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American Carnage - 31 Killed Between Mass Shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio
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in australia we have routine 'lockdown' drills, which sound exactly like your shooter drills: bell rings for a continuous minute, while we close windows and blinds, lock the door, turn off lights and monitors and cluster around the walls in silence until further notice.
difference is there's essentially zero chance of being shot at a school in australia, and so there's no need for language around that particular threat, and nor is there any vivid fear. it's certainly not a traumatic experience. it seems so strange to me that you'd run it this way, even if only for the sake of level-headedness if a lockdown was required
side note: we did have a lockdown at our school on one occasion. a meth-head locked himself in a maintenance closet near the external toilets and claimed to have a gun. there was no gun. he was equipped with a pepsi bottle and a plastic bag. the excited kids were eventually evacuated to the cricket field by police going class-to-class; they missed my colleague's room, an outdoor demountable, and she remained there dutifully for several hours. it was so notable that i arrived back from school sport to find a camerawoman and bored reporter ready to pounce for a soundbite. my proudest moment as a teacher was standing in front of that camera...
i'm the hero who stopped kids getting shot.
My point is that, as far as i know, no developed nation, not in the middle of civil war, or actual war, has quite the free access to firearms USA has.
Yes, USA is hyper polarized to a degree few nations not already on fire are, this is not an insignificant factor here.
But we should not, ever, start argument that "well rest of the world has access to guns as well", because no, no they don't.
The Mexican government seems to be taking that bull very firmly by the horns. Since this was an attack on their citizens accessing a US border town through a legal crossing point they are demanding the El Paso shooter be extradited to Mexico to face terrorism charges and will be suing the store that sold the shooter his weapon, among other legal action.
Erica is a reporter with CNN but the story is from The NY Times, based on official statements from the Mexican foreign minister.
This clearly isn't just access to firearms because it's actually something that used to be much rarer in the US, with the same access to firearms. It's something that rarely happens in other places where there is widespread access to firearms. I am pro gun control in many ways, obviously, but I think that's putting a plaster on a much deeper wound with much deeper causes.
I seriously doubt it.
Quick google/wiki sorta seems to also suggest that, no, it does not.
Note, this is not a "how many people own guns" or "how many guns per people", but "how easy it is to buy a gun/how stringent legal requirements exist for owning a gun".
Serbia, as far as the wiki claims, requires checks and registration of firearm, US "varies".
You have made a claim, i am unconvinced.
Can/Will you provide further information on this claim?
As with the "shut down 8chan" argument upthread - its a start. Ban every single gun above a certain caliber/magazine clip/whatever - buy back existing ones. Just because it won't solve the problem completely doesn't mean guns stay untouched. FFS - why is it always the same discussion? "Oh noes, banning guns won't really solve the problem, so we shouldn't do it"
Its a fucking start. No other nation on earth has the same problem and no other nation on earth is as in love with guns as yours. Ban the fucking guns. Its not that hard. There is no argument whatsoever, outside of rural people needing it for hunting/defense against animals, to own a gun. None. And there is even less of an argument to own a fucking military grade rifle.
But I think that you've got to be politically realistic, and furthermore, you've got to actually look at why it's happening. This is enabled by widespread gun ownership but not caused by it, IMO.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I agree that it is terrible that kids have to deal with the reality of active shooters as a part of their daily lives. I hate that it is a thing and that the stress of having no notice drills is distressing for anyone especially young kids. My daughter just finished kindergarten and had almost the same amount of active shooter drills as fire drills. I don't know the right answer.
In my opinion the unfortunate reality is keeping everyone on their toes until there is a big fundamental change preventing the threat, and the risk of an active shooter is as mundane as the threat of a fire. You have to think how you react when the fire alarm goes off even if you don't know it is coming. You don't default to what you have been trained to do in a fire drill. You just sit there and everyone is annoyed that you have to extend your staff meeting or know that you will get a few minutes less for recess.
I would rather people be hyper sensitive to the possibility that it could happen than be complacent.
Characterizing what we are doing to a generation of children as traumatizing may be accurate, but at this point it seems necessary because they may need to be prepared for it. There are multiple examples of teachers who barricaded their doors and told the children where to go and to be quiet during an active shooter event who successfully saved lives, because the kids and teachers knew what to do.
The fact that my 6 yo has to do similar training as first responders and the military kills me.
Who has said people should do nothing? Absolutely something has to be done. The problem is that the US is a profoundly white nationalist place with an economy and society which is extremely dehumanising and is driving people to commit mass shootings for reasons of terrorism, of extreme radical disassociation with society and other people, of a desire to commit a sadistic act of murder-suicide.
Limit magazine sizes. Limit gun ownership. Pass gun control legislation. These are all reasonable and good things to do, certainly can't hurt. But you won't unflood the US with guns and the mass shootings won't, I believe, go away. They'll keep happening.
In less than 60 seconds, the Gilroy shooter killed 3 people and wounded 13 others.
In less than 60 seconds, the Dayton shooter killed 9 people and wounded 27 others.
Less. Than. 60. Seconds.
I know this is the debate and discourse forum and all, but I really don’t see how access to the weaponry used in these shootings being an issue is a matter of debate. It’s not the only issue, but it’s clearly a pretty big fucking issue.
There was also a half-page on 8chan (in relation to the shooting). The headline described 8chan as an "Internet paradise for extremists", so the (correct) classification of the site is gaining some traction also here.
Semi-automatic firearms have existed and been owned by private citizens for over 100 years now. The AR15 is not the only semi-automatic firearm in existence.
So take them all away.
Nah.
Post-Parkland activism puts the lie to this—there have been state level achievements, and on a federal level the Democratic party is further left on the issue than they have been. What ended after Sandy Hook was the fantasy that Republicans might change on the issue, but that doesn’t mean that all hope of progress is lost.
This seems significant to me. There have always been mass shootings but they were historically much more uncommon. The amount of mass shootings has tripled since 2011. But guns are as legal now as then. So clearly its not availability of guns causing the current epidemic!
I definitely thing more firearm legislation is generally beneficial, as a point of note.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
But the guns and tools used in most mass shootings became much more widely available in the last 15 years
High capacity magazines, military-style assault rifles...these things were some of the items banned under the AWB. When that was allowed to lapse, sales and marketing for those items exploded. Manufacturers invented the designation “modern sporting rifle” as a figleaf to cover the fact that they were marketing weapons of war to civilians and pretending they were just for target shooting. Bump stocks, whose only purpose is to make a semi-auto weapon behave like a fully-auto one, started being sold.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
No, it’s just the favored weapon of mass shooters. And it’s disingenuous to argue that they’re no different than 100-year-old Lee-Enfields by putting both under the overbroad designation of “semi-automatic”.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Semi-automatic is only broad in that it describes the manner in which the action of a firearm cycles and very many firearms are semi-automatic. A manual bolt action Enfield is not a semi-automatic rifle, but a Remington Model 8, M1 Garand, or 1911 and their various contemporaries are semi-automatic firearms.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
No, it doesn't. Because I'm not looking at a 100 year old firearm (your choice of model Enfield) with a mechanism of function (the firearm is cycled manually with the hand) and comparing it to a 50 year old firearm (the AR15) with a completely different mechanism of function (the firearm is cycled by some means inherent to the mechanism whether gas, recoil, or direct blowback) and saying they are similar. I am pointing to firearms which are 100 years old, like the Remington Model 8 and 1911 pistol and their contemporaries, which have the same mechanism (semi automatic, the firearm is cycled by some means inherent to the mechanism whether gas, recoil, or direct blowback) as the 50 year old firearm. The technology of the semi-automatic firearm has existed for roughly 100 years now, full stop.
I also didn't write that you don't get to have an opinion, correcting you isn't stating you don't get to have an opinion.
Don’t care.
You say the AWB bans all semiauto weapons?
I say fine. Let’s go back to revolvers for handguns and bolt action for rifles. It’s better than what we have now.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
This is like getting angry when someone points out that the jet engine has been around for almost 100 years now because you only want prop planes to be legal. You can be indignant all you like, but it doesn't make stating a basic fact "minutiae".
You're getting hung up on the wrong thing. I disagree with a ban purely because I disagree with a ban, not because you do or do not know whatever arbitrary amount of information about firearms you think I care for you to know about.
It has already gotten quite clear that no amount of blood is going to be too much for people to keep their toys.
Correct. Just like 9/11 didn't suddenly make me agree with curtailing due process protections, 1A protections, 4A protections etc. for US citizens, assholes shooting innocent people isn't suddenly going to make me agree with curtailing 2A protections.
Yes, because due process is periodically used to massacre innocent people.
Totally the same thing.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
You know the frame of reference is completely inappropriate when the talking point is "at least the number isn't higher", compared with almost every other country with gun control laws where the talking point is "why is the number greater than zero". If I may make an analogy:
Fire requires three things - heat, fuel, and oxygen. It's entirely possible for a flame to become more intense by adding additional oxygen, even if the amount of fuel remains constant. It's also possible to reduce the flame by similarly reducing the amount of fuel - even in the face of additional oxygen. You reduce the sources you can affect, even if they are not the direct source of change.
To push the analogy past the point of breaking - it's even possible that there will be a flare up as you attempt to contain the fuel. That doesn't mean in the longer term the fire won't die down.
The disingenuity comes from that firearms have criteria to satisfy to be called an "assault weapon" that extends beyond just being semi-automatic. There is one criteria in particular that renders most of those 100-year old rifles outside the realm of "assault weapon": the detachable magazine.
For the examples NSDFRand made (Remington Model 8, M1 Garand, and 1911), there is something vital that he's not mentioning about those particular firearms: the Remington Model 8 had a fixed magazine capacity ("fixed" as in "the magazine cannot be removed from the rifle and swapped out with a loaded magazine") of 5 rounds (at which point you had to lock back the bolt and manually feed, at best through stripper-clips, the next 5 rounds), the M1 Garand had a fixed magazine capacity of 8 rounds (at which point the bolt is automatically locked open until the next 8-round clip is inserted), and the 1911 has, at most, a 10-round magazine (if you use lower caliber variants...otherwise, you're looking at most 8-round magazines). So in order to get the same numbers of victims as the Dayton or El Paso, the shooter would need to reload multiple times. Reloading takes time. And, in the case of these shootings, any reduction in killing potential would be a win in my book. Take the bare minimum definition of "assault weapon" (semi-automatic, detachable magazine-fed rifle), and ban those firearms (coupled with having a national buyback program for the banned weapons).
Now, I'm not saying to stop at that...but that should be the jumping off point. I can't imagine a realistic case for why a 10+ round detachable magazine is needed (and I'm saying that as somebody who has a couple rifles that would be affected by this idea).
Incidentally, I remember having this exact same discussion (complete with NSDFRand posting about the ambiguities of what an "assault weapon" is and why assault weapon bans are a bad idea/won't work) back during the ChristchurchLas Vegas shooting (my mistake, got my shootings mixed up (which is also messed up when you can't keep recent shootings straight because of how many there've been)).
But those weapons were available before the AWB and mass shootings were nowhere near as prevalent. They were available after it expired in... 2004? and yet the massive increase in mass shootings increased from 2011. So what is causing these spikes?
As I've said, sure, I agree with your desire to enact gun control legislation. I don't think that's pointless and I do think that it's good. But specifically in the context of mass shootings, I think availability of guns exacerbates but does not cause this epidemic.
No weapons on civilian hands that can reloaded without inserting each bullet individually in it one at a time.
While at it, let's ban anything with more than 10 bullets in it.