Another public multiple shooting

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by worth

A no guns policy basically takes guns away from the people looking to protect themselves, and you end up with the only person on campus with a gun is the criminal, and the police who won't do anything.

So how come we NEVER hear about a multiple shooting being stopped by a civilian with a gun?

Oh wait a min..I has to be because not enough people have guns...I see.........

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Azure

Simple really? If its so simple, why can't I reverse your argument...meaning by not having guns, it closes the doors to people abusing guns and killing people?

Can't you even see the flaw in your own argument?

What? You must not be making your piont clearly or I misunderstood because you just supported my point which is: having guns = oppurtunity for people to kill people with guns. Not having guns = less oppurtunity to kill people with guns. What flaw are you getting at?

I have the right as an American citizen, living in the United States, to own a handgun. I own it in a safe manner, and teach my children proper gun safety to make sure they are responsible as well. Why should MY handgun be taken away?

Does everyone do this with their gun? Didn't think so. I couldn't care less about your second amendment as I live in Canada and frankly if you Americans want to blow each others brains out across the boarder, then feel free to exercise that right. Just because the law says you can own a gun, doesn't mean the law can change. Your amendment says right to bear arms. So then why "the dumbest thing you ever heard" that I posted below not give you the right to own a missle? That's an "arm".

You're a little ignorant, aren't you? Of course, as someone who lives in a society where guns are largely frowned upon, where handguns and assault rifles are largely illegal, I'm not surprised.

Perhaps you would learn a bit from going to Google and typing in gun training.

The way you talked about this training was that it was something everyone took. Which is far from the truth. The people who take gun safety courses are the ones least likely to abuse their guns. Not because they took the course but because they have the mind set not to abuse guns. The people are committing gun related crimes surely don't take a safety course. An involuntary gun safety course is useless in preventing crimes because the ones who are going to commit the crimes aren't going to take them.

So anyone who defends them self is a killer? Seriously, you're really pulling these comments out of nowhere, and again, you are showing total ignorance on the subject.

Is everyone who has taken gun courses, firearms safety, handgun training...all our military members who train day and night to protect us...are they all killers? Because that is exactly what you just said.

I am advocating some sort of gun safety course for anyone who buys a firearm. Just like driving a car....first you need a license.

Ignorance eh? Guns are made for killing. People in the military are trained to kill people. No dancing around that. I did not say that someone who defends themselves is automatically a killer or they are actively going out and killing people. But there are so many excessive gun deaths. And by that I mean that a gun was not needed to defend ones self.

Correction - there is no law 'requiring' that you take proper safety training for the firearm that you own. Not in Canada, nor in the US.

I never said there was. Please read more carefully.

Well my point is that it should be made mandatory for anyone that owns a firearm. Of course you could be subjective and apply it only to handguns.

But how many gun-related accidents would you stop by enforcing this training?

This is the first I've heard you making this point. Before it was it a choice, not you want it mandatory?

Why should I even respond to that?

Seriously, if you're just going to talk crap, and respond like an idiot, why should I respond?

Nice attitude you got there. At least I had the courtesy to respond to you in a civil manner without name calling. You don't have to respond, no one is putting a gun to you head. (ha! see how clever I am?)

I only used alcohol as a comparison because many, many people die from alcohol related accidents each year. Here in Canada, more die from alcohol related accidents than they do from gun-crimes.

That's a poor argument. I can't kill someone with my alcohol. I can kill them with my car, but not with alcohol. I cannot hold up a beer to someone and kill them. A gun can. If I want to drink myself to death I can. You shooting me with a gun is not my choice.

Well you're not going to solve this by adding more alcohol to the equation, right? Just like you're not going to solve gun crimes by adding more guns? So why not 'ban' alcohol, just like you want to 'ban' guns...especially assault rifles and handguns, and presto, all alcohol related crime is gone. Or not....because there exists this thing called the black-market....and it will ALWAYS exist, no matter how many laws you pass, or how many bans you impose.

What's your point? I never said it was possible to get rid of all the guns. I know that. So why is that an argument in favour of keeping guns? You cannot deny that making guns completely illegal to buy would decrease their numbers ten fold.

Therefore, your only solution is like Thunderball said. You try to dictate the demand. Teach someone to not drink and drive, like they did while I was in school, and most of us won't. Teach us about gun safety, and you'll seriously cut down on accidental crimes. You will NOT EVER stop gun related crime. A criminal has the personality of breaking the law, not obeying it. Therefore he will pass his gun in to the police when you impose a gun ban.

Look at the Swiss....their young men are all brought up in the vicinity of firearms. They train with them for a certain amount of time. How much gun related crime do they have?

I have been advocating all along that gun safety is a good idea. But that doesn't mean you should still be able to buy them. Guns do not have to be a facade of our society.

And if you are going to responded I suggest you do so in a more polite manner this time. I don't appreciate being called ignorant because I don't agree with you.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

So how come we NEVER hear about a multiple shooting being stopped by a civilian with a gun?

Oh wait a min..I has to be because not enough people have guns...I see.........

Its more Break and Enter robberies that are stopped with the family weapon. Thats why BnE rates in the US are way lower than in Canada, something like 1000 per 100k in Canada to 700 per 100k in the US. Same with motor vehicle theft. Thats from Statscan. They also have a "King of your Castle" law where you can legally shoot and kill an armed and dangerous intruder, where in Canada, you can and will be prosecuted because you "didn't let them take your stuff and go."

Just because there are concealed carry laws doesn't mean everyone carries their gun everyday. Concealed carry in the US is used primarily (from what I am told) to make sure people can transport their guns without fear of police.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

So how come we NEVER hear about a multiple shooting being stopped by a civilian with a gun?

Oh wait a min..I has to be because not enough people have guns...I see.........

Apparently you have to read into the impartial world of the gun magazine. What a joke. It's like reading a Ford magazine written by Ford enthusiasts telling you how reliable a Ford is.

Oh and of course these stories of hero's always miss the news.

[Daradon]

^^^ Fair enough, though I think I'd have slightly more thefts than WAY more murders.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

Its more Break and Enter robberies that are stopped with the family weapon. Thats why BnE rates in the US are way lower than in Canada, something like 1000 per 100k in Canada to 700 per 100k in the US. Same with motor vehicle theft. Thats from Statscan. They also have a "King of your Castle" law where you can legally shoot and kill an armed and dangerous intruder, where in Canada, you can and will be prosecuted because you "didn't let them take your stuff and go."

Just because there are concealed carry laws doesn't mean everyone carries their gun everyday. Concealed carry in the US is used primarily (from what I am told) to make sure people can transport their guns without fear of police.

Do you have anything to back this up? Sounds pretty close to a post hoc fallacy to me.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Do you have anything to back this up? Sounds pretty close to a post hoc fallacy to me.

I should have said, its one of three reasons why, but its a pretty solid psychological reason... its not a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, its reasonable logic that many proponents of these laws point to. 41% of Americans own guns, v. 26% of Canadians... Americans won't go to jail for killing an invader, Canadians will. From what I learned in psychology, criminals typically prefer the path of least resistance. Why rob a house with a security system, why rob a house with a gun owner, when there's an easier prey somewhere else. Many criminals also turn to crime for preservation... there's no preservation if you could come out of that house in Dallas with a hole where your brain used to be. I'm too lazy to dig out which book it was in, but those are predominant schools of thought.

The other two reasons mentioned in what I have read are:

-Canadians report more BnEs and vehicle thefts (this one is pretty flimsy, but its what I read)

-Americans have higher punishments for property crimes.

[worth]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

So how come we NEVER hear about a multiple shooting being stopped by a civilian with a gun?

Oh wait a min..I has to be because not enough people have guns...I see.........

Not news? Not looking hard enough? I dunno, you tell me.

Well, the survey mostly generated results pretty consistent with those of a dozen previous surveys which generally indicates that defensive use of guns is pretty common and probably more common than criminal uses of guns. This survey went beyond previous ones in that it provided detail about how often people who had used a gun had done so. We asked people was the gun used defensively in the past five years and if so how many times did that happen and we asked details about what exactly happened. We nailed down that each use being reported was a bona fide defensive use against a human being in connection with a crime where there was an actual confrontation between victim and offender. Previous surveys were a little hazy on the details of exactly what was being reported as a defensive gun use. It wasn't, for example, clear that the respondents weren't reporting investigating a suspicious noise in their back yard with a gun where there was, in fact, nobody there. Our results ended up indicating, depending on which figures you prefer to use, anywhere from 800,000 on up to 2.4, 2.5 million defensive uses of guns against human beings -- not against animals -- by civilians each year.

About 8 percent of the defensive uses involved a sexual crime such as an attempted sexual assault. About 29 percent involved some sort of assault other than sexual assault. Thirty-three percent involved a burglary or some other theft at home. Twenty-two percent involved robbery. Sixteen percent involved trespassing. Note that some incidents could involve more than one crime.

Fifty-four percent of the defensive gun uses involved somebody verbally referring to the gun. Forty-seven percent involved the gun being pointed at the criminal. Twenty-two percent involved the gun being fired. Fourteen percent involved the gun being fired at somebody, meaning it wasn't just a warning shot; the defender was trying to shoot the criminal. Whether they succeeded or not is another matter but they were trying to shoot a criminal. And then in 8 percent they actually did wound or kill the offender.

We also asked whether the offender was armed. The offender was armed in 47.2 percent of the cases and they had a handgun in about 13.6 percent of all the cases and some other kind of gun in 4.5 percent of all the cases.

Armed with a knife: 18.1 percent, 2 percent with some other sharp object, 10.1 percent with a blunt object, and 6 percent with some other weapon. Keep in mind when adding this up that offenders could have had more than one weapon.

http://www.rense.com/general76/univ.htm

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/p/faculty-gary-kleck.php

A national survey conducted in 1994 by the Police Foundation and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice almost exactly confirmed the estimates from the National Self-Defense Survey. This survey's person-based estimate was that 1.44% of the adult population had used a gun for protection against a person in the previous year, implying 2.73 million defensive gun users. These results were well within sampling error of the corresponding 1.33% and 2.55 million estimates produced by the National Self-Defense Survey.

http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

I should have said, its one of three reasons why, but its a pretty solid psychological reason... its not a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, its reasonable logic that many proponents of these laws point to. 41% of Americans own guns, v. 26% of Canadians... Americans won't go to jail for killing an invader, Canadians will. From what I learned in psychology, criminals typically prefer the path of least resistance. Why rob a house with a security system, why rob a house with a gun owner, when there's an easier prey somewhere else. Many criminals also turn to crime for preservation... there's no preservation if you could come out of that house in Dallas with a hole where your brain used to be. I'm too lazy to dig out which book it was in, but those are predominant schools of thought.

The other two reasons mentioned in what I have read are:

-Canadians report more BnEs and vehicle thefts (this one is pretty flimsy, but its what I read)

-Americans have higher punishments for property crimes.

Your elaboration makes sense, I thought you were attributing guns solely as the reason B&E was being prevented. You should teach Azure how to debate. Of course the flip side is that Americans have less break and enter, but more murder, and one is worse than the other.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Daradon

The second ammendment gives one the right to bear arms. If you look at it closely, it says nothing about guns. In fact, it doesn't saymuch about how people take it now.

But if arms means weapons, dos that mean you have the right to weapons grade plutonium?

This is what it really meant.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Burninator

What? You must not be making your piont clearly or I misunderstood because you just supported my point which is: having guns = oppurtunity for people to kill people with guns. Not having guns = less oppurtunity to kill people with guns. What flaw are you getting at?

So who wouldn't have the guns? The law-abiding citizen, or the criminal? The US has no problem letting illegals into their country, why would they care any less about guns?

A gun does not equal an opportunity to kill people. According to that statement, we should ban knives too, because they kill people as well. In fact, I would venture to say if there were no guns, people would kill each other with knives, or something else.

So your problem is not the guns, but the fact that people WANT to kill each other.

Does everyone do this with their gun? Didn't think so.

Well if you read my posts a little better, you would see that I fully advocate proper training for anyone that owns a firearm. I have stated that since the start of this thread.

This is the first I've heard you making this point. Before it was it a choice, not you want it mandatory?

Did I ever suggest otherwise? It is a choice yes....I want it mandatory. Get it?

That's a poor argument. I can't kill someone with my alcohol. I can kill them with my car, but not with alcohol.

Even better. Let us ban cars, because clearly, they kill people. Let us all use public transportation. Not only would you cut down on ALL car related accidents, but you would clean up the environment. Assuming that global warming is strictly a human-caused problem.

Don't respond to that point...not in this thread.

Also, it is very easy to regulate cars...as they are rather obvious. Much easier than regulating alcohol. And even easier than regulating guns.

I cannot hold up a beer to someone and kill them. A gun can. If I want to drink myself to death I can. You shooting me with a gun is not my choice.

So we finally agree. It is not the fault of the alcohol that you drink that makes you delirious and unresponsive causing you to run into another car killing all the passengers....but rather the person drinking the alcohol, who made that decision. So rather than banning alcohol, you would be much wiser to educate everyone that drinking and driving is not right, and should never under any circumstances be done by anyone. Just like shooting an innocent person with a gun is not right, and neither should it be done. Of course it doesn't help that people in the US live in a society where violence is often glorified. You see it daily on TV.

What's your point? I never said it was possible to get rid of all the guns. I know that. So why is that an argument in favour of keeping guns? You cannot deny that making guns completely illegal to buy would decrease their numbers ten fold.

I disagree. Banning guns would only take them out of the hands of the law-abiding citizen, not the criminal. A criminal will not obey a law imposing a gun ban upon all civilians. You will certainly decrease accidental gun deaths, but thats like saying if we ban cars, we would decrease car related deaths ten fold. When do your rights as a free-law abiding citizen come into effect?

I have been advocating all along that gun safety is a good idea. But that doesn't mean you should still be able to buy them. Guns do not have to be a facade of our society.

Wells it good that you advocate gun safety. You do not like guns, so don't own or buy one. But don't take away my right to do that.

And if you are going to responded I suggest you do so in a more polite manner this time. I don't appreciate being called ignorant because I don't agree with you.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I never said anyting about banning alcohol. alcohol may cause accidents, but it isn't used to outrght kill people, big difference.

Yes we should teach people. But the fact of the matter is, and the situation shows it, that guns help people kill too easily, to indiscrimintely.

Guns were made to kill. Alcohol wasn't. Huge difference.

So everyone that owns a gun, owns it to kill people? Because you just said guns were made to kill people, nothing else.

There is no middle ground....

But if arms means weapons, dos that mean you have the right to weapons grade plutonium?

Am I the only one who thinks this is a stupid question?

Arms is a subjective term, but widely accepted as meaning guns. The US government has a problem with Iran owned weapons grade plutonium, but it will be alright for their citizens to own it?

And I'd prefer it if you didn't attack me by saying 'this is the dumbest and most ignornat thing ever.'

If you got a point make it.

P.S. very sorry that you hate stats...

Saying guns are not used to defend oneself is ignorant and stupid. What the hell does the military do with their guns than? Why does the police force all issue handguns? To kill people, or protect themselves? Is not the job of the police form to 'serve and protect' or whatever the hell they call it these days?

[Displaced Flames fan]

http://www.ksn.com/news/local/7295216.html

An update on the KC shooter....

Evidently he had killed his elderly neighbor and moved into her home (without disposing of the body) because he wasn't able to pay the utility bills and mortgage at his own home.

Stole the gun from her as well.

Bad guys find ways to get guns. Can't stop them.

[Daradon]

So everyone that owns a gun, owns it to kill people? Because you just said guns were made to kill people, nothing else.

There is no middle ground....

I agree there is middle ground, I agree there are a lots of people who use them responsibily, but to say that access to guns ISN'T the number one case of gun related violence in the states is ridculous. Especially when the numbers differ by 6-20 times that of any other first world nation.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a stupid question?

Arms is a subjective term, but widely accepted as meaning guns. The US government has a problem with Iran owned weapons grade plutonium, but it will be alright for their citizens to own it?

But it's ok for the U.S government to own it? Even though they are the only nation on the planet to use it in a hostile manner. That's the message. The U.S. is obviously the most massive armed nation in the world, perhaps it makes sense that their populace is too.

The U.S. has been using their military more and more lately, perhaps it makes sense the populace is using their guns too.

And interesting side note many have debated in the media the last few weeks.

However, if 'bear arms' is a subjective term (which it is) why is the cut off assault rifles? I don't get it. If it's subjective why isn't the cut off hunting rifles? Why isn't it somewhere. This argument is lacking becuase it IS subjective. The cut off could easily go either way. From a hunting bow, to weapons grade plutonium.

Until someone writes into the constiution what it specifically means (and there is evidence to suggest that it didn't mean handguns) then it's all moot. But right now, it's seems proven that the current system is beyond the responsibility of most individuals. The rule needs to be looked at, and at the very least clarified.

Saying guns are not used to defend oneself is ignorant and stupid. What the hell does the military do with their guns than? Why does the police force all issue handguns? To kill people, or protect themselves? Is not the job of the police form to 'serve and protect' or whatever the hell they call it these days?

But they are licenced officers of the peace. The rest of the people are not. And they prove this everyday by how they use them. Again, difference of responsibility. (and use)

EDIT: Gotta figure out how to use the quote function better for multiple quotes...

[Flashpoint]

I always like the TV ad the UK ran when they banned handguns in the wake of the Dunblane school shooting in 1996.

Sean Connery donated his time for the voice over. It went along the lines of this:

“Gun enthusiasts claim that to ban handguns would deprive them of their enjoyment of target shooting.”

“Is that more, or less enjoyment than watching your child grow up?”

A time magazine study done about 10 years ago looked at every gun death in the US for one week, and wrote a story about each. 52 people were killed for each instance they were used “appropriately” for self defense.

To suggest guns save lives (or could save lives) is a non sequitur. More guns = more death. Regardless of the intentions of responsible owners. It’s the unforeseen crap that bites you in the ass – like when your 8 year old kid figures out the combo to your safe and hands a gun to a playmate.

The UK gun death rate (see from previous page) is now lower than Canada’s. The results speak for themselves. The sooner all handguns are banned, the better.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Azure

So everyone that owns a gun, owns it to kill people? Because you just said guns were made to kill people, nothing else.

There is no middle ground....

Very true there is no middle ground. The purpose of a firearm is to shoot a projectile at high velocity. Usually at someone/something else. The primary purpose of guns is to kill. How can't you see that? They were invented to kill, they are used to kill, and they will continue to be used to kill.

The concept of protecting yourself by carrying a gun is the concept of using your gun to kill someone who threatens your life.

Gun == kill.

They serve no other purpose.