Las Vegas...

Wilson said:
It seems to be an unfortunate reality that gun violence is a part of American culture. As yoù noted, mass shootings are a drop in the bucket of the terrible reality of annual gun deaths. Sad stuff...
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It is sad, and what's worse is that there is never any outrage from anyone about it.
I survived childhood in a city that averages about 250-300 murders per year.
Could always hear gunshots going off from my front porch.
The nonstop sound of police sirens and helicopters....
No one seems to ever talk about that...

I know why, but I won't go there...
 
When I see how severe a divide there is between the citizens, it is pretty disheartening. Just in the little Petri dish of Bnut, to see how far apart fellow members from the US are is crazy.
 
just.wing.it said:
I'm sure it is.
Civil war, here we come again...
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I didn't want to go there but I'm afraid I may see it in my lifetime. Those that are not prepared for it nor heed those that talk about it are blind to society. Not a matter of if but when.....
 
Smoke said:
I didn't want to go there but I'm afraid I may see it in my lifetime. Those that are not prepared for it nor heed those that talk about it are blind to society. Not a matter of if but when.....
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Sometimes I envy the naivete of those who laugh at the notion....
I guess ignorance really is bliss.
Which reminds me, I need more bullets.
 
Smoke said:
I didn't want to go there but I'm afraid I may see it in my lifetime. Those that are not prepared for it nor heed those that talk about it are blind to society. Not a matter of if but when.....
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Hopefully modern day procrastination will cause this to be avoided, and maybe more legal pot to chill people out!
 
my nellie said:
Additionally, 12 bump-fire stocks were found on guns in the shooter's hotel room, Snyder said. Their "legality" depends on whether they mechanically alter the function of the fire to fire fully automatic, she said.
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Let me put this slightly differently. From my military background, this guy was clearly someone who didn't know a lot about firearms - except as a hobbyist. Having greater numbers of firearms doesn't make them suddenly more dangerous. A vet with a single rifle could do as much damage as this poseur with a truck load of weapons. I assumed two rifles were used... because that's all he needed to use based on what he was doing with them.
 
just.wing.it said:
Sometimes I envy the naivete of those who laugh at the notion....
I guess ignorance really is bliss.
Which reminds me, I need more bullets.
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you dont need more bullets - you only need between 7-10 rounds. or better yet just get a shotgun - ive heard thats all you need.

i used to shake my head at those comments too - but i see us being closer than ever.
 
Bonsai Nut said:
Let me put this slightly differently. From my military background, this guy was clearly someone who didn't know a lot about firearms - except as a hobbyist. Having greater numbers of firearms doesn't make them suddenly more dangerous. A vet with a single rifle could do as much damage as this poseur with a truck load of weapons. I assumed two rifles were used... because that's all he needed to use based on what he was doing with them.
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i didnt understand the number found in the hotel either - unless its intended to be for shock value or part of a message or something.

im really dumbfounded by all the facts so far - nothing really adds up with this guy.

unless its just crazy being crazy for the sake of crazy - but at 64 - youd think there would have been signs before now. some rants here, some ideology - something?
 
Bonsai Nut said:
For gun homicide rate, among all the countries in the world, the US rates 28th, behind such stalwarts as Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. Some of these countries ban the private ownership of firearms, though not all do.

Sounds like the majority, if not all of the shooting was conducted using two 5.56mm semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks (that use the recoil of the rifle to enable rapid trigger pulls). The combination of rapid fire and jostled trigger hand makes these weapons highly inaccurate. In fact, from a range of 400 yards (the range of the shooter to the concert venue) you'd be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn. The shooter was just spraying the field, and if you got hit you were unlucky.

The shooter was a 64 year-old with no criminal background. Given that shooting was likely conducted solely with two weapons, I'm not sure what regulations people might suggest that would prevent something similar from happening in the future? National firearms backgrounds check and annual license? Nope. Limit gun ownership to 5 or fewer weapons? Nope. Or 3... or 2? Nope. I don't have an answer. Modifying your rifle for automatic fire is already illegal, though that doesn't stop people from doing it.

In the meantime, the vast majority of firearm deaths are due to handguns. Year to date in Chicago alone, there are almost 500 gun homicides so far this year... (2,401 shot and wounded just in that one city) a problem that dwarfs the issue of mass shootings by a factor of about 100.
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Anybody else find it ironic that a toy deemed dangerous because a few children might have swallowed it is more likely to be pulled from the shelves here in the USA then any of the weapons discussed above that killed 59 and wounded scores more over a 10 minute period from a vantage point a quarter mile away? The fact that it makes up only a small fraction of those killed and wounded with guns across the country makes it ok?

I get it folks, no worries here. The imminent threat of civil war has swayed me. Once my mother in law is gone and I've successfully brain washed my wife, I'll get myself a decent shotgun for home defense (in all seriousness, I've considered this but it's a no-go with mom in the house). Either that, or I'll borrow one from a good friend from a few streets over... he's got 3 or 4 in his gun safe.
 
Just a couple of comments FWIW...

Smoke is basically right and confirms for me that America Functions in Spite of Itself...

Yes a Class Struggle between Have & Have Nots, Right vs Left...Within a 100 years maybe much sooner...

Comments by COH to JustWingIt tell me that he is mentally incapable of rational thought, much like the Las Vegas shooter,
he needs to seek help before he snaps...

We will never know why the LV shooter snapped but he obviously had something against Society in general...Like Smoke Implies...

This is America and stuff like this Happens because we are a Free Country not a Police State...
 
Bolero said:
Just a couple of comments FWIW...

Smoke is basically right and confirms for me that America Functions in Spite of Itself...

Yes a Class Struggle between Have & Have Nots, Right vs Left...Within a 100 years maybe much sooner...

Comments by COH to JustWingIt tell me that he is mentally incapable of rational thought, much like the Las Vegas shooter,
he needs to seek help before he snaps...

We will never know why the LV shooter snapped but he obviously had something against Society in general...Like Smoke Implies...

This is America and stuff like this Happens because we are a Free Country not a Police State...
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The amount of gun violence you experience doesn't happen in other free countries.
 
Wilson said:
The amount of gun violence you experience doesn't happen in other free countries.
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we also experience a larger amount of drug related deaths than other countries - yet drugs still illegal and tightly regulated. how do you explain that?

the problem is much more complex than the number of guns in america. ive said it repeatedly - evidence supports there is not a 1:1 relationship between gun laws and gun violence. you CAN pick and choose which numbers you want to pull to support your particular side of the argument -but more than likely you are not getting the whole picture.

relative wealth to the rest of the world, education, cultural traditions, economic disparities, religous and ethnic distributions - all are factors and variables in comparing rates between the us and the rest of the world.

but its just too convenient and easy to say guns are the problem.
 
Dav4 said:
Anybody else find it ironic that a toy deemed dangerous because a few children might have swallowed it is more likely to be pulled from the shelves here in the USA then any of the weapons discussed above that killed 59 and wounded scores more over a 10 minute period from a vantage point a quarter mile away? The fact that it makes up only a small fraction of those killed and wounded with guns across the country makes it ok?
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I think we can all agree on the outrage. I cannot imagine someone so evil... and cowardly.

However I am waiting to hear you offer a concrete suggestion. I'm not being a smartass - I am perfectly willing to listen to what you have to say.

Here's an interesting thought: What do these crackpots hope to gain from going out in a blaze of glory? They hope for notoriety. One way to cut down the number of mass shootings is to make it illegal for any media outlet to use the shooter's name, image, or personal details in any coverage of the crime - including images or coverage of family members or residences. They can cover the details... but must refer to the shooter as "the shooter". I'll bet this would cut mass shootings by 50% or more. It is the reason why media outlets agreed to not cover details of suicides - because they were generating "me too" suicides from popular suicide locations like the Golden Gate Bridge. To this day you can find no data on Golden Gate Bridge suicides... they are a closely guarded security secret (and I'm not making this up).

And for people without a military background, had that field had a platoon of Marines in it instead of 20,000 concert attendees, the shooter would be dead and there wouldn't be a single casualty among the Marines, unless it was due to blind luck at the early moments of the shooting. The shooter wasn't aiming... he was just spraying rounds in a general direction. The high casualty rate was due to the fact that people remained in tight groups and didn't move out of the field. In many cases I am sure two or three people were hit by single rounds. Rifle rounds are not handgun rounds - you don't "shield" people by laying on top of them. You just create two casualties when there would have been one. It is one (of a number) of reasons why rifles are ill-suited to home defense... you have to worry about the round going through the walls of your house (potentially hitting someone along the way) and going through your neighbors house with the same risk. A shotgun with an appropriate home defense load (ie not deer slugs) will not be fatal through two layers of drywall.
 
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I think it is more the gun culture than the availability of guns.
BNut clearly stated that you don't need 50 guns to do that... heck you might just need 1. It must have been for the matrix suitcase full of guns effect.

I for one don't really like guns, and Chile is relatively free of guns, so I prefer not to have a gun.
 
watchndsky said:
we also experience a larger amount of drug related deaths than other countries - yet drugs still illegal and tightly regulated. how do you explain that?

the problem is much more complex than the number of guns in america. ive said it repeatedly - evidence supports there is not a 1:1 relationship between gun laws and gun violence. you CAN pick and choose which numbers you want to pull to support your particular side of the argument -but more than likely you are not getting the whole picture.

relative wealth to the rest of the world, education, cultural traditions, economic disparities, religous and ethnic distributions - all are factors and variables in comparing rates between the us and the rest of the world.

but its just too convenient and easy to say guns are the problem.
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I did not mention the legality of guns, I am not against ownership. As myself and @Dav4 have mentioned it is more related to a long history of gun culture, coupled with an enormous marketplace for guns that has created your unique situation in the world.
As to @Bolero comment, how are you more free than me? Here we can drive at 16, drink at 18, soon pot will be legalized for personal cultivation, we have free votes, what could I be lacking in my country?
 
Bonsai Nut said:
I think we can all agree on the outrage.

However I am waiting to hear you offer a concrete suggestion. I'm not being a smartass - I am perfectly willing to listen to what you have to say.

Here's an interesting thought. What do these crackpots hope to gain from going out in a blaze of glory? They hope for notoriety. One way to cut down the number of mass shootings is to make it illegal for any media outlet to use the shooter's name, image, or personal details in any coverage of the crime - including images or coverage of family members or residences. They can cover the details... but must refer to the shooter as "the shooter". I'll bet this would cut mass shootings by 50%. It is the reason why media outlets agreed to not cover details of suicides - because they were generating "me too" suicides from popular suicide locations like the Golden Gate Bridge. To this day you can find no data on Golden Gate Bridge suicides... they are a closely guarded security secret (and I'm not making this up).
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I've already said many times here in this thread that I don't have the answers. I agree that the news and social media are culpable in exploiting these episodes along with the victims... but I think you'd be infringing on their Ist Amendment rights to do as you propose above, kinda like gun control and the 2nd Amendment. All I know is that "the shooter" was able to do what he did the way he did it because he had access to the weapons he used. You even said yourself that the guy likely had no formal weapons or military training... but boom... worst mass shooting to date. Without the weaponry, he couldn't have done it the way he did... and yes, I know that's a slippery slope.
 
Here's an interesting thought: What do these crackpots hope to gain from going out in a blaze of glory? They hope for notoriety. One way to cut down the number of mass shootings is to make it illegal for any media outlet to use the shooter's name, image, or personal details in any coverage of the crime - including images or coverage of family members or residences. They can cover the details... but must refer to the shooter as "the shooter". I'll bet this would cut mass shootings by 50%. It is the reason why media outlets agreed to not cover details of suicides - because they were generating "me too" suicides from popular suicide locations like the Golden Gate Bridge. To this day you can find no data on Golden Gate Bridge suicides... they are a closely guarded security secret (and I'm not making this up).

Interesting thoughts but a Free Media is what America is all about and all Media are competing for the Almighty Dollar and this Incident, the LV Shooting, is exactly what makes Millions of $$$ for Medial outlets...
The coverage is American Media at its best...
The LV Incident is America at it Worse...
 
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