Another US Gun Massacre - 27 Dead in Texas Church

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, DieselDaisy said:

I heard he has playstations and whores.

I think he has playstation (why shouldn't he, prisonment is not so much about revenge as preventing crime happening again), but whores? That's just silly. We have discerning whores.

[Dazey]

2 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

There has always been and will always be people who kill/injure people for various purposes, be it insanity, radicalism, political terrorism, grievance, etc. They will use various methods to do so. You cannot legislate to prevent every such incident happening. Great Britain, with some of the strictest gun controls in the world, has long had a knife crime problem and is currently witnessing a 'fad' of acid attacks (i.e. people chucking acid in people's faces).

And thanks to our laws we don't also have a gun problem.

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Kasanova King said:

I've probably been to more countries than you have. I'm fairly well traveled.  And the culture in most European countries is vastly different than U.S. culture.  They can see an American walking from a mile away in most European countries.  

That's because many Americans can't walk properly. It is like they are doing it for the first time, trying out the feat of locomotion, figuring out how to move the limbs efficiently. It comes off as stilted and ridiculous. No, go back to your cars 

[downzy]

Just now, Kasanova King said:

I've probably been to more countries than you have. I'm fairly well traveled.  And the culture in most European countries is vastly different than U.S. culture.  They can see an American walking from a mile away in most European countries.  

 

And did you read the rest of my post?  I said that I didn't agree with a lot of the way the sentencing and prison system works in the U.S.  I definitely think it needs a ton of work.

  But the one area where I don't see needing "reduced" sentencing or better prison conditions or better rehabilitation programs  are with the most severe crimes.  A person who murders innocent people, is 100% sane and does it with intent deserves to rot in prison.

 

.

If you've been to 47 countries than you have me beat.  

I was speaking about values, not culture.  On matters of equality, freedom, financial security, job security, role of government, and other criterions, America is not some foreign land.  

There are some slight differences, but nothing so drastic to suggest that what works in say Germany wouldn't work in the US.  The problem the US has its form of governance - it rarely reflects the opinion of the majority.  It's also built to be extremely slow, and hence cannot react to problems in the same way that Canada, Australia, or the UK can.  There are also multiple access points for lobbyists to influence, promote or kill legislation - a dynamic that does not occur elsewhere.

Again, the issue isn't with the people or general attitudes, but with how government responds to social issues.  This is why Americans are generally the least supportive of their governments versus other nations.  

I'm not sure if I agree with your last assessment.  Does an 18 year old deserve to live the rest of his life because he killed someone while robbing a store?  Can that person be saved and rehabilitated?  I'm sure there are examples where that has happened.  Sure, lock up the pedophiles, mass murderers, and those deemed by the medical community to not have any chance of being rehabilitated, but that I think is a very small group of people.  

[SoulMonster]

Anyway, we need more love. People filled with love won't shoot anyone. People kill when they are angry, frustrated, depressed, alone, ostracized, estranged, hurt. So we need more love.

1 minute ago, downzy said:

If you've been to 47 countries than you have me beat.  

It took downzy eight minutes to count his countries 

[Ace Nova]

12 minutes ago, downzy said:

  One wonders where this nation would be if it didn't have the benefits of two oceans defending it, a continent of resources to plunder, and enough geography to provide enough space for its citizenry.   

Same exact thing could be said about Canada.  And Canada has the advantage of basically being the US's little brother....an attack on Canada would be regarded as an attack on the US.

 

[downzy]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

Anyway, we need more love. People filled with love won't shoot anyone. People kill when they are angry, frustrated, depressed, alone, ostracized, estranged, hurt. So we need more love.

It took downzy eight minutes to count his countries 

Nah, I keep a running total ready  as I'm often asked that question by people who know i've traveled a lot.   My goal is to get to 50 and all major continents before I check out.  

Just now, Kasanova King said:

Same exact thing could be said about Canada.  And Canada has the advantage of basically being the US's little brother....an attack on Canada would be regarded as an attack on the US.

 

Except we don't have nearly the same problems that plague the US.  

[soon]

Massacres are foundational to the existence of NA.  Canada is a disgusting colonial project too, but I just dont get how we are on such a vastly different trajectory than the USA with respect to gun violence/law/culture and relations with Indigenous Nations.

"On December 29 [1890], the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.

The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians."

http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/wounded-knee

[Ace Nova]

8 minutes ago, downzy said:

If you've been to 47 countries than you have me beat.  

I was speaking about values, not culture.  On matters of equality, freedom, financial security, job security, role of government, and other criterions, America is not some foreign land.  

There are some slight differences, but nothing so drastic to suggest that what works in say Germany wouldn't work in the US.  The problem the US has its form of governance - it rarely reflects the opinion of the majority.  It's also built to be extremely slow, and hence cannot react to problems in the same way that Canada, Australia, or the UK can.  There are also multiple access points for lobbyists to influence, promote or kill legislation - a dynamic that does not occur elsewhere.

Again, the issue isn't with the people or general attitudes, but with how government responds to social issues.  This is why Americans are generally the least supportive of their governments versus other nations.  

I'm not sure if I agree with your last assessment.  Does an 18 year old deserve to live the rest of his life because he killed someone while robbing a store?  Can that person be saved and rehabilitated?  I'm sure there are examples where that has happened.  Sure, lock up the pedophiles, mass murderers, and those deemed by the medical community to not have any chance of being rehabilitated, but that I think is a very small group of people.  

You have me beat in countries...I haven't counted in a while...maybe a couple of dozen...maybe 30ish if you count ..smaller sovereign nations like Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican etc. 

 

As for prison sentencing and the overall prison system....I think it needs to be reformed...so I don't necessarily disagree with you.  

When it comes to the most severe crimes though I still think setencing needs to be stiff.  For the 18 yearold example you gave....should be handled in a case by case basis.

[gunsguy]

Comparisons are missing a very big point.  The USA population has the RIGHT to bear arms... we are also missing the per capita results from gun mass murders to compare.  I think a lot of what we believe does not rely on data. The USA does not lead the world in per capita mass murder by the gun.  A per capita data graph is needed otherwise you are not comparing anything at all.  USA is special in the fact that the gun is written as a right, in that sense who can we compare them to?  Less than a handful of countries...   You simply cannot remove the rights of the people because some sick fuck killed with a weapon. 

I say help the mentally ill, that can start with the government and the military doing their fucking jobs... Mistakes like this last one should never be overlooked.  I truly hope they are looking at everyone now to make sure it doesn't happen again.  We can't know someone will go off the rails normally but when we do know there has to be a better system in place.

I support legal gun owners in USA and Canada, I do not support the idea that allowing anyone to buy a gun without any checks is good at all.  I also am very aware that criminals don't give a shit about the law, murder is and has always been illegal.  If it's a gun or a sword, truck, bomb whatever it is still illegal and no amount of background checks would prevent someone from using them. 

IMHO any new gun laws make the people who know nothing about guns "feel safer" feeling safer doesn't mean you are.  I have heard so many ideas ranging from taking all the guns away (yeah ok...) to reducing magazine size, anyone who knows anything about guns knows that if you have very limited training, even just shooting every now and then at a range you can change most mags in as little as 1 second... yes I said 1 second, does that shock anyone?

The worst cases of mass murder in the USA had nothing to do with guns at all, do we just discount that alltogether?

[SoulMonster]

5 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

The USA population has the RIGHT to bear arms... 

Only within certain limitations...LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY. Just the fact that it is written down in your oh so cherished constitution doesn't make it more allowed than in every other country where it is not illegal. 

[SoulMonster]

7 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

I think a lot of what we believe does not rely on data. The USA does not lead the world in per capita mass murder by the gun. 

Why limit ourselves to "mass murders" which is an arbitrarily definition, why not look at gun violence:

[SoulMonster]

9 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

You simply cannot remove the rights of the people because some sick fuck killed with a weapon. 

Again, your "right" is no different than ours "what is legal and what is illegal", and yes, you CAN remove people's rights whenever you see something isn't working. Or are you saying your constitution is somehow infallible and can't be revised, and if so, where those "amendments" come in?

I can go on and on, but I am on my way to a party. More love, people, more love, and everything will turn out fine.

[gunsguy]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

Why limit ourselves to "mass murders" which is an arbitrarily definition, why not look at gun violence:

Why not?  Because we are not talking about gun violence, we are talking specific murders... Mass murders...  The ones that make the news worldwide.

The USA has a gang problem as well, big problem.  We need to drill down to specific details to make comparisons.  Nobody wants to because then it shows the USA isn't the worst, that would not play well with what we are told...

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

Again, your "right" is no different than ours "what is legal and what is illegal", and yes, you CAN remove people's rights whenever you see something isn't working. Or are you saying your constitution is somehow infallible and can't be revised, and if so, where those "amendments" come in?

I can go on and on, but I am on my way to a party. More love, people, more love, and everything will turn out fine.

I don't have the right to bear arms in Canada...  I'm not American... I do have direct access to them though

[downzy]

20 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

Comparisons are missing a very big point.  The USA population has the RIGHT to bear arms... we are also missing the per capita results from gun mass murders to compare.  I think a lot of what we believe does not rely on data. The USA does not lead the world in per capita mass murder by the gun.  A per capita data graph is needed otherwise you are not comparing anything at all.  USA is special in the fact that the gun is written as a right, in that sense who can we compare them to?  Less than a handful of countries...   You simply cannot remove the rights of the people because some sick fuck killed with a weapon. 

I say help the mentally ill, that can start with the government and the military doing their fucking jobs... Mistakes like this last one should never be overlooked.  I truly hope they are looking at everyone now to make sure it doesn't happen again.  We can't know someone will go off the rails normally but when we do know there has to be a better system in place.

I support legal gun owners in USA and Canada, I do not support the idea that allowing anyone to buy a gun without any checks is good at all.  I also am very aware that criminals don't give a shit about the law, murder is and has always been illegal.  If it's a gun or a sword, truck, bomb whatever it is still illegal and no amount of background checks would prevent someone from using them. 

IMHO any new gun laws make the people who know nothing about guns "feel safer" feeling safer doesn't mean you are.  I have heard so many ideas ranging from taking all the guns away (yeah ok...) to reducing magazine size, anyone who knows anything about guns knows that if you have very limited training, even just shooting every now and then at a range you can change most mags in as little as 1 second... yes I said 1 second, does that shock anyone?

The worst cases of mass murder in the USA had nothing to do with guns at all, do we just discount that alltogether?

Again, looking at mass shootings per capita when contrasting nations isn't going to help.  A nation like Norway, with a small population, can have one mass shooting over a ten year period and it might still look worse than nations like the US since of the population differences.  But that one shooting was a statistical anomaly.  Expand the time frame from a ten year period to a twenty or forty year period and it's likely the results will be dramatically different.  

Moreover, we could look at Australia where most guns were banned and mass shootings went from nearly one per year to zero after thirteen years.  Maybe that's coincidental, but that's a pretty strong coincidence.

Finally, with respect to the argument that gun clips don't matter and that they can be changed quickly, I'll just leave it at this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/patricia-maisch-describes-stopping-gunman-reloading/story?id=12577933

You're right that theoretically mags and clips can be swapped out quickly, but in a real shooting experience, where adrenaline and other factors come into play, forcing a shooter to reload does buy time and opportunity for victims to end the carnage.  This is what happened at the Arizona shooting a few years ago.  If reducing clip sizes can reduce fatalities, why not implement this change?

[gunsguy]

3 minutes ago, downzy said:

Again, looking at mass shootings per capita when contrasting nations isn't going to help.  A nation like Norway, with a small population, can have one mass shooting over a ten year period and it might still look worse than nations like the US since of the population differences.  But that one shooting was a statistical anomaly.  Expand the time frame from a ten year period to a twenty or forty year period and it's likely the results will be dramatically different.  

Moreover, we could look at Australia where most guns were banned and mass shootings went from nearly one per year to zero after thirteen years.  Maybe that's coincidental, but that's a pretty strong coincidence.

Finally, with respect to argument that gun clips don't matter and that they can be changed quickly, I'll just leave it at this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/patricia-maisch-describes-stopping-gunman-reloading/story?id=12577933

You're right that theoretically mags and clips can be swapped out quickly, but in a real shooting experience, where adrenaline and other factors come into play, forcing a shooter to reload does buy time and opportunity for victims to end the carnage.  This is what happened at the Arizona shooting a few years ago.  If reducing clip sizes can reduce fatalities, why not implement this change?

Let's go to the range @downzyand I can show you how easy it is to change mags.  Perhaps the odd time the gun jams or the shooter is not experienced but I can literally show you how and in an hour you will be changing them so fast you will wonder what the difference is.  Mag clip restrictions only change how a shooter shoots..  like the Vegas shooter.  He had all the time in the world.  Some states have changed mag clip size.  I'm not opposed to that really I just don't see that as some magic bullet( lack of better term) to the problem.  

I'm not opposed to certain things at all.  Who is?  Any government in power.  They can't help it guns are very profitable to them.  

[Ace Nova]

19 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

 

IMHO any new gun laws make the people who know nothing about guns "feel safer" feeling safer doesn't mean you are.  I have heard so many ideas ranging from taking all the guns away (yeah ok...) to reducing magazine size, anyone who knows anything about guns knows that if you have very limited training, even just shooting every now and then at a range you can change most mags in as little as 1 second... yes I said 1 second, does that shock anyone?

The worst cases of mass murder in the USA had nothing to do with guns at all, do we just discount that alltogether?

Yep.  When I had a Glock I would practice with it regularly.  I could drop the empty magazine out, reload a new magazine and have it cocked and loaded in less than 1 second...maybe a second and a half if I stumbled. 

[gunsguy]

Just now, Kasanova King said:

Yep.  When I had a Glock I would practice with it regularly.  I could drop the empty magazine out, reload a new magazine and have it cocked and loaded in less than 1 second...maybe a second and a half if I stumbled. 

Maybe Downzy has a point though, most of these assclowns have barely been near a gun let alone practice.  Some of them sure but not all

[soon]

The real world conditions - like adrenaline as mentioned - possibly including sirens, people shooting at you, and debris kicking up and jamming it makes it different then shooting in the yard or at the range.  Id say that the story in that link says it well.  One could even say that the existence of large magazines itself perpetuates an unhealthy gun culture - who would need that many shots in a row?  Its like super sized colas.

[-W.A.R-]

14 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

Yep.  When I had a Glock I would practice with it regularly.  I could drop the empty magazine out, reload a new magazine and have it cocked and loaded in less than 1 second...maybe a second and a half if I stumbled. 

Seung-Hui Cho got pretty good in a short amount of time.

[Ace Nova]

I don't think magazine size/capacity would make a huge difference.  The Norway shooter had a pistol and a regular rifle...yet he was able to kill more people than any modern day US massacre, which may have involved high powered rifles with high capacity mags.

[-W.A.R-]

Dylan Klebold had a Intratec TEC-DC9 which was a banned gun at that time.

How easy was it for him to obtain it? A co-worker at the pizza shop he worked at introduced him to the guy that sold it to him.

Edited November 7, 2017 by -W.A.R-

[downzy]

41 minutes ago, gunsguy said:

Let's go to the range @downzyand I can show you how easy it is to change mags.  Perhaps the odd time the gun jams or the shooter is not experienced but I can literally show you how and in an hour you will be changing them so fast you will wonder what the difference is.  Mag clip restrictions only change how a shooter shoots..  like the Vegas shooter.  He had all the time in the world.  Some states have changed mag clip size.  I'm not opposed to that really I just don't see that as some magic bullet( lack of better term) to the problem.  

I'm not opposed to certain things at all.  Who is?  Any government in power.  They can't help it guns are very profitable to them.  

No, I don't think it would do much to help in most mass shooting situations.  But there have been and likely will be situations where if clip sizes were smaller and the shooter was forced to reload (or reload more often), it reduces the total body count.

Both sides need to be careful about what problem they want to address when they talk about gun control.  A lot of initiatives and policy changes supported by gun-control advocates would likely have little effect on mass shootings.  What they want is to lower the overall numbers of gun violence and are using mass shootings as an opportunity to address the issue (since it's the only time people pay attention to the issue).  It may, if implement properly, reduce the frequency and severity of such shootings.  But since a large percentage of Americans who die at the hands of gun do so outside of mass shootings. the question is how do we reduce this area of the problem.  And that's where implementing greater restrictions or more onerous responsibilities would help.  I'm talking about universal background checks, a federal ban on gun ownership for those who have committed a violent crime or diagnosed with a violent mental disorder, modernization of gun ownership records, require greater compliance by gun dealers to work with law officials when a gun crime has been committed, incremental training and storage requirements related to gun calibre/type, limit sales of guns to authorized and licensed dealers, etc..   These kinds of efforts would reduce overall gun violence overall.  They would not necessarily prevent any and all mass shootings.  

What might help with respect to mass shootings is banning semi-automatic weaponry and reducing clip sizes.  Again, not going to prevent all attacks, but it could lessen the severity of those attacks.  People say that these wouldn't have any effect but how many mass shootings have occurred where a machine gun was used?  Perhaps this is the result of banning machine guns in 1986.  It takes time, but they can have an effect.

Or better yet, give every man and woman a musket and six bullets and ban and confiscate everything else.

25 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

I don't think magazine size/capacity would make a huge difference.  The Norway shooter had a pistol and a regular rifle...yet he was able to kill more people than any modern day US massacre, which may have involved high powered rifles with high capacity mags.

That was largely because he was on an isolated island full of kids attending summer camp.  He likely could have killed 50 just using a knife.  

[CHRISSY]

Hmmm, what a touchy and sad subject to discuss.

I don't see why the USA can't at least  ban assault "type" rifles and large capacity magazines in an attempt to do something, to show as human beings we will not just ignore these tragedies.

Maybe it will help maybe it won't, but is it really an assault on gun rights to at least do that.

And of course in tandem with tighter restrictions and more focus on mental health,  a hotline devoted to reporting someone showing troubling behavior, with resources to at the very least dig into the social media background of anyone with multiple reports. It seems in every case, or almost every case there is a troubling electronic trail of some sort.

[Ace Nova]

26 minutes ago, downzy said:

 

That was largely because he was on an isolated island full of kids attending summer camp.  He likely could have killed 50 just using a knife.  

1

Killing 77 people and injuring another 300+ by himself, with a knife?  Well, it's never been done before in modern history.  I think you've been watching too many Rambo movies.