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Post by Marshall on Jul 16, 2023 20:13:45 GMT -5
Clearly mass media and social media have raised the interest in psycho people to make a name for themselves. And our free wheeling guns-for-everybody society provides quick and easy means to make a big splash in the news.
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Post by John B on Jul 16, 2023 20:24:14 GMT -5
The dream was not possible before the means to accomplish it existed. On edit: I think I misunderstood your original post when I first responded, but I think your response cleared it up for me. So you don't think mass killings/shootings represent a different motivation than before in history? Maybe? But not so much. Marshall's post right above this or so (which I can't see while I'm typing my response) hits on a few of my thoughts. But I think people have been people for a very long time. Maybe people just needed the means, and the technology, to do more damage. That and a voice whispering in their ear saying, "think bigger." |
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Post by millring on Jul 17, 2023 5:48:07 GMT -5
I just don't know, but it seems like there's a difference between killing specific people and killing random strangers. A motivational difference between killing someone you're angry with, or who have something you want, and killing for killing's sake or for fame. Have people always killed just to kill or for fame?
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 17, 2023 6:44:36 GMT -5
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Post by brucemacneill on Jul 17, 2023 7:01:44 GMT -5
An AR15 is not a military grade weapon. An M16 is a military grade weapon that looks like an AR15. The AR15 is not automatic. An M16 is but you can't buy one legally.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Jul 17, 2023 10:46:50 GMT -5
I just don't know, but it seems like there's a difference between killing specific people and killing random strangers. A motivational difference between killing someone you're angry with, or who have something you want, and killing for killing's sake or for fame. Have people always killed just to kill or for fame? In the 1800s some outlaws were immortalized in dime novels and became sort of folk heroes or at least famous. I can't help believing there were twisted souls who hoped to become such subjects. |
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Dub
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Post by Dub on Jul 17, 2023 11:55:51 GMT -5
I just don't know, but it seems like there's a difference between killing specific people and killing random strangers. A motivational difference between killing someone you're angry with, or who have something you want, and killing for killing's sake or for fame. Have people always killed just to kill or for fame? In the 1800s some outlaws were immortalized in dime novels and became sort of folk heroes or at least famous. I can't help believing there were twisted souls who hoped to become such subjects. “As through your life you ramble, as through your life you roam, you’ll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home.” |
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 17, 2023 12:23:50 GMT -5
An AR15 is not a military grade weapon. An M16 is a military grade weapon that looks like an AR15. The AR15 is not automatic. An M16 is but you can't buy one legally. Auto fire is not the only feature that makes AR-style firearms so lethal. (Though the popularity of various autofire modifications suggests that many users really like the pocketa-pocketa experience.) Two significant features are ammunition-related: cartridge and magazine capacity, with the size/load of the round fired probably contributing the most to lethality. There's a good bit of description of the effects of the common AR-15 rounds (.223 or 5.56 NATO) on flesh, along with explantions of what causes the damage. (Google "ar-15 ammunition lethality.) Even an unaltered AR-style gun is going to be pretty lethal, and adding a high-capacity magazine is pretty inexpensive--30-found magazines seem to go for under $20. |
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Post by Marshall on Jul 17, 2023 12:38:39 GMT -5
There's two things going on here. And they are both pariahs on the American landscape.
1. There's the lone mentally disturbed person that is getting his hands on a weapon of mass destruction; The Assault Rifle. Robust coordinated Background checks could greatly reduce the possibility of these people from getting the means to do their carnage.
2. Gang Bangers on urban streets can easily get their hands on (required for gang membership) hand guns that can be concelealed and drawn out to shoot up a neighborhood at a moment's notice. Regulations need to be in place to make sure middlemen buyers are not passing them on without any regard to who uses them. Tracing serial numbers and making all dealers accountable for whom they sell to could go a long way to curbing down this urban phenomena.
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Post by brucemacneill on Jul 17, 2023 12:42:56 GMT -5
An AR15 is not a military grade weapon. An M16 is a military grade weapon that looks like an AR15. The AR15 is not automatic. An M16 is but you can't buy one legally. Auto fire is not the only feature that makes AR-style firearms so lethal. (Though the popularity of various autofire modifications suggests that many users really like the pocketa-pocketa experience.) Two significant features are ammunition-related: cartridge and magazine capacity, with the size/load of the round fired probably contributing the most to lethality. There's a good bit of description of the effects of the common AR-15 rounds (.223 or 5.56 NATO) on flesh, along with explantions of what causes the damage. (Google "ar-15 ammunition lethality.) Even an unaltered AR-style gun is going to be pretty lethal, and adding a high-capacity magazine is pretty inexpensive--30-found magazines seem to go for under $20. It's a semi-automatic rifle not a military grade weapon. Unmodified it's as automatic as a colt pistol or any other one trigger pull one shot gun. They're god hunting rifles. |
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Post by Dub on Jul 17, 2023 14:35:48 GMT -5
Although gangs are the source of a high percentage of firearm deaths, I don’t see them as a “gun” problem. Street gangs are a socio-economic problem. Tracking gun sales isn’t going to help with this. Ghost guns (guns assembled from separately-acquired parts) are common. Guns can be 3D-printed or made by hand. I’d bet that street gangs could manufacture their own guns if needed. I’m not familiar with the manufacture of ammunition but I’m guessing it might be more challenging to make effective ammunition in useful quantities than to make the gun that fires it. I don’t think laws or law enforcement are going to be much help with street gangs, and I don’t see much public interest in addressing the issue. Maybe if we all wring our hands at the same time the problem will go away. Of course the mass shootings that are the source of the most dismay are rarely perpetrated by street gangs and when they are, it’s usually other gang members who are targeted. Key questions might be… - Can we find a strategy that lowers the maladjusted rate or provides attractive and useful help for these people?
- Can we find a strategy that effectively keeps the maladjusted from having access to guns?
As I see it, the only people who take any serious (I didn’t say effective) action to lower the death rate caused by shootings are family members of victims. People whose family or friends haven’t been victims care in the same sense they (we) care about tornado victims in a distant state or famine in another country. |
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 17, 2023 15:09:35 GMT -5
Thanks for the egg-sucking lesson, Bruce, but I'm familiar enough with firearms (and military history) to understand the terminology.
We can't eliminate murder by elimiating lethal weapons--as long as there's a wrench or a paring knife or a length of cord available, the tools will be there. We can, however, mitigate fast, multiple murders by making it harder to acquire, say, bump stocks and other modifications, high-capacity magazines, armor-piercing ammo, and other items that go beyond what a hunter or target-shooter might reasonably need. And yes, I know that a 12-gauge pump shotgun can do enormous damage and is available to about anybody who can reach over the counter with the cash. Nevertheless, a 223/5.56 NATO AR-style rifle has not only serious per-round lethality but a longer range and higher rate of fire even if not modified for full auto. And I suppose a lever-action hunting rifle--what we used to call a "deer rifle" when I was a kid--can deliver plenty of death, though they seem to top out at 5-6 rounds and are slow to reload.
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 17, 2023 18:22:35 GMT -5
... They're god hunting rifles. Freudian slip? |
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Post by dradtke on Jul 17, 2023 20:38:52 GMT -5
They're <good> hunting rifles. Spoken like a true non-hunter. They're shitty hunting rifles. Ask any serious hunter. |
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Post by Marshall on Jul 17, 2023 21:01:01 GMT -5
I'm not against good responsible people having weapons. Coordinated Background checks and waiting periods should help restrict loonies from getting them.
Gang violence has gotten so very disastrous because of the widespread availability of unregistered concealable hand guns. Some guys along the Manufacturing-to-end-user chain are acting recklessly for profit in buying up dozens of supposedly legal guns and selling them on the streets illegally, with no personal accountability.
Sure gangs are a social problem. I'm not belittling that argument. But it becomes exponentially more violent when everybody is armed. So many innocent bystanders are caught in the cross fire. That rarely happens in a knife fight.
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Post by brucemacneill on Jul 18, 2023 5:56:59 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Jul 18, 2023 9:27:53 GMT -5
Marshall has echoed my thoughts on this issue exactly. (I was up to 250 words or so Saturday night when I said to hell with it and pulled the plug).
Even though the Strib used the words "mass shooting", the posted article wasn't about a mass shooting event (unless mass shooting has become such a broad category it defies any usefulness as a term). The article was about a one on one gun confrontation between two gangbangers that had it out for each other. Yes, others got caught in the crossfire, and that others do get harmed in the crossfire between gangbanger battles is, in my book, the only reason it is such a tragic issue (otherwise, it's just an issue).
If every single gun-related issue is tossed into the same sack it becomes a jumbled mess that is too heavy to carry to any useful conclusion. Break the gun problem up into separate problems. Gangbanger shootings in the inner city is its own unique, definable, problem. And while solving this problem is a huge task, mitigating it, lessening the pain and damage it causes, is possible. Reducing the number of cheap, easily available illegal handguns floating about cheaply for one and all on the streets will mitigate the pain and damage caused by inner city shootings. Not make it all go away, but it will lessen it.
- Cut out the street brokers. If someone wants to buy one or two handguns a year, no problem. But, if they want to buy number three or number four, the hoops to purchase become considerably more awkward to jump through; awkward, and personal enough, that dodgy assholes pedalling guns on the street are no longer willing to bear the scrutiny.
- enforce the penalties for carrying un-registered handguns. Consider spot checks for un-registered guns in trouble areas. Spot checks have been proven to work... and we now have the court that will allow them. Let the community decide if, when, and where to implement gun checks. If the community is fed up with all the senseless shootings, (and they are), allow the community to get after the problem. The people that live in the city, the community, the hood, they know what and where the problem is. Let them get after it.
- and do all the stuff Marshall has suggested.
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Post by PaulKay on Jul 18, 2023 9:34:51 GMT -5
Why, more than any time in our history, do we have so more human beings who want to kill multiple people? Even people they don't know? I think it is because our society has very effectively dehumanized large swaths of people. Be it democrats or black or latinos or gays or jews. The list is long. Once a population is dehumanized, ethical boundaries drop away. |
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Post by millring on Jul 18, 2023 9:46:48 GMT -5
Why, more than any time in our history, do we have so more human beings who want to kill multiple people? Even people they don't know? I think it is because our society has very effectively dehumanized large swaths of people. Be it democrats republicans, or black or latinos or gays or jews or The list is long. Once a population is dehumanized, ethical boundaries drop away. |
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 18, 2023 10:03:28 GMT -5
"Spot checks" sounds a lot like "stop and frisk," with all the slop that goes along with that practice. (What spot? When spot? Who spot?) And then there are the problems of what to do in jurisdictions that allow unregulated concealed-carry, and of courts that pare down gun regulation to the moment one is actually used in a crime.
As for "the communty" deciding--that collective noun lacks granularity. Aren't adolescent males (the most likely offenders) part of "the community"? And might their vote come in the form of shooting those members who object to their packing and manner of score-settling? Especially when street gangs are at least as organized as, say, the churches that are likely to represent those segments of the community that would like to see gangs and freelance yobbos disarmed.
The communities that need to come together on the definitely-plural gun problems are not all that unified and organized--and in any case, are up against some other very organized, unified, and well-funded "communities" that have for decades understood exactly how to leverage their influence over legislation, regulation, and enforcement.
There is a race-to-the-bottom side of gun regulation: the jurisdiction with the lowest threshold of gun acquisition sets the level of gun availability for an entire environment--even across national borders, as Mexico has learned to its sorrow.
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