Gun Control thread (merged many)

[Oberon]

[August]

Intensely interesting article on how mass murderers feed off one another.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...ds-of-violence

In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do, that no law or intervention or restrictions on guns could make a difference in the face of someone so evil. But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts

[Rockstar]

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Intensely interesting article on how mass murderers feed off one another.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...ds-of-violence

Indeed, a very good article there August. Well linked.
A couple of things I've brought away whilst reading it, firstly it comes down to a slight surprise at how young the shooters mentioned in the report were and how they were able to access the firearms needed. Bomb making materials are one thing, sadly it's fairly easy to put together a rudimentary explosive device using easily available equipment, although it's a bit harder to rig together the detonator, I guess that's why suicide bombers are easier because with a lot of the explosives they're pretty unstable so you just need to give it a good kick or punch and boom.
But yes, I would be interested to see in how many of these cases the kids legally brought the firearms they used in the shooting, or were going to use, and how often it is that they steal their parents weaponry. This, in my eyes at least, puts a greater emphasis on a need to have some kind of control over who gets access to a firearm, and that those who do have access treat it with the respect it deserves.
The threshold effect, how a school shooting lowers the threshold required for others to go through with their attacks is another interesting, if not rather disturbing, concept and I think there's definitely an element of truth in it which is only fed by treating such events as a routine event of life in America...whilst equally it might not give them the blaze of glory that they desire if their act is preceded with 'another day, another shooting' but it makes the act seem regular, like a minor crime rather than an mass-murder.
Of course, it's hard to level that condemnation, that anger towards an individual without spreading their image and name across the airwaves, and in the age of the internet, even if the major news networks decided not to publish his photo or details, it would be up on Wikipedia and many, many other websites almost immediately.
Ah, Aspergers, that's become something of an epidemic of young children these days, and that of course leads many adults to claim that such a thing doesn't exist, like ADHD or ADD, and that these kids just need some good old fashioned discipline. Of course, that discipline almost inevitably backfires on the parent and the kid becomes problematic down the road. But, as this article has pointed out quite well, you can do everything right in raising a child and still have them shoot up a school.
That kid that the article revolves around, is an incredibly smart kid, and I think would have a good future in the chemical industry, and I hope that his stay in therapy helps him focus his mind to more constructive endeavours that are as interesting to him as the skewed psychology of the more famous American school shooters.

So, where does that leave us? The article has pointed out that there are some shooters who you will never see coming. Some display very obvious warning signs that are often, sadly, overlooked, but some don't...and they are perhaps buoyed and encouraged by the lowering of the threshold that takes place whenever there is a successful school shooting.
So, the key there is to break the chain, stop the school shootings or at the very least reduce the rapid rate in which they are occurring and that will help raise the threshold rate again. Of course, this is going to take a long time to achieve and on its own it won't be as successful as it would be as part of a concerted effort to reduce non-gang related gun crime.

Obviously better mental health care is one part, a better focus on watching for the warning signs. We already do it for Islamic radicalisation, although it's not the most effective of systems as you can actually create the very thing you're trying to avoid by mislabelling someone, i.e. if you treat someone as an extremist they may decide to become one.
Making gun owners more responsible and it harder for non-gun owners to steal or have access to a persons firearm, that will help a little bit too.

I think the biggest problem that people have is that there is no one size fits all solution to this, and heaven knows people love the magic bullet...pardon the poorly chosen pun, and because of this a lot of people think that there shouldn't even be an effort to try and stop this, because there is no one thing that can be done to stop it, or other people will claim that there is but it's a step too far for America to undertake, and quite likely would result in an extremely negative backlash and/or insurrection/civil war. So, small steady steps, one after each other, and you're not looking for shooting numbers to plummet straight away, they might not even budge for months...but you keep on the pressure, keep on chipping away at the problem and eventually the numbers will slowly start to fall.
But standing back, crossed arms, and refusing to do anything is, as this article has noted, only helping to create a new normality and that will just help breed whole new generations of psychopaths.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

That, my friend, is a two-way street.

[Rockstar]

I went back country camping at Assateague Island. Happened across and camped with people I never met before, not one armed citizen in sight.

Only thing we talked about was spectacular views, hiking, and argued from time to time about favorite ways to maintain a 600 plus calorie diet on the trail and the best ultra lite gear to keep weight down.

Not one word about guns or gun control.

You all need to get a life.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I went back country camping at Assateague Island. Happened across and camped with people I never met before, not one armed citizen in sight.

Only thing we talked about was spectacular views, hiking, and argued from time to time about favorite ways to maintain a 600 plus calorie diet on the trail and the best ultra lite gear to keep weight down.

Not one word about guns or gun control.

You all need to get a life.

I have a life and have camped all my adult life. Rarely has firearms been a subject of camp BS. BB guns are another matter but I have a good excuse.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

BB guns are another matter but I have a good excuse.

INDEED! leave your excuse at the tent flap! (USS IOWA BB-61's turrett)

[Oberon]

As a Brit, let me speak with experience that it is essential that proper BB gun safety procedures are put in place and followed, just ask the crew of HMS Vanguard!

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Oberon

As a Brit, let me speak with experience that it is essential that proper BB gun safety procedures are put in place and followed, just ask the crew of HMS Vanguard!

INDEED! BB-61's 16's on a bad day: (photos enlarge) probably from a three inch overram of the powder bags: <practice vs theory>"...determined that the five powder bags in Turret Two's center gun had been rammed 24 inches (61 cm) into the gun, farther than the 21 inches (53 cm) that the Navy had estimated... concluded that this overram, combined with the 2,800 pounds-force per square inch (19 MPa) of pressure produced by the rammer, likely compressed the powder bags to the point that they had ignited."

[August]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I went back country camping at Assateague Island. Happened across and camped with people I never met before, not one armed citizen in sight.

Only thing we talked about was spectacular views, hiking, and argued from time to time about favorite ways to maintain a 600 plus calorie diet on the trail and the best ultra lite gear to keep weight down.

Not one word about guns or gun control.

You all need to get a life.

[Betonov]

Must be the green color of the forests.
Green is a soothing color.

[Rockstar]

Just pointing out that there are beautiful things to behold, new people too meet, wildlife to see. No internet, no hysteria, no guns. Though a coyote may steal your food, and you could get kicked by a horse or struck by lightening.

I dont watch much TV, events like shootings, murder, mayhem, hysteria are normally not even a blip on my RADAR screen. Oh, I eventually catch wind of things and I come here to read about it and see those few who as if on cue have nothing better to do than squawk about who or what to blame and impress upon everyone their world vision for a perfect utopian society. Those are the ones Im afraid of.

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I just find it hard to accept a school shooting as 'one of those things', like it's a fact of life. We don't accept terror attacks as a part of life but as an act of war, so why should we accept crazed shootings as part of life?
When a plane crashes, people don't just shrug and say "Well, it happens." there's an investigation and if something in the design of the aircraft is found to be faulty then it's fixed. When a Hurricane strikes or an earthquake hits, people find ways to improve the survivability of infrastructure in that region, they don't just shrug and say "Well, what can you do, it's nature."
How many lives has the seat belt saved since its invention? The air bag? Crumple zones? If we had the same attitude towards vehicle safety as seems to prevail towards firearms then none of those would have been created because a certain number of deaths in vehicle accidents would have been acceptable.
We constantly try to make life safer, if not for us then for our children...sure, sometimes people go too far with it, but other times they do things which do save lives and improve the quality of life for others.

Your first sentence pretty much nails it. We here in the U.S. have the right to own guns, most of us understand that with those rights come responsibilities. we also know that there will be a few that will abuse those rights, which is why there are prisons for those abusers.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by MaDef

which is why there are prisons for those abusers.

And cemeteries for their victims.....

(man, I wanted to stay out of this....)