Shooter at Texas A&M campus

[cartman]

A gunman has been taken into custody, early reports are several law enforcement officers have been shot.

http://www.chron.com/home/article/Texas-A-M-take-allege-shooter-into-custody-3784674.php

[Rizon]

The fuck is wrong with these people ..

[stevew]

He put the Ass in texas.

[DaddyTorgo]

Seriously.

[Sun Tzu]

:(

[Apathetic Lurker]

One does it then the rest of the asswaffles want their moment in the sun

[Kodos]

:(

[panerd]

One does it then the rest of the asswaffles want their moment in the sun

Yeah it's a tough one to try and figure out thats for sure. On one hand there is little doubt in my mind that some of these nuts come out of the woodwork because of the over the top media coverage these events get. On the other hand it would be pretty much impossible for the College Station news channel to say something happened on campus today but we won't be covering this story. Obviously there needs to be a middle ground where the nuts lives don't get covered at all and maybe their names aren't even shown. I don't know though I have to admit that I tend to ignore a lot of news stories but find myself clicking on ones like the Aurora theater shooting and even this thread title. Human nature causes humans to be their own worst enemy maybe?

[JPhillips]

This sounds less like a preplanned mass shooting and more like a surrounded guy that panicked. Initial reports don't make this out to be a shooting at A&M, but a shooting at a house near A&M.

[panerd]

Yeah that makes a big difference. Still senseless and the asshole needs to be dealt with but at least its not random involving children and innocent strangers.

[BYU 14]

WTF is with all these nutjobs lately.....It's getting to the point where you are almost looking over your shoulder.

[cartman]

Finally some details have emerged. The shooter was someone who was being evicted from a house two blocks from the A&M campus. The officer serving the eviction was shot and killed, as was a bystander. The shooter was later killed by the responding officers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/us-usa-texas-shooting-idUSBRE87C0V220120813

[DanGarion]

So basically this is just unfortunate everyday news...

[stevew]

There was a shooting like that at my school at an off campus party and they tried to blow the story up. Yeah it sucks that a student got shot, but it wasn't a "school shooting" any more than this was.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

And what did this asshole accomplish? Yeah, he really showed them they can't evict him.

This is what happens when you cross an asshole piece of shit with a gun. You get an asshole piece of shit who thinks nobody can touch him because he has a gun.

Think letting everybody have a gun stops idiots from killing people with guns? Tell that to this dead cop's family.

[Dutch]

And what did this asshole accomplish? Yeah, he really showed them they can't evict him.

This is what happens when you cross an asshole piece of shit with a gun. You get an asshole piece of shit who thinks nobody can touch him because he has a gun.

Think letting everybody have a gun stops idiots from killing people with guns? Tell that to this dead cop's family.

Sounds like he was ambushed. You can ambush somebody with a 2x4.

[Shkspr]

Sounds like he was ambushed. You can ambush somebody with a 2x4.

So it's okay to sell the guy an automatic rifle because he's just going to crouch anyway. That's fair.

How does the bystander who was presumably more than 8 feet away figure into this? Does the planker just hide again and wait for the next guy?

[Dutch]

So it's okay to sell the guy an automatic rifle because he's just going to crouch anyway. That's fair.

How does the bystander who was presumably more than 8 feet away figure into this? Does the planker just hide again and wait for the next guy?

Okay, so he can ambush him with bows & arrows (or name your own ranged weapon). The point remains, the gun is not a fault.

http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Ban_All_Spoons.jpg

[Shkspr]

The point also remains that the gun's combination of lethality and accessibility lowers the barriers of entry for so many people over a bow and arrow, trebuchet, or atlatl that it makes ultra-violence an option for many people who would otherwise lack the skill to do significant harm to multiple victims. As an aside, outside of Holmes, who would have probably used bombs if not for ready access to firearms and thus had an even higher death toll, have any of the guys who have gone on shooting jaunts in the past few years been "good" at killing people? As in, would Seung-Hui Cho been able to get to 49 people before being brought down if he'd had other weapons instead? I suspect it's not the mere access to the weapon that is the issue so much as its force multiplication in the hands of the semi-competent that singles it out as both a preferred weapon and a magnet for controversy.

Truthfully, though, I'm not a "gun control" guy. I lived in enough big cities to know that it isn't the local gun club that's supplying Tec-9's to all the gangs. Likewise, most of my family is well-versed in firearm ownership. Where I see the problem is in the fetishization of guns, the fascination with them that makes otherwise grown men talk about them like they were describing their dream woman. I think it's this impulse that leads people to believe in guns as the solution to a whole host of problems that really can't, or shouldn't, be solved by guns. This guy had three pictures of his dogs on Facebook, three pictures of his guns, and one of himself.

Even in Texas, you shouldn't love your guns as much as you love your dogs.

A gun is never a correct response to getting evicted, or getting cut off on the road, or confronting a cheating partner, or a foreigner getting the job you applied for. For me, gun control isn't about controlling the distribution of guns; it's about training people to stay in control around guns. What we teach the young about "gun safety" boils down to merely the same message we teach about sex, drugs, and fine arts careers: "Don't." And much like sex, and drugs, and majoring in theater, the young find this prohibition alluring, so when they do discover a gun, what they really want to do is hold it, caress it, and maybe fire it...just a little bit. It makes them feel powerful, and makes it more likely that when they don't feel powerful - like being kicked out of your place, for example - they'll turn to the item that gives them power. I just bought my wife a Nerf gun a couple days ago as a live model for a cake she's sculpting, and damned if I don't want to nail her in the ass with it right now. I'm not immune to the seduction.

So what I think, and where to begin I haven't a clue, is that somehow we need to alter the way we think about guns as a society, not along a good/bad axis like we do now, but along a different metric. A sexy/utilitarian scale. Make them seem less power drill and more hand screwdriver. A gun in the hand makes too many people think they can take on the world. A little less of that, please. That's all I want as far as gun control goes.

[molson]

Where I see the problem is in the fetishization of guns, the fascination with them that makes otherwise grown men talk about them like they were describing their dream woman. I think it's this impulse that leads people to believe in guns as the solution to a whole host of problems that really can't, or shouldn't, be solved by guns. This guy had three pictures of his dogs on Facebook, three pictures of his guns, and one of himself.

Even in Texas, you shouldn't love your guns as much as you love your dogs.


Well put, I've been trying to put my finger on this the last few weeks.

You can acquire a bunch of guns in almost every significant Democratic country on earth. The good/bad thing is just too simplistic, but it fits in perfectly with our left/right ways of thinking about everything.

We have a gun culture that I don't believe exists in a lot of places, and that goes back hundreds of years. I don't think it's something government can change, at least without incredibly drastic action, and that just isn't going to happen. It's not just the NRA. Our left is pretty tolerant of guns, as a whole. I was reading something a guy wrote today, he was yelling about the NRA and gun violence, and saying we should have gun armories where people check out guns for hunting and then have to return them. As if the NRA is the only group of people that's keeping THAT from happening.

There's things we can do to make sure more violent criminals are locked up, and to make sure more mentally ill people are treated (against their will, if necessary), but every shooting isn't some statement about the failure of one political party or another or of our country as a whole. There's a shit ton of people in this country, a lot of stuff's going to go down. And as much as these things suck when they happen - we still have the lowest violent crime rates in 40 or 50 years (including lower than during the assault weapon ban, not that there's a correlation), so we must be doing something right. There were fewer U.S. murders in 2010 than there were in 1970, when the population was 2/3rds what is now (though back then, you probably wouldn't know about a Texas triple murder unless you read a newspaper the next day, and it's probably wouldn't be on page 1 unless you were in Texas).

[gstelmack]

I just finished watching Demolition Man last night. I still love the depiction of a non-violent utopia and how well that works.

I know, work of fiction and all that, but I think the underlying depiction is pretty good of the fantasy world so many dream about.

[bhlloy]

I won't wade into a debate about gun control but I was reason an article on CNN that bothered me in this case. The mother (who sounded genuinely remorseful) said he had mental health issues but it wasn't a big deal that he had a shit ton of guns because it was his hobby. Uh, excuse me?

I think barring someone with any mental health issues or history from legally buying or owning guns is a pretty good place to start. There are a ton of illnesses that mean we won't let you have a drivers license. I don't think it's that much of a stretch.

I think it somewhat ties in to what Molson and Shkspr were saying above. We can't take the guns away from this crazy depressed guy. It's his hobby! And then the crazies on both sides jump in and it becomes this huge emotive issue where we can't even have a discussion as to what common sense suggests

[JonInMiddleGA]

I won't wade into a debate about gun control but I was reason an article on CNN that bothered me in this case. The mother (who sounded genuinely remorseful) said he had mental health issues but it wasn't a big deal that he had a shit ton of guns because it was his hobby. Uh, excuse me?

If the version I read (just now on CNN) is the same as the one you read, that's awfully vague stuff from his mother. Not an ounce of documentation with it beyond her claim.

That's fine, I mean from a news story perspective, but the suspicions or amateur diagnosis of a family member(s) isn't something that's going to show up in any database anywhere. Nor does it appear to have ever reach the point of any attempt at a legal intervention of any kind (nothing on his record worse than a parking ticket according to the article).

You might have, or be able to find, a valid concern along mental health lines but right now I don't see anything in this case where those really would have come into play.

[gstelmack]

I think barring someone with any mental health issues or history from legally buying or owning guns is a pretty good place to start. There are a ton of illnesses that mean we won't let you have a drivers license. I don't think it's that much of a stretch.

I would agree, if you can document, etc. I'm also all for a safety and training class before owning one, much like with a driver's license. I just don't think the "ban all guns from everybody" approach will ever work.

[cartman]

I just don't think the "ban all guns from everybody" approach will ever work.

And that is hardly ever seriously discussed. The NRA jumps straight to that argument anytime any kind of limits or hurdles to buying a firearm are raised. It is one of the main reasons I left the NRA. I'm all for responsible gun ownership, but to immediately jump to extremes or have to invent bogeymen to bolster your position just doesn't sit well with me.

[gstelmack]

And that is hardly ever seriously discussed. The NRA jumps straight to that argument anytime any kind of limits or hurdles to buying a firearm are raised. It is one of the main reasons I left the NRA. I'm all for responsible gun ownership, but to immediately jump to extremes or have to invent bogeymen to bolster your position just doesn't sit well with me.

I mostly bring it up because it's brought up here regularly as "why does anyone need a gun?". Yes, sometimes it's just "why does anyone need an assault weapon?", but then semi-auto pistols with 13 shot magazines get used as an example of an "assault weapon".

I think part of the problem was illustrated in the other thread spawned off the theater shooting: exactly what sorts of bans or rules do the folks pushing for more gun control want? If someone on the side of more gun control would offer specifics, then we could have a real discussion. What laws would you pass that would prevent these shootings?

[JPhillips]

Sales at gun shows should also be subject to background checks like sales at gun stores.

Let's start with that law change.

[molson]

I think part of the problem was illustrated in the other thread spawned off the theater shooting: exactly what sorts of bans or rules do the folks pushing for more gun control want?

I think the answer to that is inevitably just "one more law", until the gun crime rate is 0. That's why I find the claims that, "we're not calling for guns to be banned" to be a little disingenuous, because the "one more laws" people come up with are very rarely directly responsive to the crimes that they're opportunistically using to make their points. So it becomes more of a rant about guns in general and people who own them (which I can see as being a little offensive to people law-abiding people who own guns, and then it gets into the emotional debate, and then there's no real rational discussion, rinse and repeat)

Edit: If you go back to previous threads where this comes up, inevitably you get to the stage where people, usually from cities, the northeast, or other countries, express their dissatisfaction with guns in general, with gun owners in general, an they have an incredulousness that anyone needs to have a gun....it can come off as an implication of all gun owners in every murder, or at least, that's how it can be perceived. So then you get the defensiveness from the gun owners, and then there's huge debates about pretty minor gun regulations.

[gstelmack]

Sales at gun shows should also be subject to background checks like sales at gun stores.

Let's start with that law change.

Agreed. I do not believe that would have stopped either of these recent shootings, though. So what's next?

[sterlingice]

First, We will never eliminate all gun crime. That is not the goal. But if we can decrease it, then that's a viable goal. There is an awful lot of "well, it wouldn't have stopped X". Yes, but there are a large number of Ys and Zs out there which could have been prevented so can we at least use these incidents as a jumping off point to have a conversation about this?



1) I like the idea of mandatory training for everyone before buying a gun. As stated before, I can't just go and get a car if I haven't taken drivers ed so why can I do that with a gun. Gun ownership is serious responsibility and people are uneducated about it- frankly, if we could do the same about home ownership and, for the love of god, having a kid- we'd all be in a lot better place as society ("wait, I have to change how many poopy diapers because I don't feel like going to one of the five Walgreens within a quarter mile of my house to get some condoms?").

And I don't mean a 2 hour class on a Saturday afternoon. I mean some serious hours logged before you can buy your first gun: gun safety, gun laws, gun storage, etc. I don't know what all topics it would entail but I could see it broken into, say, 4 classes of 2 hours each that have to be broken up into no less than 2 weeks- no blitzing through it in an afternoon. And there's some mandatory time at a range like driver's ed in the car. Then after applying for the license, there's a background check and you get it in the mail like a driver's license. So, before you own you first gun, you have to be over, say, 18 or 21 (pick your favorite age) and take 2 weeks of classes plus wait a week for the background check.



2) Just as serving alcohol to minors can cause you to lose your license to sell booze, so can selling to someone without a license. Will that stop the black market? No. Will that start pinching off the glut of guns that can make it onto the black market? Yes, eventually. As I have said in these threads- it's not about preventing gun deaths today or tomorrow but 20 or 50 years down the road. There is no way to fix that short of some Nazi-esque (Godwin'd!) confiscation and burning of weapons and no one here is suggesting that. This is a long term solution about adjusting the long term problem curve.

You check licenses at WalMart for liquor so why not your gun license for buying a gun? Same with anywhere else: sporting goods store, gun show, gun show, etc. Fines for selling to someone without a license would be big (I dunno: $10K per incident?) because of the danger as would loss of license as that would be loss of income. Similarly, if you buy from an unlicensed dealer, you can lose your gun license and similarly large fines. Don't eliminate it, just create and regulate the marketplace.



3) I like the idea of a waiting period for a gun. Yes, there is a black market but, as we discussed before, you risk fines and penalties for using it. However, the real aim here is to lessen the crime of passion crowd. This is not the movies where you go and buy a gun to commit a crime but it's also not the movies where everyone just has one sitting around. We're not talking about a long time- just something to create a small entry barrier: say, 3 business days.

But how does that work with a gun show. "Well, everyone who shows up on the gun show on Saturday gets their gun on Tuesday". That's perfectly fine with me. I think that would pretty much kills the gun show industry. So how does it work now? How can we make it consistent with these other rules? 36 hour waiting period for a gun show (go Saturday morning, pick up Sunday afternoon)? If the gun show loophole is not closed, then all you're doing is driving more people to that avenue so it has to change in concert with everything else. Licenses would, of course, be required for any purchase.

As an aside, in Houston, it's ridiculous: there's a gun show at least 2 Saturdays every month and they're "advertised" on the traffic boards over the highways like the Super Bowl or Final Four with directions on how to get there. Huh? I get the latter as they will cause a lot of traffic congestion but it's become a running joke with my wife about where the gun show "traffic" will be this week.



4) Some sort of gun limit? Would this be prudent or does it even serve a purpose? It seems like a lot of these nutjobs are heavy into collecting and glorifying guns. But for every one of those, I'm sure there are 9 guys who just like guns just like a guy who has 5 broken cars in his front yard and likes working on cars. Is there a point where we run the gun license and someone reaches 3 guns in a month or 10 in a year and they can't buy any more until the next calendar year?



5) An Assault weapons ban is not "an assault weapons" ban but a clarification of what isn't allowed for civilians. We've been down this road before- we don't allow tanks or explosives and that seems totally reasonable. A lot of states don't sell liquor on Sundays. We agree to limit these things as a society.

And, for the record, just because you don't agree with it, doesn't mean your peers don't and you live in a society with them. A lot of people seem to take issue with paying taxes or the speed limit because they don't agree with individual items. I wish cell phones would stop working when you got into a moving vehicle but that's been deemed too harsh by the rest of the society or, at least, our representative lawmakers. I can either live with the law as is or become The Cell Phone Avenger(TM) who goes around ramming my car into people talking on their phones while driving. It turns out that society also decided that's illegal and I would go to jail for doing it. But we did decide it's enough of a problem to make it illegal to operate while driving in a lot of places without proper equipment.

So, some of us are saying there are some items we don't like having out on the street. For me, the list starts with anything automatic. And beyond that, anything that can be quickly modded to be automatic. If you can do a little work in the garage and in an afternoon, your semi becomes an auto, it's not legal. "But how will we know? We can't be responsible for what every gun owner does!" True, but how about this- if I give it to some clod from the ATF and he can do it in, say, 30 minutes with items found in Bob Vila's garage, then it's illegal. The bar should be such that gun manufacturers have an incentive to err on the side of caution. Stop trying to get around every goddamn law with any loophole you can find and we'll stop treating you like children.

Honestly, I'm torn on even semi-automatic. Shouldn't there be a speed at which you don't need bullets to exit the chamber? Is 1 per second too much? Is that technologically feasible. It's a lot harder to gun down a room full of people or shoot repeatedly at a single person if they only go so fast. Again, same test as before: same clod and same Bob Vila's garage and same 30 minutes. If you can do it that quickly and easily, then it's not allowed on the market.

Selling kits to do it would be similarly illegal. That seems to be the cute way to do things now. Here, buy this semi-automatic gun and this kit that says turn semi into auto- neither are illegal by themselves. Ok, just stop. Again, clod, 30 minutes, Vila's garage- if he can do it then it's illegal. Just stop trying to weasel around the spirit of the rules. Sheesh.

These last couple of paragraphs don't mean there won't be people outfitting their guns into automatics. But it means you have to learn a little science and hopefully that bit of education will mean they have to think a big longer and harder before doing something like this. It's kindof the same idea behind bomb making- a lot of bomb makers blow themselves up or alert authorities before they actually can pull off plans because it takes skill and time and there aren't exactly training wheels for these sort of things.



6) There should be some sort of exemption process for collectors. However, there are some rules here, otherwise every David Koresh out there just deems himself a "collector" because he wants more than a few guns. You can exceed any gun limit of you're a collector or maybe there is a higher limit. But to be a "collector's gun", it would have to be over 30 years old. No, that shiny new gun that just came out is not a collector's gun. It has to abide by all the current laws, licensing requirements, etc.

I'm hesitant to cap this at 30 as maybe 50 would be a better time period as guns from 30 years ago are still really dangerous. However, in 50 years we find better deterrents and countermeasures that negate some of the damage of weaponry of the past. Sure, one could get a gatling gun from WW I and want to try to mow down people in the street. But I think we're talking about very isolated incidents there.



7) This one will likely be a bit controversial and may be the wrong idea but I was just blue skying after some has already been said. As it's going to cost money to pay for the licensing program and background checks, how about something that curbs the behavior and glorification mentioned earlier and offsets a little of the cost: there's a fee for gun violence in movies, tv and video games.

I admit it: I like action movies (good and bad) as well as crime shows. But maybe, if the budget's a little tight that week, the next episode of CSI is a knifing, which is gory but causes me to turn away and have a more visceral reaction against the killer rather than desensitizing me to point and click gun violence.

Similarly, yes, a modest tax on each gun purchase (say, $10) to help with the licensing fees. It's not onerous but it helps fund the system and is a sin tax, in a way.


===============================
===============================



Everyone keeps saying "give plans and ideas"- here's what I've got off the top of my head. Some of these are good, some are bad, and some are just there to get the conversation started. But they are real, concrete plans and ideas which I hope require more cogent rebuttals than "2ND AMENDMENT" and "NO YOU CANT TAKE MY GUNS".

SI

[Dutch]

1) I like the idea of mandatory training for everyone before buying a gun. As stated before, I can't just go and get a car if I haven't taken drivers ed so why can I do that with a gun. Gun ownership is serious responsibility and people are uneducated about it- frankly, if we could do the same about home ownership and, for the love of god, having a kid- we'd all be in a lot better place as society ("wait, I have to change how many poopy diapers because I don't feel like going to one of the five Walgreens within a quarter mile of my house to get some condoms?").

I'm curious. If we didn't have high school drivers ed, what would our automobile death rate look like? 20 times higher or so? You think? Most people would just run into each other at 100mph more regularly than they do now?

[JPhillips]

Agreed. I do not believe that would have stopped either of these recent shootings, though. So what's next?

I'm not going to stop all gun crime. The ban on grenade launchers didn't stop these crimes, so why aren't you advocating a repeal? If the bar is only laws that would stop the last crime, we've got a lot of laws to get rid of.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Sounds like he was ambushed. You can ambush somebody with a 2x4.

True, but would you rather have someone ambush you with a 2x4, or a loaded gun?

Okay, so he can ambush him with bows & arrows (or name your own ranged weapon). The point remains, the gun is not a fault.

http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Ban_All_Spoons.jpg

Not saying the gun is at fault. I'm saying the lack of controls of who posesses guns is, and the people who want anybody to possess any weapon are.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hard to get past "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

Of course, like pretty much anything & everything in the Constitution, that means as much or as little as the whims of the court claim it means at a given moment. It's simultaneously the single most relevant thing in the discussion and the most meaningless.

[sterlingice]

I'm curious. If we didn't have high school drivers ed, what would our automobile death rate look like? 20 times higher or so? You think? Most people would just run into each other at 100mph more regularly than they do now?

20 times higher? That seems an absurdly high, almost strawman-like estimate.

However, I do think it substantially helps people in their first 1000 hours of driving to know what to do by studying the theory and then taking some field tests with a professional. I know I was a better driver before Driver's Ed than after and for the responsibility of that magnitude, it didn't seem onerous.

SI

[sterlingice]

Hard to get past "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

Of course, like pretty much anything & everything in the Constitution, that means as much or as little as the whims of the court claim it means at a given moment. It's simultaneously the single most relevant thing in the discussion and the most meaningless.

Well, that's part of my point, tho- we already prevent people from buying, say, a howitzer or a tank. Isn't that basically a gun on wheels.

SI

[Rizon]

Another gun control debate on the internet. Yay.

[gstelmack]

I'm not going to stop all gun crime. The ban on grenade launchers didn't stop these crimes, so why aren't you advocating a repeal? If the bar is only laws that would stop the last crime, we've got a lot of laws to get rid of.

The last crime is being used as a reason to re-open the debate, so my point is that if you want to use them to point out why we need new laws, then I think it's fair to ask how the proposed law would have the desired effect.

In the other thread I alread posted stats from the CDC on deaths, violence, etc. Only half of violent deaths from one person to another were from guns, the rest were from other means. And violent crime has been decreasing in this country, despite what the media may want you to believe.

So I do think asking for more responsibility in the gun ownership process is fine. Sterlingice's list above, aside from #7, and the debate to refine the rules for #5, is very reasonable. But we'll still have incidents like these, which is why I get annoyed that they are used as a call for more gun control.

[sterlingice]

Okay, so he can ambush him with bows & arrows (or name your own ranged weapon). The point remains, the gun is not a fault.

http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Ban_All_Spoons.jpg

It's just as easy to mass 2x4 people as mass bow and arrow people as it is to shoot people.

And, of course, your use of a spoon will, of course, make me fat.

Why not just keep playing the false equivalencies game rather than trying to honestly draw real ones?

Why even bother trying to curb bad things? There will always be people trying to commit crimes and one can't make a perfect system so let's stop trying. No jails, no penalties, anarchy and survival of the fittest (and luckiest). That's the society we should all be striving for!

SI

[Dutch]

True, but would you rather have someone ambush you with a 2x4, or a loaded gun?

If the end result was that I die? A gun, I guess.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

The government prevents (or at least tries to prevent) the people from bearing arms all the time. Do a google search for the ingredients to build a pipe bomb, then order everything. Contact somebody about buying uranium. See where it gets you.

Yet any yahoo out there can pick up a weapon that can kill you and many other people in mere seconds and you hate America if you find a problem with this. Yet the NRA wouldn't allow members to take their guns into an auditorium where then VP Chaney was being given an award. Seems like "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" was infringed when it comes to the security of the VP, but that's ok.

[panerd]

Another gun control debate on the internet. Yay.

Hate to break it to you but almost every debate had and discussion had on FOFC has probably been done before even as far back as Plato for some of them. So why bother commenting at all if this thread doesn't interest you? Sorry to single you out but sometimes people enjoy politics or religion or other hot topics even if there are experts or someone has decided the issue is "figured out". If the thread is for that purpose that who cares?

[M GO BLUE!!!]

If the end result was that I die? A gun, I guess.

End result is completely open.

You round a corner & a lunatic is there with a 2x4.

You round a corner & a lunatic is there with a gun.

Which one do you prefer?

[sterlingice]

The last crime is being used as a reason to re-open the debate, so my point is that if you want to use them to point out why we need new laws, then I think it's fair to ask how the proposed law would have the desired effect.

In the other thread I alread posted stats from the CDC on deaths, violence, etc. Only half of violent deaths from one person to another were from guns, the rest were from other means. And violent crime has been decreasing in this country, despite what the media may want you to believe.

So I do think asking for more responsibility in the gun ownership process is fine. Sterlingice's list above, aside from #7, and the debate to refine the rules for #5, is very reasonable. But we'll still have incidents like these, which is why I get annoyed that they are used as a call for more gun control.

The reason why is a symptom not an effect of any particular shooting. If not for any particular occasion like this, it's as if everything is fine. But living in Houston, I had forgotten how pretty much every night on the news a person is murdered, more often than not with a gun. Wiki's latest statistics I could find are 2005 and they show over 10K people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Violent_crime_related_to_guns) that year dying from gun homicide. That's a large problem that has nothing to do with one guy in College Station or Aurora. But it takes an incident like that for people to even start looking at the other 10K.

So, as I said, I think using one anecdote (this case) as data is misguided. It just draws attention to a problem that we ignore in all but extreme cases.

SI

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Another gun control debate on the internet. Yay.

Yep. I hear they often change people's opinions, as this is a topic people actually contemplate issues on and take things into careful consideration.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :banghead:

[Dutch]

End result is completely open.

You round a corner & a lunatic is there with a 2x4.

You round a corner & a lunatic is there with a gun.

Which one do you prefer?

Okay, I'll humor you. A 2x4 because it's not a ranged weapon. What if I turned the corner and he detonated a bomb? or shot me with a poison dart? Which would you prefer?

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Okay, I'll humor you. A 2x4 because it's not a ranged weapon. What if I turned the corner and he detonated a bomb? or shot me with a poison dart? Which would you prefer?

Poison dart. Because then I would have 24 hours to figure out the cure, save the kidnapped girl and make love to the beautiful woman.

[gstelmack]

The reason why is a symptom not an effect of any particular shooting. If not for any particular occasion like this, it's as if everything is fine. But living in Houston, I had forgotten how pretty much every night on the news a person is murdered, more often than not with a gun. Wiki's latest statistics I could find are 2005 and they show over 10K people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Violent_crime_related_to_guns) that year dying from gun homicide. That's a large problem that has nothing to do with one guy in College Station or Aurora. But it takes an incident like that for people to even start looking at the other 10K.

So, as I said, I think using one anecdote (this case) as data is misguided. It just draws attention to a problem that we ignore in all but extreme cases.

SI

This is what I brought up in the post-Colorado thread:

This was fun to peruse: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf (death rates in 2010)

Accidental firearms discharge: 600
Suicide by firearms: 19,308
Suicide by other means: 18,485
Assault by firearms: 11,015
Assault by other means: 5,050
Undetermined firearms: 246
Drug-induced: 37,792 (I didn't dig deep, but I believe this is medication & illegal & whatever else in one figure)
Alcohol induced: 25,440
Work injuries: 4,066
Falls: 25,903
Transportation Accidents: 37,661 (35,080 by auto)

So, for example, for every 2 people intentionally murdered by a firearm, 1 person was intentionally murdered by other means. For every person who committed suicide with a firearm, another one found a different means. Guns may be convenient, but it's clear when they aren't available folks will find a way.

[sterlingice]

So, for example, for every 2 people intentionally murdered by a firearm, 1 person was intentionally murdered by other means. For every person who committed suicide with a firearm, another one found a different means. Guns may be convenient, but it's clear when they aren't available folks will find a way.
I think that's one way to look at it and not necessarily the wrong one: people are going to find a way if they want to commit a crime. This part is true.

However, I'm looking at trying to prevent a different spectrum: those crimes that only happen because they are so readily accessible. If this guy doesn't have a gun, this isn't a story. I don't see gangs riding around Houston with bows and arrows. Fatality rates from stabbings are lower than those of shootings (wiki link above) so maybe we have less domestic disturbance fatalities. I do think that there are a significant number of crimes which occur or have a greater magnitude because of the ready availability and glorification of guns and I'd like to change that.

SI

[Dutch]

Poison dart. Because then I would have 24 hours to figure out the cure, save the kidnapped girl and make love to the beautiful woman.

Okay, so I gave you an out...this time!

[cartman]

Hard to get past "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

Of course, like pretty much anything & everything in the Constitution, that means as much or as little as the whims of the court claim it means at a given moment. It's simultaneously the single most relevant thing in the discussion and the most meaningless.

You mean like leaving off the first part of the sentence?

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,"

That has been the part that has been referenced by the Supreme Court to uphold laws that keep certain classes of people (criminals, mentally ill, etc.) from legally owning guns. EDIT: That is the only place in the constitution where "the people" has a prior restraining term (well regulated militia).

[JonInMiddleGA]

You mean like leaving off the first part of the sentence?

Omitted since that meaning is a point of contention. In all honesty, I don't know how anyone with two brain cells to bump together can (legitimately) confuse a qualifying statement with the very direct portion I quoted.

As Scalia put it Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.

[cartman]

Omitted since that meaning is a point of contention. In all honesty, I don't know how anyone with two brain cells to bump together can (legitimately) confuse a qualifying statement with the very direct portion I quoted.

As Scalia put it Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.

Exactly, which is why it is strange that Scalia just glosses over the fact that the one place where a subset is defined is here.

[Easy Mac]

Omitted since that meaning is a point of contention. In all honesty, I don't know how anyone with two brain cells to bump together can (legitimately) confuse a qualifying statement with the very direct portion I quoted.

As Scalia put it Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.

Nowhere in the constitution does it preface the other rights with a phrase about a well-regulated militia.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Exactly, which is why it is strange that Scalia just glosses over the fact that the one place where a subset is defined is here.

You're confusing "glossed over", with "largely irrelevant".

[cartman]

You're confusing "glossed over", with "largely irrelevant".

Except for the places where it has been used to uphold the constitutionality of laws that limit gun ownership to certain classes of "the people".

[gstelmack]

Why doesn't it say "the well-regulated militia's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"? I've always viewed that clause as a reason for the right, not changing the right itself, although I also agree that restrictions on felons and the like are reasonable.

[cartman]

There's all sorts of places where it would have been nice if the language was cleaner/clearer. But that's what we have, and how the courts have interpreted it.

[JPhillips]

This is what I brought up in the post-Colorado thread:

But if you just look at assault, or intentionally trying to harm someone else, that's 2 to 1 guns over every other type.

[gstelmack]

But if you just look at assault, or intentionally trying to harm someone else, that's 2 to 1 guns over every other type.

By the logic that restricting gun access will cause assault deaths to go down (the 2 in the 2 to 1 shrinks, while the 1 stays constant), then legalizing drugs will cause drug-related deaths to increase, right?

I was surprised at how high the drug number was, right in the same ballpark as gun deaths.

[JPhillips]

What? Legalizing drugs would make it easier to access drugs and gun control laws would make it more difficult to access guns.

[molson]

Exactly, which is why it is strange that Scalia just glosses over the fact that the one place where a subset is defined is here.


Nowhere in the constitution does it preface the other rights with a phrase about a well-regulated militia.


So just to clarify are you guys saying that the constitution does not protect individual gun rights at all? Because I keep hearing that nobody ever makes that argument (except when they kind of make it).

[JPhillips]

I don't think you can say definitively what the 2nd amendment guarantees. It's always going to be determined by a court because the language is vague. I can see a case for a strong guarantee and I can see a case for strong regulation.

I don't, though, think you can make an argument that would ban all guns.

[cartman]

So just to clarify are you guys saying that the constitution does not protect individual gun rights at all? Because I keep hearing that nobody ever makes that argument (except when they kind of make it).

Please point out where I said there are no protections at all for individual gun rights. Even kind of.

[molson]

Please point out where I said there are no protections at all for individual gun rights. Even kind of.

Well that's what I'm asking. You're focusing on the militia part of the 2nd amendment, which made me think that you feel that the 2nd amendment only protects the gun rights of militas. If you acknowledge that the 2nd amendment also protects individual gun rights, what's your point about the reference to militias? What gun restrictions can the government impose based on that 2nd amendment reference to militias? How exactly does that reference limit individual gun rights at all?

[cartman]

I'm not focusing on it, except in the fact is it part of the complete sentence that constitutes the 2nd Amendment. It is the only place in the constitution where the term 'the people' has a qualifying section preceding it.

How are you making the leap from pointing out the opening part of the sentence that makes up the 2nd Amendment all the way to 'the Constitution does not protect does not protect individual gun rights at all'?

[molson]

I'm not focusing on it, except in the fact is it part of the complete sentence that constitutes the 2nd Amendment. It is the only place in the constitution where the term 'the people' has a qualifying section preceding it.

How are you making the leap from pointing out the opening part of the sentence that makes up the 2nd Amendment all the way to 'the Constitution does not protect does not protect individual gun rights at all'?

Let me back up then, what do you think is the legal significance of that reference to militias? Does it give any rights, does it qualify any rights, does it take away any rights?

If individuals, in addition to militias, ALSO have gun rights under the 2nd amendment, what substantive meaning does the militia part have? I just hear the militia thing brought up all the time and I have no idea why, unless the person is saying that the 2nd amendment only guarantees gun rights to militias, and not individuals (which you can certainly make a textual, if not historical argument for).

[cartman]

Individuals make up the militias. And the Supreme Court has ruled that the 'well-regulated militia' portion applies to persons who are generally law-abiding productive members of society. That has been the basis for denying gun rights to certain groups, such as convicted felons and the mentally ill.

[molson]

Individuals make up the militias. And the Supreme Court has ruled that the 'well-regulated militia' portion applies to persons who are generally law-abiding productive members of society. That has been the basis for denying gun right to certain groups, such as convicted felons and the mentally ill.

OK, fair enough. And I think most people certainly agree with restrictions like that even just as a policy matter. Which brings us to stuff like where to draw the line on taking away a "mentally ill" person's gun rights, which are really tough lines to draw, but I think, not that contentious or politically-charged a debate if you just look at that issue in isolation. Same with pretty much every discussion of a new or newly defined regulation. The NRA will try to draw the line wherever we are at the moment as not to "give up any ground", but I think the more pro-restrictive gun control crowd would do better to focus on the rules they want and why they're important, rather than the general hysteria after every shooting, demonization the American gun culture and even guns in general, etc. Which doesn't happen on this board too much, but is the subject of infinity fluff news media pieces and various personal rantings on social media and around the water cooler.

[Autumn]

Yes, I think the militia portion makes clear that there is a specific purpose for the 2nd amendment, and that is to allow for well-regulated militias. Gun rights are therefore somewhat constrained. I can argue that it is my right to spout insane nonsense on the street corner, even if it's for no useful purpose. But if I want guns in order to arm my ragtag hobo army who likes to shoot at imaginary animals, this is not a right protected by the constitution. The right to bear arms is not absolute, it is to allow a specific purpose important to the welfare of the country. That does not mean only militia members should have guns, but it does suggest that there is a related purpose to gun ownership.