I don't see anything changing in any significant way any time soon but even a few taking a less hardcore position is a change.
Today's mass shooting in the US
- Thread starter Rroff
- Start date
I don't see anything changing in any significant way any time soon but even a few taking a less hardcore position is a change.
The US seems to have a propensity for these kind of events which is not proportional to firearms availability compared to most other countries.
There are plenty of people with guns - probably a 100 or so within 5 minute drive of me for both work and pleasure - but fortunately mass shootings let alone at schools are rare here.
Hypothetically it doesn't really work like that - those military forces are integrated with the population, they lose production and maintenance capabilities, can't control all the ground - cruise missiles vs technicals is not a good trade in a war of attrition. The people can choose where and when to fight so it isn't a head to head of main battle tank vs handguns, etc.
The bigger issues for an armed population are lack of fitness and training.
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There are exceptions like the sniper type shootings from a high position, etc. but often with a mass shooting the highest cluster of deaths is front loaded and automatic fire typically increases that as initially people will be slow to react and often in groups in limited space like hallways, classrooms and offices.
There is very little reason for people as a general thing to have access to handguns or even semi-automatic rifles but I don't support a complete ban on that just because people don't have a reason.
As Screeeech mentioned Americans culturally have social factors like the obsession with materialism and so on which likely means unlike is more typical with other countries if you banned guns a high number of mass killing events would continue via other means.
Something which amazes me - there is a firearms amnesty in my area until the end of the month and they have pictures of what was handed in when they ran it last year - amongst the usual tat of broken starting pistols, air rifles and "zip guns", etc. was a fully automatic, apparently fully functional, Uzi type gun (I couldn't identify specific make/model from the picture) and a pair of 1911s.
When they ran it back in 2017 or 18 there was several assault rifle type weapons, etc. including an AK47 type rifle.
This isn't top trumps and they wouldn't just line up in a field and shoot each other with their biggest guns... now I'm not saying an armed population would win but they certain can deter a tyrannical government and they certainly wouldn't be obliterated in minutes - even with the might of the US army the US landmass and scale of its armed population is too much for them to hard police in a conflict and that assumes it came down to a situation where everyone in the army took the side of the government and everyone else took the side of the people.
Fitness, training and the reality of how many would actually get off their arses and fight are the far bigger factors in such a situation than the imbalance of what each side are armed with.
It would be a different situation again if you had the US military operating from the US mainland against a similar country with an armed population, but in this kind of situation they'd lose much of their own supply lines, maintenance and production capabilities - they would quickly exhaust their available stocks of things like cruise missiles, even fuel for tanks and aircraft, etc. and the people could much more choose when and where to engage and where not to. The US military would have to consolidate their positions - the military upper hand would be much diluted when spread out over such a large area - so they'd have to pull out of many bases, etc.
As for supply lines - there are private individuals in the US with stocks of ammo which would put many countries to shame... there is a video somewhere of a guy with like 12 shipping containers stuffed full of boxes of .308 after rumours of an incoming ban :s
Mat's vault from Demolition Ranch:
Is far from an anomaly in the US - I used to play Quake 3 CTF with a US clan and several members had similar size collections of guns including .50 cal rifles, etc. one guy used to work part time for a gun shop so he could own all kinds of stuff - not sure I still have the pictures but he had row on row of AR-15 pattern guns all decked out in fancy accessories and enough ammo and parts to last a zombie apocalypse.
If you are half-handy crude but effective explosives unfortunately aren't that difficult to produce - there is a lot of information out there including some "cook books". Fortunately most people don't seem to combine both being that unhinged and a mental aptitude for creating stuff themselves.
It would certainly help to reduce the number and along with other measures would probably reduce shooting incidents in the US by somewhere in the region of 75% kind of thing but some of these mass shootings are carried out with weapons taken from older family members, etc. in many cases these weapons were simply left lying around as well and/or the shooter knew the combination for the gun safe, etc. despite being a younger person. Then there is the aspect that it tends to be quite tribal with a lot of people either pro-gun or want to see every firearm ever eradicated - so those pro-gun are leery of any attempt to impose restrictions. It is rarely possible for a healthy moderate debate on firearms.
Everything Fox News suggested as solutions to the problem. Notice the lack of anything to do with gun control.
Looks like a checklist for the script of Battle Royale.
Easy might be somewhat relative but many people have around their household the materials to create a crude but deadly improvised explosive device and the instructions aren't hard to find albeit I'm not going to go into details for obvious reasons. Some of the older generations may even have acquired the knowledge at school either in lessons or from certain "cook books".
It isn't just about funding but whole culture and approach to it. It certainly wouldn't solve the situation but there are things which could be done in that respect which would have a non-negligible impact on the frequency of firearms related incidents. Along with other measures it could bring incident frequency done significantly but again can't eliminate it.
While they are avoiding having untrained personnel in combat where possible in a lot of the smaller towns, etc. security forces (police for instance) mixed with armed civilians are holding the line. IIRC there is something like ~17K armed civilians* and 25 brigades (~3000 personnel each) of territorial forces deployed to combat roles as well as professional soldiers from the main armed forces and other entities like border patrol (somewhere in excess of 200K). That isn't including those in support roles or held in reserve.
EDIT: Also almost all the videos you see of combat from Ukraine's POV are territorial forces not regular soldiers - anyone wearing a yellow or blue armband is almost certainly volunteer/territorial forces and likely were working a normal job at the start of 2022.
* AFAIK most of these will be moved into the territorial forces where appropriate - they are being told to form units and choose a commander and put themselves under the command of the Territorial forces.
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In a scenario where Ukraine had no professional army, say 1-2 million armed civilians with little to no anti-tank or anti-air weapons, limited external support mostly black market style stuff of ad hoc shipments of 10s of thousands of rounds of ammo now and again then most of the population centres would have fallen, Kyiv would have turned into a larger scale version of Mariupol with around 3 months of brutal street fighting until supplies ran out, destroying most of the city, Russia would be solidifying their position in population centres and strategic positions and starting to push out their control over a wider part of the country. In a few months there would be little but sporadic insurgencies going on.
This is not the same situation for the US however, the Russian industrial and maintenance efforts would be out of reach of the Ukrainians, the US military would be starting from a position of integration with the population with bases and equipment widely spread out within the population and with far more mixed allegiances and so on.
This is not the same situation for the US however, the Russian industrial and maintenance efforts would be out of reach of the Ukrainians, the US military would be starting from a position of integration with the population with bases and equipment widely spread out within the population and with far more mixed allegiances and so on.
Latest military hardware is a bit of a stretch - your average armour brigade in Ukraine consists of T-64 tanks, BMP-2s accompanied by 1970s era self-propelled artillery, Grads, etc. and AK pattern rifles if they've not sourced their own gun.
Lot of conflicting information about this Uvalde shooting not just the police response on the day but different sources coming out with was bullied, was not bullied was the bully. Was never in trouble, was always in trouble with the police, etc. etc.
Seems like there is more concern from people trying to cover their behinds than anything else.
Seems like there is more concern from people trying to cover their behinds than anything else.
In the US this person can legally own a gun: https://youtu.be/JwkDnAjQiVU - what could possibly go wrong.
*Four Dead, Including Gunman in Shooting at Hospital Campus In Oklahoma — Police Statement
Oklahoma hospital shooting: 4 people killed, suspect dead, Tulsa police say
A gunman carrying a rifle and a handgun killed four people on Wednesday at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical building, police said.www.fox13news.com
Slightly odd, though not unusual, side effect - people searching for Tulsa, probably in relation to that shooting, is pushing content related to Tulsa up the rankings for recommendations on a few sites like YouTube - for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C18yBBjnGr8
It isn't that simple - the bigger stumbling blocks are unrelated to firearms anyhow and factors such as fitness, experience and even just getting organised.
In terms of hardware mismatch people intentionally or unknowingly ignore factors like that the government/military don't exist in isolation.
Raising the age limit would help but it would need to come with additional strong regulation/laws around securing firearms, etc. as well to work - several mass shootings the shooter simply picked up a gun left lying around in their or a close friend or family household and/or knew the combination to the gun safe despite being a minor, etc. etc.
There is a lot of suspicion of any attempt to bring in firearms regulation in the US as often the debate is so polarised so those pro-gun see it as an attempt to erode their rights bit by bit rather than something which might bring around a more healthy environment for both those pro-gun and everyone else.
I'm not sure it will come to much but there certainly is something different this time:
March For Our Lives: Tens of thousands rally for stricter US gun laws
Two mass shootings have renewed calls for action but chances of a deal in Congress are slim.
www.bbc.co.uk
From what I've seen over the years half of them are cowards who are fine dishing it out but give up the moment they start taking accurate return fire/reality hits that things aren't going to end well for them.