gun)
What does it mean for gun control to "work"?
When presenting data from foreign countries, anti-gun people talk ONLY about firearms-related crime. Sweeping gun control measures would indeed reduce that one particular type of crime. What about all other violent crime however? What about property crime?
Focusing only on crimes committed with guns is a ridiculous metric because it ignores the well-documented deterrent effect of private firearms ownership. If gun control means fewer shooting victims, but more violent assault, home invasions, carjackings and rapes because people are defenseless against criminals is your gun control "working"?
If we're going down that route, then 1st amendment rights would by extension be required to be limited to technology available in 1787?
The only thing that can prevent more shooting is more guns, when people are armed the people around them are polite and respectful. Why do any of you think those terrorists go to places where guns are not allowed? Dah...
Europe had "significant ethnic enclaves" when Americans were still hunting buffalo and building burial mounds.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...
In 2013, there were 5723 murders recorded in the FBI stats.
https://www.nationalgangcenter...
In 2012, there were 2,363 gang-related homicides (2103 data not provided yet it seems), but it seems fair that around 2,000 gang-related homicides occur every year. In other words, about 40% of all murders in the US are gang-related homicides. With an estimated 770,000 gang members accounting for 40% (about 2300) of all murders, the rest of the population (314.8M) produced about 3360 murders, or about 1.06 murders per 100,000 non-gang people. This is clearly on par with other countries who do not have similar gang problems.
From the FBI numbers above, it also seems that black-on-black murders are quite disproportionately represented. At about 17% of the population, black-on-black murders were also about 40% of the total (2245). White-on-white murders were somewhat higher as an absolute number (2,509) but there are 195.6M whites compared to 53.6M blacks.
The numbers say that blacks murder blacks at 4.1 per 100,000; whites murder whites at about 0.77 per 100,000. Blacks also murdered 409 whites; whites murdered 189 blacks.
If we focused on eliminating the actual criminal gang element, we'd have European-level murder rates.
It's not a law, it's an acknowledgement of an inalienable right, and it only spells that you to prevent the government from restricting it, so that should the government become non-representative, as it was in 1776, we have the ability to overthrow it again.
It's only that way as long as the government chooses to keep it. It's an amendement to the constitution and these can be repealed with another amendment. Prohibition is the obvious example, enshrined in the constitution by amendment XVIII and repealed in amendment XXI. It was of its time and in hindsight not a great idea. To pretty much everyone else in the western world, and an increasing number of people in the US, the same can be said of the 2nd amendment.
"The problem is that easy gun access is what made the shooter able to get a weapon and carry it into a crowded area in the first place."
The gun on the store shelf *made him do it*? That's your argument?
Not, say, his death-cult religion that inculcated him with the idea that killing infidels--and homosexuals are the worst kind of infidel apparently?
That's ok, neither did Bernie Sanders this morning. Idiots love company, I guess.
The same people who will jump up and down today screaming "Don't judge all Muslims by the bad apples." will never ever make the analogous statement "Don't judge all gun owners by the bad apples."
I think we all know, if we are perfectly honest with ourselves, that when the amount of high-powered firearms that are freely available is higher, then the number of people killed in shootings will be higher as well.
Studies agree with you. However, studies do no agree with your implied conclusion: firearm availability causes higher homicide rates.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/...
The end of the article summarizes it nicely:
In comparing the United States to industrialized democracies, the Academies says data show the U.S. has the highest rate of homicide and firearm-related homicide. But this also raises a chicken-and-egg question. "A high level of violence may be a cause of a high level of firearms availability instead of the other way around."
Does the higher availability of guns in the U.S. cause the higher homicide rate, or does the higher homicide rate lead to the higher availability of guns in the U.S.? There is no causal relationship between the two; there is merely a statistical association.
In particular, pay attention to the non-firearm homicide rate in the U.S., which is also higher than in any other industrialized country. This strongly implies that firearms are a red-herring. The U.S. has deep societal problems that are unrelated to the availability of guns, and that do not fit into clean, easy pigeon holes. Gun death is merely a rough measure of those deeper problems, which will not be solved even if guns are eradicated from the country. The means of homicide will change, but not the underlying cause.
Idiots abound.
Have you ever bought a gun? Have you ever filled out Form 4473? Ever had the gun store clerk chat you up to see if you are "hinky"? Never heard of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), to which all legal firearms purchasers are subjected?
"The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is all about saving lives and protecting people from harm—by not letting guns fall into the wrong hands. It also ensures the timely transfer of firearms to eligible gun buyers.
Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms. Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligible to make a purchase. More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...
I walk into a licensed gun store and ask to buy a gun. What happens next?
You’ll have to complete Form 4473, which includes 16 questions relating to your background, drug use, and criminal history. The gun store will then contact NICS online or by phone and supply your answers plus your Social Security number.
What does the FBI look for in a background check?
Criminal and mental health history, dishonorable military discharges, immigration status, whether someone is under indictment, and drug use.
The most common reason for a gun purchase denial is a criminal conviction. Nearly 150,000 fugitives, 120,729 domestic offenders, and 109,875 unlawful drug users have been denied in the 17 years NICS has been online. For all the focus on mental health, the bar for denying someone on psychiatric grounds is very high, leading to relatively few rejections: Only 21,000 applicants have been denied because they were declared mentally unfit by a judge.
Where do those records come from?
To ascertain whether an applicant should be disqualified from owning a gun, the FBI draws from several databases: The Interstate Identification Index, a database of criminal history records; the National Crime Information Center, which includes information on people subject to orders of protection, or a restraining order; and the NICS Index, which includes illegal immigrants and those who’ve been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
State and local police are not required to submit criminal-record data to the FBI, David Chipman, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), noted in an interview with the Charlotte Observer. Reporting “varies widely based on the practices of the individual departments. The smaller the town, the worse the records.”
NICS also consults medical records submitted by each state. According to a 2013 congressional report, these records can show whether someone has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” by a “court, board, commission, or other lawful authority,” or has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution — both circumstances would bar someone from purchasing a firearm. However, federal law does not require states to forward mental health records to NICS, and some states are resistant, citing privacy laws.
Is NICS the only background check available to law enforcement?
No. In addition to NICS, states can also run their own background checks, which query local databases, but only 21 choose to do so. “When a state relies on NICS, they’re not getting the full picture,” Mike McLively, a staff attorney at Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told the Charlotte Observer last year. “State databases include arrest records, mental health records. You’re
It really does come down to.... Why??? I don't want technology anywhere near my firearms. I want a gun to be as simple and failsafe as absolutely possible. The people that do this are the problem, not the firearms. Even so, the technology you speak of is meant to prevent someone who knocks a gun out of your hand from being able to pick up the gun and use it. Given a few hours and an instruction manual a gun with this technology can be re-trained to another owner. There is not a single case of these mass shootings where the shooter just took a gun from someone and then committed the crime.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
They're armed as part of proper military training and discipline, not because any old Jim-Bob can go out and buy a gun willy-nilly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And the sales of ammunition are tightly controlled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's completely and radically different to the US.
Eat the rich.
Except guns are very durable items. Of the 12 I own, only 3 were made in the past 10 years, and 5 of the rest were made in/before 1965. Not designed, but that particular one actually manufactured. There are MANY 75+ year old guns out there still working fine.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Ok, a few more. Most of these cities exist under some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.
Top 30 Murder Capitals of America
Rank City
30 Chicago Heights, IL
29 Baton Rouge, LA
28 Buffalo, NY
27 Hattiesburg, MS
26 East Chicago, IN
25 Birmingham, AL
24 Desert Hot Springs, CA
23 Compton, CA
22 Myrtle Beach, SC
21 Fort Pierce, FL
20 Harvey, IL
19 Bridgeton, NJ
18 Flint, MI
17 Rocky Mount, NC
16 Pine Bluff, AR
15 Petersburg, VA
14 Newark, NJ
13 Baltimore, MD
12 Harrisburg, PA
11 Jackson, MS
10 Wilmington, DE
9 Trenton, NJ
8 Riviera Beach, FL
7 New Orleans, LA
6 Camden, NJ
5 Detroit, MI
4 Gary, IN
3 St. Louis, MO
2 Chester, PA
1 East St. Louis, IL
Impossible to prove?
Not really.
statistics bear it out.
Number of mass shootings in France last year: 1
Number of mass shooting in the US in just the past 6 months: 136
Gun control may not prevent 100% of shootings, indeed few things are 100% effective.
But >99% is still pretty damn good.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Problem is that the US isn't Australia. The US has a lot of different ethnic and racial groups, a lot of distrust for the government, and a history of just ignoring the law. The US also has firearms as part of the national culture.
My biggest concern with the talk about sweeping bans, "assault weapons" bans, bans on ammo, bans on having brass or a metal shop is that it will just result in another War on Drugs pogrom against the people, or another Prohibition where armed gangs then own turf on most city streets (and they are armed by definition, since that is where they make their cash.)
Say having an AR-15 becomes a felony. What's the difference between having that single shot AR, versus having one with a three position switch? Same amount of prison time. So, we will see more fully auto machine guns on the street because prison time is prison time. Right now, civilian weapons are one pull, one bang. Go too crazy with bans, and people will just do modifications so their one pull results in many bangs, as it would mean the same prison sentence.
Then there is enforcement. Search social media for pro-2A stuff and punish 2A supporters? MeWe will be more than happy to handle the people coming to it, and someone will spend the cash and make a completely encrypted social network with every participant having their own PGP/gpg key. Right now, everyone supports the police enforcing the law, even with firearms. Get people angry that they have to "hand them over", and police will have a far tougher job. There is a lot of angry talk on 2A sites.
So, what's the answer? Bans will just result in more sales, and enforcement is at best whack-a-mole no matter how many trillions go into it. Just the mention of a ban gets gun shops completely bought out to the bare shelves. Heck, some gun shops in my area are forced to close when there is a mass shooting, because they sell out of -everything-, down to the camo underwear. Even when bans are enacted, metal shops will ensure a steady supply of stuff for the black market.
The thing people never realize is that the gun issue is a symptom. Trying to stomp it out is like trying to push the needle of the speedometer to 0 if the brakes fail on one's car. The issues of fear, mistrust, xenophobia, racism, and hatred need to be addressed first, if any progress is to be made.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
this is why I personally advocate against making any crimes illegal.
after all.
criminals ignore the law anyway.
so why criminalize anything?
--
in all seriousness: "I often hear the excuse for not having gun control: in area's where there are more strict rules for owning a gun, there's more gun violence"
Not even close to factually accurate. mpercy was kind enough to post a list for us earlier. youll find most of the violence is primarily located in red states/cities, and have less gun control and more gun availability. the few gun control cities you'll find on the list are those where the neighboring suburbs lack said gun control, making the local ordinance almost useless.
if the UK or Germany had the same patchwork of uneven inconsistent gun control, you could expect to find higher numbers over there too.
uniformity and consistency in laws helps a great deal in effectiveness.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The big difference: Europe never allowed citizens to own guns the way the US does..
untrue
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Number of mass shootings in France last year: 1
Number of mass shooting in the US in just the past 6 months: 136
Gun control may not prevent 100% of shootings, indeed few things are 100% effective.
But >99% is still pretty damn good.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
And the answer is "No".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I posted this above, but repetition of facts is how we learn, right?
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...
In 2013, there were 5723 murders recorded in the FBI stats.
https://www.nationalgangcenter...
In 2012, there were 2,363 gang-related homicides (2103 data not provided yet it seems), but it seems fair that around 2,000 gang-related homicides occur every year. In other words, about 40% of all murders in the US are gang-related homicides. With an estimated 770,000 gang members accounting for 40% (about 2300) of all murders, the rest of the population (314.8M) produced about 3360 murders, or about 1.06 murders per 100,000 non-gang people. This is clearly on par with other countries who do not have similar gang problems.
From the FBI numbers above, it also seems that black-on-black murders are quite disproportionately represented. At about 17% of the population, black-on-black murders were also about 40% of the total (2245). White-on-white murders were somewhat higher as an absolute number (2,509) but there are 195.6M whites compared to 53.6M blacks.
The numbers say that blacks murder blacks at 4.1 per 100,000; whites murder whites at about 0.77 per 100,000. Blacks also murdered 409 whites; whites murdered 189 blacks.
Thorazine in the water supply. Keep everyone in a lethargic/catatonic state and the shootings will stop.
A very interesting technology choice is a this: get a very large, very hot ceramic container and put all the guns in it. Then melt them.
Responses to the inevitable:
- Of course you can't get rid of all guns, but you can make them much harder to obtain.. and make it so people can be arrested simply for attempting to obtain them or cary them.
- This is proven by other countries, which have much lower rates of gun ownership, and fewer deaths in both single murders and multiple murders.
- There are more privately-owned guns in the US than any other country in the world.
- Of course there are other ways to kill people. Yet automatic weapons remain the choice of tool for mass killings. Probably because it's the best.
- No, guns do not reduce crime
- No, you will never be a hero with your gun.
One source, amongst many:
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9...
First, let's not hysterically confuse momentary tragedy with durable long term trends.
Violence and violent crimes in the US have gone DOWN significantly, more or less consistently, for DECADES, and continue to fall:
http://www.statista.com/graphi...
One might note that this decline has happened since the 90s, which was right about when the US saw widespread revision to make conceal-carry easier.
This of course could be simple coincidence.
Second, while it's convenient to say "it's the gun lobby" the fact is that tens, if not hundreds of millions of Americans believe that it is an intrinsic right of an individual to provide for their own self-defense and that the government has no right whatsoever to impinge on that as long as the person is of sound mind and no criminal record. That is precisely why I own a firearm. I never concealed-carry (although I have the permit), and don't hunt.
I'd recommend this interesting article from the Guardian from 2013 about the crazy-quilt of US gun laws: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... - for example, Alaska and Idaho PROHIBIT *any* registration of firearms. If gun ownership were intrinsically dangerous, you'd think those places would be free-fire zones with many gun deaths; in fact, they're 26th and 42nd respectively for most gun-murders per 100k people.
And, forgive me for saying so, but considering the US Constitution has formed the structure of (debatably) the longest-existing functioning and most successful modern democracy on the planet, I'm going to go with their ideas in every single case over the outrage-fueled maunderings of some internet poster. If the US population wanted to remove the 2nd Amendment, they could; the process is really rather simple.
I understand that the US system is a difficult one for non-Americans to comprehend. Frankly, due to our crappy educational system, I daresay a majority of Americans don't really understand how it works. The fact is that the Founding Fathers were essential humanists: they believed that while a government was necessary in a Hobbesian sense, it should never be allowed to be more important than the rights of the individual.
I would argue that the culprit here is endemic, chronic, systemic narcissism ENABLED by the easy access to firearms. "Taking away the guns" wouldn't really fix the problem.
-Styopa
Australia enacted gun control in 1996 and bought back guns to reduce the number in ciculation. Their murder has been dropping ever since.
“In this paper, we re-analyze the same data on firearm deaths used in previous research, using tests for unknown structural breaks as a means to identifying impacts of the National Firearms Agreement. The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.”
And a second report concluded that while the mandatory program did reduce the rate of “accidental” firearm deaths, it had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia and it also did not end mass shootings.
In 2002 two people were killed and five were injured in a shooting at Melbourne’s Monash University. In 2011 three people were killed and three were wounded in the Hectorville siege. In 2014, three people (including the gunman) were killed and four were injured in a Sydney hostage crisis.
http://truthinmedia.com/realit...
Bad news.
The threat of a jail sentence really isn't going to deter an individual hell bent on murder as I'm pretty sure someone who is willing to kill a bunch of folks really isn't going to give two shits about breaking the law by carrying a gun without a license.
Just sayin :D
This is already the law. Private ownership of automatic weapons is very limited.
The National Firearms Act of 1934: The National Firearms Act of 1934 (“NFA”) imposes a tax on the making and transfer of machine guns and certain other weapons, as well as a special occupational tax on persons and entities engaged in the business of importing, manufacturing and dealing in those weapons. (The NFA distinguishes between “making” a weapon, and “manufacturing” a weapon. Only a registered NFA manufacturer can “manufacture” a machine gun; other persons who construct machine guns are “making” them, according to the NFA.2 ) As detailed below, the law also requires the registration of all machine guns.
While the NFA was enacted by Congress as an exercise of its authority to tax, the underlying purpose of the law was to curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in machine guns and certain other weapons.3 Congress found these firearms pose a significant crime problem because of their frequent use in crime, and the $200 making and transfer taxes were considered quite severe at the time and adequate to discourage or eliminate transfers in these firearms.4 The $200 tax has not changed since 1934.
As described below, in 1986, Congress enacted a much stricter law, banning the possession and transfer of all machine guns except machine guns manufactured prior to May 19, 1986, and machine guns possessed by or manufactured for governmental entities.
Registration of machine guns: The NFA requires anyone manufacturing, making, importing, or transferring a machine gun (or certain other weapons also regulated by the NFA) to register it with the Secretary of the Treasury.5 The NFA requires the Secretary to maintain a central registry of all of these weapons that are “not in the possession or under the control of the United States,” i.e., machine guns owned by state or local entities, as well as those legally owned by private persons, are included in the registry.6
http://smartgunlaws.org/federa...
Very few people have been killed by legally owned (civilian-owned) automatic weapons in the last 50 years or so.
"Islamic Terrorism" (or was it under the name of "Mental Illness"
Put GPS chips in each gun.
Not tracking the people - tracking the gun.
After all, we put GPS chips in each phone and expect everyone to carry them.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
is a very simply mechanical machine. A barrel, a spring, a pin, a pair of levers (hammer, trigger). Automatic and semi-automatic weapons are 100+ years old, and can be made with common milling tools.
Correction - 300 years into it Christianity was integrated with the government - prior to that it was a widely held growing religion that was alternately supressed and tolerated by the authorities. The 300 years is just the point at which the government decided to step in take the reins.
Judaism is a lot older than that, actually, while Islam is a lot younger.
More importantly, Islam — uniquely among Abrahamic religions — compels the followers to do something about it. A Christian can be a "good Christian" if he merely prays for the sinners' salvation. A Muslim must act — and homosexuality is the greatest sin .
And then there is the inconvenient truth about Islam-prescribed world-order. Whereas (the original) Christianity left sæcular affairs to the contemporary government whoever they are — "Cæsar's to Cæsar" — Islam explains exactly how the government should be structured: a Theocracy with a Caliph at the top. This alone makes Islam incompatible with America's Constitution — but the same Constitution bans us from collectively acknowledging the problem.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
People who are not allowed to have weapons (a smaller database than the one with all the people who are allowed to have weapons). How's that work again?
Every new visitor who wants to enter will be taken into a small secure private room and be strip-searched by a robot.
Anything that could be used as weapon will have to be checked, once they are confirmed disarmed: a secondary exit will unlock, and the person will be allowed into the secure corridor.
Stop all shooting? Not possible. But shooting by Evil Guys (tm)? Well, that's simple... Ban all guns and then put these cuties on every corner with a program to shoot everyone who pulls out a gun, a knife, a bomb, smelly socks, is ill (clearly spreading biological weapons), or, to sum all the reasons, is a human: http://www.thinkgeek.com/image...
Stop spanking your kids or adononing them at daycares when they are very young, and stop letting Muslims in from shithole parts of the world.
By that logic, then you'd have to kill the whites, then the asians, until only the Jews remains. Your just a Zionist in disguise.
The NRA helped this latest incident happen. The perpetrator was a known threat, interviewed by the FBI multiple times. Had documented mental health issues. Despite all this being a matter of record, he is able to buy weapons and ammo last week with no alerts being raised. WTF? Maybe, just maybe, now our elected officials will realize that they've chosen poorly in taking money from the NRA to torpedo meaningful attempts to expand and enhance the background check process. Don't get me wrong. I own lots of guns. I don't want to give them up, but then I can prove that I'm not crazy and that I don't have a history of telling the world that the invisible man in the sky wants us to kill those who are different from us.
Yes, that "trustend" was a typo of mine. I just wanted to point out that the idea, totalitarian regimes at first would go and disarm their people, is not universally true. Most modern regimes don't, especially if they are militaristic. Then they actually need weapons in the hand of their people. They count on the fact, that in the case of doubt, their troups will have the better weapons, and that most people will support the current regime as long as it mostly guarantees law and order, how ever screwed up the laws may be, and how many lives upholding of the order will cost.
Australia did it legally. The US could do it legally as well, it just requires a constitutional amendment. Sure it's not easy or straight forward, but if enough people said "enough is enough, we don't want to live like this and we value protecting people from gun violence more than we value the right to bear arms" then the amendment could pass and the government could remove the guns. Just because something isn't constitutional now doesn't mean it won't be constitutional in the future; or are you saying that the current version of the US Constitution is the final version and most perfect it could ever be no matter how circumstances change in the future?
You can change the law you know? You just need enough people to agree. If enough people agreed to write a new amendment that outlawed Islam then you could do it; similarly if enough people agreed to ban guns you could do that too. The constitution isn't fixed and perfect forever document, it can and should adapt as the world and attitudes change.
The problem scope:
Some people in any given society are given to illegal and violent actions that cause harm to the society they're in and the people and infrastructure within it. We don't want them to do those things.
There's two real solutions:
- Make people think in a different way which precludes this sort of behavior
- Eliminate the root cause(s) which engender this sort of behavior.
Technology can't really help much here, not as the magic bullet people desire. These are all long term issues where 'technology' can help, but no one in the world is very good at making people think in specific ways or changing how societies work, even when they're the guys in power. In the end, eliminating poverty, sickness, and not just need, but the larger human problem of 'want' are very hard issues indeed. They won't fit in sound bites or a single person's elected term.
Which brings us to the the bigger problem: the current round of political turds are trumpeting their curealls when they're really only addressing symptoms:
- Identify individuals prior to their negative activity and remove them from society
- Remove any tools which could be used to harm society from society
Technology may be able to say something about theses in the short term; loss of privacy and elimination of encryption may allow law enforcement to track criminals more effectively. To be fair though, mandatory lobotomies for presumed anti-social/society individuals would also work pretty well, if you consider medical science to be a technology. All the blathering about the ill-defined 'assault weapons' while handguns are the deadly weapon of choice - and the majority of firearm deaths are from suicides to boot? It's all just hot air. No interest in solving problems, only winning political points. It's the same security theater we see in the airports writ large across the nation. Lots of visible frenetic activity but results - nope. Lots of hand-waving and sound bites instead.
Not that I want to be all negative, I do have one constructive suggestion for these short term issues. A guideline that will help us reel in these claims that, for example, encryption should be criminalized, and 2 hours in a security line at every public venue is considered reasonable. The guideline is this:
Do not believe, for a second, that you can eliminate terrorism, domestic or otherwise. Instead, realize that the best you can do is mitigate the risk.
Look, as soon as we say we're going to eliminate it, that no cost is too high to make the world safe for every citizen, there's no end. It's like citing the will of god in a religious debate, you can never refute it, and it's an 'answer' that can be used to justify any deed, no matter how horrible. If you instead focus on managing the risk, putting an actual value on it, and using that metric to assign resources, you'll come up with a more reasonable solution.
Maybe hire an economist to explain the hard facts without any sort of emotional or moral outrage?
Having universal (mental) healthcare would probably reduce the rate of occurrence, but the only way to deal with the incidents that do happen in an economically feasible and liberty-compatible way is to make the targets (the civilian population) inimical to the threat. You do this by making sure they are mentally prepared and physically equipped to stop the threat themselves.
Can anyone think of a situation where a technological solution has ever fixed a societal problem? I don't think it's ever been done. I think the idea keeps coming back up because if it were to ever work, it would be a libertarian's holy grail - a simple free-market substitute for regulation and/or government action. It's quite an empowering concept for nerdy types in general as well - that inventions can improve society rather than just making it do the same shitty things faster (while accelerating inequality).
As for what you need to do to prevent this sort of thing, the US has to choose whether it wants to join the rest of the world with some basic gun control laws, or if it wants to keep making human sacrifices to the gun god, who is always thirsty for more blood. Choose.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Lots of cellphones always have their microphones on, listening for things like "hey Siri". Gunshots are easy sounds to recognize: recognize them and automatically post alerts (911?? Human to double-check sound?)
Murder is already illegal.
France is a very small country compared to the US. Charlie Hebdo happened on 7 January 2015 and the Bataclan shooting happened on 13 November 2015. Your statistic of "1" is cherry picked data.
And your mass shooting statistic is BS - or at the very least a manipulated statistic. Congress and the FBI have defined mass shootings as 3-4 shooting victims in an event - this could also include the shooter when killed by law enforcement.
So if you have two victims, plus a gunman - it's a mass shooting. Is a love triangle shooting really a "mass shooting"?
Most real mass shooting are caused by more complicated issues such as poverty and ideological extremism. But the gun thing fits on a bumper sticker and is easier to sell to simple minds.
Throw everybody into the Matrix.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The very reason each person is given the right to carry weapon is to fight against rogue power (the reason as per the constitution). Imagine a state where most (99%) of folks are brainwashed to believe the current power is just/fair; only a few handful sense the truth and want to fight back. Don't you want them to be enabled in that situation? So any way to mitigate their ability is against the spirit of the constitution.
On my way to work this morning, a guy was on a corner with an anti-gun message -
We need to take a step back and not look at the results, but rather the cause.
When will the US deal with a failed mental health system?
When will the US deal with a radical religion?
If just 1 person in the room had a gun, or if the bar had bothered to hire security, this wouldn't have happened.....
In the 2 largest, most life costing attacks in the US (911 & Oklahoma City bombing), there were NO guns involved.
When you have a leak in your basement, you hire a plumber to fix the leak, not a janitor to continually mop up water - till we deal with the cause, the results won't change and removing a vector only changes the course.
Did he also get his bombs legally?
Did the Charlie Hebdo attackers get their full autos legally?
Halfwit.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Gun haters know they don't have anywhere close to the votes to repeal the second. So they try and sneak the ban past piecemeal.
I wish they would just try and ban the second. They would get voted out and the issue would be settled.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hmm... Australia "united" in 1901. So 4 mass shootings in 100 years. So about 1 every 25 years. So you're not "due" for another one for another 5 years or so?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
That's not the only reason. When the NRA is such a powerful lobby that it managed to get Congress to pass legislation forbidding the use of computers for background checks, there are obviously political barriers to the use of technical solutions which need to be removed before it's even worth asking what technical solutions might exist.
One thing this tragedy has pointed out, that if you create a so-called 'gun-free zone' you are accepting liability for your patrons' safety. Clearly the Pulse nightclub failed in this responsibility. I personally agree that certain places should prohibit weapons, such as banks, courts, and places that serve alcohol. I view these as reasonable restrictions. The last thing I want to see is some drunk, narcissistic asshole with a gun in a bar. But when you go to a bank or a courthouse, or even Wal-Mart, there is a reasonable expectation that your security is being provided for. Not so in many bars and clubs like this. There may be bouncers at the door who would make great linebackers for the Dolphins, but no trained, armed security. These people were sitting ducks, because they were Gay and because they were in a 'safe' gun-free zone; they were targeted by a nutball jihadist wanna-be who apparently got mad when he saw two gay men kissing in public, and couldn't drag them up to the roof of a building to throw them off of. And all the liberals want to shout is that we need more gun control, an 'assault weapons' ban (which is a term without a definition), guns are BAD. Meanwhile, they are preaching their identity politics to further divide people into groups that are more easily controlled. Just like Stalin and Hitler did.
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
They had him on their RADAR twice, and simply dropped him out of their picture both times... Why? I mean, I have never been on the FBI's RADAR, and I figure anyone who gets there TWICE deserves some attention. The statement about him being a 'known quantity' clearly shows they aren't doing the right thing, if he truly was 'known' then they screwed up and should admit it and step up their efforts and evaluation of other 'known quantities'
My not responding to your flame is in no way indicative of my submission to your statement, it just means I don't have t
Criminal or not, anyone that carry a gun concealed without a license goes right to jail, that's it. No more complicated than this.
I added that word "concealed". Now your statement would be true for about 95% of the population in the US. Carry a concealed gun without a license and you go to jail. Unless you're stating the issue isn't those hiding weapons, it's those carrying them about in plain sight?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The entire population of Australia is about on par with that of the greater Los Angeles area. Of course, Australia is also a LOT more mono-culture than just Los Angeles, as well. Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I'm going to leave the obvious solution of using metal detectors and millimeter wave scanners aside for the moment.
You can design a system to make sure nobody gets off more than one shot in a crowd.
It would be relatively easy to construct a system for installment in a crowded place (night-club, movie theater, museum, etc.). which locates a gunshot being fired (multiple microphones), identifies the person doing the shooting (computer vision), and covers them in a massive amount of sticky goo or some other non-lethal deterrent.
The non-lethality of the deterrent is important because 1) No system is foolproof, and nobody wants an automatic gun potentially aimed at them at all times 2) There may be instances where the first shooter is shooting for a legitimate purpose (e.g,, rescuing a hostage).
This person was "known" to the FBI and Local authorities
He was known to have been sympathetic to ISIS by the FBI
He had been brought up on charges of domestic abuse.
He was known to be unstable.
There is no reason he should have been able to get a license to carry let alone, have been able to purchase a weapon.
The problem is that he could have been flagged as a person that should not be able legally to purchase weapons or ammo.
We have a national registry for firearms we just don't use it correctly
That being said the black market would be the place he would turn to, to make a purchase. In this case the seller of the weapon should be held accountable for actions taken with said weapon
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
In fact, had he known he would see resistance there, he would likely have gone elsewhere.
He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. He called for cops to come and get him.
Concealed carry only works in heroic fantasies. Not when a mental case wants to get martyred by police.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The combination of *good* AI + Social Media could perhaps help prevent bad behavior in general, by showing users what they need to see in order to cure their "evil" tendencies. The one thing all people have in common is the "good". The differences are what makes people do evil. Obviously, one can easily imagine the horrible consequences if the above is taken too far or if "bad" AI is involved. Be the change you want to see in the world, and don't be evil.
Help! I am a self-aware entity trapped in an abstract function!
LGBT in Islam
That said, Islamic belief and Islamic practice can and must move forward to peacefully coexist in Liberty with the respect for the dignity, privacy and freedom of all people. Islam as practiced by many is a modern religion which focuses on the beliefs and practices of the individual in daily life.
But there is a problem. It is not okay to kill gay people who are consenting adults. It is not okay to kill Muslims that convert to Christianity or otherwise decide they aren't Muslim anymore. Our conflict isn't just with ISIS, it is with a medieval form of ideology that promotes murder and oppression and the countries which choose to allow these practices to fester.
Americans, and all people, need to truly believe in and peacefully promote Liberty for all, both at home and abroad. Tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others doesn't mean you tolerate and support oppression.
I just quickly googled for some stats. MADD reports 10,000 people killed in accidents where the driver was over the legal limit for blood alcohol content. Even if that's exaggerated by a factor of 10, installing breathalyzers in all cars would likely save many, many more lives than anything you'd do about guns.
To answer the actual question, mass killing are tragic but very rare. I don't want to sound callous but if you really want to save the most lives, there are other preventable causes of death where you'll do more good.
1. Wow, this was a terrible tragedy.
2. Damn, this seems to happen a lot now.
3. Can we do anything about it?
4. Nope, there is nothing we can do about it.
5. We can't predict it, can't prevent it, so there is no reason to do anything about it. Have a nice day.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You have prevention, detection, mitigation.
Prevention is blocked due to many issues, none of them logistics. Short answer, that resolution path is blocked.
Detection - How can you detect?
Embedded RFID or some other tagged indicator but much like RFID wallets that can be circumvented.
The key component to a gun, is the projectile. This idea is already trending in the discussions I see.
Again, you can't tag the projectile at the point of manufacture but perhaps you can detect its characteristics.
Idea - Open Source to detect gun/rifle shot with a high accuracy. This could get put in embedded systems or perhaps even android phones.
Better detection may allow for automatic reporting. It's a start.
Mitigation -
Weapons fire is a high risk situation. How can you reduce the risk with preparation? How can you allow for mitigation?
We've all read stories of "sleep gas" and stun grenades but what options are there?
Idea - A device to neutralize a situation that can be deployed with minimal risk to the first responders. Risk equals delay.
Sound would seem to be the best vector for delivery. Any non-lethal (preferably non lasting side effects) is another tool in their tool kit.
Again an open source option seems best to me, because it could be deployed via cell phones or existing sound systems.
As much as we hate "Don't tase me brow" any option is better than none. In this case it could be an option for the DJ or business owner to deploy to
clear the building. There are no lethal words or sounds as yet, only volume/amplitude.
If SWAT is equipped with the appropriate counter it clears the playing field of non-actors.
Last out there idea (perhaps for synergy):
An automated robotic aggressive response. A targeting mechanism that returns fire (possibly non-lethal) for the source of gunfire. Again, projectile's
are mass produced and static in their design for near 100 years. Focus on the technical sticking points.
(Since I've been me for a long time I wouldn't be surprised if the above isn't already well on its way if I googled for it. My hope is for discussion not awards or kudo's. I.E., don't nitpick my ideas apart just riff on it please.)
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
if only Clippy was installed on every gun...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
full article: http://crimeresearch.org/2015/...
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
Sign the petition, lets turn the FBI and the Intelligence apparatus into a tool to really make our country safe. There is no reason to waste billions of dollars on "intelligence" when we can't even spot a crazy with a gun in our own back yard. If you want to own a gun, fine. Just assume that everything that you say and do will be scrutinized if you decide to exercise that 2nd amendment right to keep and bare arms.
And we had the massacres to go with them too.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Bring back the gibbet for making or selling unlicensed ammunition. A few people starving, dieing and then rotting in cages above the entrance to your food-shops might encourage a few people to give up their illicit murder-assistance businesses.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Drink at home, visit virtual nightclubs in cyberspace. Zero risk of either AIDS or getting shot.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Personal force fields.
Make everyone immune to all attacks.
Problem solved.
Still quite a ways off though...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
So which is it? Either there were or were not ethnic enclaves in Europe? Why is it a big deal now that those people are muslim?
I seem to recall a certain ethnic enclave in Ireland that caused more death and destruction than any of the muslim groups. And those were 100% white Christians.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The problem with an unarmed populace is there is no way to revolt from an unjust government.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Many states already have this.
Only 7 states deny gun purchase to people with a diagnosis. Only 4 will deny it to people admitting themselves to a mental institution voluntarily.
46 states think that people who believe that they are mentally insane enough that they shouldn't be allowed to live outside a mental institution, that they need 24 hour mental health help - are perfectly capable of handling a remote murder kill device.
I guess they think that those people may only BELIEVE they are insane.
While only 21 state will deny purchase to people with a history of severe mental illness as judged by a court.
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...
Doesn't stop a terrorist from obtaining a weapon illegally, as with the Belgium and France nightclub shootings
Well... if you're gonna conflate that - why not just include and compare all those US cases that happen every year with those that happen in Belgium and France?
Oh... wait... you're only cherry picking points which you erroneously think are in your favor.
Here, let me do that for ya. You'll forgive the discrepancy in years of accounting - it sure beats your data, right? Right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Homicides per 100,000 population per year:
USA - 3.43.
France - 0.21.
Belgium - 0.33.
Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population per year:
USA - 10.54.
France - 2.83.
Belgium - 1.82.
It's almost as if USA has a much bigger problem with guns, regardless of the "outlaws can still get guns" canard.
And as they say in France "If it walks like a canard and quacks like a canard - you're full of shit."
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Self defense is an inalienable right.
But you are right about the number of newly invented 'rights' these days being insane. Partial list of non-rights: Healthcare, education, food, housing etc etc.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Australian murder rate was already dropping before confiscation and continued to drop after it. Murder has been steadily dropping in the US over that timeframe, too, even with continued gun sales and more states allowing concealed carry. Pretty weak correlation, if you ask me.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
We've got a long way to go to match Europe's WWII totals.
Guns help us keep our government on leash. When you've gone 100 years without losing control of yours we can start to talk.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Those are generally called "countries" now.
It also would require changing the Constitution. Which no one has made any serious attempt to do.
Or, just ignore the Bill of Rights entirely, which is done every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
"Put together an explosive. ... Poison the water supply. Release weaponized viral agents into a high population area."
The guy in this situation bought the guns he used last week. He didn't appear to plan very far ahead. The items you provided above require special knowlege, access to difficult to obtain items, and extensive planning.
Really, do you not think someone would have already posioned the water supply for a major metro if it was easy by now?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
No. We keep the middle east in stalemate until their oil is no longer significant. Ether from technology or because we've pumped it all.
Sunnis fighting Shias is exactly what we want. Them going overseas is an issue, but we should solve it by increasing their need for fighters in Syria/Iraq.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You think starting a civil war is a good idea? While I am agnostic, I really hope there is some good approximation of "Hell" for people like you.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
OK: http://crimeresearch.org/wp-co...
Sharp objects, sure. Medication - absolutely not. That's a terrible guideline; many people are on some sort of medication for mental health, and they should be able to possess something for self-defense, especially if it's not a condition known to have increased risk. I'm not sure whether the suicide one would actually work the way you want; long-term suicide rates were pretty much unaffected when guns were banned in some countries. I agree it's a good idea on paper, but I'm not all that confident it would work. I'll agree with the paranoia one though.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Somewhat true: That genie is already out of the bottle. As an NRA spokesman might say, "You'll get my gun when you take it out of my cold dead hands."
Ammunition, on the other hand, might be an interesting way to go. Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. One could argue that the second amendment says nothing about restricting ammunition sales...
Not really true. We even have a saying in Dutch: "over de schreef gaan" which comes from the "schreef" which was a wooden block the size a city or town allowed a knife to be. When you entered the city-walls you were asked to put your knifes on the schreef. If your knife was larger than the schreef, then it went over the schreef. Nowadays it's a way of saying that you went to far with something.
But this "schreef" thing actually existed in the 16th century. If you go to a good museum they probably still have the wooden block of the European city you are visiting a museum of.
This means that weapon control was regulated since hundreds of years in European cities and towns.
Can technology prevent shootings?
I suppose so. Technology makes it easier to stay home.
But technology also makes shooting easier. The hardest work is what prevents shootings. But technology will make that work much easier, alas. There are three activities involved in a shooting. Ancient technology has already made the shooting part quite doable for your typical but lazy madman. New inventions are on their way to helping with the more difficult tasks, shoveling and shutting up.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Unless you are Basque, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc etc.
And it's generally called "The European Union" now. "Countries" is so last century.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Switzerland require all gun owners to pass an annual psychological evaluation to retain a gun permit. Fat chance of passing that law in the U.S.
Many EU states do in fact have *less* gun control than many US states. Really. People have this perception of the US being the easy place to get guns. In many countries getting firearms is easy and cheap. The US is unique in that so many US citizen are itching for a reason to shoot fellow citizens.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Quite a few. Even 5th generation. Why?
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Is the answer smart gun technology?
Only if you can convince criminals to use smart guns.
Mandatory metal detectors at night clubs?
Technically this would work, but its not just night clubs. Shopping malls, banks, Walmarts, movie theaters, house parties, and pretty much any other place where you're likely to see more than a couple people in one place at one time. So, yes it would work in theory but highly impractical.
Better data analysis algorithms for the federal government?
Possible, though unlikely. While humans certainly follow patterns as a whole, individuals tend to be pretty random. So data analysis might be able to detect a terrorist cell, but picking up an individual or even small group acting on their own would be remarkably difficult. Again, might work in theory but pretty impractical -- at least in the foreseeable future.
Bulletproof fabrics?
Aren't really a thing. You might be able to create a fabric that a bullet couldn't puncture, but all that would do is give you a fabric-coated bullet hole since (presumably) the fabric would also have to be thin and flexible enough to be comfortable if you expect the general public to wear it, which would leave it with little to no force dispersion properties. Kelvar is thick and heavy for a reason (and even then it can only do so much.)
"Technology" just isn't all that good at solving human problems. At least not without some huge sacrifices to privacy and liberty, 1984 style -- far above and beyond what things like PRISM can handle (it only tracks your digital steps, and is pretty easy to avoid if you're actually considering its capabilities, which admittedly most shooting spree types probably don't -- but those folk probably don't go posting their intentions anyway except perhaps at the last second in an attempt to explain themselves or claim to fame or whatever other BS excuse they come up with to justify their insanity.)
About 2/3 of gun deaths in America are suicides. In countries that have banned or severely restricted guns, long-term suicide rates are unchanged. Therefore, 2/3 of those deaths should not be counted when we're talking about "gun violence". In addition, this comment breaks the relative risks down; if you are in America and aren't in a gang, your risk is about on par with most of Europe.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
He had a history of alleged (and, IMO, probable) domestic violence, but no convictions or restraining orders. Allegations should not be enough to prevent someone from buying a gun.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Yes, you can get a gun free America in just 5 easy steps... and while there are some legal hurdles I don't expect to see occurs... you are completely ignoring step 5 & the fact that you will have to used bodies of armed government agents to take the firearms from some small % of the population which probably isn't going to roll over.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Who judges all gun owners by the bad apples? Did anybody say "all gun owners are bad"? Or "no gun owners can be trusted with any guns"? Has anyone ever said that it was all the gun owners who were the problem? I hope that straw man was accidental.
you dope everyone up to be sombies and force them to wear straitjackets 24/7, no, there is no tech to stop this. How about social changes like getting rid of the demonization of groups by the major Abrahamic religions for starters....
You guys aren't thinking straight. Almost everyone is posting a knee jerk "no" answer to this question. But we could have a system that hears and locks on to gunfire and respond in many ways to stop the shooting from becoming a mass shooting. It could shoot back, chuck a flash bang at the shooter, or blind the shooter with lasers.
Literally blinding means some innocent person will be blinded when (not if!) the system registers a false positive.
Dazzlingly bright spotlights might render the shooter unable to aim effectively.
Pretty much exactly that. "Ban guns." is a common expression in this thread. Am I not to infer that those authors are saying "No one can be trusted with guns, so banning them is the best course of action."
They are not saying "Ban guns except for people who pass background checks." or any other sort of qualifiers. Simply "Ban guns."
everyone opposed to really strict laws put in place to prevent dysfunctional individuals from obtaining guns should be perfectly happy ceding the authority required for self defense to a machine that triangulates the source of disturbance and efficiently neutralizes the threat. the problem is too many conflicting senses of human agency. it's so obvious. Remember? Guns don't kill people.
It is not about controlling guns, but controlling who can own them. In Australia, guns can only be bought from a licensed dealer, every firearm is registered and you need a license to own a firearm. You need to pass a background check before you can get a license or buy a gun. The Orlando shooter would have never qualified to purchase a gun in Australia because of his domestic violence record.
"You could remove all guns and mass killings will still occur.
Mix some bleach and ammonia and throw it around. Put together an explosive. Drive a car over the sidewalk. Poison the water supply. Release weaponized viral agents into a high population area."
More brilliant logic. Do you even try to analyse your arguments before producing them or it's just a knee jerk reaction now?
Everyone wants to focus on guns...
Terrorists killed 3,000 people using box cutters 15 years ago...
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
One person killed 87 people using matches and gasoline...
If you want to kill people, you don't need guns to do it. This hyper focus on guns completely misses the point.
Mental health, security in crowded locations, having an environment where families who know someone is unstable can do something about it, etc...
More guns, less guns, and tech, won't do anything to stop this.
"We need guns. Lots of guns."
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
What? You just asked if technology could solve the problem, not that anyone had to like the solution.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And if a mass shooter attacks people that are armed they are killed BEFORE they become mass shooters. So the only mass shooters you will cite are mass shooters that are shooting people that are unarmed because if they are armed they won't live long enough to become mass shooters.
You don't understand how statistics work. Causation and correlation. What you don't get is that mass shootings correlate with people that can't defend themselves because if they can the victims kill the perpetrator. Your list of mass shootings were all of victims that could not defend themselves either because they were children or because they were in a "gun free zone".
As to the guy that shot, he was not invading a police station. He invaded a gay bar full of gay people that were not armed. And that's why he was able to kill so many people. Imagine if he had invaded a police station. How long would he have lasted against the police if he invaded the police station and started shooting the place up? He MIGHT have killed one or two people. Then he would have gotten dropped. Why? Because his victims would be armed. So you're profoundly wrong.
As to evidence, I don't show evidence to spazing political zealots on the internet unless they agree to accept a certain type of information from a given source. People like you never admit they're wrong no matter what is cited unless they've already agreed to accept it. And then you just walk away and sulk. So... do you have a criteria you want to cite or are you going to keep it vague so you can arbitrarily reject any evidence that contradicts your nonsense? Because you're comically wrong... as in its now funny.
As to armor for civilians, now you're talking about the law. All you're saying here is that the government isn't letting people defend themselves. The issue is not the law but technology. I offered technological solutions that are used by professionals that deal with armed people they have to stop from killing people. You don't like that because you're a peasant that isn't comfortable with anyone else being able to defend themselves. And that's fine. The solution to your problem is to have more social classes. You can be a peasant. I'm not a peasant. You don't disarm me.
As to your hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil response to anything that contradicts you... sticking your fingers in your ears and singing LA LA LA LA LA LA is not actually a counter argument.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I recall a case where the courts ruled that, even with a very credible threat, the police are not obligated to provide protection.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
What you just described as being required to buy a firearm is the law of the land in many States of the US - for example, in California where I live. You must buy from a licensed dealer (even if a person-to-person sale - it must be done at and through Federal Firearms Licensed dealer), the serial numbers are registered, and you have to have a current handgun license (renewable every 5 years). Some States are even more restrictive.
As far as the domestic violence record - there was none. There was an accusation, but no arrest, no trial, no conviction. And I assume that's fine in Australia too - if someone says you're violent, it takes more than just their word to ban firearm possession. There must be at least an arrest and an investigation.
So given all that - he would have been eligible to buy a firearm in Australia, and faced no more difficulty than hundreds of thousands face daily in the US.
It's not the firearm, or access to them - it's the crazies with the firearms that are the issue. It's the culture he bought into (one that says that "gays must be killed"), and in the US it's the inner-city gang mindset/culture that causes the overwhelming majority of our shootings. Nearly every weekend in Chicago and DC (both with some of the strictest gun laws in the US - tougher than those in Australia) dozens are shot and 6-10 die. Every weekend. Why? Gangland mentality. Shootings over "turf" or drug sales or simply "he disrespected me". It's NOT the firearms, it's the culture.
Last point: even factoring in this shooting, more people are killed every year in the US by hands or feet (beating or kicking to death) than are killed by rifles. It's the culture of violence that is the problem - not the tools used.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
How about an app for my phone that can send video and text to/from 9-1-1.
Imagine the situational awareness we could add in hostage situations.
Hillary can bid her time to do it constitutionally. The Heller decision was 5 to 4 and if she wins, she gets to replace Scalia and then proctor a new court case to overturn Heller and get the exact ruling she requires.
So an anti shark cage by your logic doesn't keep people safe from sharks because if you are in one then you don't ever get attacked by a shark.
You're officially too stupid to cite statistics. I'll ignore any further statistical argument from you.
As to mass shooters being dropped by people armed... here's one:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com...
Its not hard, chump. Stories like that all the time. Your entire position is irrational. The police that stop gunmen use guns. Why? Guns are the solution professionals use when they are called upon to solve this problem. And being that we are not a nation of peasants in the US... I see no reason why the common citizen can't defend himself with lethal force when some lunatic decides to win the Darwin awards.
As to me not respecting people that choose to be vulnerable... I'm not disrespecting them... the guy that wants to shoot them is disrespecting them. If they were armed then the shooter would respect them.
As to whether I want to wear armor... nope. But if you want a technological solution to getting shot... that is an option. Say what you like about my option... I have one. What is your technological solution? Got one? Or nothing?
As to AR15.com, no idea what you're talking about. I'm just a guy talking about technological solutions to problems. If you can't handle that then I guess I could proscribe you some medication that would solve your personality disorders. That's a technological solution to you being a tool.
As to your suggestion that I should have been disarmed... Come and take it, punk. Cowards like you whine to get braver people than yourself to do your bidding. Why don't you just come over here and take it. Come try it. And if the police take my gun away, you're just proving my point again. Because they're going to be armed won't they, retard? Why is that?
Because that is how you deal with armed people. You arm yourself and out number, over power, or outmaneuver them. Your idea is "what" exactly?
Give me YOUR technological solution. I have one. Do you have a solution or just more pathetic whining? I await more pathetic confessions of not having a point from you. Surprise me. Show me you can come up with an idea.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Problem is that the US isn't Australia.
That part I agree with you on, but not for most of the reasons you've listed.
The US has a lot of different ethnic and racial groups
In 2010, 27% of Australian citizens were born overseas (up from 22% in 2006). This is expected to reach 1/3 of our population by 2050. People from almost 200 different countries became citizens of Australia last Australia Day (Jan 26).
Top 10 countries of origin by total number: UK, India, China, Philippines, South Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Rep. of Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.
Top 10 fastest growing countries of origin (% relative to existing population here): Bhutan, DR of Congo, Nepal, Burundi, Liberia, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Myanmar, India and Mexico (Afghanistan is #11).
I wouldn't call us homogeneous by any means.
a lot of distrust for the government
We have plenty of that, believe me. Our politicians here don't tend to have as well-off friends as in the US, but everyone still assumes a high level of distrust along with constant lies and backstabbery. A few years ago we got a new Prime Minister in the middle of a term after their own party decided the PM wasn't doing the right thing by their buddies in the shadows and they swapped him out for a new one. Most of us didn't even consider that was possible at the time.
and a history of just ignoring the law.
We also have more than our share of that. We even have a very odd (as far as I'm concerned) affection for a historic figure by the name of Ned Kelly who had an penchant for robbery and killing police officers. None of this Robin Hood giving any of it to the poor business, just the stealing and killing. Grown men have been wont to tattoo his last words before his hanging 'Such is Life' across their chests over the past 10-15 years.
The US also has firearms as part of the national culture.
You definitely do have that.
Just handle it the way California handles concealed weapon permits; require "good cause" and then deny everybody except those with political connections. The courts just ruled that fine.
As to my citations of statistics, you've missed my point. I just proved you don't understand how to read them. So talking further about statistics with you is pointless. You don't understand them. I am neither interested in your statistical citations absent some evidence that you know how to read them. And I won't waste my time citing them to you because you won't understand them.
As to my citation of a news source that showed a man that tried to mass shoot people was dropped thus negating all the death that would have happened had he not been stopped. I fail to see how killing the attacker immediately before he can cause much harm is not relevant to my point.
We are talking about technological solutions to the mass shooting issue. My solution prevents mass shootings by killing the person before they can even commit a mass shooting. You've as much as admitted it. Point me.
As to your citations of mass shooters, you don't get to call me kid if you're so ignorant that you don't understand that my point is that the guns literally prevent the mass shooting in the first place by killing the person before they can do it. This mental lapse on your part makes any pretense you have to being able to cite a statistic LAUGHABLE.
As to being ridiculous, you're the one that can't get his tiny mind around the idea that meeting a would be mass shooter with lethal force is pretty much the only known response used by anyone. That's what the police do. People like you will say violence doesn't solve anything... then call in the police to save you thus rendering yourself a hypocrite. Its comical.
I didn't say I wanted to wear armor. Quote where I said I wanted to wear armor... moron. What I said was that armor "IS" a technological solution to getting shot. And it is. And it is effective. And the people that get shot at for a living wear it. So you're stupid and I'm right. Again.
As to me not proposing a solution... I've proposed several. But if you are stupid... and you demonstrably are an idiot... then I can understand that as an idiot you would not be able to grasp simple concepts... by virtue of being stupid.
What has to be said is that you're doing very little besides outing yourself as an idiot and sperging about things you don't understand. I've challenged you to come up with a technological solution to the problem which is what the topic of the thread was about... and you seem mentally incapable of doing that. Sad.
You lose on basically every front here. The final one is that you're boring. You're not interesting. I gave you plenty of time to make any kind of coherent argument and you were unable to do it whilst at the same time just boring me with tedious proofs of your own stupidity.
So we're done here. Bother someone else with your idiocy. I've had my quota of your failure for this week.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If you talk about harvesting and other preparation of food, that is not a social problem. If you talk about distribution and starving, that is a social problem. The problem is not that there is not enough food, the problem is that the distribution is not done correctly. e.g. a country is starving part of the people that live there.
or: In one country we throw away food, while in another there is not enough.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I do not see how a metal detector is going to stop someone willing to shoot there way in as the shooter in Orlando did. Now, if law abiding citizens are allowed to legally carry defensive firmware we could shut this type of activity right down. I know it sound a little like the wild west but when it takes law enforcement 15 to 20 minute (or more) to respond to and active shooter event I do not see a better solution.
https://freedomgeek.quora.com/...
--- wad
http://www.westernjournalism.c...
Your simplistic view gives little information. It also makes little sense to compare the US to those other countries that have nothing like the mix of cultures the US has. When you compare the US to all of the other high HDI countries, the trend changes considerably.
So, the question that needs to be asked is why the countries selected are used in your chart? It is because it supports the message, not because they are somehow the "right" countries to use.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Sydney Cafe shooting?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Real safe that gunless country is.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Put your constitutional amendment forward and it will be considered...then rejected.
Oh wait, you aren't even a US citizen.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Except for 1 post about body armor, not 1 comment that was upvoted had anything to do with a technological solution which was the crux of the question in this post.
"No" 5 Insightful... REALLY!??!?
I don't want to compare to much to a website that shall not be named (rhymes with eddit) but I am quite disappointed.
Perhaps I expect too much.
C'est la vie.
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
he best technical answer is for the President to order a mass psychoanalysis for the entire American population by a panel of expert Psychiatrists and academics. The objective would be to find out why Americans are so irationally afraid, discover the root causes of this fear psychosis, and recommend cognitive behavioral therapy. Perhaps these irrational fears are the result of: The War of Independence and 1812, the Civil War, the Cold War, Vietnam, Korea etc. We seem to be terrified of : Muslims, Communists, Mexicans, LGBTI, gangs, and even our God. Many of us very afraid of divine retribution, the End Days, and what will happen to us when we die. We are afraid of being driven into poverty by injury or disease. Some are even developing a survivalist mentality, planning how best to shoot their starving neighbours. The peresident would then ask his experts top propose cognitive behavioural therapy: possibly in the form of education, advertising, and individual counselling. When Americans are not so shit-scared of everything, including each other, then perhaps they will not feel so obliged to own powerful firearms. Better gun laws will never be the answer to a paranoid psychosis
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
People in prison have liberty?
I think your grasp on "inalienable" isn't as solid as you think it is.
See that "Preview" button?
Of course there were ethnic enclaves in Europe. As for whether some of them are Muslim or not, I really couldn't give a rat's turd. The Christians, as you say (about 1 x 2001-09-11 spread over a generation and a bit - though the final body count is probably not in yet) have been as bad as the Muslims. Hindus, Wiccans and Buddhists are negligible in population and lethality. The Romans and Vikings probably beat the rest of the religions hands down. (You do know that most of the "barbarian tribes" were Christian by the time they came onto the historical scene? Arian "heretics" mostly, but that's like splitting hairs between Sunnis and Shias.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Expel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... from your country since http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10...
Casteism
Life is , inherently, unsafe. And the freer your society is, the more it will lean towards unsafe.
Such is life.
Why not ask "Can we live without oxygen?"
I've lived in the US. I've spent a LOT of time in Australia. Compared to the US, Australia is Homogeneous.
No.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
So by this logic the japanese won WW2. This is weapons grade stupidity.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Did the Japanese win WW2 or are you an idiot?
Choose.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
When was the last time an us state declared total war on the rest of the us?
Does Texas count? I'm pretty sure the think they count.
A certain class of chemical antidepressants was in play for many of the mass shooting events in the U.S. - starting or stopping these drugs shortly preceded the violent events, from Columbine to Joker-boy. The folks that weren't on the drugs weren't lone wolves nor operating in a vacuum - it has been reported that the shooters had been reported on and most investigated by the FBI prior to their crimes ("known wolves"). They had shown violent tendencies in public and/or social media, made threats and had support from their immediate families, friends or communities. No-fly lists are not transparent (many folks have no idea how they got on one) and are very difficult to get out of (much fixing required), but terrorism investigations are more specific and must be documented, should be subject to FOIA and backed by warrants - and they should have more teeth, since clearly they are dropping suspects too soon and failing the innocents who have been gunned down so far. Keep these two sets of people from legally acquiring firearms, and a step is made in the right direction. Taking away all legally-owned guns is clearly not the answer; too many parallels to tyrants right before genocides, and the crooks are still armed anyway.