Exactly! Then I might be like one of those ridiculous women on Lifetime movies, who are screaming because some man is attacking her.
Oregon Community College Shooting - What law (if any) could have prevented it?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Exactly! Then I might be like one of those ridiculous women on Lifetime movies, who are screaming because some man is attacking her.
The problem is, you are trying to fix problem A, with a means other than the main causal factor for problem A. Your political bent is blinding from seeing what needs to be done.
Your example had more to do with mental instability than using a gun.
Alate_One
Well-known member
That's why you have a gun buyback program. Australia did it following a really horrific mass shooting. They had about the same number of guns per capita as the USA and they reduced it massively. Are there still illegal guns? Sure. But there's a lot fewer than there were before and a lot fewer of the negative effects.
| But in 2012 a study by Australian National University's Andrew Leigh and Wilfrid Laurier University's Christine Neill concluded that in the decade after the law was introduced, the firearm homicide rate dropped by 59 percent and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65, with no corresponding increase in homicides and suicides committed without guns. |
Read Australia's story here
WizardofOz
New member
While the trend of mass shootings is troubling (how about securing entrances at schools so psychopaths cannot waltz right in) the sky is not falling
Statistically, you're less likely to be murdered now than at any point in the past 55 years.
Statistically, you're less likely to be murdered now than at any point in the past 55 years.
Alate_One
Well-known member
But a guy with mental instability can't kill dozens of people as easily without a gun.
The causal factor of death is bullets from a gun. Take the gun away and you have a totally different situation.
Imagine a baby grabs a knife from a drawer. What do you do? devise a treatment scheme to make the baby not a baby anymore or take the knife away?
What makes you think a crazy guy can't get his hands on a gun(s) after we make them illegal?
Alate_One
Well-known member
True but you're far more likely to be murdered in the USA than any other advanced nation.
Spoiler
Alate_One
Well-known member
Some will, certainly. But it's about making it more difficult, not impossible. Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since they instituted their gun regulations.
And one wouldn't have to make guns completely illegal, but instead be selective about who can own them. Fewer guns would also make armed guards more effective. They'd be less likely to be outgunned.
Australia isn't America.
Different culture, different history, different everything.
In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm described extinction fantasies as an aspect of “necrophilism,” which can feed malignant aggression. People with a "necrophilous character" are guided by a set of values that glorifies death and demolition.
As Klebold struggled with a sense of failure, equating suicide with tranquility and escape, Harris aimed his hatred outward. He attended closely to stories of prior school shootings. The way these young men reinforced each other’s dark side is a striking factor in their “mission.” Each time they worked on their plans, laughing over who might die
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shadow-boxing/201207/mass-murder-motives https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shadow-boxing/201207/mass-murder-motives
James Knoll IV, a forensic psychiatrist at Upstate Medical University, part of the State University of New York, has written that in such a narcissistic culture or subculture, affronts to self-esteem can be equated with threats to our very survival and that the typical response to such narcissistic injuries is a desire for revenge.
Mullen described several traits and historical factors that these individuals had in common. In particular, they were bullied or isolated as children, turning into loners who felt despair over being socially excluded. They were generally suspicious, resentful grudge holders who demonstrated obsessional or rigid traits. Narcissistic, grandiose traits were also present, along with heavy use of externalization. They held a worldview of others being generally rejecting and uncaring. As a result, they spent a great deal of time feeling resentful and ruminating over past humiliations. Such ruminations invariably evolved into fantasies about violent revenge. Mullen noted that the offenders seemed to “welcome death,” even perceiving it as bringing them fame with an aura of power.
http://www.jaapl.org/content/38/1/87.full
You are taking one variable and drawing to a conclusion that if this variable is removed, then all will be better. Not very scientific.
Studies show that these same individuals will kill by other methods.
Columbine was intended not primarily as a shooting at all, but as a bombing on a massive scale
Alate_One
Well-known member
It's not rocket science. Making bombs is difficult and requires technical know-how.
Knives are harder for an untrained person to use to devastating effect. A gun is simply the easiest method of killing a lot of people with little to no training.
You're really trying to argue that easier and more destructive weapons don't translate into more deaths with other things being equal. Amazing. :nono:
That's not what the data from Australia shows. Or did you not read that post?
And what studies are these. How about a citation like I have done on my posts?
"The Homicide Monitor, compiled using comprehensive data from 2012, reveals that a third of the world's 450,000 murders were perpetrated in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Specifically, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela and Brazil are among the countries where murders are most common. May 13, 2015' http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/05/13/where-world-are-you-most-likely-be-murdered
then we have:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...kely-to-be-a-victim-of-homicide-10242435.html
Alate_One
Well-known member
They're still human beings, many also of European descent (which are the vast majority of mass shooters). I don't see any reason for "culture" to make a difference when dealing with gun violence.
Our cultural problem as a nation is we aren't willing to even try *any* type of new gun laws in response to these disasters.
We just throw up our hands and pretend that guns are simply a part of the natural environment that we have to put up with. They're like tornadoes or something. :sigh:
And then we have:
64% of gun deaths in U.S. are suicides
I guess they couldnt do that without a gun. :think:
64% of gun deaths in U.S. are suicides
I guess they couldnt do that without a gun. :think:
glorydaz
Well-known member
So you'd rather those "tornadoes" were only available to the bad guys. People can make guns in their own garages, you know. Criminals will always have guns, and they don't follow any laws.
:thumb: I think people hunt more in the US also than they do in the UK too.
Seems a lot of things are being ignored by the "take away the guns' crowd.
Anyone, who is not a total moron, can learn to make a bomb. Why did the Zodiac killer use the knife when he subdued two victims with a gun, why not just shoot them?
You fail to understand for the same reason you think bomb making is difficult, because you are not motivated to learn, rather you prefer your ingrained rhetoric about guns being the cause of mass killings.
I did site what I wrote, again, you fail to take a close reading because you feel your quick response is more persuading than knowing the cause.
I deal with the facts, you are motivated to persuade.
Alate_One
Well-known member
Yes, and those countries aren't in the listing I gave.
These are:
| AUSTRALIA AUSTRIA BELGIUM CANADA CHILE CZECH REPUBLIC DENMARK ESTONIA FINLAND FRANCE GERMANY GREECE HUNGARY ICELAND IRELAND ISRAEL ITALY JAPAN KOREA LUXEMBOURG MEXICO NETHERLANDS NEW ZEALAND NORWAY POLAND PORTUGAL SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA SPAIN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TURKEY UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES |
Of course there are countries that are worse, but that's quite a list of countries that are better than us. In the overall list of UNODC statistics lists the USA as 108 out of 218.
True but that's not entirely the point of this comparison.
It should be, because its not as you are representing it.
PS i added back in my quoted material that you clipped in your response.
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Alate_One
Well-known member
Oft repeated overly simplistic statement. Consider this: Criminals are lazy. If they weren't lazy they wouldn't be criminals. If they were smart and inventive enough to build guns and bombs, they'd be inventing and building things and making a living. There are occasional unabombers, but compared to the run of the mill point and shoot criminals, there's no comparison.
You CAN build your own gun, you CAN build a bomb in your basement, but by increasing the amount of effort required you will decrease the number of people that will do it. Why? because people, and especially criminals, are lazy.