Las Vegas Mass Casualty Attack

[Deleted member 2897]

You can’t say that anything would have prevented this one act but maybe making it a little more difficult for a teenager to buy a semi automatic rifle and tons of ammunition is a good place to start. Maybe not allowing people to buy guns with cash at gun shows could be helpful. Maybe reasonable background checks might help. Etc. Congress couldn’t even ban bump stocks after the Vegas shootings. They literally are incapable of passing anything related to guns.

I just don’t understand the mindset that nothing can possibly be done to improve things when we are by far the worst country in the world when it comes to gun deaths. Things like this have happened in other countries and they responded accordingly. Why we just shrug our shoulders and act helpless while kids are being killed is beyond me.

My perspective is that science should dictate what we do. What would literally help versus what would make us sleep better at night. Passing a law that would do nothing is pointless.

For example, banning bump stocks. Okay, that sounds good on paper. Until you realize that was involved in one single shooting out of 100,000 over the last decade. Furthermore, if the guy would have used a simple semi-automatic rifle with a silencer, he could have killed many more people. The noise and erratic shooting nature that a bump stock leads to is why he fired 1,000 shots over the course of an hour into a crowd of people like fish in a barrel, yet somehow only killed about 50 people.

On teenagers, how many of these shootings have come from teenagers legally buying guns? This one in Florida did, but I can't think of another one off the top of my head. Personally, knowing that brains aren't fully developed until age 25 or so, I'm totally good with having a legal age to buy guns at age 25+. But again, there is no proof that changing that law would prevent a single shooting. How many of these guns are bought at gun shows? I can't think of any of the recent shootings where the gun was purchased at a gun show without a background check.

Further on background checks, the Vegas shooter is literally THE GUY you would let buy guns if you did really thorough background checks. 60 years old, good job, no criminal history, no mental illness history. I can't think of a single shooting where a good thorough background check would have prevented a legal gun purchase that was involved.

And that's the thing. NOBODY wants a single shooting anywhere. But you have to take the emotion out of things and figure out what can you really do that will help prevent shootings. Nobody can come up with anything. Even removing guns doesn't help. Australia bought back a third of their guns in the entire country and it had no statistically significant impact on gun shootings. Seattle and Baltimore did gun buybacks before, and same thing. No proof of any reduction in shootings (Baltimore actually increased).

All this fake news about "Obama is going to take your guns away" is a smokescreen. The truth is a lot of people on the left DO want to take guns away. They just don't know how to do it. But they would do it if they could.

We also need to keep things in a broader perspective in my opinion. Guns are banned in Great Britain. Their shooting rate is dramatically lower than ours here. But their violent crime rate is like 5x higher. So in other words, lets say we could get Great Britain's rates if we made all guns disappear. We'd save 10,000 gun murders a year. BUT, we would have 5 million more violent crimes in this country every year because of the increased rate there. Would you rather not have 10,000 gun murders (the vast vast majority gang related in inner cities) but have 5 million more violent crimes? That's a tough question too.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I think your giving congress WAY too much credit here

Upon further reflection, you are correct again. I just read in the paper that yesterday the Senate voted on the proposal a bi-partisan group of Senators had come up to reform immigration. It was a different plan than what Trump was advocating, the point being that it was designed to be a compromise between the parties in a way that can get strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Their own plan they crafted themselves then failed in a vote.

So upon further reflection, you're correct. If there was a law that suddenly made murder impossible by blocking the brain signals that make it possible, I am pretty sure Congress would vote that down.

 

[awbuzz]

The NSA is for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence. FBI is responsible for domestic intelligence.

The FBI’s “sleuths” were told the individual’s name & provided a copy of his posting and couldn’t figure out who he was.

C’mon defenders please let me know why the FBI fell down on this one. We can’t actually see the report so it doesn’t exist, right?

His name wasn't on a FISA warrant...[emoji11]

 

[awbuzz]

Upon further reflection, you are correct again. I just read in the paper that yesterday the Senate voted on the proposal a bi-partisan group of Senators had come up to reform immigration. It was a different plan than what Trump was advocating, the point being that it was designed to be a compromise between the parties in a way that can get strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Their own plan they crafted themselves then failed in a vote.

So upon further reflection, you're correct. If there was a law that suddenly made murder impossible by blocking the brain signals that make it possible, I am pretty sure Congress would vote that down.

Let's watch "Minority Report" and make it's solution the law...
Nothing is perfect as to a solution for this problem. Crazy folks will work out another way to kill... IEDs for example.

 

[collegeballfan]

Um, he's Hispanic.

If we could have a law that banned weird people from having guns, that would be a huge step forward. The problem is how do you define weird?

The FBI was warned that literally this guy was threatening to shoot up a school, and they did nothing. I mean aside from gun control or anything else, if you can't stop/prevent a guy that is literally threatening publicly to shoot up a school, I don't have much confidence in anything.

So he is Hispanic. He is also white like me and I am of English stock. The point remains that the huge majority of school shooters are white males. Why?

Good point on how do we decide who is not entitled to buy a weapon. Who decides one is mentally ill and who runs the database of mentally ill people not entitled to buy weapons?

As a society we have decided that the right to possess and carry is more important than the right to live. We decided in 1787 than anyone who wanted a weapon could have one if he could afford the purchase.
I do not see that changing.

One thought is we should codify into law the deciding point in Justice Scalia's majority decision in the Heller case.
"Held: 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

Maybe we need to pray for those kids who are alive today but who will be dead in days, weeks or months because they will be shot and killed at school.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

So he is Hispanic. He is also white like me and I am of English stock. The point remains that the huge majority of school shooters are white males. Why?

Good point on how do we decide who is not entitled to buy a weapon. Who decides one is mentally ill and who runs the database of mentally ill people not entitled to buy weapons?

As a society we have decided that the right to possess and carry is more important than the right to live. We decided in 1787 than anyone who wanted a weapon could have one if he could afford the purchase.
I do not see that changing.

One thought is we should codify into law the deciding point in Justice Scalia's majority decision in the Heller case.
"Held: 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

Maybe we need to pray for those kids who are alive today but who will be dead in days, weeks or months because they will be shot and killed at school.

That's a little bit paranoid. Our rate of gun murders in the US is at the lowest point going all the way back to the 1800s. These violent episodes are awful, but they are also a little bit like shark attacks. When the media does nothing but talk about them all day, it makes it seem like there are more than usual, which is not true. One statistic you'll here is that there have been 18 school shootings already this year. That is fake news. There is an anti-gun group that counts any shootings anywhere near or in schools. One guy was doing sanctioned target practice at school. One shooting was at a club right next to campus. Another was a shooting nearby and a stray bullet hit a bus after hours in the parking lot. One was a BB gun. A couple were suicides that were on property after hours. There are actually very few shootings at schools. 1 is too many, but there is no sense in the media lying and making up statistics to alarm everyone.

In terms of guns existing, even if we outlawed all guns and tried to buy them all back and destroy them, there is zero proof that would change anything. Australia did that, and was able to take a third of all their guns out of circulation and destroyed them. It had no discernible effect on gun murders. So even the most optimistic idea of just making guns disappear wouldn't do anything (because criminals and gang bangers would never turn them in or sell them...and many regular people who believe strongly in self defense wouldn't either).

 

[WreckinGT]

My perspective is that science should dictate what we do. What would literally help versus what would make us sleep better at night. Passing a law that would do nothing is pointless.

For example, banning bump stocks. Okay, that sounds good on paper. Until you realize that was involved in one single shooting out of 100,000 over the last decade. Furthermore, if the guy would have used a simple semi-automatic rifle with a silencer, he could have killed many more people. The noise and erratic shooting nature that a bump stock leads to is why he fired 1,000 shots over the course of an hour into a crowd of people like fish in a barrel, yet somehow only killed about 50 people.

On teenagers, how many of these shootings have come from teenagers legally buying guns? This one in Florida did, but I can't think of another one off the top of my head. Personally, knowing that brains aren't fully developed until age 25 or so, I'm totally good with having a legal age to buy guns at age 25+. But again, there is no proof that changing that law would prevent a single shooting. How many of these guns are bought at gun shows? I can't think of any of the recent shootings where the gun was purchased at a gun show without a background check.

Further on background checks, the Vegas shooter is literally THE GUY you would let buy guns if you did really thorough background checks. 60 years old, good job, no criminal history, no mental illness history. I can't think of a single shooting where a good thorough background check would have prevented a legal gun purchase that was involved.

And that's the thing. NOBODY wants a single shooting anywhere. But you have to take the emotion out of things and figure out what can you really do that will help prevent shootings. Nobody can come up with anything. Even removing guns doesn't help. Australia bought back a third of their guns in the entire country and it had no statistically significant impact on gun shootings. Seattle and Baltimore did gun buybacks before, and same thing. No proof of any reduction in shootings (Baltimore actually increased).

All this fake news about "Obama is going to take your guns away" is a smokescreen. The truth is a lot of people on the left DO want to take guns away. They just don't know how to do it. But they would do it if they could.

We also need to keep things in a broader perspective in my opinion. Guns are banned in Great Britain. Their shooting rate is dramatically lower than ours here. But their violent crime rate is like 5x higher. So in other words, lets say we could get Great Britain's rates if we made all guns disappear. We'd save 10,000 gun murders a year. BUT, we would have 5 million more violent crimes in this country every year because of the increased rate there. Would you rather not have 10,000 gun murders (the vast vast majority gang related in inner cities) but have 5 million more violent crimes? That's a tough question too.

Im sorry, but this is nonsense. You are basically saying that we should keep things the same and keep watching kids die because we don't have 100% conclusive proof of what will help. No need to try anything, right? Let me ask you this. Why is gun violence so much worse in America than in other countries? Why do we have so many more school shootings than every other country combined? I know, crazy people gonna crazy is probably the answer. Well, then you should probably ask why we have so many more crazy people than other countries and why we make it so easy for them to obtain mass amounts of firearms. Maybe that is somewhere we can start, if you have any desire in you to improve things.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

I have a company that sales security and communications equipment in the K-12 space. My first reaction is the school probably screwed up with its security measures. Especially if they were actively concerned with a potential shooter. Not knowing any of the details, it is possible the school did everything by the book and the kid was really smart and knew of a weakness. But from the chaos described in the news and the death count, the odds are in favor of a serious lapse in security from the campuses perspective.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Im sorry, but this is nonsense. You are basically saying that we should keep things the same and keep watching kids die because we don't have 100% conclusive proof of what will help. No need to try anything, right? Let me ask you this. Why is gun violence so much worse in America than in other countries? Why do we have so many more school shootings than every other country combined? I know, crazy people gonna crazy is probably the answer. Well, then you should probably ask why we have so many more crazy people than other countries and why we make it so easy for them to obtain mass amounts of firearms. Maybe that is somewhere we can start, if you have any desire in you to improve things.

I'm not asking for 100% conclusive proof. I didn't mean to imply that. But if you have a suggestion for something to "try", but there is no evidence it could have prevented a shooting, then what really would be the purpose? That to me is pure nonsense, doing something without any proof. (I'm not trying to be a jerk here honestly, despite the way this wording may come off.)

Why is gun violence so much worse in America? Because we have guns?

Why is violent crime so much lower in America? Because we have guns?

Here is a difficult question for you - Great Britain bans guns. Their violent crime rate is 5x ours. I'm not saying there is a direct correlation, because I just simply don't know. But for the sake of argument, what if we could make all our guns disappear tomorrow. We would save 10,000 gun murders a year. And yes, about 20 of those each year are kids in school (20 out of 10,000). In return, we'd have 5 million more violent crimes (if our violent crime rate matched Great Britain) each year.

Would you trade 20 less student deaths in schools for 5 million more violent crimes (obviously a lot of which would involve children and a lot of which also involve deaths)?

I mean these are serious questions that don't have easy answers. The media and public opinion only focuses on one side of the issue (which is a serious public health issue that SHOULD be discussed and analyzed), and doesn't look at all the many things we do right and better than everyone else.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I have a company that sales security and communications equipment in the K-12 space. My first reaction is the school probably screwed up with its security measures. Especially if they were actively concerned with a potential shooter. Not knowing any of the details, it is possible the school did everything by the book and the kid was really smart and knew of a weakness. But from the chaos described in the news and the death count, the odds are in favor of a serious lapse in security from the campuses perspective.

He was expelled from school and not supposed to be on campus. The students expected him to shoot up the school someday (the ones I've seen interviewed on TV), so if the school has no way to prevent specific identified threatening people from walking around campus (much less random people), that is a serious security lapse. If they don't have an armed resource officer when they have these types of known threats (or just having one anyway), that is a serious security lapse.

The FBI was contacted, specifically warning them of this guy's threats to shoot up a school. He posted all over social media about it in his own personal accounts, not some randomized ID like X13TOUGHGUY27. The FBI did nothing, other than say they couldn't find out who he was and moved on. That is a serious security lapse.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Maybe we can focus on the causes and not the symptoms.

A. Breakdown of the family unit in America
B. Failure of the welfare state
C. Liberalization of our schools
D. Sustained attacks on religion instead of promoting freedom of religion
E. Rampant disregard of our Constitution by the 2 major political parties
F. Promoting the theory that government is the solution to our problems
G. Trying to social engineer outcomes instead of providing equal opportunity
H. Anti-police strategies to breakdown our communities
I. Painting America as the problem rather than hold standard for freedom and liberty
J. Big government, big government, big government

This could be a start if the deniers can look in the mirror and realize what they’re doing to our country. We need to run these bums out of DC and out state/local government and replace them with those that promote the liberties and freedoms our Constitution provides and not what these modern day marxist progressives, socialists, etc are driving to destroy our great nation.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Maybe we can focus on the causes and not the symptoms.

A. Breakdown of the family unit in America
B. Failure of the welfare state
C. Liberalization of our schools
D. Sustained attacks on religion instead of promoting freedom of religion
E. Rampant disregard of our Constitution by the 2 major political parties
F. Promoting the theory that government is the solution to our problems
G. Trying to social engineer outcomes instead of providing equal opportunity
H. Anti-police strategies to breakdown our communities
I. Painting America as the problem rather than hold standard for freedom and liberty
J. Big government, big government, big government

This could be a start if the deniers can look in the mirror and realize what they’re doing to our country. We need to run these bums out of DC and out state/local government and replace them with those that promote the liberties and freedoms our Constitution provides and not what these modern day marxist progressives, socialists, etc are driving to destroy our great nation.

I would add that in my opinion A is the most important, which has been undermined and torn apart by the rest of the list. In other words, 'liberalization of our schools' - what does that even mean? Well, when they are teaching kids in schools that having kids before marriage is okay, that marriage isn't even that good and in fact its discriminatory, that life is arbitrary and subject to anybody's personal opinion, that you can have sex with anybody that you want, and so on, kids are left a chaotic and emotional mess. Their sense of right and wrong is blown apart. It gives parents a much tougher job, which many fail at in the first place.

 

[kg01]

Maybe we can focus on the causes and not the symptoms.

A. Breakdown of the family unit in America
B. Failure of the welfare state
C. Liberalization of our schools
D. Sustained attacks on religion instead of promoting freedom of religion
E. Rampant disregard of our Constitution by the 2 major political parties
F. Promoting the theory that government is the solution to our problems
G. Trying to social engineer outcomes instead of providing equal opportunity
H. Anti-police strategies to breakdown our communities
I. Painting America as the problem rather than hold standard for freedom and liberty
J. Big government, big government, big government

This could be a start if the deniers can look in the mirror and realize what they’re doing to our country. We need to run these bums out of DC and out state/local government and replace them with those that promote the liberties and freedoms our Constitution provides and not what these modern day marxist progressives, socialists, etc are driving to destroy our great nation.

I think I've found my running mate.

#kg&Lib_4_2020

Seriously though, we've drifted out so far from our "values" it's a shame.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Now the FBI is straight up saying not that they couldn't find the guy, but that they flat out didn't follow up on the lead in the first place:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ossible-warning-signs-before-school-massacre/

Probably too busy surveilling Trump people to have the time to spend on it.

But for real, what can be more important to our safety and security than to follow up on such violent threats out in the open like it was? This is just truly awful.

 

[kg01]

Now the FBI is straight up saying not that they couldn't find the guy, but that they flat out didn't follow up on the lead in the first place:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ossible-warning-signs-before-school-massacre/

Probably too busy surveilling Trump people to have the time to spend on it.

But for real, what can be more important to our safety and security than to follow up on such violent threats out in the open like it was? This is just truly awful.

Sorry, that's classified ...*mumble, mumble* ... homeland security ... blah, blah, blah ...

Honestly, I can imagine that being close to the answer.

 

[MWBATL]

It is always interesting to me that the liberal contributors to these threads tend to disappear once people start discussing...you know...facts.

 

[AE 87]

You can’t say that anything would have prevented this one act but maybe making it a little more difficult for a teenager to buy a semi automatic rifle and tons of ammunition is a good place to start. Maybe not allowing people to buy guns with cash at gun shows could be helpful. Maybe reasonable background checks might help. Etc. Congress couldn’t even ban bump stocks after the Vegas shootings. They literally are incapable of passing anything related to guns.

I just don’t understand the mindset that nothing can possibly be done to improve things when we are by far the worst country in the world when it comes to gun deaths. Things like this have happened in other countries and they responded accordingly. Why we just shrug our shoulders and act helpless while kids are being killed is beyond me.

Which other countries did things like this happen, and how did they respond?

 

[kg01]

It is always interesting to me that the liberal contributors to these threads tend to disappear once people start discussing...you know...facts.

Call 'em out by name, brolio.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Which other countries did things like this happen, and how did they respond?

I can answer a little. Seattle and Baltimore had gun buybacks - neither resulted in a reduction in gun murders. Baltimore shootings increased.

Australia had a massive gun buyback, removing one-third of all guns and destroying them. Also no statistically significant impact on gun murders.

In cities that have banned guns as a result of out of control crime - Chicago, DC, etc. - there has been no reduction in gun murders.

In countries that have banned guns for a long time, and so there isn't a plethora of guns on the street in the first place (Great Britain, etc.) - their violent crime rate is several times higher than ours. With Great Britain, that equates to our having 5 million fewer violent crimes each year (many which also result in death) by having our crime rates instead of theirs. So its also not clear that physically confiscating guns would result in a more peaceful society.

That last point I'd like to highlight a little. Our gun murder rate is at the lowest its been since the 1800s. Its still terrible, and school shootings in particular are just awful. But we do a great many things right that nobody ever talks about. Our violent crime rate is the envy of the world. They rightly point out 10,000 gun murders a year and 20-25 at schools each year, but nobody ever talks about the 5 million 'missing' violent crimes that we're avoiding. That's not really fair in my opinion.

 

[awbuzz]

It is always interesting to me that the liberal contributors to these threads tend to disappear once people start discussing...you know...facts.

+1