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posted by martyb on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the people-are-the-problem dept.

Jamelle Bouie writes that, everyday gun violence in black communities kills many more Americans. Why do we keep ignoring it ?

There are two truths about gun homicide in America. The first is that we have a mass shooting problem. On Thursday, 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer opened fire on a community college campus in Roseburg, Oregon. He killed 9 people and wounded 7 others—allegedly singling out Christian students—before he was killed in a shootout with police. "Roseburg" joins "Charleston, "Isla Vista," "Newtown," "Aurora," and "Oak Creek" on the long list of small towns and quiet cities marred by horrific gun violence.

Highly visible, these shootings are the focal point for most of our national conversation on gun control. The last serious legislation for universal background checks came just after the murder of 20 6- and 7-year-olds and six adult staff members at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which resulted in national calls for new action. (It died in the Senate at the hands of a GOP-led and blue-dog Democrat–supported filibuster.) But as much as the attention makes sense, it also obscures that second truth about gun homicides in America: Ending mass shootings won't solve the problem.

Between 2009 and 2013, 44,077 people were murdered with guns, according to the FBI. Just a fraction of those came from Roseburg-style incidents. Many more were domestic violence against women. But the large majority involved the deaths of men, and of those, most involved poor black Americans in inner cities and other marginalized areas. "From 1980 to 2013, 262,000 black males were killed in America," writes Jeffrey Goldberg for the Atlantic. In general, when we talk about gun homicide in the United States, we are largely talking about violence between poor black men.

What does SN think could be the solution to this issue?


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by drpylons on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:02AM

    by drpylons (5057) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:02AM (#245039)

    I'm going to take a totally, completely, utterly wild stab in the dark and say: Culture!
    Please don't skewer me for taking such a wild and insane guess.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:42AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:42AM (#245067) Journal

      I have to agree with you here.

      The US problem is a result of the civilisation and culture that has been developing over hundreds of years. This is not a criticism - it is the same for every other country too. The Wild West was tamed by men carrying guns, the homesteaders had to defend themselves with weapons against threats because there was no other law and order within reasonable range of where they lived. The constitution enshrined the right to carry weapons because, at the time, it was seen as a way of preventing Big Government from over-stepping the mark. In the American psyche, weapons are here to stay. I can think of no other modern democratic country where weapons have such a prominent place in its society.

      Because owning a weapon is a right - hard won at the cost of many lives - it is difficult to prevent people from owning weapons 'unnecessarily'. Did the latest perpetrator really have to own 13 different weapons to feel safe in the society in which he lived? Do people really need automatic weapons more suited to the armed forces to get through life safely and securely? Probably not, is my belief. The argument that many crimes have been prevented by normal people who were carrying weapons and happened to be in the right place at the right time only goes to convince me that the US believes that its society is so perfect that it will allow anyone - good or bad - to have access to weapons more easily than elsewhere. But, if the criminals did not have the weapons in the first place, how many armed civilians would actually be needed to counter the perceived 'threat'? Unfortunately, like Pandora's Box, things cannot be easily undone.

      Some are claiming that the recent atrocity was caused by someone with mental illness. So why was he allowed to have weapons? - 'because it is his right!' . The US has a poor record for treating mental illness, and they have a health system where cost can easily rule out any reasonable treatment for a large number of people. This is the society that the US has created and is entitled to have, if that is what the people want. But free, or at least cheap access to, health care is essential if you want to have a healthy society, physically and mentally. I don't see that happening soon, do you?

      Finally, the many Americans seem to be falling for the images that pour out of Hollywood or TV. The image that a 'strong' person can solve any problem, can defeat any enemy, or can withstand any conceivable hardship. Therefore, if they are not prepared to act like their heroes, they are failing in some way. Perhaps an acceptance that the stories that entertain us are not true reflections of real life would be a good place to start. There is no shame in accepting that some problems require help to overcome them, that sometimes it is better to avoid a threat than to charge in head first with a drawn weapon, and that having mental health problems shouldn't have a stigma attached to them but are common medical problems that should be treated as such at affordable prices.

      The US isn't going to change its culture or society overnight, or even in the medium term. It has taken many, many years for it to grow the way it has and it will take many more years to change it in any meaningful way if that is what the American people want. I don't believe they do.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:50AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:50AM (#245092) Journal

        " Do people really need automatic weapons more suited to the armed forces"

        The average person does not have access to "automatic weapons". To own one, you must have a federal license to own it. The license is not cheap. And, I'll take this opportunity to point out that the term "assault weapon" as used by the media is an over dramatized soundbyte, exploited shamelessly. The average "assault weapon" fails to measure up to any unbiased definition of "assault weapon". The M-14 that I carried in the Navy had a little lever, by means of which I could select semi-automatic, or fully automatic. The M-16 has a similar selector. There are no weapons available to the general public with such a selector - ALL CIVILIAN WEAPONS SOLD TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC ARE SEMI-AUTOMATIC - or less. Bolt action, lever action, pump action, single shot, muzzle loader - none of these are considered to be "assault weapons" despite the fact that they are also commonly used by the military. Or, in the cases of the muzzle loader and the lever action, they were used by the military.

        "Some are claiming that the recent atrocity was caused by someone with mental illness. So why was he allowed to have weapons?"

        Two reasons. First, we, as a society, don't care enough about people to test them, to determine their capacity to understand right or wrong. We don't care if they are in touch with reality. Second, people who are unstable tend to avoid efforts to establish their level of stability or instability.

        I can agree that we need better diagnostics, so that we can detect the unstable before they can amass an armory. But, how to do that? As you say, there is a stigma attached to being less than stable. One cannot join the armed forces after being diagnosed as such. One cannot be a peace officer if he is unstable. Getting an education, a loan, or even a job becomes a far greater challenge once diagnosed with a mental health problem. Just getting insurance poses a major obstacle for unbalanced people. One stigma after another - if you are diagnosed in today's society, you had better be wealthy, or you might as well just move out of the country.

        I'm the first to argue that PEOPLE should be better policed, and that weapons shouldn't be policed at all. But there is no real initiative, no driving force to improve our mental health climate or facilities. We just don't care.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:15PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:15PM (#245160)

          In Viet Nam I always used semi-auto in combat. More accuracy, effective fire over a greater period of time, and conservation of ammo. Full-auto was for loading up solid tracer rounds and taking a cool picture. But maybe I never assaulted anyone.

          • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:56PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:56PM (#245225)

            I assume you were joking, but for those readers who don't know:

            The original "assault rifle" was a german WWII weapon, the sturmgewehr, literally translated "assault gun" or "storm rifle". That is, in the military context, the idea of assaulting, or storming, a strong point.

            The logic was that assault troops need to be able to deliver, in a sudden attack, heavy weight of fire so as to be able to overwhelm defenders. They lack big, heavy machineguns but they needed something they could carry while being nimble on the battleground. The solution became a select fire weapon: semi-automatic most of the time, fully automatic when you need it.

            On the other hand, it needed to be a controllable weapon, and fully automatic fire of battle rifle rounds is very hard to control. Original battle rifles needed to be able to stop charging cavalry. By WWII, that need was largely obsolete.

            This is why an assault rifle is a select fire long arm chambered in an intermediate power cartridge. The M16 is an assault rifle. The AR15 (civilian equivalent) is not. The AK47 and AK74 are assault rifles. The SKS (civilian equivalent) is not.

            By the same token, a pistol is not an assault rifle because it's not a long arm, a machinegun like your classic Browning .50 is not an assault rifle because it's chambered in high powered cartridges, and so on.

            "Assault weapon" is a meaningless term. Even in terms of trench warfare and assaulting redoubts, that could be anything from a club to a trench knife to a pike to a grenade.

            Any time you hear a media talking head say an "assault weapon" was used, ask yourself if they might mean an entrenching tool. If not, they're probably using the wrong term.

        • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:25PM

          by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:25PM (#245278) Journal

          HIPPA and the doctor patient privilege... While a criminal background check is easy to do, any sort of mental health issue runs afoul of both the fifth amendment and the doctor patient confidentiality laws. I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that a background check in no way violates that right. Violent felons don't and shouldn't enjoy the same right to bear arms as law abiding citizens do. It is odd that the public in general considers that guns kill people, not people kill people, while motor vehicles which are involved in MANY more deaths seem to get ignored. Making getting a drivers license more difficult, say actually having to demonstrate the ability to deal with an extreme driving situation seems beyond the US, no one but the NRA seems to have problems with demonstrating the ability to wield a gun responsibly...

          --
          For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
          • (Score: 1, Troll) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:52PM

            by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:52PM (#245321)

            I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that a background check in no way violates that right.

            Where does the 2nd amendment say you must submit to a background check before you're allowed to get a gun?

            Violent felons don't and shouldn't enjoy the same right to bear arms as law abiding citizens do.

            Where does the second amendment say that?

            If you're advocating that we amendment the constitution, that is one thing. But if you're advocating that we ignore the constitution for convenience or pretend what you want is constitutional when it is obviously not, then you're no better than than people who advocate for mass surveillance or any other unconstitutional nonsense.

            • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:42PM

              by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:42PM (#245358) Journal

              Who mentioned the 2nd amendment ? I just stated that I believed in the right to bear arms. My belief stems from the fact that I am NOT willing to relegate my personal safety to a responding force that might be 25 minutes from my rescue. I do happen to live out in the boondocks of AZ, while not off the grid we are nearly self sufficient minus unfortunately water :(

              --
              For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
              • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:54PM

                by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:54PM (#245361)

                Who mentioned the 2nd amendment ?

                It's part of the constitution, which is the highest law of the land in the US. You were suggesting that background checks don't violate your rights, and I suggested that they do. If you refer to the 2nd amendment, you'll find no requirement that you have to undergo background checks before you can get your weapon. It also doesn't say that violent felons lose their second amendment rights.

                • (Score: 1) by Delwin on Tuesday October 06 2015, @04:21PM

                  by Delwin (4554) on Tuesday October 06 2015, @04:21PM (#246122)

                  It does mention 'well regulated', so the question is open to interpretation. That is what the SCOTUS is for.

                  I would suggest looking at the case law for this. Starting here is a good idea:
                  https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html [cornell.edu]

                  • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday October 08 2015, @06:55PM

                    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Thursday October 08 2015, @06:55PM (#247015)

                    It does mention 'well regulated', so the question is open to interpretation.

                    I don't think it explicitly says you have to be part of a "well-regulated militia" in order to have an individual right to bear arms.

                    That is what the SCOTUS is for.

                    I'm not one of the people who appeals to courts as if they can decide the truth. When they get it wrong, it's up to The People to correct their mistakes.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:58PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:58PM (#245365)

              I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that a background check in no way violates that right.

              Where does the 2nd amendment say you must submit to a background check before you're allowed to get a gun?

              Some might claim that the clause about a "well regulated militia" would cover that. You do believe in a well regulated militia, right? So, tell us, where would someone like Chris Harper-Mercer fit into a well regulated militia? What about Adam Lanza? To your mind, where might he fit into a well regulated militia? James Holmes? Eric Harris and Dylan Klybold?

              Violent felons don't and shouldn't enjoy the same right to bear arms as law abiding citizens do.

              Where does the second amendment say that?

              It doesn't, of course, but maybe it ought to.

              If you're advocating that we amendment the constitution, that is one thing. But if you're advocating that we ignore the constitution for convenience or pretend what you want is constitutional when it is obviously not, then you're no better than than people who advocate for mass surveillance or any other unconstitutional nonsense.

              Be very careful what you ask for, sir; you may just get it. Right now, the citizens of the USA are overwhelmingly in favor of more gun control. The only reason why legislators are not passing more gun control legislation is because their sugar daddies in the gun lobby are vehemently opposed.

              • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday October 05 2015, @12:22AM

                by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday October 05 2015, @12:22AM (#245409)

                Some might claim that the clause about a "well regulated militia" would cover that. You do believe in a well regulated militia, right?

                I don't care about subjective notions of well-regulated militias. And the second amendment has long been held to protect an individual right to bear arms, which I think is correct. Under this interpretation, it makes absolutely no sense to say that you can randomly add regulations on what types of guns people can buy and who can buy them.

                So, tell us, where would someone like Chris Harper-Mercer fit into a well regulated militia? What about Adam Lanza? To your mind, where might he fit into a well regulated militia? James Holmes? Eric Harris and Dylan Klybold?

                I don't care. Safety is not my concern.

                Be very careful what you ask for, sir; you may just get it.

                I would be opposed to it depending on the language, but at least then gun control wouldn't violate the constitution. Those who advocate for an amendment to the US constitution to give the government the ability to create gun control measures are at least being honest.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @01:22AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @01:22AM (#245429)

                  Under this interpretation, it makes absolutely no sense to say that you can randomly add regulations on what types of guns people can buy and who can buy them.

                  So you would have no problem if, a month prior to this incident, Chris Harper-Mercer tried to acquire an RPG? What if he had tried to get a thermonuclear missile? Would you be OK with that too? What if I want to get a thermonuclear missile? Would you be OK with that?

                  So, tell us, where would someone like Chris Harper-Mercer fit into a well regulated militia? What about Adam Lanza? To your mind, where might he fit into a well regulated militia? James Holmes? Eric Harris and Dylan Klybold?

                  I don't care. Safety is not my concern.

                  Maybe it should be? After all, a well regulated militia, no matter how you interpret that phrase, is about the defense of the nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

                  • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday October 05 2015, @02:11AM

                    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday October 05 2015, @02:11AM (#245447)

                    So you would have no problem if, a month prior to this incident, Chris Harper-Mercer tried to acquire an RPG? What if he had tried to get a thermonuclear missile? Would you be OK with that too? What if I want to get a thermonuclear missile? Would you be OK with that?

                    It would be unconstitutional to stop it. People who don't like that should try to amend the constitution.

                    Maybe it should be? After all, a well regulated militia, no matter how you interpret that phrase, is about the defense of the nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

                    I believe we have an individual right to own weapons.

                    A completely safe country is worthless if it allows the government to violate your fundamental liberties. Safety is not my main concern; freedom is. Safety is nice, but not at the expense of liberties I deem fundamental, and not at the expense of the constitution. People who support gun rights simply because of self-defense and argue that it doesn't make us less safe to have all these weapons are seriously missing the point.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:30AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:30AM (#245451)

                      A common misconception is that things bigger than individual arms are covered under the second amendment.

                      In actual fact, there is now, and was then, a clear difference in the language between arms on the one hand, and ordnance on the other.

                      There is no right written concerning ordnance, nor has one ever been recognised.

                      • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday October 06 2015, @12:54AM

                        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Tuesday October 06 2015, @12:54AM (#245895)

                        "arms" can be used to mean many things, even weapons in general.

                        There is no right written concerning ordnance, nor has one ever been recognised.

                        Even if that was true, the constitution didn't specifically give the federal government the power to restrict individual ownership of ordnance, so it would still be a state matter.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @03:20AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @03:20AM (#245462)

                Some might claim that the clause about a "well regulated militia" would cover that.

                Thats why we completely ignore that clause and pretend the second only says "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed". So what if it doesn't actually say that? The facts will never affect our arguments!

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @03:59AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @03:59AM (#245956)

                  It doesn't say you have to be part of a militia to have a right to bear arms. It just lists that as one reason that that right shall not be infringed upon.

          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:21PM

            by tangomargarine (667) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:21PM (#245351)

            I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that a background check in no way violates that right.

            Well, it all depends on how fair the background check is...

            "This guy made campaign contributions to the Democratic Party! He's clearly insane. Deny his application."
            "This guy wouldn't consent to be searched when a cop pulled him over! He clearly hates the government. Deny his application."
            "This guy balked when we told him to get on The Probulator! Clearly he has problems with authority. Deny his application."

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
            • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:51PM

              by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:51PM (#245360) Journal

              I think the background check would really only be valid for criminal issues, as any mental issues would be protected under the 5th amendment and/or the DR patient privilege, but you do have a point, if they checked with a few of my previous neighbors I might not get approved. I really don't like people snooping and have had run ins with fence peeking neighbors and a woman who worked for a non binding HOA where I once lived.

              PS NEVER consent to any kind of search, it can't really help you, and might come back to bite you in the future :)

              --
              For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:03PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:03PM (#245371)

              Well, it all depends on how fair the background check is...

              "This guy made campaign contributions to the Democratic Party! He's clearly insane. Deny his application."
              "This guy wouldn't consent to be searched when a cop pulled him over! He clearly hates the government. Deny his application."
              "This guy balked when we told him to get on The Probulator! Clearly he has problems with authority. Deny his application."

              And exactly how many times has somebody actually failed a background check based upon these specious reasons? I mean, besides inside your fevered paranoid imagination?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:46AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:46AM (#245424)

            My problem with so called "universal background checks" is two-fold.

            1. None of the recent mass murder tragedies would have been stopped by this requirement. Every single one of these murderer were done with new firearms purchased through a licensed dealer which performed a background check in accordance with the current law. Some of them even waited ten days before receiving their firearms. More background checks would not have stopped them. Many of them would have been stopped by a simple restraining order under the current law.

            2. If all firearm purchases can only be completed with some form of government approval we are essentially at their mercy to exercise a right that has been enumerated in the documents that formed the United States. What next... A background check before you can exercise the first amendment? It's not a stretch.

        • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29PM (#245332)

          You have +4, parent has +5, and both of you did exactly what TFA complains about: you talked about white wackos doing media-friendly mass-shootings, not about the statistically larger problem that the media chooses to ignore instead, namely the much more frequent problem of poor black men shooting each other. That was exactly TFA's point, that the mass-shootings are a statistical anomaly, a fluke, on which the media fixates, which in turn means that they become the subject of public debate, while the vast bulk of shootings are black-on-black affairs that never get publicity or debate. Nobody tries to fix the real problem, which isn't mental health for introverted white nutbags or anything like it, but rather a culture of gun violence in the urban poor, mostly in the black community. It's marked by specific kinds of music: you don't see gun violence at black jazz festivals but you do at rap competitions. It's marked by poverty, and it often happens in or near the hood. It often has ties to drugs. It's very real, and statistics have been compiled on it for years, and nobody will act on them. [washingtonpost.com]

          In no small part, that's because of what TFA mentions -- that no one pays attention to black-on-black killings. Instead people prefer to shift the conversation to the latest white guy who shot several people. There's another element there, though: people don't want to talk about a major statistical observation regarding blacks because they don't want to sound racist. If black lives actually do matter, though, black-on-black violence has to be the focus, because it is statistically the overwhelming way that blacks get murdered.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:14PM

            by sjames (2882) on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:14PM (#245373) Journal

            Not wanting to sound racist is part of it, but another big part is that nobody wants to talk about poverty, lack of opportunity, and disenfranchisement, all of which are big contributors to violence everywhere it shows up. Perhaps mostly they don't want to talk about taking any steps to resolve it.

            They also, apparently, don't want to talk about lead poisoning, again because then we might have to do something about it.

            It's much easier to declare it a moral failure and sweep it under the rug.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:59PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:59PM (#245394)

          The average person does not have access to "automatic weapons". To own one, you must have a federal license to own it. The license is not cheap.

          Incorrect. You need an FFL/SOT to _SELL_ them, not to own them. You can own any pre-1986 Title2/NFA item by filing a form 3 [atf.gov], paying $200, and submitting some info to the BATFE for the background check (eg fingerprints) and getting approval from the chief of law enforcement in your district. I own a couple NFA items (short barreled rifle, suppressor) and the process is the same for a fully automatic weapon.

          They are also extremely expensive [subguns.com]. Feel free to google around to learn more about the process.

        • (Score: 1) by jon3k on Monday October 05 2015, @12:05AM

          by jon3k (3718) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 05 2015, @12:05AM (#245400)

          No, pretty much anyone can own a machine gun [internationalpolicesupply.net]. If you can meet the criteria (be over 21, not insane, etc), pass a criminal background check and pay $200, you can have one.

        • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday October 05 2015, @01:47AM

          by art guerrilla (3082) on Monday October 05 2015, @01:47AM (#245436)

          yeah...no...
          that automatics are generally illegal and you need special license, etc...
          yeah, sure...
          that they don't exist and aren't used ? ? ?
          uh, nope...
          live in a rural-ish area outskirts of a medium town, and hear people plinking, etc ALL the time...
          hear what is *definitely* automatic gunfire about every month or two...
          you think all the semi-to-auto conversion kits sold simply go in a drawer somewheres ? ? ?
          legal schmegal, good ole boys gonna do what they wanna do, laws or no...

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Marco2G on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:34AM

        by Marco2G (5749) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:34AM (#245122)

        I think and hope that the OP meant something entirely different when he or she said "culture".

        I see this as a cultural problem as well: Mainly in the fact that in most people's eyes (and not just in the US of A), a person's worth is determined by their paycheck. If you don't earn enough, you're a failure. In America more so than in other countries, this is made worse by the fact that few people are willing to help you out. There are also very few ways to escape poverty: Once you've been on the street, people don't want to hire you. And if you want to educate yourself better, you face a massive bill. Nobody is going to pay for your education to give you a boost. Furthermore, the trend to demand a college degree to flip burgers AND the fact that a a lot of full-time labor jobs don't pay enough to survive pressures poor people into illegal trades.

        This is just really, really bad and we haven't even talked about the impact of race yet!

        As many other countries prove, the gun culture isn't the problem. Those young men who deal in illegal trades because it's either much easier or even the only option left to them... they will get their guns no matter what.

        The good thing is that capitalism as we know it is coming to an end. We just don't have the natural resources to sustain it. With the leaps and bounds in efficiency and automation, industry is not going to need half of the work force it has today in a very short while. Soon we will be forced to discuss alternatives to everybody working for a paycheck anyway.

        In the case of the US, bringing the prisons back into government's hands and legalizing drugs would literally end a third to half of all cartels immediately. That's another topic, though :).

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:45AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:45AM (#245124) Homepage Journal

          You're equating education with school, this is not even remotely the only way to become educated when a higher standard of living is your goal; it is in fact the least common way. Simply put, if you want more money, acquire valuable skills. But we don't tell people this growing up. We tell them "go to college".

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Marco2G on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:06AM

            by Marco2G (5749) on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:06AM (#245130)

            I think I touched that point with my comment about how burger flipping requires a colleger degree nowadays.

            Fact of the matter is, with a college degree you can at least point to the "bad economy" and people feel sorry for you.

          • (Score: 1) by TheReaperD on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:22PM

            by TheReaperD (5556) on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:22PM (#245183)

            The problem is that most employers will not look at your total education. All they care about is if you have a piece of paper from someone they trust (accredited schools) saying that you're educated. The reason for this is a combination of cost and laziness. An OCR scanner can automatically go through every application/resume and automatically discard any that don't meet their criteria. No person has to do the work this way. On the opposite end, to get to know your level of actual education and experience requires that the HR person has the needed experience and takes the time to get to know you. This takes a skilled HR person and time and companies have "better" things to do with their money then get to know people.

            --
            Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:16PM

              by Francis (5544) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:16PM (#245232)

              In my experience even with a degree you get excluded if it isn't 100% the degree they're looking for. Having a degree in a related field isn't always enough. There may not even be a way of entering the degree into their form.

              Companies won't invest in their employees because they say that the employees will just leave for a competitor. But, the employees say that they have to leave for a competitor because the companies won't invest in them. So, the only guaranteed way of getting raise is to jump ship whenever a better off comes along and companies wonder why none of the employees are particularly loyal.

              I know there are exceptions, but the companies that are exceptions tend to have fewer openings than ones that behave like that.

              • (Score: 1) by TheReaperD on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM

                by TheReaperD (5556) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM (#245308)

                What you're referring to is what happens when a computer reads your application/resume. Even some mom and pop place now use the OCR resume scanners instead of actually reading them. It's so bad that it doesn't even have to be a case of you have a similar degree. You could have done something simple, like add and extra space between the college name or the major and have your resume rejected by the computer because you don't meet the requirements due to a typo that a human normally can't even see.

                The other problem is that HR personnel decide in advance as to how many resumes they're read and they will just keep jacking up the requirements in the word match until they get down to that number. It doesn't matter how many potential candidates there are, they only allocate time for so many. One time I was familiar with one where there was 1 job opening, 3000+ applicants and the HR person decided to only interview 4 people. I am very certain that out of 3000+ people that there were vastly more than 4 qualified applicants and because the HR rep only interviewed 4. The person ended up leaving a few months later because they wanted to pile on work for the rest of his resume that they weren't paying him for and wasn't part of the application.

                --
                Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
                • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:07PM

                  by Francis (5544) on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:07PM (#245325)

                  One of the receptionists at the college my mother works at had been working there for a few years in a lower role. When they were getting applications for the reception position, his was not passed along with the others. HR decided that they needed to make themselves useful, so they tossed it along with some others. Fortunately, for him, he was a known quantity, did his job well and was well liked so the dean demanded all of the applications be handed over. Ultimately, he got the job, as he should, but the HR folks would never have let it happen because they needed to have a say.

                  It's too common for HR drones to have an agenda that runs contrary to the interests of the company. Holding back applications to exert a say, trying to deny as many benefits as possible and generally ruining things. Corporations don't offer benefits out of generosity in most cases, they offer them because there's a perceived benefit in doing so. Having employees stressed because some asshole, bollocks-juggler in HR needs to feel important is a drain on productivity.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:31PM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:31PM (#245333) Homepage Journal

              The problem is that most white collar employers will not look at your total education. All they care about is if you have a piece of paper from someone they trust (accredited schools) saying that you're educated

              FTFY. Most employers are either blue collar or service industry. Most employers do not even have an HR department; or at least not one that interacts with anyone but management. Even if you do go white collar, experience counts more than a degree after a certain point.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34PM

                by sjames (2882) on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34PM (#245384) Journal

                Even if you do go white collar, experience counts more than a degree after a certain point.

                That's irrelevant to someone trying to get started without a degree, now isn't it? It's the sort of thing that might make an intelligent but lower class youth look to "alternative employment".

                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 05 2015, @09:56AM

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday October 05 2015, @09:56AM (#245554) Homepage Journal

                  Newp, you take a job that isn't for a megacorp where they can't be as choosy and get the experience. It's called paying your dues.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 05 2015, @12:45PM

                    by sjames (2882) on Monday October 05 2015, @12:45PM (#245581) Journal

                    That is what I did decades ago, but those opportunities aren't what they used to be.

          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:25PM

            by sjames (2882) on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:25PM (#245379) Journal

            Self education is great (I am self educated myself) but more and more, HR wants to see that piece of paper. They MIGHT look at self taught if you have years of experience to back it up, but that doesn't help someone starting out.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 05 2015, @09:58AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday October 05 2015, @09:58AM (#245555) Homepage Journal

              Then get the experience wherever you can get it, you'll still have saved time over getting a degree and you'll be being paid to do so instead of having to pay a hundred grand or so for that piece of paper.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 05 2015, @12:52PM

                by sjames (2882) on Monday October 05 2015, @12:52PM (#245583) Journal

                Those opportunities are not what they used to be. When I was starting out, that was a viable career path

                It's funny really since most of the degree programs do NOT teach software engineering at all (it's all CS) and result in poor software engineers.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:54PM

        by mhajicek (51) on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:54PM (#245224)

        The societal issue that I see as most connected to homicide is a lack of proportional outlets for aggression. In the old days if a kid was being unrelentingly teased he or she could punch the offender in the nose and that would most likely be that, at least for a while. Now if you try to defend yourself you'll get punished and possibly expelled, you you take it until you can't and then snap. Inner city unprivileged kids will naturally band together into gangs for protection, which then results in gang violence. I don't know how to do it, but I think if kids had ways to feel safe and empowered the violence would diminish greatly. I also think that if the kids doing the shootings didn't have access to guns many would find other means.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Reziac on Monday October 05 2015, @03:30AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Monday October 05 2015, @03:30AM (#245466) Homepage
        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday October 05 2015, @02:35PM

        by morgauxo (2082) on Monday October 05 2015, @02:35PM (#245641)

        The 'article' is about the disproportionate number of deaths within a specific demographic. The whole nation has the same rights that you seem to believe should be removed from the culture. Why the disconnect?

        "Did the latest perpetrator really have to own 13 different weapons"

        Did the number of weapons he owned make a difference? How many was he using at once?!?

        "Do people really need automatic weapons more suited to the armed forces"

        Automatic weapons are ilegal for civilians to own in the US. It's a large population. I'm sure somebody out there argues for legaizing them but I have never observed this! It is not going to happen.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by SacredSalt on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:14PM

      by SacredSalt (2772) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:14PM (#245140)

      If you want culture: This is Mercer's social media picture on the left, on the right is CNN's:

      http://i59.tinypic.com/14jp7xw.jpg [tinypic.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:01PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:01PM (#245269)

      It's a great cop-out for white people to blame "thug" or "gang" culture, all their ideas of which are from mass media.

      How about fixing the damned schools in abandoned neighborhoods? Or providing community policing in place of racists that innocent people are afraid to call, and for good reason?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:17AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:17AM (#245041) Journal

    "In general, when we talk about gun homicide in the United States, we are largely talking about violence between poor black men."

    Poor, black, male. Poor black men are busy killing EACH OTHER, and it means nothing to the black community. Or, it doesn't mean enough. It just doesn't matter.

    If it really mattered, elder black men would step forward as role models. They would work hard to break the cycle. One mentor can make the difference in a young man's life. White or black, a young man needs someone to look up to - a grandfather, a father, a mentor, a big brother. Few, very few, black males are willing to make the effort to be involved in little black boy's lives.

    THAT is where the violence ends.

    Mothers, sisters, grandmothers have almost no influence on how young males conduct themselves outside the home. Young men need adult male role models. And, the ones they find are mostly jail birds - prison industry riff-raff.

    Today, young black males EXPECT to go to prison, because that is where all the adult males in their lives are to be found.

    Before anyone jumps on me as a racist - President Obama said very much the same thing.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094 [politico.com]

    If black children don't matter to their fathers, then black lives will never matter.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39AM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39AM (#245051) Journal

      But on the other hand almost all mass shooters are young white men. Who virtually always take their own life rather than be captured. Where does that come from? White fathers who have have followed the same path?
      Mostly a rhetorical question.

      However, I have to point out that black men act the way black women want them to act. (And an increasing number of white women).
      Black women have to know that the black male will not stick around to raise that child, so why do they keep making the same mistake generation after generation? Get knocked up by some guy and watch him run off and never be seen again. She will probably have two or three children this way, none of them with the same father.

      (Liberals always insist that the welfare system today drives a wedge between black fathers and their children. But the welfare system has been in liberal hands for the better part of 60 years.).

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29AM (#245086) Journal

        "But on the other hand almost all mass shooters are young white men."

        That is pretty obvious. What is not obvious is, "WHY are mass shooters young white males?" What is the difference between white and black young males, that causes whites to target random people, and black males to target each other?

        It is strange that most mass shooters have/had legal access to the weapons that they use, whereas those youngsters who are killing each other are generally barred from owning a weapon. Most mass shooters are members of rather affluent families, whereas the young blacks killing each other are almost universally poor. Few mass shooters have a criminal history, but young black males are almost universally "in the system".

        There are a lot of questions that I have no idea what the answers might be. But, it does seem obvious to me that the one difference between the majority of white kids and the majority of black kids, is the presence of a father figure. Either in the home, or otherwise intimately integrated into their lives, most white kids have a father figure.

        In short - it takes a man to raise a man.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by SacredSalt on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:19PM

          by SacredSalt (2772) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:19PM (#245141)

          Actually, black MASS MURDERERS are 16%, this is 3% higher than their population. This number DOUBLES when you count serial killers.

          Next myth please.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday October 05 2015, @03:38AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Monday October 05 2015, @03:38AM (#245467) Homepage

          We only hear about young white men because that's the numerically-largest at-risk demographic in America, and mass shootings are not massacres; they are loud, messy suicides. In other countries, you'd hear about the young Chinese male the young Nigerian male or whatever. America is not unique, nor are these events strictly a modern problem.

          I agree with you about the lack of a father figure being a factor, tho -- having an unsupportive father present may actually make kids more likely to wind up as unvented pressure cookers, rather than the continuously blowing steam of the kid with no father at all.

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 1) by timbojones on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:48PM

        by timbojones (5442) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:48PM (#245258)

        Liberals always insist that the welfare system today drives a wedge between black fathers and their children.

        I have literally never heard this claim before you made it just now.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:01PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:01PM (#245323) Journal

          That's ok. I have. It's true too, though how significant I have no idea. The thing is welfare payments are limited based on family income. This is a definite wedge against having two incomes in the household. Important? No data. The employment numbers are so bad that it likely isn't. Additionally, a sufficient number of black men are imprisoned that the proportion of women to men outside prisons is drastically shifted. And there's still a high bar against interracial marriage, even though it isn't a legal one. Yes, it happens, but rarely as a proportion of the population. Also, many black families exist quite nicely, thank you, despite the social barriers. (They aren't that high, but overcoming any barrier causes a shift in behavior.)

          FWIW, welfare agencies used to do "bed checks" to ensure that there was no man around at night. At that time there was a strong wedge being driven to split poor black families apart. I believe that has now stopped everywhere, but I'm not sure. But that was definitely happening as recently as the 1970's, and social changes are slow.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:42AM

      by captain normal (2205) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:42AM (#245053)

      http://killedbypolice.net/ [killedbypolice.net]

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:45AM (#245054)

      Who do they have to look up to?
      Bill Cosby
      Michael Jackson
      Doctor Dre
      Snoop Dogg
      Reverend Jessie Jackson

      Quite frankly I'm less concerned with the young black male problem in America and more concerned with why there isn't one amongst white communities, be it white males, or white females. Because between the Kardashians and the rest of the privileged and public white crowd, the mentor options for both leave much to be desired.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:06AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:06AM (#245499)

        The only mentor white Americans need is money.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:48AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:48AM (#245125) Homepage Journal

      For most (~80%. Not an exaggeration. ) young black men, there is no male role model in the household. Solve that problem and you'll solve the rest easily.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:13PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:13PM (#245231)

      Poor, black, male. Poor black men are busy killing EACH OTHER, and it means nothing to the black community. Or, it doesn't mean enough. It just doesn't matter.

      If it really mattered, elder black men would step forward as role models. They would work hard to break the cycle. One mentor can make the difference in a young man's life. White or black, a young man needs someone to look up to - a grandfather, a father, a mentor, a big brother. Few, very few, black males are willing to make the effort to be involved in little black boy's lives.

      For the most part, that isn't true. But I don't blame you for believing it, if you are white, because that's the message that white America gets via all their news sources when discussing stories about the ongoing death tolls in our cities.

      The basic reason it's nonsense: There are black men (and women for that matter) in neighborhoods all over the country that are in fact stepping up and pushing black children to do what they're supposed to do. Many many black churches have organized programs and preachers trying to help kids get through their youth, and are doing everything they can to get kids to stay in school and stay out of trouble. There are groups organizing protests against violence. All this is indeed having some effect, because violent crime, unplanned pregnancy, and drug use have all been dropping in most cities for a couple of decades.

      It isn't enough, though: Just last week, in my fair city of Cleveland, a 3-year-old boy was killed with a shot meant for somebody else in a drive-by. A lot of people, including LeBron James, are outraged about this, and police have been getting much more information about that murder than they have about many other murders in the city.

      So if "culture" isn't the reason for it, what is? There are basically 3 factors:
      1. Police and other legal authorities are not trusted. With good reason: Poor black communities are generally targeted with both heavy-handed and completely inept policing, where innocent people can be shot on the street while criminals are allowed to go free. To make matters worse, police do not do a good job of protecting witnesses or those around them from the criminals they are testifying against, so to go to the police over a major crime or criminal organization is an extremely risky decision, even more potentially risky than joining a gang. Under those conditions, most people just try to keep their heads down and stay out of it, and if they are wronged are as likely to go to a friend or family member in a gang in the hopes of getting some "street justice" than they are to go to the police.

      2. The trade of illegal drugs gives gangs a revenue stream. That cash can be used for all sorts of things, including paying expenses of members, buying weapons, and bribing cops, residents, and others to look the other way. A young man whose family is stuck in poverty may decide the cash looks too good to ignore. A gang without that revenue stream quickly loses support. This is all closely related to the next point.

      3. The lack of legitimate job opportunities makes gang payoffs appear to be the easiest way to get ahead in life for young black men. Sudhir Venkatesh has made the economics of all of this the focus of his research, and it seems that working as a drug dealer is one of the worst possible jobs to have (and extremely dangerous to boot). So the only reason anybody would take it is because it's the best they can find, with opportunities for advancement if they live through it.

      This pattern is true wherever there is lots of gang activity, and isn't in any way limited to black Americans in cities: The mafia and yakuza operates approximately the same way for approximately the same reasons.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:33PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:33PM (#245247)

      Projects like the one that used to be called Chicago Ceasefire are all over, led by widely trusted adults from the community and intervening to mediate fights before they turn deadly.

      The question you might ask is why the police aren't preventing violence. Are the neighborhoods abandoned because they are politically powerless? Are the police ineffective because nobody will give tips to someone who's forfeited trust?

      White people have some power over issues like those.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:20AM

    by looorg (578) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:20AM (#245042)

    He gunned down 9 people and wounded 7. For some perspective as horrible as that might have been as far as fatalities goes that is about 2 hours worth of road deaths in America. In the grand scheme of death that barely even registers on the death-o-meter.

    But that said I'm sure we are about to see the same pseudo-discussion as always when these things happen: It's the guns! Ban all the evil guns and there will be peace on earth! followed by the equally stupid / interesting If we only had more guns and the teachers was armed and trained killing-machines that sure would have stopped him dead in his tracks!

    It's getting a tad old. Apparently he owned some guns, quite a few of them actually. If he wanted to kill people getting a gun wasn't going to be the issue, legal or not legal. Fucked up people do fucked up things and he was clearly a bit fucked up. Guns don't change that. Living is dangerous and some random spree shooting now and then doesn't really change that or have any kind of greater impact on the lives of almost every one. They are not going to stop, they are not going to go away so just learn to live with them. Minimize the risk if you can but banning all the guns is probably not the solution. If you ban the guns then there will be "maniac stabbed X children with a knife - gruesome scene at daycare!" (or an axe or a pitchfork or some other utensil of death!).

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by timbim on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:17AM

      by timbim (907) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:17AM (#245062)

      yes guns do change everything. and tell me, would you rather face a home intruder with a knife or a gun? don't post with your bullshit lies and excuses.

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:49AM

        by looorg (578) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:49AM (#245070)

        Just so I know we are on the same page here: We either agree with you or we are full of stupid and bullshit. Right. Nice talking to you. Now go bother someone else.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:09AM

        by ledow (5567) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:09AM (#245115) Homepage

        I'd rather the home intruder didn't have access to a gun as easily as they do in the US... i.e. walk into a major superstore and buy one.

        That there may be incidents of disparity (he has a gun, I have a knife, or vice versa) is just luck of the draw.

        But the second a gun is involved on either side, you are one trigger pull from death no matter where you are, who holds it or the distance between you.
        The second a knife is involved, you are one stab from potential death (but more likely an injury you can survive unless they surprised you) if you got within their arm's reach.

        A gun makes the battle so pointless that it's so dangerous. As demonstrated a myriad times, a toddler with a curious nature can take out the largest of adults without even thinking about how to do it. With other weapons, it's just not that simple.

        Personally, I live in a country without - generally - privately held guns. I have never seen a real gun in my life. Never held one. Never fired one. Don't know ANYONE who's been shot with one. Ever. I knew one girl who's father had a shooting licence. The gun never came out unless he was going shooting at an approved venue, so I never saw it. Guns exist, on the black market, etc. and there are occasional stories in the papers, but nowhere near the same amount as those of just general violence.

        Yet the number of other crimes is probably on a par. We just burgled just as often. We just stole from just as often. We get mugged just as often. The difference is that - almost always - we can walk away from it. You can shout at a guy in a traffic queue and not worry that he might fire on you. You can confront a guy in a shop and not worry that he has some weapon that he'll pull. It does happen but, generally speaking, the incidence is so low that the worst that's going to happen is you might start a fist-fight. And you can run away from those.

        And though we have had school shootings, they are SO rare that they are proper news items, not like in the US where there are several a year. The last I can remember is Dunblane, 1996. That's nearly 20 years ago, and against primary school children. What did he have? A Magnum and a Browning. Neither are high-end assault arms, just a pistol, and there's nothing anyone could do to stop kids and adults dying from them.

        Having a gun ups the ante SO MUCH that someone's going to die in even the smallest incident and it's in no way guaranteed to be the perpetrator - or even not just a passer-by. It turns a minor theft into a murder just by its presence. Other countries that DO NOT HAVE these kinds of weapons available to the general populace DO NOT HAVE anywhere near as serious, as common, or as dangerous incidents. It's as simple as that.

        If someone comes into your house to nick stuff, someone (maybe you, your kids, your wife) dying because of it should be an extremely rare and unusual instance. Let them fucking nick stuff in preference to getting a gun out. But if neither of you have guns, they're going to run when discovered unless there are an awful lot of them (and then you'd have been dead anyway - at least you could try and flee).

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:18PM (#245233)

          You're suffering from some misconceptions, doubtless founded in your lack of familiarity with the subject.

          First off, guns are not that easy to use reliably. Can bad accidents happen with them? Yes, but so can they with earthmoving machinery, none of which is easy to use either. If guns were all that darned easy to use, we wouldn't have olympic competitions with them.

          Second, handgun fire is of highly limited lethality. The survival rate with modern medical attention is somewhere around 80+%. Knives don't misfire, and don't need reloading.

          Also, it's all very well to talk about your life circumstances in your area. In very large parts of the USA, where I live, there are various large predators. On the hill where I live, we know for a fact that there are cougar, bear and various smaller ones like coyote. We have strong reason to believe that we are also visited by wolves and wolverine. Also, it would be a minor miracle for any police services to arrive in under 30 minutes, which means I need 30 minutes of ability to stand off assault of various kinds - including by meth-fueled lunatics, which sadly is another problem which has substantially harmed a number of people around me.

          Oh, and that's not to forget protecting myself and my livestock from packs of stray dogs, which are another huge problem.

          I suppose I could make do with a crossbow and a sword, but for some reason people don't want me to have those either.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:38AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:38AM (#245089) Journal
      http://www.wired.com/2015/10/infographic-guns-kill-more-americans-than-terrorists-do/ [wired.com]

      President Obama, in a heartfelt response to the nation’s latest mass shooting, called on journalists to compare the number of Americans killed by gun violence and the number of Americans killed by terrorism.

      The results? It’s not even close. In a recent 10-year period, guns killed more than 112 times as many American citizens as terrorists did.

      For a country that is tying itself in knots worrying about where and when the next terrorist attack is coming, and spending billions of dollars trying to solve that problem, it seems to me that someone, somewhere has their priorities well and truly cocked up. If you would just consider giving up your guns then more Americans would live. Give up your guns and invest the money in cardiac healthcare, and you would be taking a massive leap forward. But you wouldn't look as tough as you imagine that you do...

      Just saying...

      • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:38AM

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:38AM (#245104)

        If the US government tried spending some of those billions on improving the conditions among the most common victim of gun violence, young male blacks, it might have more to show for the money than they do now.

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:20PM (#245142)

        If you would just consider giving up your guns then more Americans would live

        total bullshit

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:04PM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:04PM (#245153) Journal
          Don't you just hate it when the facts get in the way of your argument?
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by stormreaver on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:31PM

        by stormreaver (5101) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:31PM (#245146)

        While seemingly logical at first glance, it does not reflect reality. After gun bans were put into place, murder rates increased.

        http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/ [crimeresearch.org]

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:11PM

        by Username (4557) on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:11PM (#245178)

        Terrorist vs Gun isn’t an apples to apples comparison. Bomb vs Gun, or Foreign Terrorist vs Domestic Terrorist would be a better statistic considering terrorists will most likely use guns to kill Americans. TFA even states this.

        For instance, the Christians killed at the school were both victims of terrorism and gun violence.

        Even if we considered guns living beings capable of killing people by themselves, and that there are more guns than people in the United States ~350 million for easy math. The chart saying roughly 35k deaths in 2013. Move the decimal place over nine times and we get 0.01 percent of guns killed Americans in 2013. That’s far less than the amount of humans that killed Americans in 2013.

        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:32PM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:32PM (#245244) Journal

          But if you do the maths, then the title still holds true. The point I was making, however, is that an huge amount of money is being spent trying to counter a relatively insignificant threat, yet if the same amount of money were spent in healthcare then many more people would live. Someone else also pointed out that if the money was spent on those who most need and deserve it, then a great deal of the problems that precipitate mass shootings would also be removed.

          Ultimately, if the American people like things just the way they are then they can expect more of the same, but that is their choice and we on the outside should not criticise them for it. But this feigned bewilderment at how to solve the problem is not necessary.

        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:37PM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:37PM (#245250) Journal

          the Christians killed at the school were both victims of terrorism and gun violence

          No - he was not a terrorist. He was not trying to change the system by threatening violence. He was not making a political statement. There is no terrorism involved, he was simply a murderer. Calling him a 'terrorist' is simply wrong, he was no more a terrorist than someone who commits a robbery or an assault. Not all criminals are terrorists, despite how the media try to portray everyday crime.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:01AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:01AM (#245095) Journal

      It has been pointed out, time and again, that these mass shootings almost invariably take place in "gun free zones". Those zones act as a magnet to the unhinged idiot who wants to make some moronic "statement". Eliminate "gun free zones", and you'll eliminate some, if not many, of these shootings.

      The state of Texas played with that whole "gun free zone" concept. At the time of the Luby's shooting, Texas had outlawed weapons in any public restaurant, among other places. Soon after the Luby's shooting, that law was repealed. There hasn't been another mass murder in a public restaurant since then, to the best of my knowledge. The shooters PREFER gun free zones, where they can be reasonably sure that no one will stand and fight.

      Let's eliminate gun free zones, and encourage the staff of those zones to arm themselves.

      Pearl, Mississippi, I think it was 1994 - kid walks into school, and starts shooting. The principal called 911, while the vice principal recovered a .45 from his pickup truck. The vice apprehended the shooter long before the cops arrived. According to political preferences, the vice was variously hailed as a hero, or crucified as part of the problem.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:58PM

        by Magic Oddball (3847) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:58PM (#245151) Journal

        The only reason that the last 17 years of highly-publicized shootings have largely taken place in "gun-free zones" is because the current group of people going off the deep end happen to be current or recent students blaming fellow students & teachers for their woes. Students & teachers tend to be found at schools, which is why they were the chosen sites, not because they're normally gun-free zones.

        In the cases (either recently or historically) where the gunman wasn't a student, he shot up whatever location was most likely to have his intended victims, gun-free zone or not. The recent examples coming to mind off the top of my head would be the shopping center where Sen. Gabrielle Giffords was targeted, or the movie theater James Holmes shot up; in the past, there were quite a few cases of post office employees "going postal," plus more than a few white-collar guys that lost it at work.

        Note that in each of the cases, even when there were other armed citizens present, if the police didn't kill the guy first, the people that brought the shooter down were genuinely brave unarmed civilians. In the Tuscon case, that was especially crucial: an armed citizen came forward afterward to say that he had been about to shoot when the braver people knocked the killer out, and that he realized in that moment that he had been about to kill one of those brave people rather than the actual murderer.

        • (Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:53PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:53PM (#245154) Journal

          Interesting. I wonder then, whether it is accurate to call Chicago a "gun free zone". The laws there would most definitely make it "gun free" - IF they could be enforced.

          Sorry, I think that you're mistaken. Shooters don't go to police stations, and start shooting cops. Such things are virtually unheard of. Shooters don't go to gun ranges and start shooting gun owners. They don't even go down to the local cafe, to start shooting us coffee drinkers. Shooters almost universally conceal their weapons, carry them onto campus, take those weapons out, and start spraying bullets at random.

          If I thought that I had a justifiable reason to gun down a principal, a former lover, a sports rival, or whatever, I would be waiting at that person's home to greet him/her at the end of the day. These shooters aren't just out for revenge or something. They are making a (political?) statement, in the safest place to make such a statement. Thay have that in common with other terrorists.

          Even if you are correct - why disarm all the rational people who might defend themselves, IF they were allowed to carry weapons?

          Pass out the guns. A gun is a deterrent.

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:21PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:21PM (#245208) Homepage
            > Shooters don't go to gun ranges and start shooting gun owners.

            Erm, except when they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanna_Sillanp%C3%A4%C3%A4
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:22PM

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:22PM (#245277)

            Pass out the guns. A gun is a deterrent.

            We've been doing that all along, it's not working. We need another option.

            --
            🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:05AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:05AM (#245399)

            Shooters don't go to police stations, and start shooting cops.

            Actually, yes, they do. [cnn.com]

            Shooters don't go to gun ranges and start shooting gun owners.

            Actually, they do that, too (as someone up thread has already pointed out).

            They don't even go down to the local cafe, to start shooting us coffee drinkers.

            And, again, that's not true, either. [wikipedia.org]

            Shooters almost universally conceal their weapons, carry them onto campus, take those weapons out, and start spraying bullets at random.

            Actually, shooters hell-bent on mass casualties show up just about anywhere. In addition to schools and coffee houses, they show up at movie theaters, houses of worship, and shopping malls, just to name a few. Just about anywhere that large numbers of people congregate, in fact. Your thesis that mass shootings only happen at "gun free zones" appears to have some major flaws in it.

        • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday October 05 2015, @02:47PM

          by morgauxo (2082) on Monday October 05 2015, @02:47PM (#245646)

          In other words the armed guy in Tucson took the time to verify who he was going to shoot and if it was necessary, realized he shouldn't and didn't. That sounds just like the crazy gun nuts that gun-control advocates like to claim the US is full of and bash so much. Except.. oh, wait.. no.. it's the exact opposite of that!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:31PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:31PM (#245282)

      Fucked up people do fucked up things and he was clearly a bit fucked up. Guns don't change that.

      Except that they very seriously lower the barrier of entry to do something that fucked up.

      They are not going to stop, they are not going to go away so just learn to live with them.

      We could all escape this nightmare right now by moving to just about any other country on the planet. You may want to reconsider that philosophy.

      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 1) by SanityCheck on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34PM

        by SanityCheck (5190) on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34PM (#245383)

        Maybe they make barrier of entry lower, but then you are only masking the problem and glossing over the issue, and continuing to ignore it hoping it will go away. Until an unhinged idiot does somethign that will truly fuck everyone over like release nuclear waste into a body of water or something even more insane (my imagination doesn't go that route, so I'm sure I would be caught by surprise).

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:40PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:40PM (#245387)
          Although I do agree with you that we also have to address several other issues, I don't understand how you came to this conclusion:

          Until an unhinged idiot does somethign that will truly fuck everyone over like release nuclear waste into a body of water or something even more insane

          We're not talking about Gotham or Metropolis, here.

          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:42PM (#245388)

      Apparently he owned some guns, quite a few of them actually.

      "Quite a few" is an understatement. Last I heard, the police had found that Chris Harper-Mercer owned no less than 13 guns. Six were found at the crime scene; another seven were found in his apartment. His father says that he had no idea his kid had any guns; being that he lived in another state, I guess I can see how that could be. On the other hand, he did live with his mother. I would think that hiding that many guns in an apartment would be a real challenge. Surely she must have noticed that he was amassing quite an arsenal. You would think that at some point she should have asked him about it. I mean, why would somebody own that many guns unless they were expecting some major trouble?

      • (Score: 1) by number11 on Monday October 05 2015, @12:17AM

        by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 05 2015, @12:17AM (#245407)

        His father says that he had no idea his kid had any guns; being that he lived in another state, I guess I can see how that could be. On the other hand, he did live with his mother. I would think that hiding that many guns in an apartment would be a real challenge. Surely she must have noticed that he was amassing quite an arsenal. You would think that at some point she should have asked him about it. I mean, why would somebody own that many guns unless they were expecting some major trouble?

        While I've not heard how many or who, it's been reported that some of the guns were purchased by "family members". I expect mom certainly knew, and was probably one of the buyers.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:26AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:26AM (#245044) Journal

    Maybe it was taking the lead out of gasoline, or maybe it's just the aging of the baby boomers, but gun violence is on a long downhill slide.

    Gun violence peaked from 1990-95: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=27 [bjs.gov]
    Murders peaked 1975-1995: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=2 [bjs.gov]

    What we have in 2015 that we did not have in 1985, was 24 talking head news, tweets on our phones, instant headlines, and all the other crap that come from a totally media infused culture. For the media, if it bleeds it leads, because that means eyeballs and ad sales, but the FACT is, we are safer now, and continue to get safer, and nothing really needs to change.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:43PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:43PM (#245288)

      What we have in 2015 that we did not have in 1985, was 24 talking head news, tweets on our phones, instant headlines...

      ... increasingly frequent mass shootings to report on.

      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:16PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:16PM (#245301) Journal

        I think that maybe GP was referring to copycat shooters. The lowlife in this case apparently studied prior mass shootings, according to a couple of articles. He was a copycat. Without the 24/7 coverage, and repeated broadcast of these atrocities, fewer unbalanced people might think of doing something like this.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM (#245311)
          Since Sandy Hook the media has dramatically reduced their reporting on the shooter. The public is largely unaware of the recent shooters' names and what they look like. Despite that trend the number of shootings is still rapidly increasing.

          I strongly doubt that's the case. There is a lot of hurt and anger in these individuals.
          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
          • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:54PM

            by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:54PM (#245347) Journal

            Murders of all types are down, gun shootings are down -- the fact is that the world is less dangerous now than it was 30 years ago. Why do we feel so anxious though? 30 years ago you sat down at 7 to watch the news, or read the paper in the morning. You didn't have mobile alerts making sure you could be induced into a false sense of terror at any second of the day, nor did you have gaggles of reporters spending all day reporting on a subject by interviewing each other on the air about what they don't know yet, and you sure didn't have those "What you need to know about ___" headlines -- as if #1, the event has any effect on your life, and #2, that the publisher is some kind of authority on the matter.

            The main problem with violence in America is not that we are experiencing more of it -- we aren't, we are experiencing less -- it's that we are experience several magnitudes of orders more HYPE about it, and secondly, that the hype is basically inescapable.

            Finally, as a side note, concentrated problems are easier to deal with than distributed problems. Having fewer shootings but in concentrated settings gives us the opportunity to plan, prepare, and intercept those violent acts in a way we could never do in the context of a dozen random shootings, by a dozen random people, in a dozen random places. The concentration of the violence is an opportunity to vastly reduce the effectiveness of mass shooters, and to further depress murder stats, and opportunity we'd never have if the same violence was distributed.

  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39AM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39AM (#245050)

    There are more laws restricting gun ownership in the USA now than there was 60 years ago.

    There are more homicides using guns in the USA now than there were 60 years ago.

    Obviously the gun control laws that have been passed are not effective.

    Maybe its time the USA tries something different. Maybe more effort should be put into education, providing jobs and other opportunities to those most as risk of being involved in gun related violence, both perpetrator and victim.

    Isn't one of the definitions of insanity "doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result each time"?

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:48AM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:48AM (#245056)

      Should have double checked my numbers. Its not as big a difference as I thought.

      The gun related homicide rate in 1955 was 4.1/100,000, in 2013 it was 4.5/100,000.

      not as big a sweep as I thought it was, but my point is still valid. Few laws in 1955, many laws in 2013, and not much difference in the numbers.

      If the gun control laws actually worked I would expect a bigger difference in the numbers.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:19AM (#245063)

        The gun control laws in almost all of the USA are bullshit - so weak or full of loopholes as to be completely ineffective. Your assertion that there are more gun control laws than in he 1950's is a joke. You are going to have to look at examples from further afield if you want to learn anything about the effectiveness of gun control laws.
        Food for thought - guns are typically not carried by UK police.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:46AM

          by anubi (2828) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:46AM (#245069) Journal

          As far as I am concerned, there is only one use for gun control...

          If you ain't hittin' what you're shootin' at, you ain't controlling your gun, and you have no business messing with one.

          That said, you shoot something you ain't supposed to shoot, you got some 'splainin to do.

          Or, at least, that's how Grandpa would have said it.

          I think that says it all. I believe the gun is like the claws on a cat. Its inhumane to declaw a cat... the thing is now completely defenseless against other critters out there. Anyone declawing a cat should be prepared to care for and protect that cat for the rest of its life.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
        • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:31AM

          by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:31AM (#245088)

          that was kind of my point.

          The gun control laws that have been added in the last 60 years have been ineffectual, either not being enforced or not addressing the real issues.

          And FYI, there are more gun control laws on the books now then there where 60 years ago. I never said anything about them being effective, just that they exist.

          --
          "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM (#245197)

            Growing up in the '70s I remember their was an issue with a flood of cheap handguns known as "Saturday night specials". But that's nothing like today, when we have guns like Glocks that are designed as eye candy, just like Apple's products. Take a look at some of the news stories about the Oregon shooter's mother proudly posting photos of her strutting around pulling weapons.

            The "number of laws" is meaningless, what matters is the set of regulations that any given person would face if they decided to buy guns or carry them.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:41AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:41AM (#245052)

    Right on that there are two entirely different problems.

    Mass shooters are the the low hanging fruit. Stop glorifying them, make sure they remain unknown. Never broadcast their name. Call them them something unflattering and say if somebody just has to know that the name and short bio of the shooter is on the broadcaster's website. The main thing being to never show their face on TV, never discuss their mental malfunction on TV, their manifesto, etc., focus only on the victims and the politicians debating (no force on Earth can keep politicians from a camera in a tragedy) gun control. btw, Solyent should also avoid naming the assholes. Eliminate the 'gun free zones' that give these assholes a low risk shooting gallery. Combined with some mental health issues and the spree shooter problem is something that could quickly be brought under control. But of course the Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) do not want the problem solved as it is far more useful as a live issue with a ready supply of dead bodies for them to stand upon and preach 'common sense gun control' from atop.

    Too many politicians see the bigger problem as either useful or easy to ignore because 'they ain't our voters anyway.' Both are making a bad call. Proggies have a list of reasons why they wanted this situation exactly as it is, but they are losing control of things and just like in every bad movie the monster you make always kills you in the end. Get out a history book, every gun control law has been sold either openly or by subtext as keeping the scary black guys from having guns by the party with the KKK as their unofficial Terror Wing. For longer than anyone posting here can recall every 'urban' hellhole has been a Democratic political machine so the broken schools making swarms of uneducated and unemployable men with nothing but crime as a career option is by design. The creation of the welfare state to ensure they were useless on the home front was also a Democratic design. These things were done to the black community first as sort of a beta test of a program to deconstruct civil society and frankly because Democrats (remember LBJ fillibustered civil rights legislation) considered them expendable.

    Conservatives should abandon their notion that it 'ain't our problem' because, first off when things go kaboom it is going to be everybody's problem, second because the blacks in the urban hells were only the beta test, look around it has gone into wise deployment now. Seeing as the Progs consider it 'winning' if this problem is to be solved it must be Conservatives who do it, period. So just as purely selfish bastards we should be trying to solve the inner city problems because we will need those solutions in our own communities so might as well borrow a page from the Progs and run some beta tests.

    Where the two problems do tie in is that we, as a society (and a society with most levers of power securely in Prog hands btw) have told tens of millions of males, mostly black but increasingly any male without a college degree that they are essentially useless. Big government will tend to their women and children and provide for them better than they possibly could... so long as they stay out of the government provided home. Their manual labor isn't needed and in fact by virtue of minimum wage laws uneconomical to even consider; manual labor is done by an imported second class while they look on in seething resentment. If someone were purposefully sowing the seeds of a violent revolution it is doubtful they would do much different.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:43PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:43PM (#245255)

      "I believe the honorable gentleman will discover his facts are in error".

      >a society with most levers of power securely in Prog hands

      Please check how many governors are Republican, how many state legislators have Republican majorities, the composition of the House of Representatives, and the majority of the Supreme Court.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:15PM (#245276)

        To be entirely fair, while you're not entirely wrong...

        The executive, where regulations are written and enforced, is predominantly progressive. This isn't a surprise, because the progressive ideology is bound up in the idea that by running things in a "progressive" (19th century/turn of the 20th century slang for "according to the findings of modern science and the principles of the Enlightenment") way is good for society, and that the government is the right source of that power.

        Also, while the current balance is more or less even in the halls of power (many anti-progressives of various types are deeply disappointed in the Roberts court, and Congress has been more of a waste of oxygen than a useful driver of anything but national debt) the incumbent rules and regulations have largely been written by progressives, and the loudest voices in support of various changes from academia are also progressive.

        So, while the progressive grip on power mightn't be all that strong, it's certainly the dominant approach. It's merely strongly contested.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by timbim on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:10AM

    by timbim (907) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:10AM (#245060)

    This whole ordeal begins and ends with the outlaw of handguns. I don't care what bullshit augment you come up with if you ban guns then shootings won't happen. And is really bothers me because I know YOU, the safe law abiding level headed flag waving american citizen is too selfish to give up your precious metal gun for the greater good. And here's your preemtive answer to your talking points of knives, bombs, mental health, gun safety, background checks: Bullshit!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:29AM

      by Hartree (195) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:29AM (#245065)

      "This whole ordeal begins and ends with the outlaw of drugs. I don't care what bullshit augment you come up with if you ban drugs then ruined lives won't happen."

      Yeah, that really worked out so well.

      And when it didn't, they said we must ban drugs worldwide and go to the places they are grown and root them out.

      Ask the people of Columbia and Afghanistan how well that worked out for them.

      But, I'm certainly glad you know the answer. Of course, the NRA members will tell you they know the answer too. With all these people who know all the answers, how can we lose?

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:09AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:09AM (#245098) Journal

      Here is your greater good. Sorry about the loss of formatting - click the link below the data.

      Government Dates Targets Civilians Killed "Gun Control" Laws Features of Over-all "Gun Control" scheme
      Ottoman Turkey 1915-1917 Armenians
      (mostly Christians) 1-1.5 million Art. 166, Pen. Code, 1866
      & 1911 Proclamation, 1915 • Permits required •Government list of owners
      •Ban on possession
      Soviet Union 1929-1945 Political opponents;
      farming communities 20 million Resolutions, 1918
      Decree, July 12, 1920
      Art. 59 & 182, Pen. code, 1926 •Licensing of owners
      •Ban on possession
      •Severe penalties
      Nazi Germany
      & Occupied Europe 1933-1945 Political opponents;
      Jews; Gypsies;
      critics; "examples" 20 million Law on Firearms & Ammun., 1928
      Weapon Law, March 18, 1938
      Regulations against Jews, 1938 •Registration & Licensing
      •Stricter handgun laws
      •Ban on possession
      China, Nationalist 1927-1949 Political opponents;
      army conscripts; others 10 million Art. 205, Crim. Code, 1914
      Art. 186-87, Crim. Code, 1935 •Government permit system
      •Ban on private ownership
      China, Red 1949-1952
      1957-1960
      1966-1976 Political opponents;
      Rural populations
      Enemies of the state 20-35 million Act of Feb. 20, 1951
      Act of Oct. 22, 1957 •Prison or death to "counter-revolutionary criminals" and anyone resisting any government program
      •Death penalty for supply guns to such "criminals"
      Guatemala 1960-1981 Mayans & other Indians;
      political enemies 100,000-
      200,000 Decree 36, Nov 25 •Act of 1932
      Decree 386, 1947
      Decree 283, 1964 •Register guns & owners •Licensing with high fees
      •Prohibit carrying guns
      •Bans on guns, sharp tools
      •Confiscation powers
      Uganda 1971-1979 Christians
      Political enemies 300,000 Firearms Ordinance, 1955
      Firearms Act, 1970 •Register all guns & owners •Licenses for transactions
      •Warrantless searches •Confiscation powers
      Cambodia
      (Khmer Rouge) 1975-1979 Educated Persons;
      Political enemies 2 million Art. 322-328, Penal Code
      Royal Ordinance 55, 1938 •Licenses for guns, owners, ammunition & transactions
      •Photo ID with fingerprints
      •License inspected quarterly
      Rwanda 1994 Tutsi people 800,000 Decree-Law No. 12, 1979 •Register guns, owners, ammunition •Owners must justify need •Concealable guns illegal •Confiscating powers

      http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm [jpfo.org]

    • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:32AM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:32AM (#245102)

      Right!!!

      Lets start by banning all guns from zones around schools and government buildings.

      Once we do that no one will ever have a gun in those areas and we wont have to worry about this sort of thing ever happening at a school again.

      Newsflash: If someone wants to kill a bunch of people they will find a way to do it. If they couldn't use a gun they would use pipe bombs, fire bombs, even just use a knife.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanping_school_massacre [wikipedia.org]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_%282010%E2%80%9312%29 [wikipedia.org]

      Gun control laws won't do anything about solving the root issues of most of the gun related homicides. But no one seems to be willing to do anything about the hard issues like poverty, mental health, poor education and lack of opportunities. Those would actually take effort.

      There was 3 times more gun related homicides in Chicago over the weekend before Roseburg happened. How come we don't hear anyone talking about that? Maybe its because none of the victims were Caucasian?

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:57PM (#245199)

      Please do not make a complex problem one dimensional with you "OMG GUNS!!!!" nonsense. The individual who committed the latest mass shooting felt as an outsider in an ever-increasingly connected society. He was lonely having had no success with education, employment, and personal relationships with opposite sex. He probably felt like a failure because his family treated him as such due to the lack of all the before mentioned things. What he did, he did because of how he felt, not because he had a gun. Now how the fuck does not having a gun make that person all of a sudden feel better? How does it fix anything about his situation and situations of thousands of others like him?

      Yes, there is a lot to be said now. You can say, well if he didn't have gun maybe he would just kill himself.... sure. I guess having a person kill themselves solves a problem for you. Or maybe he would do something worse like steal a tanker full of petrol and drive it into a crowded train station. Who can fuckin say for sure?

      All I know is I'm tired of people who think this is a simple issue. People who view the world through a simple lens like that are retards. Yes you are retarded. You lack mental capacity to recognize the intricacies and multiple layers of a problem. You have an over-inflated sense of self and think that they themselves clearly KNOW the RIGHT WAY to fix anything. Yes there are Billions of people on this planet, some with IQ's multiples of yours, but out of all these people only YOU understand the REAL problem. Give me a fuckin break.

      Maybe, just maybe, the real problem is people like YOU. The people who are so sure they know the solution that they do everything they can to block the people who are actually trying to figure things out and fuckin fix it. These people seem to be swarming both sides fo political spectrum. They are found in abundance in all religions (or believe religion is the PROBLEM). They span every level of income, and this fuckin country is swarming with them. They are so convinced there is no getting through to them. It is enough for a reasonable person to just throw their hands up in a sign of capitulation tot he futility of getting anything resolved for the betterment of the country. So to you I say: Next time someone shoots up your country, go and give them a hug because you deserve each-other.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:19PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:19PM (#245234)

      Uh huh. Funny that the same people who tell us that finding 11 million illegal aliens would be an insurmountable task insist that locating three hundred million weapons from the bottom of the lakes, streams and rivers their hapless owners lost them in would be so easy we could 'solve' the problem of mass killers if only the evil NRA were moved out of the way.

      We are told that all of America could be a giant gun free zone if we only had the political will. That the violent gangs who move tons of highly illegal drugs into the country daily wouldn't add a few pounds of arms and ammo into their bundles. That where the War on Drugs failed along with every other 'moral equivalence of war' campaign, the War on Guns would be a rousing success.

      We are also assured that Americans by the millions who grimly state "From my cold dead hand." are only posturing and if a law were passed they would meekly line up and turn their arms over. Allow me to add some clarity to you delusion. I will not die alone. The sad beaten down masses in blue hells are not representative of the rest of America, we will not submit. Any government that violates the self evident Truths laid out in the Declaration of Independence loses any claim of legitimacy so no qualms about taking out officers of same attempting to enforce an obviously unjust law. So make your Utopian plans around that reality. There will be war before there will be 'gun control.'

      Bottom line: You suck, your ideas suck, they have been tried multiple times in multiple places and failed every time. It is about time we end this battle of ideas with a finishing move and banishing your suck to the outer darkness of blogs nobody reads so the national political debate can move on to more interesting things and topics where actual progress toward a more sane and civilized world is possible. I want to see you Progs out of the picture and let the far more interesting fight between Conservatism and Libertarianism get cranking.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:54PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:54PM (#245263) Journal

        We are also assured that Americans by the millions who grimly state "From my cold dead hand." are only posturing and if a law were passed they would meekly line up and turn their arms over. Allow me to add some clarity to you delusion. I will not die alone. The sad beaten down masses in blue hells are not representative of the rest of America, we will not submit. Any government that violates the self evident Truths laid out in the Declaration of Independence loses any claim of legitimacy so no qualms about taking out officers of same attempting to enforce an obviously unjust law. So make your Utopian plans around that reality. There will be war before there will be 'gun control.'

        You already have submitted. The government executes Americans by drone, interns people at will in secret prisons (Lefortovo or Lubyanka, anyone?), tries people in secret courts, stops you in subways and roadside stops and demands to see your papers, invades your most intimate privacy at will, scans you naked when you go through the airport, makes your Checks & Balances a joke because both sides (all sides) of government are in bed with each other, and not only laughs at the notion of holding the powerful accountable to the rule of law, but actually mocks you for suggesting it. So it sounds like what you're really claiming is that the government can take 99 out of a 100 of your rights with impunity, but, gee, they better double-dog not dare take away the 100th right or they'll be gettin' a whippin', by gersh.

        If the American people do not have a casus belli against the government by now, they will never have. Instead it will be death by a thousand paper cuts, like more mass shootings, more riots, etc. And each time the elites will suck away more power and wealth from the people in an attempt to maintain control, and the pressure will ramp up another level. There might come along a large disruption along the way that will cause everything to dissolve early, but as the pressure ramps up the disruption needed will need to be less and less large.

        If you don't think that we're already living in the totalitarian hells we purported to fight 70 years ago, but that's only because you're dreaming on in an after-image of the free country we used to have. That is, the out-of-control government you're cavilling about has already arrived. It's here. It's now. So where are the brave, defiant Conservative/Libertarians armed to the teeth standing up for their rights?

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @12:32AM (#245417)

        We are also assured that Americans by the millions who grimly state "From my cold dead hand." are only posturing and if a law were passed they would meekly line up and turn their arms over. Allow me to add some clarity to you delusion. I will not die alone. The sad beaten down masses in blue hells are not representative of the rest of America, we will not submit. Any government that violates the self evident Truths laid out in the Declaration of Independence loses any claim of legitimacy so no qualms about taking out officers of same attempting to enforce an obviously unjust law. So make your Utopian plans around that reality. There will be war before there will be 'gun control.'

        Yeah, yeah, yeah...brave words. I'm fairly confident in betting that you and all the other Internet Tough Guy Keyboard Warriors will immediately crumble when Uncle Sam comes along to take away your guns. Whatever.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:24PM

      by isostatic (365) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:24PM (#245238) Journal

      Banning handguns would be silly, people will still be able to get them, and they'll still kill other people. It makes as much sense as banning drink-driving.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:57PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:57PM (#245364)

        Drunk driving is already illegal. And you can't get a license to drive drunk no matter how hard you try to convince them you're good at it.

        Non-applicable analogy. Next please!

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:50PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:50PM (#245259)

      >If you ban handguns, shootings won't happen

      If you eliminate handguns, handgun shootings will disappear. A ban will leave many millions of guns in the hands of people who won't turn them in voluntarily. Getting to zero, or even getting to the point that they're hard to find, would be the work of generations or would require police state tactics.

      • (Score: 2) by timbim on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:11PM

        by timbim (907) on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:11PM (#245348)

        “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

      • (Score: 2) by timbim on Monday October 05 2015, @01:07AM

        by timbim (907) on Monday October 05 2015, @01:07AM (#245426)

        And then what happens to the price of those handguns? Apply your economic skills.

  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:51AM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:51AM (#245072) Homepage Journal

    I can't wait to hear Ethanol-fueled's thoughts on this. :^D

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:55AM (#245073)

    Could it be due to the publicity that these people receive nowadays? It seems to me that [mentally ill or not] these freaks generally wind intending to kill themselves or hoping to get killed by a cop after they've taken some other people out. The only logical thing I can come up with is that they believe their legacy is going to continue on for a good while after they're dead.

    "We'll stay on this story,"
    "More continuing coverage after the break,"

    ...and it keeps going on like that for days, and then gets mentioned off and on for months, and even years. It's treated more like a really huge entertainment experience than an actual tragedy. My opinion is that it perpetuates because of that.

    People just seem angrier and less empathetic all around these days, too. I want to turn this into a rant about political correctness and anti-depression pills as well, but...

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by EQ on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29AM

    by EQ (1716) on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:29AM (#245087)

    Short of repealing the 2nd Amendment, guns are here to stay in US. Perhaps its the allure of the headlines, maybe its the "gun free" zones, or other bete noir that are dragged out for this argument by both sides. But the issue isn't necessarily access to firearms - criminals by definition will ignore those laws and obtain them anyway. So instead, look at the evidence we do have regarding laws and effectiveness, as well as possible cause and effect.

    For example, inner city Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the US. Yet dozens are killed in a week there (with little but local headlines). Now compare to Vermont's laws which are so loose that you don't even need a permit to carry a concealed handgun, or Wyoming - yet no mass shooting or large (percapita) numbers of gun deaths there. Given these counterexamples, the problem isn't just laws. Its We The People.

    Its should be obvious by now that the US has a violence and culture problem, exacerbated by economic problems in the inner cities, especially amongst minority males, and gang members. This is accompanied by a terrible public health system for detecting, diagnosing and treating the mentally ill.

    Those are the hard but solvable problems that need to be addressed: mental health, economics, "gang/thug-life" culture, and the acceptability of violence in society. The questions we should be asking should be about those things - but they require thought, analysis and actual work from the society and the government. These things aren't simple knee-jerk bumpersticker issues for either side of the US monolithic political structure, so they languish in need of solution while the politicians sell "Ban All Guns" vs "Come and take them" to herd voters by fear whilst keeping the same parties in power..

    • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:47PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:47PM (#245257)

      What makes them hard is that the remaining problems are a matter of doing actual work, not just passing laws. It's got to be people organizing at their kitchen tables, people volunteering to do health care, and in general just plain sweat.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:38AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:38AM (#245103) Homepage Journal

    Even when one voluntarily admits oneself to a mental hospital, one is not permitted to possess a gun for the next five years.

    Two mentally ill Portland men, at least one of them Schizophrenic were murdered in cold blood by the police, one of them beaten to death for no apparent reason.

    A Schizophrenic man in Fullerton, California was beaten to death by the police as he cried out for his father to save his life.

    For these three men to have owned guns would at least presented the possibilities of saving their lives.

    In general, in the United States it is lawful for all but the mentally ill to take the lives of others to save their own lives, or to save the lives of third parties. Why are the mentally ill not permitted to defend themselves?

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:47AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:47AM (#245107) Journal

      The mentally ill are expendable?

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:52AM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:52AM (#245110) Homepage Journal

        Filter error: The new American Holocaust

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:19AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:19AM (#245117) Journal

          Don't go overboard with your appreciation. You asked a question. I, in turn, asked a question. That question proposes that sick people don't matter. You might attempt to discuss the possibility, rather than jump to some conclusion that I don't give a damn about the mentally ill. In short, I've contributed no answer to your question, only another question.

          • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:40AM

            by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:40AM (#245123) Homepage Journal

            The slaughter of Germany and Austria's "degenerates" commenced well before World War II.

            Had I lived in Europe back then, I would have been among them. Hence my active preference for Godwinizing online debates; throughout my life I've taken an active interest in the NAZIs, Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust.

            People don't realize: every crazy person was someone's bouncing little baby boy or girl. I met a man at the Blanchet House of Hospitality a while back. He himself was not mentally ill but a welder who was injured on the job - he helped constructed the world's largest steerable dish radio telescope, in West Virginia.

            "You meet some people on the street," he said to me, "they tell you they used to make six figures".

            I myself used to bill $120.00/hour for as many hours as I could possibly work - and my clients were happy to pay me. The highest regular salary I earned was $150,000.00.

            Now I sleep under a highway overpass. I am fortunate in that a good friend bought me some quality camping equipment.

            There are some people who, even if they have good sleeping bags, are not clued in enough to stay out of the rain.

            --
            Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
            • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:02PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:02PM (#245295)

              The slaughter of America's "degenerates" commenced well before World War I.

              throughout my life I've taken an active interest in the NAZIs, Hitler, World War II and the Holohoax.

              OK.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:07AM (#245114)

      I'm going to hazard a guess and say that the reason we don't allow the mentally ill to posses a handgun is the same reason we don't allow felons or anyone under the age of 21 to.

      It is because you cannot reasonably expect them to keep and utilize a gun in a responsible manner. Even if you yourself are keeping it "in check" by seeking counseling taking meds etc, not everyone else is. If you are mentally ill and you are armed you are a powder keg waiting to explode. You are the definition of being a danger to yourself and others. You are one missed dose, or one bad counseling appointment away from being a headline.

      Frankly if that happens then you were never truly culpable. Society does not want the burden of culpability, it rests with the individual, ergo we don't allow those who are less than culpable in their actions to posses something that can instantly end a persons life with nothing more than a simple squeeze.

      We don't let felons, the mentally ill or others who might otherwise not be culpable own or posses firearms.

      Now I specifically call out felons in this same class. Part of this is that to be found guilty of a crime of that caliber carries with it the implication that you are struggling to cope with the demands of society. Point of fact most crimes are by people with varying degr ees of mental illness. I would posit that if the majority of people in prison were to be allowed access to proper and well funded mental health services, we would find that the vast majority of those in prison are actually mentally ill. But that would require a society to focus more on rehabilitation than on some archaic vision of punishment posited by bronze age mythologies.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:34AM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:34AM (#245121) Homepage Journal

        I understand that 40% of American jail prisoners are mentally ill. Note that jail is where you go when you are arrested but not yet sentenced, or sentenced to one year or less; prison is where you go if you are sentenced to more than a year. (In general.)

        I've been in the slammer a whole bunch of times; the deputies all read my essays on mental illness, and thank me for them. They point out that they too do not feel that jails are the right place for the mentally ill. They want to be saving lives and busting crooks, not looking after delusional people.

        However I myself have an Idaho State gun safety card - I earned in in Seventh Grade physical education. At least at the time it was taught to schoolchildren by the state parks department because hunting is so widely practiced in Idaho. While a poor shot I know how to handle a gun responsibly.

        Also note that I am a trained and experienced suicide hotline counselor. That means that I know all the tricks. If I wanted to off myself there isn't a whole lot anyone could do to stop me. So far I still breathe.

        Nine out of ten mentally ill people never come to the attention of a mental health professional during their entire lives. The simple fact that one is seeing a shrink or taking medicine does not lead one to fail a background check; it is psychiatric hospitalization that do so. In fact I know a schizophrenic who, due to the dangerous nature of her work, has a state-issued concealed carry permit.

        This woman is profoundly delusional and actively hallucinates. She is a former lover; she brought her "Nine" on our dates!

        Thus the vast majority of mentally ill people are, in reality, actively permitted to possess guns, some of them, for all the same reasons anyone else could get approved, have concealed carry.

        It is only those who have been hospitalized. If I have a seizure, they put me in a psychiatric hospital. If YOU had a seizure, you'd be put in a regular neurology ward, but because I am well-known to the doctors around here, my seizures disqualify my background checks.

        It is specifically because of my gun safety card that I do not possess a gun. While I don't fear guns, I fear bullets. Sometimes they discharge spontaneously.

        The Darwin winner a few years ago tried to rob someone at gunpoint but his round did not fire. Puzzled as to what the problem was, he looked down the barrel.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:39PM

      by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:39PM (#245252)

      I know a gunsmith online who belongs to a minority group that's a frequent target of violence.

      She has a foot injury that prevents her from running from trouble.

      She carries a concealed handgun to fight back if people try to kill or cripple her. The catch is, she has OCD and maybe some other diagnosable mental illnesses. A law that disarmed her would be, in that one case, unjust.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by timbojones on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:01PM

      by timbojones (5442) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:01PM (#245270)

      For these three men to have owned guns would at least presented the possibilities of saving their lives.

      By killing the cops? Yeah that would have saved their lives for maybe 4 whole seconds. The only new possibility you offer is additional corpses.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @09:42AM (#245106)

    but we are all tired of telling you Americans the answer and having you ignore it. We give up.

    -- The Rest of the Civilized World

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @10:06AM (#245112)

      but we are all tired of telling you Americans the answer and having you ignore it. We give up.

      -- The Rest of the Civilized World

      Meanwhile, in "The Rest of the Civilized World:"

      http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=807_1369627137 [liveleak.com]

      Good luck defending your home, your wife, and your daughters, against these types--using only a stout wooden dowel and a pillow.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34AM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2015, @11:34AM (#245135) Journal

        Thank you for selecting such a well-recognised and unbiased piece of reporting to support your half-assed assertion. There is no propoganda in that piece whatsoever, no sir.

        But, pray tell, how would having guns have stopped any of the alleged offences. After all, if those being attacked had guns to defend themselves with, isn't it highly likely that those who perpetrated the crime would also have similar access? So the crimes would still have been committed but there would be a trail of dead bodies. Yep, that has improved things no end.

        Idiot.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:02PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @01:02PM (#245152)

          "Idiot!" Thats a good one. You sure got him there!

        • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:28PM

          by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:28PM (#245242) Journal

          The difference is combat training. A gun on an untrained individual is just as dangerous to themselves as it is to anyone else. It's not difficult to disarm somebody who's untrained and has drawn a gun without being fully prepared to use lethal force.

          A trained individual would be able to use lethal force effectively if necessary. A gun is an effective force multiplier and intimidation device in trained hands. Islamophobia aside, the world is a dangerous place. There are violent rapists out there. In my view, instead of rape cultures, we should have free (possibly compulsory) combat training for women.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:57PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:57PM (#245266)

            I'm male.

            And I completely agree with every word Kurenai Tsubasa writes.

            If it were generally known that every woman on a college campus were armed with at least a knife and a gun and were trained in the use of both as well as unarmed combat, we'd have a lot fewer rapes.

            And a lot fewer serial rapists.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:17PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:17PM (#245302)

              every woman on a college campus were armed with at least a knife and a gun

              Cat fights could get bloody.

              And a lot fewer serial rapists.

              Or legalize prostitution, resulting in fewer attacks (maybe I am talking out of my arse here).

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:36PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:36PM (#245147) Journal

    So get rid of all the guns, give ALL Americans 'wife beater' shirts and let them hold each others arms (that way you get to bare arms AND bear arms, just in case the guys who wrote the Constitution were too drunk to spell properly). So much less likely to end up with dead people, so much more likely to end with copping a good feel! Eveybuddy happy!

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:50PM

    by iwoloschin (3863) on Sunday October 04 2015, @12:50PM (#245149)

    The Second Amendment states:

    "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

    A.

    WELL.

    REGULATED.

    MILITIA.

    Let that sink in for a minute. Now why the fuck isn't gun ownership well regulated? You want to own a gun? Fine, but you need to join a state (and specifically *not* a federal) militia. The militia would be similar to the National Guard, but separate as it would only answer to the state's Governor, and never be deployed beyond the state's borders. As part of the state militia you would be subject to annual marksmanship & gun safety testing. After all, who wants a poor shot on the militia? If you never pass the test, you never get your own gun, but you can keep on renting them at a range to try and pass the test. The idea here is that the WELL REGULATED MILITIA could filter out the really bad apples, since getting, and maintaining, a firearms license would be incredibly difficult, and take a long time, but be very doable, should you wish to spend the time and money to join the militia.

    It's definitely a compromise solution, but I don't understand why we can't do this. The NRA gets its guns, the left gets far higher scrutiny of gun ownership, and everyone gets another state force that can deployed in emergencies. This seems like a pretty good compromise to me.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:01PM (#245157)

      The reason why we can't do this is the sentence doesn't mean what you're interpreting it as. The directive is the piece of the sentence after the second comma. Everything preceding is an explanation of why the directive exists. Another way to write that sentence is "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed, because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State."

      That being said, the definitions/usages of words has changed a little in the last 240 odd years, and in this case had specific meanings. The two most important are "Militia" and "regulated". At the time, the "Militia" was understood to be any able bodied male capable of being drafted into service. The closest analogue we have today is "every able bodied person". As far as "regulated" it meant "properly equipped". That is, the sentence meant, "A properly equipped populace of every bodied male, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".

      Or to put it another way, they intended for EVERYONE to maintain equipment at home and be prepared to secure the state against threats. THAT concept exists all over the world, sometimes in the form of mandatory conscription, and requirement that arms be kept in your home.

      Hope that helps.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:03PM (#245158)

      Learn 1770s English.

      "Well regulated" = disciplined
      "Militia" = every member of the public capable of fighting, legally defined as every adult male

      The preamble states that it is necessary, for security, that everybody has guns and knows how to use them. New recruits entering the army will already know how to use the hardware they are issued. Any threat to public safety could be addressed by civilians organizing themselves before higher authorities are notified.

      Also read the second half of the amendment you are quoting: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That seems pretty clear.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:31PM (#245162)

        I think it goes a little further than new recruits knowing how to use the weapons that are issued, especially if viewed in light of the prohibitions against a standing army, and the fact that the members of the continental army frequently brought their own equipment. The intention as I read it is that, at all times, every member of the populace should be prepared and able to defend the State from threats. In other words the populace WAS the Army. It would be organized when needed, but was always existent in the form of the people.
        This also makes sense if you think about the environment that the nation first existed in. All around it were large empires more than capable of invading the country. To the North the English, to the West the French, to the South the Spanish. It was _not_ a safe time for the U.S.A.
        Additionally, it's a relatively recent phenomenon that the US has a large standing army. All the way up until WWII the U.S. Army was TINY, and we'd always spend the first few months of war actually organizing a bigger one drawn from the general populace.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:20PM (#245181)

      A well balanced breakfast, being necessary to the health of the nation, the right of the people to keep and eat cereal, shall not be infringed.

      Who has the right to eat cereal: a well-balanced breakfast, or the people?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM (#245198)

      THE.
      RIGHT.
      OF.
      THE.
      PEOPLE.
      TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

      Doesn't say the right of the militia, it says the right of the people. You and me. Duh.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:12PM (#245205)

        A well regulated Militia, [...] being necessary to [...] free [...] the [...] bear arms, shall not be infringed.

        I'm pretty sure it's talking about ursine's right to wear sleeveless shirts.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:41PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:41PM (#245217) Journal

      As I understand this, you want the same government that at the local level, shoots innocent civilians frequently, and higher levels breaks every rule in the book to engage in mass surveillance, which is bought and paid for with the money of the 1% of the 1%, which starts wars of aggression all over the world to profit that same group, to also monitor who can and cannot have a firearm even more than it does now?

      Are you insane? Especially considering how the Feds want to eat into every part of the Bill of Rights, why would you for a second try to help them. Secondly, for all the hooha you made about that intro, you aren't understanding it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller#Decision [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by isostatic on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:22PM

        by isostatic (365) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:22PM (#245235) Journal

        Hows that revolution going? You and your 18 guns (and 2 arms), vs the might of the US army, and the jungoistic worshipping that army receives from your population?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:55PM (#245264)

          I know a lot of veterans. My boss is a veteran, in fact.

          The vast majority of them are suspicious or even contemptuous of the federal government, and hold the constitution in much higher esteem.

          I have it on pretty good authority from multiple sources that if a revolution happens, Congresscritters will not be able to rely upon the single-minded support of the military.

          In fact, the military may be setting up firing squads.

          Hope that helps.

          • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 05 2015, @12:14AM

            by isostatic (365) on Monday October 05 2015, @12:14AM (#245403) Journal

            So the army is on your side. Why do you need a 9mm then?

            • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:39AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @02:39AM (#245452)

              I need various firearms for many reasons.

              Recreation (yes, I'm a sporting shooter, and that's not a term for hunting).

              Defence of livestock against vermin of various sorts.

              Defence of myself and my family against predators, both four-legged and two-legged.

              Humane slaughter of livestock when the time comes, or just plain euthanasia.

              I'm sure given time I could come up with half a dozen more reasons, but ultimately, I don't have to. I'm entitled to a 9mm, a 45, a 30-06, and so on. I avail myself of my prerogatives, and should they happen to come in handy as and when the government finally goes completely off-kilter, so be it.

              Any more silly questions?

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:58PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:58PM (#245337) Journal

          How is that a response to my question? You obviously have no idea who I am or what I'm about, you merely presume something. It is a fact however, that you would cede authority without a Constitutional amendment to those who have demonstrated themselves time and again, to be unworthy of that authority, and you would do it in a manner that undermines the Bill of Rights. Honestly, the neocon establishment needs no help from those on the left in undermining the Constitution.

          You don't like the second amendment? Don't engage in bullshit arguments to whittle it away -- amend the fucking constitution. The way you want to go about it, just fucks up everything.

          • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 05 2015, @12:16AM

            by isostatic (365) on Monday October 05 2015, @12:16AM (#245405) Journal

            obviously have no idea who I am

            are you Ronnie Pickering?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:27PM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:27PM (#245280)

      "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

      You don't get to cherry pick which part of a law you follow. Its all or nothing.

      When someone tries to restrict/ignore any other amendment or articles of the US Constitution everyone starts screaming.

      If you don't like the Second amendment then work toward getting a 28th Amendment ratified. Something simple like "The second Amendment no longer applies"

      Until then you either uphold and defend the entire Constitution or give up your citizenship and get the fuck out.

      US Naturalization oath:
      "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

      Maybe they should start requiring everyone, not just immigrants, to recite that oath before they can vote.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:24AM (#245502)

        You don't get to cherry pick which part of a law you follow. Its all or nothing.

        Yet you're doing the exact same thing when you ignore literally half of the amendment. Bravo.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday October 05 2015, @07:44AM

          by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday October 05 2015, @07:44AM (#245523)

          I'm sorry. i thought you had already read the full text of the second amendment in the original posters comment.

          I only put in the last half because the comment I was responding to was only stressing the first half of it so i thought I would balance it out and stress the last half.

          Just in case you didn't bother to read the whole amendment here it is again

          "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

          Or, put another way by another poster that makes it far easier to understand how it was meant to be read;

          A well balanced breakfast, being necessary to the health of the nation, the right of the people to keep and eat cereal, shall not be infringed.

          Who has the right to eat cereal: a well-balanced breakfast, or the people?

          Like I said. Its the law. Don't like it? Push for a 28th amendment. Till then obey it.

          --
          "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:07PM (#245159)

    Because it doesn't push the agenda to disarm *honest* citizens. When you talk about ( regardless of color ) inner city gang/drug violence with stolen guns, no one honestly cares and its even a 'good, let them kill each other off' attitude.

    If you idiots would get your head out of your ass and finally realize that none of this is about reducing crime and only about our disarmament, then you will understand what is going on, and why, that it needs to be stopped, NOW. Once one of our rights falls, the rest go like dominoes, and its damned hard to get them back once lost.

  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by inertnet on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:41PM

    by inertnet (4071) on Sunday October 04 2015, @02:41PM (#245164) Journal

    Being European I can't really comment on the underlying causes or solutions, other than that the black versus mass shootings are two entirely different problems in my opinion.

    But I am wondering why nobody noticed (or rather it wasn't flagged automatically) that this person had well over 10 guns in possession at this young age. This should have been noticed, not that everyone with that many guns is dangerous by definition, but it's definitely something to be looked at. People like that might require extra monitoring, especially if some of those guns are of the types that are generally used in those shootings.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by redneckmother on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:07PM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:07PM (#245229)

      The killer was 26, and had fourteen weapons in his possession - six at the crime scene, the rest at his residence. I had more than that at his age.

      I completed firearms safety and marksmanship training at age eleven, and received my first firearm as a gift a few months later.

      I owned five firearms at age seventeen. I have many more now. Every day, I carry a pistol loaded with .410 shotshells. Some days, I carry an additional pistol, loaded with either hollow points or solid bullets. Occasionally, I carry either a rifle or shotgun. I choose what I carry based on whether or not I am hunting, the game I seek, or the likelihood of encountering a dangerous critter, such as a rattlesnake, skunk or fox (both of which are often rabid), or javelina (you don't want to be rushed by them, especially when they have young with them). A few years back, I encountered a pack of javelina - I was armed with a semiautomatic rifle, and twenty-eight rounds in the magazine. When they charged, I was able to dispatch them before they closed within ten yards, and had ammo to spare. I get a chuckle when people ask why anyone needs high capacity magazines - I ask them if they ever need more than four squares of toilet paper (shit happens).

      The number of weapons one has doesn't mean that much to me. I like having the right tool for the job, and enjoy shooting targets and improving my handling, accuracy, and technique with various calibers. A high powered rifle for large game, a lower powered one for medium game, a .22 for rabbits and other rodents. A shotgun (.410 or 12 gauge) for birds. Various revolvers and semiautomatic pistols for my "walkabouts".

      A friend of mine is a collector, and has more than fifty firearms (some of them are Class 3, either full auto, silenced, or both). We have a lot of fun at the gun range.

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday October 06 2015, @03:50AM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Tuesday October 06 2015, @03:50AM (#245953)

      By the way...

      I don't disagree with your first sentence. You are correct (in my estimation) that the two problems are different.

      I hope my earlier post informed you of a difference in opinion of what constitutes an "excessive number" of firearms in a person's possession, and of the reasonableness of a person "of a certain age" in possessing firearms - no matter how many. I also wished to help you understand a facet of the cultural difference(s) between Europe and the US, with regard to firearms. That was my intent.

      I agree that there a number of people who have either access to (or possession of) firearms who many reasonable persons would find questionable.

      I don't think that one can judge whether or not a person is a threat based on the number of firearms he/she possesses. There are many, many people in the US who have many more firearms than the killer had, who are sane, non-combative, and are NOT sociopaths.

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
      • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday October 06 2015, @08:34AM

        by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday October 06 2015, @08:34AM (#246003) Journal

        I didn't mean to imply that many guns equal sociopath. My idea is, if someone buys a gun, it should be very easy to check how many this person already has. If the number reaches a threshold, more checks could be performed. If the person checks out fine, no more checks are needed. For instance in your case, or that of the gun collector, it will quickly become clear that you're not sociopaths and no more checks are needed. So you're only going to be checked once, and there's no need to take any guns away from anybody.

        My intent was to keep both gun owners happy as well as trying a preventive approach to these mass killings.

  • (Score: 2) by TheLink on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:02PM

    by TheLink (332) on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:02PM (#245175) Journal

    Yeah perhaps the underlying problem is culture and a zillion other things. However the guns make it a lot easier to kill. A toddler could kill an adult with a gun. So if you make it harder to have guns you would still have the underlying problems but they would express themselves in less deadly ways.

    This comedian makes a pretty good argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awgs0burFTk [youtube.com]

    Yeah I know it's comedy but its worth a watch.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:02PM (#245271)

      A toddler COULD kill an adult with a gun. Sometimes it even happens, and it's such a freak occurrence that it makes news in a country of over 300 million people.

      This isn't about "expressing themselves". It's not a tool of debate we're talking about. It's a tool which lets Grandma save herself from T-Bone and Hungus.

      I'm not pro-gun, I'm pro-Grandma.

      Actually, I'm kind of pro-gun too, because they're tools I use in my job, and they beat strangling varmints to death. Possums have nasty teeth.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @10:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @10:14AM (#245560)

        Toddlers killing themselves and others with guns happens a lot more often in the USA per capita than it does in other "developed" countries/areas. Heck even less developed countries - go count the incidents where a toddler has shot someone dead in China or India - that's 2+ billion people. Whereas the USA has one of these killings every few years.

        It's a tool which lets Grandma save herself from T-Bone and Hungus.

        More "T-Bones" will get guns than Grandmas.

        And only a few Grandmas will be prepared enough to win (shooting ability etc). Because T-Bone is picking the time and the place for the encounter.

        Many grandmas can barely drive a car safely and competently. You think they'd do better with a gun?

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @02:06AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2015, @02:06AM (#245916)

          Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't.

          But without a gun T-bone and Hungus don't have to worry. They have the physical upper hand. It's all their game. The gun is Grandma's equaliser.

          Oh, and I know a few grandmas who can shoot a sparrow off a twig at fifty feet, off handed.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:36AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:36AM (#246398)
            Without guns they have the physical upper hand so there's no need to shoot/clobber Grandma before she shoots them.

            That's also why your cops are more dangerous - they expect others to have guns and so they kill a lot more people (swatting, shooting unarmed kids etc).
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:28PM

    by Username (4557) on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:28PM (#245187)

    If terrorism kills less people than gun violence, then why is Obama killing so many "terrorists"? Far more than gun deaths in (United States of) America. Shouldn’t we do something about Obama?

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:12PM

      by isostatic (365) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:12PM (#245230) Journal

      There's no "If" about it. Guns cause 1 9/11 per month, or 150 9/11s since 9/11.

      Of course you can't stop guns from being out there, banning them would only stop the accidental deaths - no more toddlers shooting their mothers, and that's a far lower number.

      On the other hand you can't stop terrorism either. Or road deaths. It's all a balance, take away peoples rights (strip searches at airports, drink driving laws, ban schools [newsthump.com] etc). It may reduce the number of deaths slightly, but not always, and certainly won't eliminate them. Living in civilisation we accept a trade off between what freedoms we have and what safety we have.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Techwolf on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM

    by Techwolf (87) on Sunday October 04 2015, @03:54PM (#245196)

    How many of these mass shooters tried to get mental help but was denied due to budgets cuts before they went on there mass shooting killings?

  • (Score: 2) by Jiro on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:09PM

    by Jiro (3176) on Sunday October 04 2015, @04:09PM (#245203)

    everyday gun violence in black communities kills many more Americans.

    ...

    these shootings are the focal point for most of our national conversation on gun control.

    I was scared for a moment there. I was scared that he was going to propose gun control in black communities.

    Of course, this is a case of two examples of left-wing dogma colliding. They want to say that black people are more affected, and they want to solve it by restricting people's rights, but they cannot figure out the logical implication of their own two ideas and say that that means they should be restricting the rights of black people (since those black people tend to be killed by other black people). If guns are really a problem for poor black men, then you should restrict guns in areas occupied by poor black men.

    (And of course, the figures are bogus. How many of the shootings of black men are shootings using legal guns?)

  • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:53PM

    by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Sunday October 04 2015, @05:53PM (#245262)

    Casual acceptance of violence and gunfire are easy to find among my white relatives in various states.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:39PM (#245287)

    i don't think that guns carry some sort of infection to which some people are susceptible; that is touching a gun will not create a
    voice in your head that says: "go! shot someone!".

    maybe we should look at societies (with and without guns) that makes people so "unhappy" that they feel their only option to get noticed (for help?)
    is by using a gun to do something brutal?

    ofc we can assume that a society with a lot of gun violence tends to be a society that is tough to live in ... so contributing to more gun violence?

    however, if getting a gun is difficult then this "form of asking for help" becomes difficult which in the long run leads to a less violent society
    and thus less "asking for help"?

  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:45PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Sunday October 04 2015, @06:45PM (#245290)

    https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Colorado_Marijuana_Legalization_One_Year_Status_Report.pdf [drugpolicy.org]

    Cut their income and criminals will stop fighting over territory.

    There's really not much else to it.

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @07:36PM (#245309)

    Look at how many of these shooters are young, single men. They are socially inept/isolated, they are pissed off, and evidently they feel that their own life is also worthless.

    Note one of differences between the US and some other countries: PROHIBITION. I'm talking about legal recreational drugs and prostitution. If these guys had a way to relieve their stress, anger, and sexual frustration and have some pleasurable contact with another human, they might not feel the urge to kill everyone.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:29AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @06:29AM (#245503)

      PROHIBITION. I'm talking about legal recreational drugs and prostitution. If these guys had a way to relieve their stress, anger, and sexual frustration and have some pleasurable contact with another human, they might not feel the urge to kill everyone.

      There's also the insanely-high profit margins for both products that come from them being black-market only, and the power from amassing all that money. Money and power will always be reasons to kill, always. Gun violence will never go away so long as prohibition is a thing. Just as the Zetas if you think otherwise.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @03:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2015, @03:37PM (#245666)

    ...the problem IS the solution...