I didn't read his background in detail but IIRC his parents or parent or something passed away a year or two back so maybe inheritance.
Today's mass shooting in the US
- Thread starter Rroff
- Start date
I didn't read his background in detail but IIRC his parents or parent or something passed away a year or two back so maybe inheritance.
You really do need to experience it to get any idea on their mentality towards it - for a good number it is almost religious. I don't think people here understand the mentality of many of the enthusiast gun owners over there though - for them it is considered a privilege as well as a right and someone doing something like this is almost like sacrilege towards those people.
They made it illegal to own firearms (may be shotguns still allowed?) and gave the public and amnesty period where they could just hand it in and no questions asked.
I could google it to pin the date down but cba
They are pretty similar to ours I think - you can own a selection of firearms but you need a good reason, mandated delay between registering and/or buying and actually getting your hands on a gun, etc. etc. regular spot checks and background checks and other cross-references are carried out to make sure someone with a permit to own a gun is still suitable.
And it works - except very rare exceptions (terrorism incident, etc.) Australia hasn't had a major firearms incident in like 20 years or whatever it has been.
You really don’t understand what people are saying do you?? No one is saying take away your beloved gunspeople just want stricter gun laws so that mentally ill people or people that are known to be a danger do not get their hands on guns to cause mass killings.
That isn't entirely true - fair few posting here and a good number in the anti-gun lobby, etc. just want to see guns gone - get rid of guns = problem solved as black and white as that.
There is another aspect of this that have difficulty reconciling...
(I have tried to find stats on this, but different types of multiple shootings stats tend to be added to one another so it is difficult to pin down the specific Columbine type "Mass Shootings" that are not otherwise associated with other criminal activity (Robbery/gangs/etc)
Sooooo.
A) These incidents are common because they seem to happen a couple of dozen times each year or so...
B) These incidents are rare Because (In a country with 350 million population, woeful mental health services with openly psychotic nutters wandering the streets, where gun ownership comfortably exceeds smart phone ownership and where Gun shops outnumber McDonald burger shops Four to One, ) they ONLY seem to happen a couple of dozen times a year or so...
Personally I look at it relative to other countries - compared to here or even other countries with fairly liberal firearms laws the US has far more frequent incidents of mass shootings never mind the frequency of school shootings relative to other countries. Your post tends to highlight though that it isn't the gun that is the problem but something else is fundamentally broken.
Dunno if its been posted but:
Yet merrily went off to buy a gun :s
Given the number that admit to having or previously owning a gun that can't differentiate between shooting at a range target and practising for shooting (hunting) at something alive it is kind of worrying - especially as for hunting, etc. you need to practise a completely different style of shooting to that of a static or linear motorised target. If you are imaging shooting at an animal/person while shooting a range target there is something wrong with you.
On the flip side a good number of the anti-gun people in this thread are so blinkered they should never be in a position to enact any kind of policy on it.
Yet merrily went off to buy a gun :s
Given the number that admit to having or previously owning a gun that can't differentiate between shooting at a range target and practising for shooting (hunting) at something alive it is kind of worrying - especially as for hunting, etc. you need to practise a completely different style of shooting to that of a static or linear motorised target. If you are imaging shooting at an animal/person while shooting a range target there is something wrong with you.
On the flip side a good number of the anti-gun people in this thread are so blinkered they should never be in a position to enact any kind of policy on it.
I've never really got the bans on magazine capacity - it seems a bit of a knee jerk thing - high capacity magazines are only really a problem when combined with other mechanisms such as fully automatic fire (when talking like 200 round drum/box) and bump stocks/mechanisms, etc.
Who is going to pay for this wall?
In a lot of those cases you see on YouTube, etc. showing off bolt action performance you are talking in the hands of a skilled and experienced shooter who happens to have a talent for it - in the hands of the average person they won't produce anything like that kind of performance.
Often in these mass shooting cases the vast number of fatalities happen in the opening 30 seconds or so - especially with bursts of automatic fire or rapid semi-auto before people have had time to react - it is much harder to shoot a moving target with a bolt action weapon once people are alerted for most people than even semi-auto where you aren't adjusting your hands between shots (other than trigger finger).
That still won't remove the need to make sure that it is very hard for someone who everyone knows shouldn't own a gun from owning one especially younger people with very little to no checks or accountability.
Even as someone relatively pro-gun I don't see the need, outside of specific cases like people who live in areas inhabited by dangerous animals, etc. for most people to own weapons capable of semi let alone full automatic fire - even in the context of the second amendment a militia with numbers on their side (which is the only way it would work) would still be workable with straight pull/bolt action weapons.
Better than nothing and maybe will get a little traction going - though they've not been used in that many shooting incidents their potential for carnage in one is nasty and the justifications for owning one thin and little reason why they can't be regulated in the small number of cases there might be a valid reason.
I suspect largely its a token appeasement though towards those protesting.
Not sure on that - his son is very pro-gun IIRC and he (Donald Trump) was quite enthusiastic about having a special edition 1911 made for him:
Not sure that Trump is very anti-gun :s
Generally he seems to say whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear in these contexts (or what he thinks he wants them to hear).
Other than he has stood in front of the press and explained what kind of process is going on.
EDIT: Mind you it was one of the most cringe worthy performances I've seen - the first half it was like every word tasted like excrement coming out of his mouth heh.
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Seems pretty plain to me - the ideal of it is that a state (and that isn't necessarily a state in the US states sense) should be able to raise an effective militia [should it need to] and the ability to do so shouldn't be infringed upon - which would necessitate weapons appropriate for the task at hand whatever day and age.
EDIT: Interestingly would that not also compel members of that state to maintain themselves in a condition appropriate for being able to act like a militia i.e. fitness, etc. ?
It doesn't - the wording has been testing in court - the significant bit is the ability to raise a militia and to that end people need to have access to appropriate equipment which is spelled out somewhat in the case of firearms.
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How could it possibly go wrong.
We had a history teacher once who snapped - straight out of training, etc. first job and really not cut out for teaching combined with 2-3 pupils who were completely unmerciful - I'm pretty sure if she'd been armed there'd have been a few less pupils that day even though she only lost it for 2-3 seconds before realising how much she'd ****** up and ran out in tears.
EDIT: Looking back on it it was a spectacularly stupid setup all around she was inexperienced and too nice/shy for her own good and everyone including the staff knew it and they put 3 well known trouble makers together into the same group and a group that where everyone else was above their ability level almost like she was setup.
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There was a bunch of studies done in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting - I think they used that actual scenario - I'll try and find them later. In almost no cases did an armed civilian with no or a little training manage to stop the shooters and often caused collateral damage. Only the "cream of the crop" of special forces trained persons managed to anything like reliably stop it - most of those with a "normal" military background were little better than the civilians. And that was a study not an actual situation with the additional stress and unexpectedness to contend with.
In my experience almost everyone will freeze up the first time they encounter something like that for real - being able to both react quickly and effectively while procedurally running through the scenario in your mind and making good decisions doesn't come from any amount of training alone.
EDIT: Only thing I can find quickly is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-time-armed-victim-able-prevent-massacre.html there is an actual proper study somewhere.
In my experience almost everyone will freeze up the first time they encounter something like that for real - being able to both react quickly and effectively while procedurally running through the scenario in your mind and making good decisions doesn't come from any amount of training alone.
EDIT: Only thing I can find quickly is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-time-armed-victim-able-prevent-massacre.html there is an actual proper study somewhere.
I disagree with that - the largest number of fatalities are usually in the opening 30 seconds or so of these scenarios and/or in situations like Vegas where a bump stock allows a significant sustained volume of fire massively increasing casualty numbers.
(In the Florida shooting with a semi-automatic AR-15 he shot 15 rounds in slightly over 10 seconds and assumedly 30 rounds in just under 30 seconds in the opening moments in comparison with a bump stock theoretically could have worked through anything upto 8 magazines of 30 rounds).
There are very few people who truly can fire with both the rapidity approach that and retaining a useful amount of accuracy while doing so using a semi automatic never mind bolt action weapon although there are some who have a talent for it.
Although you can usually "derate" a fully automatic weapon bump stocks also theoretically allow a significant volume of fire for longer with reduced potential for malfunction that comes from running a gun hot with full automatic speeds even bursted which tends to result in rapid heating/cooling cycles.
The second point is one of the reasons why I'm against a knee jerk full on banning of guns, etc. if people are this ****** in the head they will find a way eventually to do harm but proper regulation of firearms helps to minimise the potential for that.
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Any semi-automatic weapon theoretically if you put your mind to it could be modified to mechanise shooting at a faster pace one of the reasons I said earlier its hard to justify anything other than bolt action weapons in most cases in civilian ownership - however once you go down that route where does it end? personally I've the skill set* and equipment to 3D print a fully automatic firearm with minimal parts that encounter a lot of stress and the primer/load that can't be 3D printing - should we ban 3D printers?
Bump stock regulation makes that much harder for someone to achieve than compared to now where they are available off the shelf.
* I'm not even talking downloading pre-designed ones to print - I'm fully capable of the design and modelling.
Because the likelihood of encountering armed response at a school is still minimal. There's not much point in killing a handful of students in Taco Bell when there's hundreds of them on campus.
Once it becomes apparent that a school is no longer a soft target then it follows that finding a different location where the intended victims are frequenting is necessary.
TBH I'm not an AR-15 wielding, depressed, American high school loner with behavioural problems planning to execute those who mocked or bullied me through the education system, so I'm not really qualified to offer an answer as to 'why'.
More often than not these school shootings are semi or completely targetted and its the one place the shooter can pretty much guarantee finding all the intended targets together. In the US they can pretty much expect to encounter an armed response at some point so I'm not sure it will deter them as long as they think there is a high chance they can hit their intended targets before it comes to that.