Gun don't kill people, people kill people

[Kulindahr]

Not only that, but the more people who have guns the greater chance for someone to overreact to a perceived threat with their gun. Before ever getting a gun the prospective buyer should be required to take an in depth gun safety course with the weapon, emphasizing when NOT to employ the weapon over how to fire. Even an untrained monkey can figure out how to fire a gun, but very few humans can figure out when its best not to start waving one around.

In all other areas, the response to people not knowing something or knowing how to figure it out is education. You've just offered an excellent reason why training with guns should begin at age 12.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's the same issue again no matter how you slice it- city vs state.

For example, in table 4 of the 2016 FBI statistics that I linked to earlier, you can see that violent crime in urban areas of the Northeast, where gun laws tend to be more restrictive, has been steadily decreasing. These Northeastern cities have much lower crime rates than cities in the South. You're more likely to be the victim of a violent crime in Houston where gun laws are lax (578.2 crimes per 100,000 residents) than you are in New York where gun laws are restrictive (354.9 crimes per 100,000 residences). Even in high crime cities, it's the same trend- New Haven has a violent crime rate of 322.8 per 100,000 people but New Orleans has a rate of 558.8 per 100,000.

Source

One has to be very careful taking two statistics and inferring a correlation between the two. One very reputable researcher has correlated gun violence and violent crime to abortion rates- eighteen years after the Rowe decision, violent crimes decreased and they have continued to decrease since Rowe; areas with easier access to abortion have declining violent crime rates while areas that are restricting access to abortion have not seen the same rates of decline.

Now, before we get off on a discussion about abortion, that's not the point. The point is that Congress defunded research into gun violence- specifically gun violence- so we have incomplete data to make policy on (which was the goal of Congress' action). The focus on mass shooting events by both sides of the gun issue isn't helping- both sides need to agree to look the research and come up with ways to address the problem.


I mentioned earlier that there are an increasing number of members of Congress who have personal experience with gun violence. Senator Feinstein is one of those members. She was at the San Francisco City Hall when Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk were shot and killed. She tends to be very rational on legislation and she does realize that allowing Tom Delay to block the renewal of the assault weapons law in the early 2000s was the turning point on a particular type of mass shooting. However, I think she also knows that handguns and suicides are really the issue that needs the most attention.


Actually, that's not what the research shows. And to be clear- when I say "good guy", I'm talking about people who are specifically trained for these situations- law enforcement and military veterans, specifically.

There's two scenarios that we're talking about- one is a robbery/assault scenario and the other is an active shooter event. The probably of most people encountering either is statistically low.

In the scenario where someone encounters someone with a gun in an assault, having a gun doesn't change the outcome. Introducing a second gun into an assault scenario is likely to escalate the situation resulting in one or both parties will be shot.

In active shooter situations, experts do not encourage civilians to waste time with weapons unless they have been specifically trained for these scenarios. In research where people were confronted with a scenario where a shooter attacked a group of people who had weapons and training, the gun owners were unable to process the scenario in a timely manner and they consistently, instinctively froze then ran.

The only group who were able to respond in time were law enforcement people who were specifically trained on this scenario. And the consistent complaint from this law enforcement group was that when civilians possessed weapons in the scenario, law enforcement was unable to distinguish the "good shooter" from the "bad shooter" and they would not hesitate to shoot everyone without a police uniform.

The recommendation from the experts is designed to both take advantage of human instinct and is based upon research on survivors of mass shooting events: ADD- Avoid, Deny, Defend. Your best chance to survive an interaction with an armed person is to avoid confrontation and to get away.

Even if police are better trained (which they wouldn't be), they are always minutes away -- and often they're still many minutes 'away' even once they arrive.

BTW, it's easy for police to tell the good shooter from the bad in a multiple-shooting scenario: almost without fail, the bad shooter is shooting at numerous targets while the good shooter is aiming at just one, the bad shooter is standing in a position meant to see lots of targets, while the good shooter is almost always near some sort of cover.

 

[Kulindahr]

It is that simple.
Nuclear bomb don't kill people but yet the NRA don't want other countries to have it.
But the NRA sell every Americans with tiny micro nuclear bomb (guns) ...

Um, what? The NRA has no opinion on nuclear weapons except maybe that since they're not personal arms they're not covered by the Second Amendment.

Oh -- and the only guns the NRA sells are donated for auction for a cause, such as legal assistance or safety training.

 

[KaraBulut]

....BTW, it's easy for police to tell the good shooter from the bad in a multiple-shooting scenario: almost without fail, the bad shooter is shooting at numerous targets while the good shooter is aiming at just one, the bad shooter is standing in a position meant to see lots of targets, while the good shooter is almost always near some sort of cover.

My statement about the difficulty that law enforcement has in active shooter situations is based upon law enforcement's own research and positions.

There's quite a bit of excellent research being done by university Criminal Justice departments that is being used to restructure training programs for uniformed law enforcement. That peer-reviewed research shows that in scenario testing, even those who have been trained on active shooter scenarios have difficulty in both distinguishing "good shooters" and in responding to "bad shooters" in a time manner. In FBI reviews of real life active shooter situations, civilians with guns failed to successfully disarm active shooters.

That's also why organizations of school police officers like the School Safety Advocacy Council have opposed having teachers and students armed:

That thinking is in line with that of Curt Lavarello, executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council, as well. He knows of no instances where a classroom has been trained to disarm a gunman and has actually done so successfully. He was speaking of the “fight” component of some of the trainings being offered to school districts, which instruct teachers and even elementary school students how to disarm a gunman...
As for having guns for protection in the classroom, Lavarello said it’s asking for trouble. For one thing, police arriving on a scene would have the daunting task of identifying a “good shooter” versus a “bad shooter.” He said that from his 25 years as a law enforcement officer (18 in schools) he understands that in a high-stress situation like an active shooter scenario, even a trained shooter will hit the target about 30 percent of the time.

 

[Telstra]

So, on the day of the shooting.
It was not the right time to talk about guns according to gun nuts.
This is so stupid ... it was a perfect time to talk about guns on the day of the shooting.

Now, that day seems like long long ago and lives goes on without a fuss.
And there will be more shootings to come ...

 

[Kulindahr]

So, on the day of the shooting.
It was not the right time to talk about guns according to gun nuts.
This is so stupid ... it was a perfect time to talk about guns on the day of the shooting.

Now, that day seems like long long ago and lives goes on without a fuss.
And there will be more shootings to come ...

Actually the day of a shooting is a bad time to talk about guns because it takes several days before enough is known to say anything intelligent about the situation. In this case, even stalwart gun-control supporters in the Senate, after a few days had passed and they had good information, concluded flatly that there aren't any laws that could be passed to have prevented the Vegas shooter from doing his deadly thing.

 

[Telstra]

Actually the day of a shooting is a bad time to talk about guns because it takes several days before enough is known to say anything intelligent about the situation. In this case, even stalwart gun-control supporters in the Senate, after a few days had passed and they had good information, concluded flatly that there aren't any laws that could be passed to have prevented the Vegas shooter from doing his deadly thing.

Guns were used to kill and kill.
Thats more than enough information you need to talk about guns.

 

[belamyi]

Like people do not make history or cities: they are made WITH people.

 

[Telstra]

Like people do not make history or cities: they are made WITH people.

oh oh,
Pat is looking for you ....

 

[zoltanspawn]

Gun shows in Nevada seem to affect gun violence in California.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rm-violence-in-california-study-idUSKBN1CS2P8

 

[Kulindahr]

Guns were used to kill and kill.
Thats more than enough information you need to talk about guns.

Sure, if you want to spout opinions without any facts.

 

[Kulindahr]

Gun shows in Nevada seem to affect gun violence in California.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rm-violence-in-california-study-idUSKBN1CS2P8

From the article:

"Another possible explanation for the difference is that California gun buyers are bypassing that state’s 10-day waiting period by driving into Nevada to make their purchase."

That's not just possible, it's actual. I know online people from both states who go to Nevada gun shows, and they report that Californians buying at Nevada shows is common. That people who don't like the law and want guns to misuse them isn't surprising.

 

[Telstra]

Sure, if you want to spout opinions without any facts.

Facts of did someone use guns to kill or not ?

 

[Kulindahr]

Facts of did someone use guns to kill or not ?

That happens every day, and it's usually government doing it -- the vast majority of people ever killed by guns were killed by governments.

If you want to say anything the least intelligent about a given shooting, you have to know who was doing the shooting, why, what made it possible, etc. In the Las Vegas incident, people wanting to talk about things without facts is probably the driving factor behind the fact that law enforcement keeps changing the timeline of events, which generates both confusion and distrust of government. It also shortcuts paying attention to what was responsible; blaming guns is a nice trick to avoid the fact (for example) that MGM bears a huge load of responsibility because it adopted a no-guns policy and did nothing to enforce that, with the result that someone used their hotel to kill people.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

Fallacy.

If I didn't need protection from them before they got a gun, I don't need protection from them now.

The only logical possibility if your statement could hold is if somehow guns magically make people want to be a threat to others.

No, there are other possibilities: the kind of people who are capable of sending dishes flying are capable of sending bullets flying. The kind of people who sometimes plant their fist in someone's face may plant their gun in someone's face.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, there are other possibilities: the kind of people who are capable of sending dishes flying are capable of sending bullets flying. The kind of people who sometimes plant their fist in someone's face may plant their gun in someone's face.

Exactly. As I said, If I didn't need protection from them before they got a gun, I don't need protection from them now.