More shootings.

[Creed of Heresy]

"We are being shot at": Ambushed NY firefighters' chilling plea for help.

Well. Remember when I was talking about how not being allowed to own a firearm would not stop a man with murder on his mind from committing that murder with a firearm?

This story is proof of the truth of my words.

This man was a convicted felon. As such, he could not legally procure or own ANY firearm, regardless of its caliber, rate of fire, or magazine count. And yet...here we are. The argument that banning guns will stop things like this from happening? Ringing really hollow right now.

As I've stated before. If you want a gun, you're going to own a gun. So, naturally, the question is, in fact...what the fuck?

Seriously. This guy set the fires, then ambushed firefighters who responded. What the fuck?!

Apparently he chopped up his sister, who lived with him, committed arsony, and then gunned down firefighters who responded to the fire.

Well, it seems this guy was deeply disturbed to begin with...not unlike the other two shooters this year [whose names I ardently strode to forget, and I was successful]. Oedipus syndrome if my suspicions are correct. His mother died and he snapped like a twig.

So, you wanna know what I think the real problem is? We've got too many fucking crazies living in this country, and they're unmonitored, nobody's paying attention to what they're up to. People like this guy are dangerous not because of the guns they illegally procure but because they're fucked in the head! And dammit, FIREFIGHTERS?! I can't get over this shit! Children?! Firefighters?! What the fucking shit?! Why can't one of these psychotic touched-in-the-head mental cases gun down, say, a congregation of mormons or they Westboro Baptist Church? The frame of mind someone enters wherein children or people who save other peoples' lives are a target for murder is so fucking foreign, so alien to me, I can't even begin to comprehend it. I don't even WANT to comprehend it. I truly hope every person who thinks like these last three assholes have thought dies horribly. I hope the next person who gets it in his head that he's gonna do something like this gets hit by a train on his way to do it. I really do.

[Minimalist]

We've got too many fucking crazies living in this country

AND they have access to highly effective weapons.

Try to understand that the problem is multifaceted. When you act as if guns are not part of the problem you simply seem dense.

[A Theist]

We've got too many fucking crazies living in this country

AND they have access to highly effective weapons.

Try to understand that the problem is multifaceted. When you act as if guns are not part of the problem you simply seem dense.

...and when you act as if guns are the only problem you simply seem ignorant.

[Minimalist]

Fuck off, Rambo, you asshole.

[A Theist]

Fuck off, Rambo, you asshole.

lol...

[Anomalocaris]

AND they have access to highly effective weapons.

Try to understand that the problem is multifaceted. When you act as if guns are not part of the problem you simply seem dense.

...and when you act as if guns are the only problem you simply seem ignorant.

Guns are definitely not the only problem. You would still be a problem even if you are gunless and permanently strapped into a strait jacket. But guns are the critical problem that make the consequences of other problems much more lethal.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not what the data bears out. The "murder problem" for example will still be a murder problem, regardless of what instrument is leveraged in it's commission, and we don't have any reason to assume that our murder rates would drop if gun ownership dropped.

[FallentoReason]

If you want an outsider's opinion... get rid of the bloody guns! I don't understand this mentality that is synonymous with a post-apocalyptic world where everyone feels the need to have firearms for their "survival". What the actual f#*$ is what I'm left thinking everytime I hear about the next disturbing massacre.

Take this guy as an example. If guns were completely scarce like any other freaking 1st world country, then I can assure you this psycho would have had no choice but to commit his disgusting acts with a weapon that would have at least given the victims a fighting chance. It's obvious that there's the problem of his mental health, but if you take away the environment swarming with lethal weapons such as guns, then the majority of these massacres would have turned out differently.

[Creed of Heresy]

Min, Fallen, Chuck: The problem is, as usual, you have to argue for outright banning all firearms at the road you're taking. And this guy had them illegally to begin with. Do you REALLY think he gave a shit that he was not allowed to purchase firearms? That, FOR HIM, guns WERE banned? Clearly not!

For some reason, on this site, otherwise rational, critical thinkers are reacting emotionally to this problem. Yes, I understand guns make someone more dangerous. But please, for the love of fuck, read CAREFULLY and think for a few moments, before you type up a reply, on what I'm trying to point out here.

Banning firearms does not make it impossible to get a hold of them. I can attest to how ridiculously easy it is to get firearms from any ghetto. You can go ahead and ban firearms outright if it really will make you feel better but it's a feel-good action that will do nothing to stop people who intend to commit multiple unprovoked homicides with a firearm from doing exactly that. The most you can do is make it a bit harder. But do you REALLY think these disturbed individuals are going to really care about difficulty when they're clearly ready to gun down other people and THEN take their own lives?

Oh and good luck going into the ghettos and telling all those inner-city gang-members that their guns are banned and illegal.

By the by, most of the homicides in the US are often a result of gang violence...and most of those murders don't even get investigated:

In the United States, the number of homicides where the victim and offender relationship was undetermined has been increasing since 1999 but has not reached the levels experienced in the early 1990s. In 14% of all murders, the victim and the offender were strangers. Spouses and family members made up about 15% of all victims, about one-third of the victims were acquaintances of the assailant, and the victim and offender relationship was undetermined in over one-third of homicides. Gun involvement in homicides were gang-related homicides which increased after 1980, homicides that occurred during the commission of a felony which increased from 55% in 1985 to 77% in 2005, homicides resulting from arguments which declined to the lowest levels recorded recently, and homicides resulting from other circumstances which remained relatively constant. Because gang killing has become a normal part of inner cities, many including police hold preconceptions about the causes of death in inner cities. When a death is labeled gang-related it lowers the chances that it will be investigated and increases the chances that the perpetrator will remain at large. In addition, victims of gang killings often determine the priority a case will be given by police. Jenkins (1988) argues that many serial murder cases remain unknown to police and that cases involving Black offenders and victims are especially likely to escape official attention.

Quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_th...s#Homicide

Now, someone give me an ACTUAL reason why you think banning firearms is going to do ANYTHING. All I hear is this argument of scarcity, and I hate to tell you this but it's a wee bit too late to suddenly make guns go scarce in the US. Oh sure, middle America will be easy, but go on ahead and roll into the ghettos of NYC, or Detroit, or New Orleans and try to take everyone's guns away.

Bloodbath is the first word that comes to mind...

Nevermind, by the way, that Canada also has easily-available firearms. Yet their murder rate is not even close to being as high as ours. Wonder why. Maybe it's because they don't have miles upon miles of ghettos like the US does.

You can argue for banning guns all you'd like, I'd rather argue for getting more money allocated to alleviating the root cause of the problem. Kill the hate and you kill the urge to kill. Go for the roots of the weed, not the leaves, otherwise you're just wasting time.

[The Grand Nudger]

I have guns because I'm a hunter, a target shooter, and a collector/admirer of guns. The whole survival thing doesn't even factor in.

(most homicides don't entail "a fighting chance" regardless of the weapon -including bare hands-)

I would be as perplexed as you if someone said they needed their huge collection of high caliber weapons for survival in North America. Firstly, one day- no matter what, the ammo would run dry. Until that day, the only firearm that makes any sense in a survival situation in N. America is a .22/20 over/under or takedown. It's a short, lightweight 22 rifle with a 20 gauge shotgun beneath (or with a receiver that accepts a 22 or 20 gauge barrel). Breech loaded and single fire they are exceedingly rugged and simple to use (probably worthless in the commission of a crime - hell, they don't even -look- threatening enough to scare a clerk - they look like toys). It's a fairly weak firearm, as far as firearms go, but the upside is that you can carry literally thousands of rounds in your pocket (and the rounds -.22 specifically- are probably the easiest to come by on this continent en-mass). There is no game animal here that you would realistically look to take down in a survival situation that a .22/20 over under could not handle. The downside, if you want to call it that, is that neither of these rounds are going to win you a firefight. I can't call that a downside though, because if the objective is survival, there is absolutely no reason to engage another human being in a firefight, ever. If Bubba wants your canned peaches, you let Bubba have your canned peaches and you just keep walking, rgr?