The big news of the past few days while I’ve been on the road is the mass murderer in Aurora Colorado who shot up a Batman screening, killing something like 12 and injuring something like 50. I’ve only paid general attention to the details.
One place I heard some discussion was the beginning segment of the Dave Ramsey Show. His main thrust was that it wasn’t “society’s” fault and he didn’t know and wasn’t terribly interested in whether it was the parent’s fault. Crazy has always been crazy, things aren’t worse now than they were in the past, and the only thing that has changed is the intensity of media coverage.
I tend to agree with that, but I also think he was being conspicuously silent about an important variable. Crazy may have always been crazy, but crazy didn’t always have access to assault rifles. The capacity for violence has increased.
One argument I’ve heard, which I think is inane, is to the effect that more armed people in the theater would have made things safer. Cross fire in a smoky, confused theater where it’s difficult or impossible to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys would have done nothing to make things safer. Probably just would’ve gotten more people killed.
The other argument I think is suspect is that gun laws wouldn’t do a thing to make us safer. I disagree. I don’t think it’s coincidence that, compared to other countries, the U.S. has some of the laxest gun laws and some of the biggest problems with gun violence. Would passing gun laws help? Now, there I share the suspicion of the gun enthusiasts — it may well be that the genie is already out of the bottle; that guns are so pervasive culturally and physically that laws might not be of a lot of practical use. I don’t know that, but I at least appreciate skepticism on that score.
And, perhaps more importantly, whatever the most effective policy choices might be, I also think our hands might be tied by the Second Amendment in ways not applicable to countries with less gun violence.
Finally, I disagree with the notion that “now is not the time to talk about gun violence.” That it’s ghoulish political opportunism to discuss these things after people are dead. When a mine collapses and kills people, it’s an appropriate time to take a look at mine safety concerns. This is similar. Waiting until people are no longer focused on the problem doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Ok, ban assault rifles. Are you going to also requite that everyone turn in the ones they have and stop private sale of them? What about pistols? 20-round semi-automatic pistols aren’t hard to find. They’ll need to go too, and we’ll have a society that is entirely dependent on the police, who will be there in minutes when seconds matter.
Now, with no firearms available to this crazy person, everything will be safe, right?
This was someone studying for a PhD. I really think that this is the type of person that can made an improvised explosive using materials that can’t be banned. Instead of throwing in smoke grenades, he could have put in some IEDs and done even more damage.
So, now the only way to prevent this is to ban access to the books and websites that can explain how to make an IED. DHS-approved books at the library and a DHS-controlled web-filter in every home. Then we’ll be safe.
On the same day as this attack, 115 people on average died from car wrecks. Personally, I say we ban cars first. Not only will it stop all of those deaths, we’ll save trillions in fuel and give less money to oil-producing nations.
Ah yes, the “it’s too hard, let’s not try” gambit.
Start with the basics: Are there places with much less gun violence than the U.S.? Yes. So we know that less gun violence isn’t inevitable. It’s not like the weather. Humans shape their cultures and their societies in a way that has an end result with less gun violence.
How are they different and how are they the same? Work from there.
You mean, “let’s realize this isn’t a practical solution here, let’s try and find something that works, instead of just trying to make people feel better.”
FTFY
No, my point was that reacting to a case like this is the same as reacting with full-body scans to 9-11. These are the edge cases, not the norm. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”, right Doug? You made that case (correctly) when people responded with taking away liberties because of a single incident. I’m making the case that this is no different.
The point of the car analogy is that we don’t have headline news and Presidential visits for the 100+ people that die every day from cars. Why are these victims more tragic than the family that was killed by a drunk driver?
Because we need cars and we don’t need guns.
Why do gun people always compare them to a car? I’m 43 and finding my way to my job requires a car; I have never needed a gun.
I was unaware that gun people compare them to cars, I thought it was a unique point.
And no, cars are not required for your job. Move closer to your workplace and walk, ride a bike, or use mass transit.
People like cars because it makes their lives easier, even as it kills hundreds of us every day.
People like guns because it is a way to prevent tyranny, for one. I don’t hunt, and I don’t expect to have to defend my home with guns with the dogs I have at home & the neighborhood I live in. I seriously doubt I’ll ever have to use the guns that I own as part of some rebellion. However, I also believe that the fact that there are millions of other gun owners in this country makes us safer than the deaths caused by their misuse. Both safer from foreign invaders, and safer from our own government.
Can a militia honestly march to Washington and overthrow the US Government. No way, that isn’t even a threat.
However, just as we have seen in Afghanistan, a lightly armed group of people operating near their homes can resist even the greatest invading army. I think that this is essential to the liberty that we all enjoy.
If by “lightly armed” you mean fully automatic Ak-47s, grenades, 60mm mortars, 82 mm mortars, recoilless rifles, dishkas, PKMs, RPGs, and 30+ yrs of active combat experience using them… Then yeah, a “lightly armed” group can stand off an Army.
I think it would be a smidge different in the US where components necessary for IEDs are difficult to acquire and the population has no automatic weapons and little tactical knowledge of guerilla tactics.
I also think it would be a smidge different when a US solider had to decide if he is willing to take the life of a citizen defending his home.
If everyone is unarmed, it is much easier to “peacefully” control them. If they are armed, the decision has to be made if it is worth killing for.
Some soldiers may just follow orders, and some would refuse the orders.
you’re getting into a pretty far-fetched scenario.
look. i’m a gun, owner. i believe that people should be free to defend themselves. that said, i think there are many avenues of gun control that SHOULD be discussed, but will not be because no one wants to piss off the extremist group known as the NRA.
if you need a hundred round drum magazine for your AR-15 for defense, you’re pissing off too many people. i also think that we should track who is buying guns and ammo and it should be kept in a database. would make the ATFs job much simpler, and if you’re a “legal, law-abiding citizen” you should not have any concerns about that. at the least we should have the discussion. there haven’t been any new gun regulations since the assault weapon ban in 1994. you can’t even raise the issue in congress, the NRA would freak out so bad, it would be tabled before the ink on the motion dried.
Why do we have laws against bank robberies? Bank heists happen all the time both in major cities and rural areas — proof that these laws dont work!
I couldn’t agree more with the final paragraph. This is something trumpeted by those who are opposed to gun control because events like those in Aurora are damaging to their cause. I don’t recall the NRA types maintaining a respectful period of silence when, for instance, someone uses a gun to successfully defend his property by shooting an armed intruder, so it’s pretty rich that they expect those who support gun control to bite their tongues in the face of an event of the sort that is the reason they support gun control.
“someone uses a gun to successfully defend his property by shooting an armed intruder”
We need to feel sorry for a criminal that was stopped from committing a crime?
The car analogy is bogus, unless you believe that it should be legal to buy a car with a front-mounted iron pedestrian-scoop specifically designed to kill as many people as possible. Cars are heavily regulated. To make the analogy accurate, we’d have to restrict gun sales and possession to single-shot hunting rifles — the kind that our apparently infallible founding fathers had in mind.
By your reasoning, the Constitution only provides for an Army and Navy, and the founding fathers certainly didn’t have an Air Force in mind, therefore, the Air Force is unconstitutional?
Yeah, that car analogy, like the ladder analogy that gun freaks use, is very weak and fallacious. Why not just acknowledge that the NRA has mastered the art of single-issue politics and is politically unstoppable? But don’t waste the public’s time with logic that get you flunked out of a first-year college critical thinking class or kicked of a high school debating team.
Hey there Doug. Well spoken. I appreciate your depth of consideration for the “gun enthusiast view.” I agree that there needs to be thoughtful consideration and discourse on the matter while it is fresh. Bring the right people to the table and get a multifaceted view of the situation. Listen, talk, gather facts… no one decision on such a matter will ever satisfy ALL, but seeking a best decision to protect and benefit the majority is a great start. I will say that using this at this time as a political ploy to tug at the heartstrings would be a travesty and should be avoided by the politicos and recognized by “We the people.”
Jeanne Assam would like to have a word with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Assam#The_shooting_2
In Switzerland, where gun violence is virtually non-existent, the Swiss government requires all adult citizens to not only HAVE a gun, guns are ISSUED to citizens. Every adult in Switzerland has easy access to a gun. So clearly, gun control is not the solution. Maybe the Swiss have made it illegal to be mentally insane.
Washington, D.C. has some of the most strictest gun controls in the U.S., and remains one of the cities with highest murder rates. Gun Control advocates claim the guns are coming from Virginia. That’s interesting, as Arlington, VA, just across from D.C. on the other side of the Delaware River, has one of the lowest murder rates in the U.S. So, if the guns are coming from Virginia, the criminals clearly have a preference for using them in D.C.
Whenever the low gun crime rates of Europe are invoked, I never seem to find a response for this fact.
Better access to mental health care? Less income inequality? Less racial tension? Less population density? Less of an “honor culture”?
Potential variables.
Do any of those variables apply to the case in Aurora?
You tell us. You raised two inapplicable anectdotes. And were deluged with counter arguments for which you have not yet made a response.
My presumption was: “No, I don’t think these apply to this case, so I don’t get bringing up the lack of gun violence in gun-banned countries when we don’t see this same killing spree issues in gun-required countries”. However, I’m open to a counter-point.
Less intrinsic violence. Less frontier mythology. Wealth and a 4.8% unemployment rate in Arlington. A few thousand other cities in Viriginia that have gun stores.
There are numerous facts that can be unwound to explain these cited differentials. But the salient is that we have lots of guns in this country, and lots of people with a propensity to use them.
In Britain where guns are largely non-existent, especially handguns, there are few murders. Same thing for Japan. Ain’t arguing with outliers interestin’?
I agree that these are teachable moments, and that this is the time to talk about it. For within a span of days, we have the nutjob in Aurora, the elderly man in Florida who used a handgun to stop a robbery by two armed men, and police in Anaheim firing bean bags and rubber bullets at a crowd of women and children protesting a shooting by an officer.
So, then, I wonder if it would be useful/possible to restrict permitted weapons to those that lend themselves more toward killing one or two people at close quarters and prohibit those weapons that are more appropriate for spraying a crowd.
The Anaheim police being violent goons that attack men, women, AND children with reckless abandon would be the source of the problem there. After all, they didn’t limit themselves to firearms, they “accidentally deployed” a police dog against women and an infant. And then apparently tried to “buy” the cellphones of people who recorded their misconduct. (They’re learning, they know they can’t realistically take/destroy EVERY camera at one of these scenes by force, so they’re adding bribery.)
Anaheim isn’t an occasion to talk just about firearms. Or firearms/police dogs/bribery. It’s an occasion to talk about replacing the Anaheim police.
No, Christopher Swing, who apparently owns stock in several gun companies, needs an AR-15 to hunt rabbits and deer.
Why would I need stock in a company?
Go to cncguns (dot) com, since the comment interface seems to be filtering.
Have fun trying to regulate the internet, computers, CNC equipment, software, and operating systems.
We can essentially make any damn thing we want, and capability for increasing complexity is only growing. What you think people need isn’t really relevant. Or even remotely under your control.
You are a strange dude
Yes, I know. Thank you.
Now this guy, this guy is genius; bit (dot) ly / GCMk5Z
If you can teach it to recognize squirrels and open fire…
Yes Doug, having more (at least 1) armed and trained people in the theater would be safer. It wasn’t difficult to note who the bad guy was. A bunch of eyewitnesses did so successfully.
And what theaters do you go to that are “smoky” in 2012?
Guy set off gas canisters.
(ok, that part of my comment was pretty stupid).
Sure, we can “talk” about gun violence now. However, if we pass a law now, it will likely be an overreaction. Two examples: we overreacted to Enron with the whole Sarbanes-Oxley, and we overreacted to 9/11 with the Patriot Act. Obama overreacted to the Gulf oil leak with stopping all deep sea oil drillings. So yeah, we do have a history of overreaction.
Any thoughts on why the U.S. has more trouble with gun violence than other Western nations? I read your posts as being in disagreement with the thought that easier access has much to do with it. (Though, I’d welcome correction if you do, in fact, think easier access to firearms is a contributing factor.)
Here is a ranking of firearm-related death rate by country. The U.S. has 10.27 deaths per 100k people per year. It’s nowhere near as bad as South Africa with 7 times that rate. But the closest European country is at 6.86. Canada is at 4.78. Australia is at 2.94.
I wonder if maybe there is a correlation based on income disparity or racial diversity or something a little less direct than purely ease of availability.
Yes, access to guns increases gun violence, at least marginally. It also decreases knife violence, crossbow violence, and other weapons people would resort to using if they had less access to guns.
But that is only one factor out of many. Our culture is much more aggressive than most western european countries (I have no data to support this). Additionally, we have larger metropolitan cities (which leads to more violence) than average. We have a larger drug problem than most western countries, surely that contributing factor has little to do with access to guns, yes? We could probably keep going with this if we tried.
Follow-up question for you: is it fair to compare us to homogenous populations like Western Europe, and not compare us to the “New World” countries, which include Columbia, El Salvador, Jamaica, Honduras, and Mexico, which are all above us in the violence category (along with Canada and other less violent countries)?
So, Paul, you are claiming Australia suffers from a lot of crossbow violence?
I mean, since we’re reducing everything to the absurd
If you would prefer to ignore the words “crossbow violence” because you don’t agree with my (mediocre) choice of sarcasm, that would be fine as well. But the point of that comment was to illustrate that there is more than one type of violence, and if we simply change the weapon of choice from guns to crossbow bolts, we have not made the world a better place. However, I question why you decided to limit my comment to Australia, which is an absurd reading.
I disagree with that statement. There is simply a lesser capacity for destruction by the latter than the former. It may be we can’t keep semi-automatic rifles or automatic rifles or missiles or nuclear weapons out of the hands of would-be killers. But, to the extent we can keep the more destructive weapons out of the hands of unstable people, the better off we’ll be.
More plausible arguments, I think, are: 1) The Second Amendment doesn’t let us; 2) we can’t effectively control or reduce the distribution of items – be they widgets, drugs, automatic weapons, or whatever; and 3) we can’t tell with any kind of accuracy who might do bad things with a weapon.
I’m not entirely convinced by those arguments, but they seem rational to me.
As Doug made clear, they didn’t have mass shootings at the time of the Founding for a reason. Take the semi-automatic rifle, designed and used for killing a person, and handguns out of the equation, then every hunter in America could still have his guns and jackasses like Eric Harris or James Holmes or Seung Cho wouldn’t have the power to murder defenseless people.
“…and jackasses like Eric Harris or James Holmes or Seung Cho wouldn’t have the power to murder defenseless people.”
Given what police apparently had to defuse in his apartment, Holmes had plenty of power to kill defenseless people regardless. If the police hadn’t been careful going in…
But I’m sure you meant “that many people,” even though that’s still not true, given the fact that Holmes at least apparently still had no problem creating IEDs. The police were just lucky they didn’t trip them off.
“But, to the extent we can keep the more destructive weapons out of the hands of unstable people, the better off we’ll be.”
Jack the Ripper may have killed 11 people (we don’t know, but let’s stick to 11). John Wayne Gacy killed 33 people. The Oklahoma City bombing claimed 168 lives. I don’t believe any of these massive losses of life would be listed in the firearm table you listed Doug.
BTW, it is probably more accurate to cite the 4 homicides per 100k people in the US, rather than the 10 “deaths” by firearms per 100k, as the 10 deaths includes 5 suicide attempts per every 100k people. I don’t think the gun drove these people to commit suicide. This better utilized number puts us a little below Northern Ireland.
Do those stats include ALL firearms-related deaths? Not just criminal? Because it looks like it does, I’m not certain.
Because I’d like to see a breakdown where we could see police-action shooting numbers and compare those. It would be interesting to see what we’re left with if we leave off “official” state use of firearms and suicides.
Paul I’ll say bad choice of killers to compare to thgis incident. Jack and John did not kill all their victims at once ,and try to go and buy large amonts of ammonium nitrate at one time these days. Point being if a person wants to kill people they our going to accomplish that action,however,the quickest and most efficient method seems to be with an assualt rifle. Let me say this also I hunt deer and pheasant, I see NO need for average Joe to own a M-16 or the like.
John: the switch from mass murder was intentional. If you kill a bunch of people at once, they WILL find you. I have never heard of a case where a mass murderer wasn’t caught in the U.S. But a serial killer? Not so much. And it makes little difference if 10 people are killed all at once, or in seperate attacks. Can we agree on that much?
We can, the point here seems to be semi-automatic rifles,mass murder,gun control,and second amendment rights. Dead is dead no matter how a person gets there. Cold yes, but true.
I haven’t watched the coverage as closely as I might, but has anyone thought that the assailant might have been sitting in his car waiting for the emergency responders so he could start a second round of shooting? He still had plenty of ammunition, and was generally dressed like a local SWAT member.
What really surprised me is that he did not just drop the outfit and weapons and try to escape with the crowd. It would have taken a seriuos amount of police work to have found him in that case.
Personally, I think he knew he’d be caught. I speculate that had he been confronted by only one officer he may have responded violently. News accounts make it seem he was confronted by a large number. I think he ran the probability if survival and opted to drop them.
Ironically, it’s not unlike how the Joker was captured in The Dark Knight. Mass carnage, followed by a relatively non eventful surrender. Perhaps that crossed his mind as he told them he was “the Joker”
For starters, most people likely could defense themselves with handguns, shotguns, bolt action rifles, pump action rifles, and lever action rifles. I don’t get bent out of shape over extended feeding tubs for shotguns, or pistol grips…that is simply silly. However, the battle rifle, such as an AR-15, AK-47, G3, FAL, etc. does give a person somewhat of a tactical advantage, but that advantage mostly depends on the person using the gun, and just the mere addition to a battle rifle with a standard capacity 20 or 30 round magazine doesn’t automatically mean more death.
The question is how do we allow law-abiding people to defense themselves from the everyday issue like a street robbery, to a rare issue like the LA riots. The Koreans in LA did fine mostly armed with pistols, shotguns, and what appeared to be non semi-automatic rifles (couldn’t tell if they were bolt or lever action). However, with the amount of semi-auto rifles that can use 20-30 round magazines being put out on the streets, I could see today a person wanting one in a LA Riots/Katrina aftermath situation.
We also should remember that Virgina Tech was done with just handguns, which proves “assault rifles” aren’t needed to cause a large number of deaths.
I think most importantly, we have become a nation where some folks will engage in violence, but others have been so shielded from violence, that we are putting people at a mental disadvantage. Numerous people in both Aurora and Virgina Tech pretty much just froze, or did a “shelter-in-place” type deal, some made an escape and some tried but were still hurt. Most college vidoes about active shooters talk about sheltering in place, running if possible, and lastly going on the offensive as a last resort. Obviously going on the offensive, if the shooter is on another floor would be silly, but it shows how much the population at-large depends on a very small % of people to defend them: Police and non-LE who carry firearms.
I’m not sure I by the theory that had people in the theater been armed, things would have been worse. If that is true, the Florida internet cafe shooting should have been a blood bath. In some instances will innocent people get caught in the crossfire? Yes. It will happen with police shootouts as well. In the past, police hit %s were very low, as in less than 10%. There actually are civilians who carry handguns and train even more than some, if not many, police officers. Not all police officers are “gun people,” and some only shoot what state law demands. There are departments that have open range, but not every officer shows up, even though it would be in their best interest.
I’m not sure what the answer is. I don’t think people should be restricted in owning a semi-automatic rifle, but I understand the fear that if things don’t change, we are going to keep seeing bloodbath after bloodbath. It seems that if these incidents are done with “assault rifles,” people want to ban them. When they are done with handguns, people want to ban handguns. One thing we need are more people to get in the fighter mindset. I don’t think lawabiding people carrying handguns makes the country anymore dangerous. If that was really the case, after 49 states have passed some form of civilian carry, homicide numbers involving the very small number of people who carry would be through the roof. That just hasn’t happened.
For far too long, people have thought government could save them, protect them. As more and more people finally grasp that government can’t always be there in time, they will finally decide it is up to them to protect themselves and loved ones. This is why guns sales are taking off, and will continue to take off. It it why I hear of a few 40-50 aged women wanting to get a gun. It is why I trained one of them (a relative) on how to shoot (a handgun for home defense) and explained that everything one sees in the movies is mostly a complete and utter lie when it comes to guns.
My reply was mis-sent. It was not intended to respond to your post.