High school shooting in Parkland FL

[CapnAwesome]

I think the whole gun control thing would be more compelling if so much of it wasn't disingenuous.

Well at least you're being genuine about lacking empathy for the victims of tragedy, I guess.  I'll give you that.  It makes you come across like an asshole.  But at least you're being genuine.

The likelihood of being killed in a mass shooting is irrelevant.  The fact is: This doesn't happen in other countries.  It doesn't happen in Australia.  It doesn't happen in Canada, or France.  It doesn't happen in Sweden, or Norway.  It doesn't happen in Germany.  Certainly not at the rate it does here.

Maybe you're okay with 20 some kids being murdered every now and again, as long as people keep the right to bear arms.  After all, as long as it's not your blood, what do you care?  You'll (disingenuously I might add) point to traffic accidents as if every country on earth dosen't have them at around the same rate we do.  You'll ignore the fact that people are trained in the operation of a vehicle, and must prove themselves to be able to drive them.

I'm not okay with it.  This doesn't happen in other countries.  Because they don't worship guns like this country does.  I know we'll never do anything because of people like you.  People who can look at victims as nothing but a numbers game.  "It was only TWENTY kids who died in Sandy Hook.  The chances of dying are small!"  You know what?  It's funny you mention that.  The chances of someone breaking into your home?  Yeah, that's unlikely too.  But your side will fight to the death over their right to own a killing machine so they can 'defend their home' from an intruder who's probably only interested in their television in the first place.  And of course these same people are SO worried about home safety, that they surely have the best security systems they can get, right?  Oh right, they don't.  So don't talk to me about disingenuous.  I wonder how you'd feel if your kid was one of the ones killed.  Would you then state "Oh it was only ONE Kid!"  Would you let your kid trade places with one of those, if it meant keeping the right to bear arms? 

And that's not to even mention all the irresponsible gun owners who let their children get their hands on guns, and end up killing people before they're 4 years old. 

I don't blame those kids for wanting to march against guns.  I'm sure you and the people like you hate it, because it draws attention against your cause.  You don't care that they've lost friends.  Why would you?  Your friends (namely the metallic ones) are what you care about.  Chances are you'll never have to use a gun to defend yourself.  Chances are your home will never be broken into.  But you don't care about those chances.  Just the ones that fit your narrative, and your agenda.

This is the problem, you ask for an honest debate on the subject, and are accused of having a lack of empathy for dead children. Which is really just another emotional argument.

I'm undecided on gun control, I think there is a lot of misleading propaganda on both sides. Pointing out that murders, suicides and accidents don't belong in a single misleading statistic called 'gun violence' has NOTHING to do with the empathy or lack there of for dead children.

It has to do with trying to have a real discussion on the subject and coming to real solutions. The left is it's own worst enemy when it comes to guns, gun sales were at record highs under Obama, and have dropped dramatically under Trump.

When the left just entrenched in its own position, calls normal people on the right child killers, uses misleading stats, fear mongers over mass shootings. What do you think the right is going to do?

They entrench in their own positions too and repeat all their own stupid arguments about guns making people safer, blah blah blah. Obviously guns don't make people safer. If an armed person tried to rob me, I will give them my stuff. Getting in a shootout doesn't make you safer.

This is the reason that this problem never goes anywhere in the U.S. neither side wants to have a productive discussion with the other. Sadly I don't really see that changing. Certainly accusing the people you need to work with (gun owners) of lacking empathy for murdered children isn't going to help.

[notimportant1234]

I'll leave this here.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...-countries

[Cyberman]

Well the people killing innocent people tend to be the criminals.

I want you to read that sentence back to yourself, out loud. Do you see it yet? You are literally saying that people committing a criminal act tend to be criminals.

That's exactly the point.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No, the facts are that people are more likely to kill an innocent person than a criminal with their guns.

Well the people killing innocent people tend to be the criminals.  If killing people is the goal, you should definitely acquire a gun.  

Is it surprising to you that people who are looking to commit murder kill more innocent people than people not looking to commit murder?  That's the conclusion to be drawn from your statistics.

No, the people killing innocent people are their fellow residents in their  home, or their neighbors, or some kid visiting a classmate. And you completely misread that report if that's the conclusion you drew from it.

[pocaracas]

For those who can't compare numbers, I give you... numbers!

Instead of comparing the US with individual countries, like some of you like to point out that Norway had this, Sweden had that, France had another gun shooting... how about we throw in the whole of the EU?
The EU has some 500 million people.
The US has some 325 million people.

Gun laws vary a bit throughout the EU, but not a lot.

According to this https://www.flemishpeaceinstitute.eu/sit..._in_eu.pdf, the EU has approximately 6,700 gun related deaths per year. Of which some 5,000 are suicides, 1,000 are homicides and the remaining 700 are unspecified (accidents?)
Guns exist in the EU and they do cause people to die.

So, the EU gets something like 1,000 homicides per 500 million people, or to put it in nicer numbers: 200 homicides per 100 million people.

How does the US fare?
According to this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41488081, the US has some 31,000 gun related deaths per year. Of which 20,000 are suicides, 10,000 are homicides and about a thousand are unspecified.

In homicides, the US get 10,000 for a population of 300 million, or 3,300 homicides per 100 million people.


Clearly 3,300 is larger than 200. That means that 15 times more people are killed in the US than in the EU, on purpose, with a gun.
Clearly, whatever distinguishes the US from the EU leads to an increase in homicides.


The psychological state of the people should be disregarded, as that is supposed to be roughly equivalent across both populations.
Socio-economics probably plays an important role here, given the stressful nature of US health care and retirement plans, compared to the EU's.
But the action to take a gun and kill someone else... that requires the gun to be present. And this is the major difference between the US and the EU.

According to this http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publ...383_en.pdf, 5% of EU citizens own a firearm and other 5% claim to have owned one. 90% never owned a gun.

According to this http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/2...ownership/, 30% of US citizens own a gun.... no mention of past ownership, but they do say that 11% of those who don't own guns lives with someone who does own one.

Just comparing present gun owners, 5% in the EU vs 30% in the US, there are 6 times more gun owners in the US.
Put that next to our previous ratio of 15 more homicides in the states and you see that the increase in gun ownership correlates with (more than) twice the increase in homicide rate.
Of course, correlation does not imply causation...

I think the US needs to have a revolution of attitude towards guns. Once that is done, the legislation follows.
Based on all of these numbers, I feel immensely safer living in the EU than I would in the US.
Of course, overall, there is a relatively low risk of any one person in particular dying due to a gun. 3,300 per 100 million, that's 3/100,000, or 0.003%
While, in the EU, the same risk is of 0.0002%. One order of magnitude lower! That's significant.

[henryp]

Well the people killing innocent people tend to be the criminals.

I want you to read that sentence back to yourself, out loud. Do you see it yet? You are literally saying that people committing a criminal act tend to be criminals.

That's exactly the point.

What's your conclusion?  Spell it out.  Criminals commit crimes, therefore....

[pocaracas]

I want you to read that sentence back to yourself, out loud. Do you see it yet? You are literally saying that people committing a criminal act tend to be criminals.

That's exactly the point.

What's your conclusion?  Spell it out.  Criminals commit crimes, therefore....

Criminals have easy access to guns, therefore...

Criminals commit crimes in Europe too, you know? And yet... Europe gets less than half the homicide rate by guns.
European criminals need to get creative.... or just give up, because human nature goes hand-in-hand with inertia.

[Mister Agenda]

You do realize that not everything the NRA does is mandated by the right to bear arms? Buying politicians to the point that the CDC can't even study gun violence, for instance.

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Well, if not everything is dependent on the NRA I guess no one can reasonably object to what it does do, eh?

The NRA has the right to petition the government, both Federal and States, under the Federal and all State Constitutions.  So would anyone want to deprive that organization of its constitutional rights?  People who disagree with the NRA can also petition the government for what they want.  That's democracy in action in our country.  

Do you want to limit guns?  There is already all kinds of laws on the books that do that.

Do you want to eliminate guns?  You will have to change the Federal Constitution as well as most of the State Constitutions.   While it's possible to do that it's highly unlikely to happen because even people who aren't one of the 5 million or so NRA members aren't inclined to give up their guns.

And we have an equal constitutional right to join an organization that allows anyone who pays the dues to join, operates democratically, and change its direction if enough of us don't like it. The NRA wasn't founded as a 'guns at any cost' organization and does not have to remain one.

You seem to have pulled the notion that I want to eliminate guns completely out of your ass.

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Except for conducting mass murder of what use is a rapid fire rifle with high capacity magazines? Has anyone ever had to fight of a rampaging horde of snowshoe rabbits?

The AR-15 is a good model for pig hunting. We have way too many feral hogs here in the South. It's kind of counter-intuitive since most AR-15s are low-caliber, but apparently the .223 is better at penetrating the hide before expanding. If a large feral hog is charging you, you might want the capability to get off a couple more shots quickly. But no need for a 15-round magazine, restricting magazine capacity to five would be reasonable.

[Cyberman]

I want you to read that sentence back to yourself, out loud. Do you see it yet? You are literally saying that people committing a criminal act tend to be criminals.

That's exactly the point.

What's your conclusion?  Spell it out.  Criminals commit crimes, therefore....

Therefore people who commit crimes are criminals.

[Mister Agenda]

I love made up words.

unalienable

[uhn-eyl-yuh-nuh-buh l, -ey-lee-uh-]

adjective

1.

not transferable to another or not capable of being taken away or denied; inalienable:
Inherent in the U.S. Constitution is the belief that all people are born with an unalienable right to freedom.

Origin of unalienable Expand

1610-1620
First recorded in 1610-20; un-1 + alienable

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What rights are you willing to give up for the delusion of being safe?  Would you be willing to become a slave for life if no one physically harmed you?  What about the rights for due process and against self-incrimination?  They are 228 years old.  Do you want to toss them?

I don't agree with all of your points, but slavery is a good example of a right that's unalienable. No one can make you a slave legally, even if you agree to it. The word doesn't mean that the law can't be changed, but it does mean that while it's in effect, no contract can bind you against it. In the case of firearms, the state can deprive you of legal access them to them under conditions it specifies, but if you were to sign a contract promising to never own a gun again when you have the legal right to do so, the contract would be invalid, because the right is unalienable.