School shooting today. At least 3 kids dead.

[Clizby Wampuscat]

It is hard to say what percentage of suicides would find another way. Some of them would, but guns make suicide far too easy. A friend of mine took his own life with a gun because his life was going to ****. It only takes a second with a gun. Cut your wrists and yo have all sorts of time to change your mind. Take poison? Well that is painful and you can often call a poison control center. Jump off of a cliff? Sure, but people rarely have a cliff in their backyard. They would have to drive for quite a while and then hike to do that. Perhaps if one lived in a tall building one could jump. But not that many of us do so. Getting rid of guns would probably drop the suicide rate substantially. I cannot "prove" that, but it seems to be a rational conclusion.

Sure, if we got rid of rope people could not hang themselves, or get rid of razor blades and they cannot cut their wrists. We can stop suicide by other means that does not involve taking away guns from law abiding people.

 

[Clizby Wampuscat]

Are you familiar with market forces?

I asked a question, this is not an answer.

Evidence shows that without access to firearms, suicide rates go down. It's considered a risk factor for suicide for good reason.

I am sure the same correlation would with other methods as well. I said before we can prevent suicide without taking away guns of law abiding people.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

If the only people that will have guns if they are banned is people willing to break the law then the criminals have an advantage.

A gun in the home is much more likely to be used against someone living in the home than against an armed intruder.

I know, that is why I chose not to have one as I still have kids in the home. But that is my decision. People all the time have guns in the home with out incident, that is the norm.

You're entitled to your opinion; you aren't entitled to your own facts. If you think that keeping a gun in your house makes you or your family safer, you're just wrong.

It depends on the home and the person using the gun.

Yes, I think a Constitutional amendment is in order. Yes, it will likely take a change in nationwide political sentiment for that to happen.

I agree.

The more feasible approach in the short term, which wouldn't take a Constitutional amendment, is what I suggested earlier: just get rid of the protections against liability for the gun industry and let market forces and voluntary measures limit access to firearms.

Also what might help is prosecuting people that are caught with illegal firearms. In DC about 50% of people arrested with illegal firearms are not prosecuted for example.

It is not the gun manufacturers fault that someone uses their product to kill someone. People choose to kill one another, this is rarely talked about in the gun debate discussion. A gun cannot kill anyone without the conscious act of a person.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Some interesting info by Pew on the matter.

Key facts about Americans and guns

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) favor stricter gun laws. Another 26% say that U.S. gun laws are about right, while 15% favor less strict gun laws.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[Guitar's Cry]

No, but I know waiting 14 minutes to let a killer run free through a school is unacceptable. What is training for if not to help you in those situations? I would rather die fighting and trying to keep the death count low than be murdered running. If your kid was at this school would you want them to wait 14 minutes for the police or have an armed guard or teacher/principal at the school?

A 14 minute response time is pretty good. I seriously doubt there would be any response time that would prevent at least a few deaths or serious injury once someone gets a firearm into a school. Prevention is key.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Sure, if we got rid of rope people could not hang themselves, or get rid of razor blades and they cannot cut their wrists. We can stop suicide by other means that does not involve taking away guns from law abiding people.

A lot of folks who died by firearm suicide would likely still be alive if the guns had been unavailable to them at the time. Someone opting a firearm chooses it over a rope or razor for a very good reason: It's quick, needs less planning, and they are less likely to survive then other methods.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

This is the reasoning your relying on to disarm law abiding Americans?

No, just pointing out it happens enough that it wouldn't pose a problem or challenge.
And did I anything about disarment? No.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

A lot of folks who died by firearm suicide would likely still be alive if the guns had been unavailable to them at the time. Someone opting a firearm chooses it over a rope or razor for a very good reason: It's quick, needs less planning, and they are less likely to survive then other methods.

Yup. Guns makebthat easier and more impulsive as well.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure, if we got rid of rope people could not hang themselves, or get rid of razor blades and they cannot cut their wrists. We can stop suicide by other means that does not involve taking away guns from law abiding people.

Why not?? Like it or not the problem exists largely due to "law abiding people". But it is obvious that you realize that your attempt to claim that suicide would not go down massively is false.

This problem is due to people like you. I know that you do not break the law, but most gun crimes are done with stolen guns. If a thief had enough money to waste on a gun he would not have to break the law in the first place.

How would you solve the problem? One thing that you should realize is that if your group does not solve its own problem the government will solve it for you. And you probably won't like that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, but I know waiting 14 minutes to let a killer run free through a school is unacceptable. What is training for if not to help you in those situations? I would rather die fighting and trying to keep the death count low than be murdered running. If your kid was at this school would you want them to wait 14 minutes for the police or have an armed guard or teacher/principal at the school?

Okay, do you have any actual knowledge of what is involved in active shooter situations? If no, do you want to learn that? And are you prepared to maybe change your mind, once you learn that is maybe not that simple as you apparently assume?

 

[Mock Turtle]

Are you going to answer any of the questions I posed?

Only when you admit that the USA is no different than many other nations, and if the USA learnt from these then the deaths might go down, given the policy of widespread gun ownership is a blatantly failed one. And don't point out the current situation as inevitably being the issue - given that getting from a place where gun ownership is quite normal to another where it isn't so will take a long time no doubt, and with problems along the way. But all the other solutions proffered by those keen on keeping the current situation are mainly just optimistic as to their effects rather than being problem solvers.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How will we get rid of $400 million guns in the US that exist, how do you stop illegal guns and ammo from coming over the border, how do you prevent 3D printing of guns. What is your plan to get rid of all of them?

To avoid the unnecessary deaths that occur on a daily basis in the US with one gun related tragedy after the other, you don't need to get rid of all of them.

You just need to get rid of most of them and keep a tight grip / eye on those that legally remain.

That's it.

Do that, and your average confused 16-year old kids will no longer be able to get their hands on guns to shoot up their schools.
Toddlers will no longer accidentally shoot their siblings or parents after finding daddy's guns.
Arguments will no longer escalate into shoot-outs only because guns are present.

When weapons are hard to come by, they won't be used often.
It's not exactly rocket science.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So the solution is to make schools more like prisons?

I wonder how that will prevent shootouts at bars, malls, hotels, concerts or other public events, workplaces, churches, etc.

Maybe play it safe and turn every single building into half a fortress prison with metal detectors at every entrance. Also have some laws that make bulletproof vests and helmets mandatory in public.

Ow, and don't forget to also arm "the good guys". Perhaps also call upon the community to help out and organize a "citizen's watch" patrol in all neighborhoods - and obviously arm them to the teeth with AR15's and alike so they can "protect" the people against crazy gun wielding maniacs.

Maybe everybody at schools should also be armed with guns. You know...so they can "protect themselves" when yet another mass shooting takes place.
In fact, make it mandatory that everyone is always packing in public... because you know, a mass shooter may show up anywhere and the "good guys" need to be ready to take him / her out, right?

Yes, excellent.

I am extremely confident that if they would do all that, that the number of gun deaths is going to drop to almost zero!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, but I know waiting 14 minutes to let a killer run free through a school is unacceptable. What is training for if not to help you in those situations? I would rather die fighting and trying to keep the death count low than be murdered running. If your kid was at this school would you want them to wait 14 minutes for the police or have an armed guard or teacher/principal at the school?

The one time in my life that I had to perform CPR for real, I had to wait about 15 minutes for paramedics to arrive. There weren't any gunmen that needed to be subdued or anything; the first available ambulance was just kinda far from our office when the call came in.

Was that delay the reason my coworker died? Hard to say, but there was that delay and she was never resuscitated.

If your objective really were to keep kids - or anyone - as safe as possible and the top idea on your list is "arm the teachers," then your perspective on reality is so warped that your judgment is completely unreliable.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Murdering people is evil in my opinion.

I was talking about keeping legal guns for the purposes of killing people who break into your home or whatnot. These people are not necessarily evil, but definitely deeply misguided.

When used properly they can be used for good. The police officers used them for good to kill the murderer at the Tennessee school. The Principle heard the shots, called the police then went unarmed toward the killer and was murdered. If she was allowed to have a gun then at least she would have had a chance.

Life is not an action movie. A principal with a gun is much more likely to:

- kill a student by accident
- kill themselves, or
- take the gun home and kill their spouse in a domestic violence incident

... than ever use the gun to stop a school shooter.

This is absurd. If a trained police officer can take out the murder a trained citizen can too.

Sure - with enough training on the side, the average math teacher can do thr job of an ETF officer as well as an ETF officer can teach math.

14 minutes to respond was great but way too long in this situation. Someone at the school needs to be armed.

Someone in the school was armed. They killed 6 innocent people.

There are 98,500 public schools in America. If we pay two trained officers to be at the school full time, lets say $100,000 for salary and benefits for each that is only $20 billion per year. Congress farts ans they spend $20 billion. We can do this, there is no will especially on the democrat's side.

I can't fathom how warped your thought processes must be for you to look at a school shooting and instead of thinking "the problem was the person there with murderous intent and deadly weapons," think "the real problem was not enough guns in the situation!"

If your attitude weren't so reckless, it would be hilarious.

Ridiculous. Wanting to bring a gun to an elementary school to protect kids is reasonable.

No, it's not.

Do you question the motives of armed guards at banks, white house, congress, supreme court etc.?

There are plenty of people who carry weapons in their profession who don't engage in the action movie revenge fantasies that you describe. Anyone who approaches firearms with the attitudes you've shown in this thread is someone who shouldn't have access to firearms generally, let alone carry them in a school.

You're giving off the same vibe as the kid at summer camp who's *really* into fire. The counsellor's probably right to say to him "okay, Timmy - how about you sit back and let the other kids tend the fire now, okay?"

Include this is everyone's training. You need to get rid of the idea that the police can save you and step up and protect yourself and others for yourself.

Step #1 in protecting ourselves is reducing the availability of firearms.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't know but there are instances of people using guns to protect themselves and others. Without a gun option they would have been dead. If it is just a numbers game to you then ok.

The "numbers game" is the out-of-control amount of annual deaths in the US as a direct result of gun violence.
I don't call that a "game". I call that a tragedy.

However, it is more than that. People that have guns for self protection are not choosing to use the gun in an evil way. Gang shootings and such are people choosing to use the gun in an evil way. Why should these criminals get to use guns for evil but non criminals not get to use a gun for good?

You can't give me a proper example of when "good guys with guns" ever prevented "bad guys with guns" to do what they were doing.
I'm sure it happened a couple of times. Which pales in comparison to the total amount of incidents

This is the irony... The only reason why every bum in every gang has a gun, is because the private civilian market in the US is overflooded with guns.

In the US, you can literally break into a house to rob it and walk out with enough weaponry to arm a small militia.
The result is that every bum and their mothers can have guns without any problems at all.

It's the only reason why every low-life criminal or wonnabe has easy access to pretty much any type of gun.

If a trained citizen in the Nashville school had a gun maybe less people would have been dead.

Right, because arming even more people is always a good idea to reduce gun violence.
PS: the guns in Nashville = all legally obtained.

It took a police officer with a gun to stop that person but it took 14 minutes. Why couldn't a private citizen have that same opportunity? The school was in a gun free zone.

Without such easy access to guns, there wouldn't have been a shootout in the first place.
This is what you don't seem to be getting at all.

The answer here is LESS GUNS, not EVEN MORE GUNS.

43% homicide, 54% suicide, <1% Police, 2% undetermined.

That didn't answer my actual question.

That is what is claimed, it has not been shown.

It is show every day in every country where guns aren't as easily available as in the US.
Again, I dare you: come to Belgium. Try to get your hands on an illegal gun. Even only a handgun will do. I'm not even talking about AR15 type weaponry.

Where do the guns go

What you can use in security / army you send there. The rest, you dispose of.

and how do you keep them out of the country?

The same way you try to keep other illegal things out of the country.

How do you prevent people from making them?

Go ahead, try and make your own AR15 type thing.
Or just a handgun.

Go ahead. Let me know how it went, how long it took you to do it and how much it set you back.
Then come to belgium and try to get illegal ammunition for it.

There are severe consequences for using a gun to kill someone today, why would there be more "heat" if you use a gun if they are banned?

I was talking about professional gangsters vs your average citizen.
Apparently you don't really understand the difference.

"not getting caught" is kind of an important skill set for the professional gangster.

You underestimate the ingenuity of criminals. Guns will be made for smuggling.

Criminals don't make their own guns. Large corporations like FN Herstal make guns.
Criminals buy the guns those corporations make.

If the borders are not secured then they will have no problem getting them and ammo into the country. Criminals don't care about gun laws today why would they care if they are banned?

I already explained it to you, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.
Getting guns into the country is only step one. They still need to be stored somewhere and distributed to dealers, who need to store them as well and then sell them to customers.

I already explained to you the logistical difference with drugs.
A pack of cocaine that you can even simply stuff in your pants can serve upto 100 customers.
You literally need trucks to serve the same amount of people with guns.

A black market for guns is literally a giant enterprise. One that would demand insane amounts of resources (money, private warehouses, trucks, perhaps boats or planes - preferably including private peers and airfields, drivers, pilots, smugglers, dealers,...).

With drugs, you can piggy back on legit commercial transportation. You can hide a couple kgs of coke between the banana's. You can't exactly hide 100 AR15s between commercial goods being shipped with legit transport. The weight alone will already lead to getting caught.
So the entire thing needs to be privately set up. Ask yourself what such would do with the price. Then multiple that a couple more times because of the "black" part in "black market".

And then we haven't even talked about where the organizers of this giant enterprise would even get their guns to smuggle in..........
Where are THEY going to buy them? We are talking about, in your opinion, enormous amounts of guns that leave the factory and end up on the black market instead of in legit dealerships.



Having said all that, why doesn't such a market and operation exist in Belgium?
The FN Herstal factory even is right here in Belgium, near Liege.
Our border control is actually non-existent. It's Europe. Our border is just a sign saying "welcome to belgium". If someone knocks it down, you wouldn't even know you entered another country.

I have, the point is cost won't be an issue because they can fund whatever they want with drug trafficking.

So how many of these drug traffickers went on mass shootings in the US in schools, malls, churches, bars, hotels, concerts,...?

Look, I agree less people will have guns, however, it matters who has the guns doesn't it.

Indeed it does.
Just run the numbers. Who does the most killings in the US?
Professional gangsters with (il)legal guns?
Or the citizens with mostly legally purchased guns who go on killing spree rampages in schools, malls, churches, bars,... etc?

How many members of the mafia are you aware about that did such mass shootings?
Drug dealers?
Bank robbers?

Take the Nashville shooter. Do you think she would have had those guns if she wouldn't be able to just go buy them legally?
Do you think she could have done what she did if she lived in Belgium?
Be honest now.


Your entire complaint about gangsters "having guns anyway" as an excuse for why guns should be readily available to pretty much anyone who wants them, is mind boggling.

Are you willing to put someone in jail that wants a gun in their house for protection and will never use it for evil if guns are made illegal?

I don't know about jail. But over here in Belgium, you would get at least heavily fined and the gun confiscated. Jail time might be possible in some cases also I think.
And rightly so.

It's because we handle guns like that, that we don't have the gun violence problems that you folks have.
And yet, anyone who really wants to play with guns, can do so with proper permits, in places specifically for that purpose, with strict rules and regulations concerning how to handle the gun and how, and where, to store it.

Because those are not guns. Guns are protected not tanks, nukes etc.

But why, is what I asked.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In the US, you can literally break into a house to rob it and walk out with enough weaponry to arm a small militia.
The result is that every bum and their mothers can have guns without any problems at all.

It's the only reason why every low-life criminal or wonnabe has easy access to pretty much any type of gun.

I think it's absolutely wild that you can say something like this without having the light bulb turn on: your country needs proper safe storage laws for firearms. This is the implication of what you're saying.

And the reason why it doesn't have proper secure safe storage laws: people like you. People who think that "defensive" gun use is legitimate. People who think that keeping their guns unloaded in a gun safe with their ammo locked up in its own lockbox would delay them too much when they want to put holes into a hypothetical burglar.

If you aren't going to listen to me, at least listen to yourself.

 

[PureX]

About the 'numbers game'. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death among children in the US. While being robbed in their homes at gunpoint is still virtually non-existent. So the idea that having guns around the house protects children, or anyone else in the house from armed intruders is ludicrous. For every instance in which that happens, there are a hundred instances where children and those living in a home with guns will be killed or injured by the very guns that the homeowner bought to "protect them". Guns do not make people safer. They greatly increase the likelihood that the owner or his family will be shot by the very guns he purchased to protect them.

This is a statistical fact that has been known for many decades. Yet it has no effect whatever on the people that want to believe that owning a gun will somehow protect them from the 'bad guys' that they so viscerally fear and believe are just waiting outside the door to attack them. Guns are a power fettish in the US. A very powerful one, that can't be overcome by facts or statistics. So our children will continue to be killed, and we will continue not to care enough to do anything about it. Because the gun fettish is way more powerful in our minds and hearts than the loss of a few hundred of other people's kids every year.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think it's absolutely wild that you can say something like this without having the light bulb turn on: your country needs proper safe storage laws for firearms. This is the implication of what you're saying.

And the reason why it doesn't have proper secure safe storage laws: people like you. People who think that "defensive" gun use is legitimate. People who think that keeping their guns unloaded in a gun safe with their ammo locked up in its own lockbox would delay them too much when they want to put holes into a hypothetical burglar.

If you aren't going to listen to me, at least listen to yourself.

I think you either misquoted or you're confusing me with someone else.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think you either misquoted or you're confusing me with someone else.

That's weird. I quoted @Clizby Wampuscat and didn't alter the quote header.

 

[metis]

If the only people that will have guns if they are banned is people willing to break the law then the criminals have an advantage.

I seriously don't think that anyone here is talking about banning all guns.