Religious gun nut kills Batman moviegoers

[Warren Dew]

I think an honest position for an American supporter of your current gun laws would be this:

"We accept that the wide availability of guns will inevitably lead to a murder rate much higher than other societies, and more frequent gun massacres by lunatics, but we consider this a reasonable price to pay for maintaining our freedom to bear arms"

So do you think that people from the UK should admit that their higher rates of violent crime than the US is a price they willingly pay for not having guns?

[mistermack]

What a load of shit.
It's obvious why places like California have more gun deaths. It's because they have big cities with a big drugs industry, they have lots of recent immigrants, and they have organised and self-perpetuating gangs.
You don't get that sort of thing in Wyoming. It's nothing to do with the gun laws.

I'm glad you and I can agree on this, mistermack. Big US cities have high homicide rates because of drug trafficking and organized, self-perpetuating gang activity, and it's nothing to do with the gun laws. I never thought you and I would see eye to eye here.

How could gun laws possibly have an effect in a country awash with guns? The criminals can get as many as they want, and ammunition is available mail order.
Anybody who wants a gun has no problem. So a state with tighter gun-laws has no chance of making any difference.

It needs to be sorted out nationwide. And it would take decades. And it won't happen without a REAL tragedy. Not these piffling mini tragedies.

Massachusetts has a much lower gun murder rate than California, despite a higher population density and near identical gun laws. Clearly something else is at work besides gun laws and population density.

I wouldn't say it's just density of population at state level. It's cultures that produce high murder rates.
California has big extremes of rich and poor. And a historical drug culture. And a border with Mexico. And LA, with all the gangs and inequality.

Population density at state level doesn't mean much. Population density in ghettos is more relevant. But a gun culture, among the poorer parts of society, is the main cause of gun crime.

[mistermack]

So do you think that people from the UK should admit that their higher rates of violent crime than the US is a price they willingly pay for not having guns?

Are you SERIOUSLY saying that violent crime is the result of a lack of guns?
For fuck's sake !

[Wumbologist]

So do you think that people from the UK should admit that their higher rates of violent crime than the US is a price they willingly pay for not having guns?

Are you SERIOUSLY saying that violent crime is the result of a lack of guns?
For fuck's sake !

Using the same methodology often employed by UK vs US gun control advocates, by comparing two data points (US and UK) in violent crime, we can see that the violent crime rate in the UK is higher, and since the UK has no guns, we can reasonably conclude that it must be because of the no guns.

[mozg]

So do you think that people from the UK should admit that their higher rates of violent crime than the US is a price they willingly pay for not having guns?

Are you SERIOUSLY saying that violent crime is the result of a lack of guns?
For fuck's sake !

Using the same methodology often employed by UK vs US gun control advocates, by comparing two data points (US and UK) in violent crime, we can see that the violent crime rate in the UK is higher, and since the UK has no guns, we can reasonably conclude that it must be because of the no guns.

Lawful firearm ownership has been increasing steadily for the past 20 years, and the violent crime rate in the US has also been decreasing. While I don't think we can draw any conclusions that more guns cause a lower crime rate, it does absolutely debunk the idea that more guns will cause more violent crime.

In 1986, nine states were unrestricted (anyone who can lawfully own a firearm can carry it) or shall-issue states (meaning that just cause must be shown to deny a permit to carry), with another 25 being may-issue (issuing authority has discretion). We were told that allowing carry would cause the streets to run with blood, that every day would be the OK Corral, and that those carrying firearms would be shooting each other over every dispute.

As of 2011, thirty nine states currently have either unrestricted carry or are shall-issue and another ten are may-issue. The only state that currently allows no carry at all is Illinois, and the District of Columbia also bans all carry of firearms. The bloodbath we were warned about by anti-gun lobbying groups like Handgun Control, Inc. and the Violence Policy Center never happened.

As the US does not have a national registration of firearms or firearms owners, and most states have no such registration at the state level, it is impossible to tell exactly how many there are. Estimates I've seen rage from 80 to 100 million firearm owners holding an approximately 270 to 300 million firearms, and the number of firearm owners and firearms in circulation continues to rise with no comparable increase in violent crimes committed with firearms. Whatever we say about violent crime, I think that the past two decades have made it clear that the issue is not the lawful firearm owners or their firearms.

[MrJonno]

There is absolutely no evidence that 'violent crimes' are higher or lower in the UK than anywhere else as no collects the same figures. The only real crime you can compare is murder as it leaves a body (through its possible there could be 1000's of murders in the UK where people dispose of the body and no one finds out but it seems a bit unlikely)

[Warren Dew]

There is absolutely no evidence that 'violent crimes' are higher or lower in the UK than anywhere else as no collects the same figures. The only real crime you can compare is murder as it leaves a body (through its possible there could be 1000's of murders in the UK where people dispose of the body and no one finds out but it seems a bit unlikely)

There are also issues about classification of "murder" versus "suicide" versus "negligence". Comparing violent crimes overall is no more bogus than comparing murder rates.

[Seth]

Just got back from a lovely trip to Yellowstone National Park and other parts of Wyoming. Been following the shooting but took a holiday from the computer because my wifi dongle bit the big one and the new one arrived just hours AFTER I left on vacation.

Anyway, here's my standard response to such mass shootings which remains as true as it always has been: Once again, nobody in the room but the bad guy had a gun. What a shame. And that's WHY I carry a gun wherever I go...even in Yellowstone (where it's legal now by the way.

Interesting crime anecdote from Yellowstone: On our third night in the park, at the Fishing Bridge campground, I was sitting in front of my trailer with the girlfriend and kids when across the way, in the adjacent loop, someone shouted "Help me, someone help!" in the darkness. I said "What's wrong?" thinking perhaps there was a bear in the campground (not an unusual thing at all). The male voice said "He tried to stab me!" I began walking through the narrow strip of trees between the loops armed with my flashlight, bear spray and handgun. I asked "Who tried to stab you?" A young man of about 23 walked into the woods from the other loop saying "My stepfather, he tried to stab me." I asked if he was hurt, and he said he wasn't, so I told him to go to the campground office and call 911, which he did.

Some time later the park police showed up and arrested both his stepfather and his mother and took them to the jail facility at Mammoth, at the north end of the park.

Turns out the kid has a panic disorder, still lives with his mom, and the stepfather hates him and his mom just wants him to leave home, but the poor kid can't get a job because he faints at job interviews. The stepfather snapped and tried to slash the kid with a knife and mom evidently didn't care.

Complex story, but the kid was left alone in the campground, locked out of the family trailer with no money and nothing but shorts and a tee shirt while the parents were being processed through the park's criminal system. My girlfriend was nice enough to take him out to see some sights and I gave him some money just in case, but I have no idea what happened to him, as the next day, the trailer and everyone was gone.

And that's WHY Congress passed a law overriding the Park Service's asinine rule against carrying personal defensive firearms in national parks.

I could easily have needed to intervene to prevent a murder that night and might well have needed my handgun to do so.

And once again, if I'd been in that theater in Thornton, I'd certainly have engaged the shooter with my handgun without hesitation.

Better to carry a gun (as I have for more than 25 years) and never need it than need it and not have it, like those poor people in Thornton.

[MrJonno]

I'm sure if Seth had been in the cinema it would be unlikely 12 people would have died

20-30 + a couple of cops perhaps who knows.

When only criminals have guns the police known exactly who to shoot dead

[Audley Strange]

Welcome back Seth, man you are in for a treat.

[Twoflower]

Seth!!!

[Drewish]

For those trying to turn this into an argument for gun control:

- His assault rifle jammed, so a ban wouldn't have made this less devastating.
- He had no criminal record, so no background check would have stopped this.
- Colorado has fairly permissive concealed carry laws, yet nobody in the audience had a gun.

Basically, this case provides no evidence one way or the other on this issue except for the people who need to force every god damn thing on the news into their own political narrative in order to piss me the right the hell off

[amused]

the horror, the horror

the outrage, the outrage,

the.... can we just fuckit and have a banana?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

For those trying to turn this into an argument for gun control:

- His assault rifle jammed, so a ban wouldn't have made this less devastating.
- He had no criminal record, so no background check would have stopped this.
- Colorado has fairly permissive concealed carry laws, yet nobody in the audience had a gun.

Basically, this case provides no evidence one way or the other on this issue except for the people who need to force every god damn thing on the news into their own political narrative in order to piss me the right the hell off

You post is just another example of something or other.

[hadespussercats]

Look at the column for homicide rates per 100,000 and the gun homicide rate per hundred thousand. In many of the states with the lowest rates, guns are freely available. States like California are very high in per capital gun violence, but have strict laws. States like North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, Iowa, and all across the midwest have freely available guns and their gun homicides are much lower. Places like Maine, New Hampshire, etc. -- they have lax gun laws and have among the lowest homicide (gun and otherwise) rates in the world.

Because there's no one around to shoot.

"Per capita" takes into account population differences.

If it's the density of populations that is the issue, then well, we have a different causative factor. People in high densities shoot each other more often per capita, apparently.

I suppose if everyone in NH and ME who had guns were snipers, things might even out.

I think, perhaps, if they were gang members or hoodlums, things might even out. Statistically, that is where gun homicides happen, for the most part.

The reason folks in Maine don't shoot each other as much is because they don't attack each other as much.

Because they'd have to drive 20 miles to find someone to attack.

Plus they're too busy fighting off the zombie cats from the old MicMac burial ground.