The clear conclusion from this is that everyone at the party should have been armed. Everyone could have pulled out guns and shot anyone they saw with a gun. Perfect solution!
https://www.nbcnews.com/...leaving-san-antonio-mall-n1104736, reads a CBS headline. Four people were standing in a breezeway just outside the South Park Mall when three men in a black Dodge Charger drove by and fired numerous shots into the group.
The people shot have no one to blame but themselves. This is Texas, after all. They should have all been carrying and exercising hypervigilence (a la New Cat's Eye's claim of hypervigilence to the point where no one could ever shoot him unawares) so that this Dodge could never sneak up on them. Sure, they might have shot up a few cars filled with innocent people that appeared suspicious, but that's the price we pay for living in a free society.
There is one other possibility: take away the guns. No guns, no shootings.
What we know about gun violence isn't much because federally funded research pretty much dried up after the Dicky Amendment passed in 1996: "None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control." Since any research produced could be used to "advocate or promote gun control," gun research pretty much died at that point.
But we do know more than nothing, and the September/October issue of Discover Magazine ran the article The Science of Gun Violence. I wish I could link to it, but I couldn't find a publicly available link, and at this moment their login server appears to be down, so I can't even log in to find it, but I'll summarize and/or quote a few things from it.
There's a growing desire among researchers, particularly epidemiologists, social scientists and statisticians for filling in a missing piece in the gun violence discussion. They believe science can make contributions that could reduce gun injuries and fatalities.
One scientist was quoted saying:
quote:"We haven't been investing as a country in research in this area in the same way that we have in motor vehicle accidents, for instance, where for [more than] 35 years we've had an entire agency devoted to that, collecting fantastic data. The result has been that motor vehicle accidents are [a] quarter fo what they were at the time the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was started."
Given that motor vehicle deaths are roughly the same as firearm deaths, there should be a National Gun Safety Administration. In terms of research the US spends $63/fatality for gun deaths and $1000/fatality for motor vehicle deaths. That's quite a disparity.
About suicide the article says that 60% of gun deaths are suicide, which we already knew, but it also says something that is undoubtedly true and that has been said here but been disputed: suicide is often an impulsive spur-of-the-moment act, and guns are far more effective as a means of suicide than any other method. Only 13% of suicide attempts succeed, unless the method was a gun, in which case the success rate is 90%. The majority of people who make a failed suicide attempt rarely make a second attempt.
Swiss soldiers take their guns home, and when the Swiss halved the size of their army in the early 2000's it caused a corresponding drop in suicides by soldiers. When Israel instituted a policy requiring soldiers to leave their guns on base when they went home on leave there was a 40% drop in suicides among soldiers. Gun availability combined with gun lethality contributes greatly to suicide rates.
Only 10% of gun fatalities are women, but they're far more likely to be killed by an intimate partner.
The U.S. has a gun homicide rate 25 times higher than in other high-income countries. Interestingly, the U.S. homicide rate by other means is also significantly higher, 2.7 times.
Handguns cause more fatalities than any other type of firearm.
Every gun incident prompts a number of people to purchase guns for self defense, never mind that they're not interested in immersing themselves in the gun culture of training and practice and gun safety. While making a person more unsafe immediately after the initial purchase, the passage of time makes the gun increasingly unsafe. As I've described before, the passage of time introduces the possibilities of carelessness, recklessness, depression, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, mental illness and age accompanied by mental and physical decline.
Surface appearances can be deceiving, but given what he's done we know that this mans appearance really tells us all we need to know. He is too elderly and cognitively diminished to have possession of a gun.
Licensing that requires periodic renewal, say every five years just like for a driver's license, would have caught this man's problems years ago. Gun licensing should be required in all 50 states and all territories. Uniformity by placing the licensing requirement at the federal level would be best.
Re: Licenses Should be Required of All Guns Owners
Just noticed your message.
Hyroglyphx writes:
Licensing that requires periodic renewal, say every five years just like for a driver's license, would have caught this man's problems years ago. Gun licensing should be required in all 50 states and all territories.
How would you propose going about enforcing it when the people enforcing the law aren't armed either? Laws are useless without enforcement.
You've asked me pretty much the same question at least several times. Do you really not recall?
About suicide the article says that 60% of gun deaths are suicide, which we already knew, but it also says something that is undoubtedly true and that has been said here but been disputed: suicide is often an impulsive spur-of-the-moment act, and guns are far more effective as a means of suicide than any other method. Only 13% of suicide attempts succeed, unless the method was a gun, in which case the success rate is 90%. The majority of people who make a failed suicide attempt rarely make a second attempt.
I said the above about suicide a couple years ago, but I've since discovered that it's actually an even more settled issue than I thought. The widespread belief that people who comment suicide will just try it again if prevented is profoundly false. The relevant terms from the literature are coupling and displacement.
Displacement is the theory that those who attempt suicide and fail or are prevented will simply go on to find another time and/or means. The attempt at suicide is simply displaced from one means to another. This turns out to be mostly false.
Coupling is suicide due to a confluence of circumstances, usually depression and/or despair combined with a simple and effective means like a gun or a high bridge (e.g., Golden Gate). There's also an impulsive aspect to suicide. 90% of people who survive a suicide attempt do not eventually die by a subsequent suicide attempt.
That coupling accurately describes suicide means that reducing the easy availability of guns would greatly reduce suicides. In 2018 half of all suicides were by guns, about 24,000 people. If guns didn't exist then total suicides in the US would drop by about 40%. There would be around 20,000 fewer suicides.
The irony about guns is that the price of their risks and dangers is borne most by those who love them most and are most determined to keep them.
https://www.yahoo.com/...ed-colorado-birthday-202900085.html, reports Yahoo!News. Six dead! Everyone the gunman shot died. How is that possible? Is he some kind of crack shot, putting bullet after bullet straight through the heart or brain?
No article is reporting the type of weapon yet, but I'm betting on an AR-15 style weapon, the kind that creates horrific wounds wherever it hits and that can accommodate high capacity magazines. Surviving a hit anywhere but the extremities from such a weapon is rare.
One of the missing details was the type of weapon, but when everyone or almost everyone hit dies, that usually means an AR-15 style weapon. These weapons are too dangerous to be in public hands.
To give an idea of the contrast in lethality, Isaiah Brown was shot 10 times by a Virginia sheriff's deputy and survived in critical condition (
Isiah Brown shot 10 times by Virginia sheriff's deputy who had given him a ride an hour earlier, family says - CBS News). As of a few days ago he was still in very critical condition. The deputy is very unlikely to have had an AR-15 style weapon, for two reasons: 1) Isaiah Brown survived; 2) AR-15 style weapons are not typically carried by law enforcement on normal duty.
Or he shot them in the head after they were down. We just don’t know.
But we know much more than nothing, and while your scenario is possible, it is far from most likely. The 100% fatality rate is most easily achieved with an AR-15 style weapon, as we know from past mass shootings where it is very often the weapon of choice. We also know this style is very, very popular, so just statistically it is very likely.
The police are releasing very few details, but another likelihood is that if all the victims were shot in the head that that is heinous enough to have already leaked out.
If you were only arguing that we should postpone final judgment about the weapon used then I would agree with you. Arguing that "we just don't know" as if our ignorance were too great to draw inferences doesn't hold up.
In such a situation, you do not know that you are in mortal danger until he opens fire; because of the open carry laws you literally cannot see it coming.
My standard operating procedure is to leave the vicinity whenever a gun is visible. For example, we were dining at a sidewalk cafe recently when a patrol officer strolled by and then lingered to chat with a couple patrons. We decided it was time to visit the restrooms. I have no answer for concealed weapons.
I know I'm more cautious than your average person. For example, I was completely alone in wearing a mask in the supermarket for a few weeks a year ago March when even the CDC and WHO and Dr. Fauci were saying that if you weren't sick they wouldn't do any good. The mask I wore, then and now, was an N95. The advice at one time was that the general public didn't need N95's, but that was also revealed to be false (it didn't take a genius to figure this out - the information about aerosols has been around a while) and the advice changed to double mask or, if you could find them, wear an N95.
My actions are driven by a desire to keep risk to a minimum with as little disruption to normal life as possible. What action and whether action is necessary at all is part of an equation that can only be approximate as I balance level of threat against the degree of effort necessary to neutralize or reduce it. The presence of a gun increases the possibility of injury or death. The mask advice we were receiving early last year was just obvious nonsense that also didn't take a genius to figure out, as has since been revealed, and since I had N95's they were the obvious choice over cloth or surgical masks.
Maybe a 9mm *can* do as much damage as an AR-15, but it generally doesn't. According to dwise1's recent message, there's an enormous difference in muzzle velocity:
dwise1 writes:
Beretta M9 (adopted by US military)
Muzzle velocity -- 1155 fps (352.044 mps) Ammo (mass of projectile) -- 9x19mm (7.49 g = 0.00749 kg) K = 0.00749 kg × (352.044 mps)2 = 928.273 joules
AR 15
Muzzle velocity -- 2700 fps (822.96 mps) Ammo (mass of projectile) -- 5.56x45mm (3.65 g = 0.00365 kg) K = 0.00365 kg × (822.96 mps)2 = 2472 joules
The ammo for both weapons does tumble after hitting its target, but the AR-15 style weapon also has the incredible shock wave. To kill a person with a 9mm would require enough accuracy to hit or at least come very near vital parts of the anatomy such as heart or lungs or spinal chord or aorta and so forth. To do that six times against people presumably trying to escape is a big ask. To kill a person with an AR-15 only requires hitting the torso, not a big ask six times even with escaping targets. The damage would be devastating.
Don't have time to read the thread now, someone may already have posted this, but the weapon used in the Colorado Springs birthday party mass murder was a Smith and Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
The gun is NOT the problem, it is the society and lack of social support.
Not that a more enlightened approach by government wouldn't help, but all the evidence says guns are the problem.
Saying that AR-15 type rifles are the problem is absolutely as stupid as claiming the election was stolen.
I think you need to respond to arguments actually made instead of ones you make up.
Personally, I find the AR platform ugly and really unpleasant and so it's not something I own or shoot. But to say that it is more dangerous than other platforms is at best sophomoric.
This assertion about relative deadliness is wrong, you offered no evidence in support, and you didn't address evidence introduced earlier that argues against this assertion. More on relative deadliness later.
It's not concealable.
Not true and not a problem. Then there are the localities where carrying semi-automatic rifles out in the open is perfectly legal, so no one has any inkling they're in danger until the person opens fire.
It's not something that is effective in close quarters or crowds.
Questionable and obviously not much of an obstacle anyway.
It's a distance weapon rather than a BBD (Bad Breath Distance) choice. It's not used in very many of the reported shooting.
Obviously false. Referencing Guns used in mass shootings U.S. 2022 | Statista, since 1982 handguns have been used in 96 incidents and semi-automatic rifles in 47 (for an unexplained reason the Las Vegas Strip massacre wasn't included in the count, so it's really 48). Boiling this down, 2/3 of mass shootings are committed with handguns, 1/3 with semi-automatic rifles.
But the deadlier the mass shooting the more likely an AR-15 style weapon was involved. Mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia reveals that for deadlier mass shootings, 10 or more dead, the likelihood of a semi-automatic rifle being responsible rises from a third to nearly a half. For the top 10 mass shootings the involvement of semi-automatic rifles rises to 70%.
But most of all, it does not address the root causes of violence.
But more effective gun control *would* address a root cause of violence ending in murder.
It is an easy cop-out similar to the Salvation Get Otta Hell Free card and so a feel good position for folk that are unable or unwilling to think.
People could just respond, "No, you're wrong, it's you who's unable or unwilling to think." What now? Maybe discuss the evidence?
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