Las Vegas Mass Casualty Attack

[AE 87]

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.

Seattle and Baltimore are cities. Where is the evidence that Australia had problems with school shootings?

I think he just made stuff up to support his point.

 

[WreckinGT]

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

In the UK they had the Dunblane School Massacre in 1996 in which 16 kids were killed and one teacher. This lead to the UK banning hand guns and implementing other policy changes. That was the last school shooting recorded in the UK.

In Germany, they had a string of school shootings starting in 2002 when a 19 year old student who was expelled from school came back and killed 16 people. Does that sound eerily familiar? This lead to Germany increasing age limits for carry and requiring psychological evaluations for gun ownership. Another minor attack happened in a school in 2006 followed by another attack in 2009 that killed 16 people at a school. Germany banned more weapons as a result of these attacks and added another law giving the government the right to search the home of a registered gun owner to verify it is securely stored.

Both of those countries had drops in gun deaths and gun homicides following the changes.

If you want to go away from schools and more into just mass shooting attacks then the Port Arthur massacre in Australia is a pretty well known one. 35 people killed. Major gun law changes followed almost immediately with full bipartisan support and Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since then. Imagine that. No mass shootings since 1996. Must be nice.

 

[WreckinGT]

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.

You should probably point out that a violent crime in the UK isn't defined the same way a violent crime in the US is. Even simple battery and minor sexual offenses are considered a violent crime by the British definition. In the US it is pretty much just forcible rape, murder, robbery, and assault. If you can give a more accurate comparison on all of the types of crimes and proof that gun legislation is the cause of any increase in those numbers then I will answer the question. Or you could just look at homicide rates which are clearly defined everywhere. That probably won't help your argument though.

Also, I agree that the massive gun problems we have in the US are a public health issue which is why I think it is sad that the CDC is prohibited from studying it as a public health issue. Good luck in ever changing that though.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

In the UK they had the Dunblane School Massacre in 1996 in which 16 kids were killed and one teacher. This lead to the UK banning hand guns and implementing other policy changes. That was the last school shooting recorded in the UK.

In Germany, they had a string of school shootings starting in 2002 when a 19 year old student who was expelled from school came back and killed 16 people. Does that sound eerily familiar? This lead to Germany increasing age limits for carry and requiring psychological evaluations for gun ownership. Another minor attack happened in a school in 2006 followed by another attack in 2009 that killed 16 people at a school. Germany banned more weapons as a result of these attacks and added another law giving the government the right to search the home of a registered gun owner to verify it is securely stored.

Both of those countries had drops in gun deaths and gun homicides following the changes.

If you want to go away from schools and more into just mass shooting attacks then the Port Arthur massacre in Australia is a pretty well known one. 35 people killed. Major gun law changes followed almost immediately with full bipartisan support and Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since then. Imagine that. No mass shootings since 1996. Must be nice.

Seattle and Baltimore are cities. Where is the evidence that Australia had problems with school shootings?

I think he just made stuff up to support his point.

You’re just being silly.

All developed countries around the world have seen incredible decreases in gun deaths in the last century. Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting, but gun murders overall showed no impact from removing a third of gun shootings from circulation. If there are 100 gun murders, does it really matter if they came from 100 shootings versus 25? I think that is a crazy argument.

Back to Germany and the UK, we saw tremendous decreases in gun murders too. And the number of guns here has ballooned. So by that logic, we need even more guns.

Great Britain does define some violent crimes differently than we do, but there are still massively more over there than here.

The bottom line is that there is no proof that banning guns decreases shootings. There is evidence that violent crime increases.

Personally, I think what we need is an armed resource officer at each school (not that crazy talk about teachers).

I think someone like the CDC should study mental health and guns both and make recommendations. I don’t see any downside to that, and an independent non-political agency making science-based recommendations can’t possibly hurt.

One thing some of those other countries “benefit” from is no 2nd amendment, so they can ban guns and had many many fewer in circulation to begin with. We don’t have that luxury. But at the same time, we shouldn’t be letting people make fun of us or talk down to us. Nearly all of those people have massive violent crime epedimics that are much worse than losing 20-25 kids in schools getting shot. Neither is a joyful conversation, but it’s a lot easier for Denmark to be holier than thou when they never had many guns in the first place and only 5,000,000 residents. That’s like trying to police 1 single city and a completely different situation.

 

[AE 87]

In the UK they had the Dunblane School Massacre in 1996 in which 16 kids were killed and one teacher. This lead to the UK banning hand guns and implementing other policy changes. That was the last school shooting recorded in the UK.

In Germany, they had a string of school shootings starting in 2002 when a 19 year old student who was expelled from school came back and killed 16 people. Does that sound eerily familiar? This lead to Germany increasing age limits for carry and requiring psychological evaluations for gun ownership. Another minor attack happened in a school in 2006 followed by another attack in 2009 that killed 16 people at a school. Germany banned more weapons as a result of these attacks and added another law giving the government the right to search the home of a registered gun owner to verify it is securely stored.

Both of those countries had drops in gun deaths and gun homicides following the changes.

If you want to go away from schools and more into just mass shooting attacks then the Port Arthur massacre in Australia is a pretty well known one. 35 people killed. Major gun law changes followed almost immediately with full bipartisan support and Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since then. Imagine that. No mass shootings since 1996. Must be nice.

Thanks. I'll look at these examples. Obviously we would need a solution consistent with the 2nd amendment.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

The local sheriff said they have gotten over 20 separate calls about Nikolas Cruz in the past year. I really feel for the parents down there. What a massive and total failure by law enforcement and the FBI. This is akin to having a known terrorist living in your community making terrorist threats and nobody cared. This shooting was totally preventable. Sad.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Can someone please educate me- how does a gun force a person to shoot someone else with it? Isn’t that the same type of logic one would apply if you were trying to make a case for cars causing speeding & red lights to be run resulting in fatal accidents?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Can someone please educate me- how does a gun force a person to shoot someone else with it? Isn’t that the same type of logic one would apply if you were trying to make a case for cars causing speeding & red lights to be run resulting in fatal accidents?

There are left wing nut jobs who want to confiscate all guns. But I think the vast majority only want to try and remove large capacity magazines and semi-automatic guns. So that crazy people can’t kill so many so fast.

The problem is that 80% of guns bought for the home are semi-automatic. If you have to reload every few shots, that’s unworkable.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Police were called to his house 39 different times.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/16/deputies-called-to-suspected-shooters-home-39-times-over-seven-years/

This is insanely ridiculous.

 

[BuzzStone]

Police were called to his house 39 different times.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/16/deputies-called-to-suspected-shooters-home-39-times-over-seven-years/

This is insanely ridiculous.

This actually makes me mad. I don't get mad often but how many different red flags can be waived before something is done?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

This actually makes me mad. I don't get mad often but how many different red flags can be waived before something is done?

I know. Imagine the poor families. It’s awful.

 

[BuzzStone]

I know. Imagine the poor families. It’s awful.

Its a sad state of affairs when I have had multiple discussions with my children on what to do if they hear gun shots at school. They are not to hide in the room as suggested.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Its a sad state of affairs when I have had multiple discussions with my children on what to do if they hear gun shots at school. They are not to hide in the room as suggested.

Everyone should have an armed resource officer. That is step 1. No sense in not having it. Campus buildings should also have a locked down perimeter.

 

[BuzzStone]

Everyone should have an armed resource officer. That is step 1. No sense in not having it. Campus buildings should also have a locked down perimeter.

I agree with an Armed cop at every school. I am not sure what the answer is to the problem but we need to do something. I am tired of seeing these keep happening and nothing being done.

 

[WreckinGT]

Can someone please educate me- how does a gun force a person to shoot someone else with it? Isn’t that the same type of logic one would apply if you were trying to make a case for cars causing speeding & red lights to be run resulting in fatal accidents?

Should nuclear weapons be legal for personal use? Afterall, a nuclear weapon never forced someone to detonate it.

 

[WreckinGT]

I agree with an Armed cop at every school. I am not sure what the answer is to the problem but we need to do something. I am tired of seeing these keep happening and nothing being done.

There was an armed guard at the Parkland school. He never even encountered the gunmen. The truth is you would need several armed guards, all trained well. Good luck getting the funding for it when teachers don't even have enough money to buy all of the school supplies they need.

 

[WreckinGT]

The bottom line is that there is no proof that banning guns decreases shootings. There is evidence that violent crime increases.

Give me a break. There is far far more evidence that gun control decreases gun homicides than there is that gun control raises the rate of violent crime. In fact, im not sure there is any evidence or study that even suggests the latter.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Should nuclear weapons be legal for personal use? Afterall, a nuclear weapon never forced someone to detonate it.

OK, I’ll put boundaries on my statement. Of the things that are legal to possesses like a car or a gun, is the item responsible for its use or the operator?

Clearly it’s not legal to possess nuclear weapons.

 

[WreckinGT]

OK, I’ll put boundaries on my statement. Of the things that are legal to possesses like a car or a gun, is the item responsible for its use or the operator?

Clearly it’s not legal to possess nuclear weapons.

I think the big question is should guns be legal. Nuclear weapons are illegal for a reason. In the wrong hands they can do incredible amounts of damage. One could argue that same point for many types of guns albeit at a lower scale. I personally don't think all guns should be banned. I am fine with handguns, shotguns, and some hunting rifles provided that they are issued to someone after a pretty thorough background check and registration process. I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why anyone needs semi automatic rifles for their own personal use though.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I think the big question is should guns be legal. Nuclear weapons are illegal for a reason. In the wrong hands they can do incredible amounts of damage. One could argue that same point for many types of guns albeit at a lower scale. I personally don't think all guns should be banned. I am fine with handguns, shotguns, and some hunting rifles provided that they are issued to someone after a pretty thorough background check and registration process. I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why anyone needs semi automatic rifles for their own personal use though.

So many wacky points I hardly know where to start.

There is NOT evidence that gun control laws decrease gun murders. There IS evidence it doesn’t affect anything. Where there are gun bans, you are many more times to experience massively higher violent crime rates.

You realize 80% of handguns are semi-automatic just like AR-15s right? You’re talking about banning guns that look scary - functionally that does nothing.

More people are murdered with hammers every year than AR-15s.

If the school had an armed officer there and he didn’t do anything, he failed even worse than the local police and the FBI.