About 50 people killed at gay nightclub in Florida

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

See, I have the exact opposite opinion on this. This situation has so many variables that we know lead to trouble: religious fundamentalism, self hatred, bigotry, mixed messaging, and access to guns.

Does anyone not know that the suicide rate among gay teenagers in devout families (both Muslim and Christian) is crazy high? Add in some cultural anger and some narcissistic rage, and I think those factors become very dangerous in the right person. It's almost too predictable, sadly.

I agree with all of this - I know it's those things I listed but you can't cure them.

I get my post was pretty negative but this #### has been happening since the dawn of man. Maybe not to the scale it does now with the accessibility to automatic weapons but it's always been around.

I also get the argument about the US being the forerunner too, again it's the sheer number of people. Norway had a mass killing - there's only 5 million people there. Genocide and child soldiers in Africa, same #### in the Balkans. We're so ####ed haha.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I agree with all of this - I know it's those things I listed but you can't cure them.

I get my post was pretty negative but this #### has been happening since the dawn of man. Maybe not to the scale it does now with the accessibility to automatic weapons but it's always been around.

I also get the argument about the US being the forerunner too, again it's the sheer number of people. Norway had a mass killing - there's only 5 million people there. Genocide and child soldiers in Africa, same #### in the Balkans. We're so ####ed haha.

Norway - A mass killing. A.

The US is supposed to be "better" (by their own horn-tooting mouths) than everywhere else. A safe haven for the persecuted and oppressed from nations such as you described. It is a far cry from that now. If you feel the need to have a gun for safety, even if you are against guns, there is something seriously wrong with the society as a whole.

Yes people will kill each other. And yes people will kill others on mass scales with dubious reasons. It doesn't happen anywhere in the "civilized" world even close to as much as in the US. Its a systemic issue there. These types of instances are random, infrequent, and horrifying in any other place. In the US, it's just normal. It's just....weird.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Norway - A mass killing. A.

The US is supposed to be "better" (by their own horn-tooting mouths) than everywhere else. A safe haven for the persecuted and oppressed from nations such as you described. It is a far cry from that now. If you feel the need to have a gun for safety, even if you are against guns, there is something seriously wrong with the society as a whole.

Yes people will kill each other. And yes people will kill others on mass scales with dubious reasons. It doesn't happen anywhere in the "civilized" world even close to as much as in the US. Its a systemic issue there. These types of instances are random, infrequent, and horrifying in any other place. In the US, it's just normal. It's just....weird.

When you actually break down deaths on a per capita basis, US deaths from mass shootings are relatively low:



Obviously this chart doesn't include the most recent events of this year.

Where the US exceeds other Western nations is total gun deaths. This is largely due to gang violence and suicides.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I agree with all of this - I know it's those things I listed but you can't cure them.

I get my post was pretty negative but this #### has been happening since the dawn of man. Maybe not to the scale it does now with the accessibility to automatic weapons but it's always been around.

I also get the argument about the US being the forerunner too, again it's the sheer number of people. Norway had a mass killing - there's only 5 million people there. Genocide and child soldiers in Africa, same #### in the Balkans. We're so ####ed haha.

Right. So let's work on limiting the scale and frequency of this sort of attack, while acknowledging that you can never entirely prevent against it. Let's (as a society) agree that five people killed in a shooting is better than 50. That one mass killing a month is better than one every other day. Let's treat mental health as a priority, let's work to identify and give support to those who are going to be particularly at risk for dangerous behaviour. Work the odds. Make this sort of event a tragic, freak outlier, not something that was just waiting to happen.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by blankall

When you actually break down deaths on a per capita basis, US deaths from mass shootings are relatively low:



Obviously this chart doesn't include the most recent events of this year.

Where the US exceeds other Western nations is total gun deaths. This is largely due to gang violence and suicides.

I'm just going to be lazy and copy my post from the Mass Shooting thread a while ago. Please excuse the snarky tone. It was in response to some Nobama nonsense.



Top bar is Assault (other)
Middle Bar is Assault (Sharp object)
Bottom bar is Assault (Firearm)

Almost 2/3 of homicides in the US were commited by firearms. Actually sounds pretty reasonable until you look at the other comparable countries where only two others have firearm death rates above 50% (Greece and Italy; Portugal and France maybe close as well). And that's putting aside the fact that the homicide rate in general is towering over everyone else. If the US gun violence could even be cut in half, it MIGHT bring them down to respectable levels (albeit still well above everyone else).



Look at all those Latin/South American countries that are sending their spooky citizens to the US with comparable homicide rates between major US cities and their ENTIRE COUNTRIES.



Whew, finally a graph that favours the US. Wait, is that Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq and Pakistan? Great company there.

And finally, and most stunning IMO, accidental deaths by firearms!



..funny, it's almost identical to the first graph.

Yeah... there's a problem. I don't see how it's possible to deny it. Your only comparable firearms death rates are f***ing war zones.

http://www.humanosphere.org/science/...-s-rest-world/

[Bandwagon In Flames]

Ughh stop quoting him please. My brain can't handle such backwards opinions on everything in the off-topic thread.

Religion definitely played a big part in this tragedy in addition to his mental instability. Not in the sense that Muslims preach violence, but that they do indeed persecute homosexuals. Add in all the prevalence of Christianity in Florida who have a similar yet less radical stance on homosexuality and you can very well be left feeling completely alone and full of hate.

Historically more people have died in the name of Religion than any other cause, and I don't think that will change until religion is completely abandoned by the entire world. Whether or not people use religion as an excuse for their crimes is up for debate, but it is clearly the best way for these crazies to gain a following.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by blankall

When you actually break down deaths on a per capita basis, US deaths from mass shootings are relatively low:



Obviously this chart doesn't include the most recent events of this year.

Where the US exceeds other Western nations is total gun deaths. This is largely due to gang violence and suicides.

What a stupid chart. Just because there were more deaths per mass shooting doesn't mean those countries are more prone to mass shootings. Norway's numbers are obviously highly skewed by the Breivek massacre and France's by the two attacks in Paris.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by blankall

When you actually break down deaths on a per capita basis, US deaths from mass shootings are relatively low:



Obviously this chart doesn't include the most recent events of this year.

Where the US exceeds other Western nations is total gun deaths. This is largely due to gang violence and suicides.

Yes when you cherry pick only 6 years you can make a singular event in a small country seem like a raging epidemic.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I'm just going to be lazy and copy my post from the Mass Shooting thread a while ago. Please excuse the snarky tone. It was in response to some Nobama nonsense.

I'm not disagreeing with you that the USA is extremely violent. I just think the problem is far more complex than simple gun control.

As I stated the high homicide rate in the USA is largely attributable to gang violence. That is the result of a slew of social issues, that includes gun control.

[PsYcNeT]

I like how per capita can be made as an effective counter to claims of gun violence, but it's easily dismissed when talking about CO2 emissions.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by blankall

I'm not disagreeing with you that the USA is extremely violent. I just think the problem is far more complex than simple gun control.

As I stated the high homicide rate in the USA is largely attributable to gang violence. That is the result of a slew of social issues, that includes gun control.

I agree. At the same time, the end point for me is always, then why are their not more restrictions on gun ownership? Why are people so freely able to purchase weapons capable of killing dozens or hundreds of people in a matter of minutes? Does it keep it out of the hands of criminals? Not necessarily, but reducing the actual supply of guns certainly will reduce the amount of people (including criminals) that have them.

The crux of my original post was that the US claims itself to be this great nation. It's kind of the whole reason a guy like Trump has any support, all he does spew USA rah rah rah, and everyone eats it up like it's the truth. They have an identity problem that begins with not admitting (or even being overly concerned at all about) their own shortcomings. No change, no reform needed. Just keep going as usual. There's no racism. There's no fundamentalist movement infecting their government, there's no political gridlock, there isn't a problem with guns. If anything, add more guns.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I like how per capita can be made as an effective counter to claims of gun violence, but it's easily dismissed when talking about CO2 emissions.

It's not even mass shootings per capita but deaths from mass shootings per capita. The NRA would be proud of that kind of spin.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I like how per capita can be made as an effective counter to claims of gun violence, but it's easily dismissed when talking about CO2 emissions.

Volume matters in both shootings and CO2

Continue driving though.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I like how per capita can be made as an effective counter to claims of gun violence, but it's easily dismissed when talking about CO2 emissions.

Are you suggesting per capita is not the best way to measure violence? When law and order types justify mandatory sentencing and spending more on policing and prisons by their assertions that crime in Canada is getting worse, you wouldn't point to the statistics that show per capita crime in Canada has been dropping for 20 years?

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by nik-

Volume matters in both shootings and CO2

Continue driving though.

Well no. It depends on what you're trying to do with the stats. Something like per-capita mass shooting deaths has little power as a predictive tool because of the small sample size. Nobody would reasonably expect that over the next five years, you have greater odds of being killed in a mass shooting in Norway than in the US.

On the other hand, CO2 emissions on per-capita cannot be dismissed on the same grounds, because they actually have excellent predictive abilities.


But even with per-capita mass shooting deaths, it still has effectiveness in other applications; like if you were having a discussion about how countries have been impacted by mass-shootings, then the small sample size is irrelevant; Norway has been massively impacted, more than any other country. That would be a totally valid use of the statistic. Just don't use it for projections.

[nik-]

I didn't say dismissed. I said volume matters.

One event like that in Norway, with its tiny population, can totally skew the per capita stats and not give an accurate indicator of what the safety level actually is.

[jayswin]

Guys, we just had Peter12 come in and do his thing which upset a lot of people that were trying to discuss this event, now CP's second biggest troll comes in with his typical troll feelers and we're going to engage him? C'mon.

These guys don't take CP seriously in the least, it's all a joke to them to see how much they can rile every one up despite the fact that they have their own biases and aren't as enlightened as they seem to think. Just leave them on their own.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by rubecube

What a stupid chart. Just because there were more deaths per mass shooting doesn't mean those countries are more prone to mass shootings. Norway's numbers are obviously highly skewed by the Breivek massacre and France's by the two attacks in Paris.

Someone posted earlier a WSJ article that said there were three mass shootings in Canada in the last 20 years.

There were three mass shootings in the US yesterday.

[Dan02]

It's downright crazy down there, these days you don't even get a mention unless you hit double digits or it's a celebrity.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/re...hooting?page=1

how many of these were you even aware of?

I think someone else said it best, the US is a country at war with itself.

As per that website, in the last 72 hours there have been 319 shootings in the US.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by blankall

When you actually break down deaths on a per capita basis, US deaths from mass shootings are relatively low:



Obviously this chart doesn't include the most recent events of this year.

Where the US exceeds other Western nations is total gun deaths. This is largely due to gang violence and suicides.

Hrm, good chart. Here is the link to the actual data. After reading that maybe it's not as bad as we think.

http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/com...us-and-europe/