Which means that most sane parents are terrified of their children dying at school.
It means most parents should turn off the TV. Making risk assessments based on the fear peddled by the media is bad parenting.
Many parents also regard child abduction by strangers as something to be highly worried about, and let that fear keep their kids from enjoying all sorts of freedom, from walking to school, to playing outside unsupervised, or taking public transit. And yet the odds of a child being abducted by strangers is less than being struck by lightning.
America's laws around guns are bonkers. But that doesn't mean the risk of kids being shot at school is significant, or greater than it was 30 or 40 years ago.
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It's time to stop treating the talking points of a Russian-funded white nationalists as actual fact. Every piece of evidence indicates a huge problem that is having an extremely negative impact on the populace. As the always enraging Onion headline says, "'No Way to Prevent This' Says Only Nation where this Regularly Happens".
Your made up evidence with nonsensical math is right, but my real facts are Russian white national planted articles? That’s the best you can come up with? I’m not even arguing against gun control because I’m fine with it. I just doubt it will do any good unless it really removes a lot of guns. My whole beef with you is your offensive claim that every American is running around in a panic and is scared their kids are going to die every day in school when those things are very rare and most people who have any sense of perspective don’t sit around worrying about such things that are so unlikely to happen.
First, it's not real, the sign on top was a prank.
Second, I'd guess that rifle ownership in Alberta is probably way higher per capita than in the United States.
Third, other than the mass killings, rifles are very rarely used to kill people. Handguns kill people at 20x the rate and for some reason everyone focuses on rifles:
Edmonton had a rough year in 2014, when 35 people died of homicides in Edmonton. Per capita that would translate to 12,000 in the United states.
Calgary had 26 in 2014, which would translate to 7,280 in the US population.
Both of those numbers are way above the per capita rate that people are murdered with guns in the US, and are probably on par with the murder rate as a whole in the US.
The point? US's gun problem is hand guns. Guns in general need to be eliminated to make any kind of difference. Mass shootings get the headlines, but they are not even registering as a significant risk of death, nor are the weapons of choice used in those crimes.
I don't know where you are getting your numbers from for the per capita. In 2018 the US had a murder rate of 5.3 per 100,000 residence compared to 1.76 per 100,000 in Canada. That is approximately 3x the murder rate.
But lets not say that the US is like a third world country, the murder rate in Mexico for example is something like 22 per 100,000 residence, so 4x that of the US and 10 times that of Canada.
I am all for the universal background check, but it has to be universal with no loop holes. I am all for limiting the size of magazines, I don't see why anyone would need more then a 5 round magazine maximum for a civilian weapon. Personally I would prefer that all weapons are single shot and the reloading procedure requires the shooter to sing "I'm a little teapot" while dancing the hokey pokey.
i know that there's a number of ex-military/police like you that post on this thread, and iirc most believe in some forms of reasonable gun control...
i generally don't have an issue with rifles or shotguns...handguns are and should be regulated...I don't see the need for AR style weapons in Canada, but they are considered restricted weapons so they are fairly rare and so far there doesn't seem to be any issues with them specifically.
i know that there's a number of ex-military/police like you that post on this thread, and iirc most believe in some forms of reasonable gun control...
i generally don't have an issue with rifles or shotguns...handguns are and should be regulated...I don't see the need for AR style weapons in Canada, but they are considered restricted weapons so they are fairly rare and so far there doesn't seem to be any issues with them specifically.
Can I ask why you single out ARs? There's plenty of weapons that are non restricted that would do way more damage but I'm fascinated by people's fixation on this one particular design
Can I ask why you single out ARs? There's plenty of weapons that are non restricted that would do way more damage but I'm fascinated by people's fixation on this one particular design
It's because they keep getting used to execute large numbers of unarmed civilians in public places.
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Your made up evidence with nonsensical math is right, but my real facts are Russian white national planted articles? That’s the best you can come up with? I’m not even arguing against gun control because I’m fine with it. I just doubt it will do any good unless it really removes a lot of guns. My whole beef with you is your offensive claim that every American is running around in a panic and is scared their kids are going to die every day in school when those things are very rare and most people who have any sense of perspective don’t sit around worrying about such things that are so unlikely to happen.
I didn't make up anything, nor did I claim every American is running around in a panic. I wondered why more Americans were not doing that, because to me, it seems like a pretty alarming situation. Let me tell you why:
The last school shooting in this province was April 28, 1999. Just over a week after Columbine. It was in Taber. One boy was killed, another student wounded. It became the first incident of its kind in Canada since a Brampton shooting 24 years earlier. If you Google 'Alberta school shooting', one of the first articles you see references a robbery at the University of Alberta in 2016, and that incident involved an armoured car guard betraying his colleagues and murdering them to take off with the cash. Not remotely the same thing as a school shooting. Parents in this country do not need to be concerned about this sort of thing happening to their child. They can buy them a normal backpack instead of a bulletproof one. They can buy backpacks with Dora the Explorer and Frozen characters, not translucent plastic. A school shooting in Canada is a statistical anomaly.
Meanwhile, America has not had fewer than 57 school shootings per year since 2013, with the country hitting triple digits last year with 108. As of April, there were 24, but that number's obviously gone up since. That's unacceptable. Offensive, even. I wondered how anyone could deal with that, because I couldn't. And as it turns out, a lot of people are dealing with it every day.
82% of parents in households with a median income of <$30,000 are at least "Somewhat worried" about school shootings, with 36% of those parents being very worried. The median individual income in the United States is reported to be $31,099/year. Those households are either one poor person or two really poor people. So that tells you there's an enormous number of lower income families who think this is a big deal. I would guess that a large percentage of those lower income families are black, Hispanic, communities that the president of the United States repeatedly attacks and scapegoats. So it makes sense why they're concerned.
Overall, 63% of American parents are at least somewhat worried about them, with 24% being "Very worried".
64% of $31,000-$75,000 are also a bothered by this, so I really don't understand why you need to get all pedantic when I suggest two people combining to make $60K are probably about as worried about school shootings as the dirt poor folks. Especially after you suggested Calgary's 26 murders in 2014 were equivalent to 7,280 American ones.
Nobody is immune, nobody is safe. It doesn't matter that it probably won't happen to any individual - it's going to happen to someone, and all anyone can do is pray it doesn't happen to them and theirs. Nobody would get on an airplane if 67 of them got hijacked every year. School shootings are an insane thing to be okay with, and it's clear that this occupies a significant chunk of the brain space of a not-insignificant number of American parents. It in incumbent upon the leaders to fix this, to stop it, and to protect their people. That's supposed to be why they're there.
The point about Russian-funded white nationalist talking points was directed as a more general statement about the gun debate, and I apologize if it seemed like I was calling you out for that. That was not the intent.
Here's something else I think would really help: Let people sue the gun manufacturers. This is a country where McDonald's has to pay $640,000 when some fool spills coffee on themselves, and somehow it was only in March of this year that a court ruled the Newtown parents could sue Remington. What the #### is that about?
Stop shielding these companies from litigation. The NRA has been brought to near insolvency in less than two years; these gun companies do not have the bottomless piles of cash the energy companies do. They NEED to move metal, and if they're being hit with billion dollar judgement after billion dollar judgement, that'll help correct things right quick.
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It's because they keep getting used to execute large numbers of unarmed civilians in public places.
pretty much the reason for me is reading about the amount of trauma caused be these weapons in particular, especially in the states.
Quote:
Originally Posted by btimbit
Can I ask why you single out ARs? There's plenty of weapons that are non restricted that would do way more damage but I'm fascinated by people's fixation on this one particular design
AR styles weapons are the topic of conversation in this particular thread... presumably there are a lot of different weapons also listed on the restricted or prohibited weapons list besides the AR style weapon.
based on what i have read at least, i would dispute the argument that there are weapons on the non restricted list that would do more damage than an AR style weapon, granted i am not an expert in firearms and would defer to those like the captain or new era or others that have more experience
obviously all guns do damage: that's what they are fundamentally designed for....AR style weapons don't serve any particular purpose that a regular hunting rifle cannot do, which is what gun supporters have been arguing ad nauseum.
i didn't say Canada should ban them... in fact i said Canada has around 66k of them, but they haven't been an issue to this point... so long as they are regulated, i don't see a reason to change the legislation unless something happens in Canada that causes a reassessment of the availability of that particular weapon
Last edited by oldschoolcalgary; 08-10-2019 at 01:22 PM.
But he specified in Canada. Should we ban something because of how it's being used in a different country by a different culture?
I guess I would simply say that these weapons are already restricted. If the day ever comes where one is used to commit an American-style atrocity, my guess is there would be an immediate groundswell of public support from across the country to prohibit all such weapons, and the government would pass that bill into law about as fast as New Zealand's did. A buyback program would be initiated, and the vast majority of these weapons would be removed from Canadian circulation.
So let's not wait for there to be a horrific tragedy. There is no need for those guns in this country. They're already restricted - restrict them more. If you have a wild hog problem, document it and you can have an AR15 or what have you. But I don't think hobbyists with collections of high powered rifles semi-automatic rifles is anything to be encouraged.
On the flip side, our gun control laws seem to do a really good job striking a balance between freedom and security. I'm not in a rush to change them. You can get these guns if you really want them, and you have to behave a certain way once they're in your possession. They seem to be working.
Can I ask why you single out ARs? There's plenty of weapons that are non restricted that would do way more damage but I'm fascinated by people's fixation on this one particular design
I think the key point in what he was saying is AR style, its easy to use the AR asa representative of a class of weapons because frankly I think its one of the most well known and popular rifles on the market, but also because it looks similar to its military style cousin the M-16.
If we're going to have a reasonable weapon's debate I believe that we can use the term AR style weapon as long as we look at things like
The ability to use a high capacity magazine, while the native magazine that is used is lets say 20 rounds or greater.
A fully semi-automatic design with a high rate of fire
Modularity or the ability to modify the original design to suit the shooters personal needs.
Design is based around a military design
An AR style of rifle can be used as a classification and can include weapons such as the HK MR223, the Bushmaster XM series of sports rifles, Smith and Wesson M&P15 and the Barrett Rec-7.
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On the flip side, our gun control laws seem to do a really good job striking a balance between freedom and security. I'm not in a rush to change them. You can get these guns if you really want them, and you have to behave a certain way once they're in your possession. They seem to be working.
That's my entire point, we don't need to change things here because of what's happening down south. America absolutely needs to increase gun control, but in Canada things are fine the way they are.
Look at the shootings we unfortunately do have in Canada. They're mostly small caliber rifles you can get at Canadian Tire with a non-restricted license, or pistols. Why are we wasting time talking about the big guns that aren't the problem? It's just a feel good activity that wouldn't actually achieve much, promoted by politicians that don't understand the issue that are just looking at a lazy solution for the free brownie points.
If we were to talk about further restrictions on who can get a gun license in the first place, and restricting pistols even further, and even restricting magazine sizes to just 1, I'm absolutely 100% behind that.
But can we stop blaming ARs for completely made up reasons?
I didn't make up anything, nor did I claim every American is running around in a panic. I wondered why more Americans were not doing that, because to me, it seems like a pretty alarming situation. Let me tell you why:
The last school shooting in this province was April 28, 1999. Just over a week after Columbine. It was in Taber. One boy was killed, another student wounded. It became the first incident of its kind in Canada since a Brampton shooting 24 years earlier. If you Google 'Alberta school shooting', one of the first articles you see references a robbery at the University of Alberta in 2016, and that incident involved an armoured car guard betraying his colleagues and murdering them to take off with the cash. Not remotely the same thing as a school shooting. Parents in this country do not need to be concerned about this sort of thing happening to their child. They can buy them a normal backpack instead of a bulletproof one. They can buy backpacks with Dora the Explorer and Frozen characters, not translucent plastic. A school shooting in Canada is a statistical anomaly.
Meanwhile, America has not had fewer than 57 school shootings per year since 2013, with the country hitting triple digits last year with 108. As of April, there were 24, but that number's obviously gone up since. That's unacceptable. Offensive, even. I wondered how anyone could deal with that, because I couldn't. And as it turns out, a lot of people are dealing with it every day.
82% of parents in households with a median income of <$30,000 are at least "Somewhat worried" about school shootings, with 36% of those parents being very worried. The median individual income in the United States is reported to be $31,099/year. Those households are either one poor person or two really poor people. So that tells you there's an enormous number of lower income families who think this is a big deal. I would guess that a large percentage of those lower income families are black, Hispanic, communities that the president of the United States repeatedly attacks and scapegoats. So it makes sense why they're concerned.
Overall, 63% of American parents are at least somewhat worried about them, with 24% being "Very worried".
64% of $31,000-$75,000 are also a bothered by this, so I really don't understand why you need to get all pedantic when I suggest two people combining to make $60K are probably about as worried about school shootings as the dirt poor folks. Especially after you suggested Calgary's 26 murders in 2014 were equivalent to 7,280 American ones.
Nobody is immune, nobody is safe. It doesn't matter that it probably won't happen to any individual - it's going to happen to someone, and all anyone can do is pray it doesn't happen to them and theirs. Nobody would get on an airplane if 67 of them got hijacked every year. School shootings are an insane thing to be okay with, and it's clear that this occupies a significant chunk of the brain space of a not-insignificant number of American parents. It in incumbent upon the leaders to fix this, to stop it, and to protect their people. That's supposed to be why they're there.
The point about Russian-funded white nationalist talking points was directed as a more general statement about the gun debate, and I apologize if it seemed like I was calling you out for that. That was not the intent.
Here's something else I think would really help: Let people sue the gun manufacturers. This is a country where McDonald's has to pay $640,000 when some fool spills coffee on themselves, and somehow it was only in March of this year that a court ruled the Newtown parents could sue Remington. What the #### is that about?
Stop shielding these companies from litigation. The NRA has been brought to near insolvency in less than two years; these gun companies do not have the bottomless piles of cash the energy companies do. They NEED to move metal, and if they're being hit with billion dollar judgement after billion dollar judgement, that'll help correct things right quick.
You’re conflating school shootings and mass school shootings. Most years, none of those 57 shootings per year are mass school shootings. They are not the same thing, not the same causes and not the same solutions.
You twisted the income numbers to come up with the statement that most parents are terrified when that is not what they are saying. I’d probably say I was somewhat concerned if I was asked and I’d guess many Canadians would too. I’m also somewhat concerned about school bus safety, lunch room cleanliness and mold in schools if they asked. I send my kids to school every day and worry about a million other things and it rarely crosses my mind that they are in danger. Most parents I know would say the same thing. I can’t recall any school shootings in my state either (not counting va tech).
based on what i have read at least, i would dispute the argument that there are weapons on the non restricted list that would do more damage than an AR style weapon, granted i am not an expert in firearms and would defer to those like the captain or new era or others that have more experience
Spoiler!
Thats one of mine. It's cheaper than an AR, more accurate, shoots just as fast on semi auto, shoots a much larger and more lethal bullet, and it's non restricted. You could go down to Canadian Tire or Cabela's right now and get one for $600 with the most basic gun license. There's plenty of other examples of similiar guns too.
I'm absolutely pro gun control, I just find blaming one weapon or one class of weapons to be a lazy argument.
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So I just went through the last 30 years of mass murders in Canada. Here's a full detailed list of the ones that included an AR.
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None. The vast majority were pistols, lots of shotguns and a few small caliber hunting rifles. To be fair, one used the exact rifle I posted a pic of above, yet nobody's is up in arms over the many rifles like that,everyone is against ARs.
Again, I'm very pro gun control, but people need to stop trying to find solutions that the US needs and applying them to Canada. The US should absolutely 100% increase gun control, that doesn't mean Canada should knee jerk ban a bunch of firearms that aren't even the problem
When the media hypes a certain gun and you don't bother to actually good read about gun laws or different weapon types, its not surprising that you you hype the same stuff.
Talking points and labels are fun after all.
Like I said earlier, I think a lot of people would be surprised at what weapons you can buy under a non-restricted gun license in Canada.
Wayne LaPierre tried to get the NRA to by him a house in a lake/golf course community so he could be safer. Obviously afraid of getting attacked by someone with a butter knife.
Wayne LaPierre tried to get the NRA to by him a house in a lake/golf course community so he could be safer. Obviously afraid of getting attacked by someone with a butter knife.
