more shootings in the states

[siead_lietrathua]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_1...officials-say/

just today. man drives down highway shooting at random. kills 4, 2 troopers injured, and killed by troopers.

NOW can there be serious consideration of gun restrictions? or do large, dramatic murder sprees have to be a daily thing instead of a weekly for that to happen?

[Rageaholic]

There seems to be more and more of them. It's getting to the point where there's a new shooting every day.

[Nekojin]

NOW can there be serious consideration of gun restrictions? or do large, dramatic murder sprees have to be a daily thing instead of a weekly for that to happen?

They already are daily, and have been so for decades. It's just that you don't hear about most gun violence. It's the reporting, not the violence itself, that makes it seem such a prevalent problem.

[siead_lietrathua]

which is why i said large dramatic murder sprees. i'm well aware that over 30-ish people die of gunfire in the states daily, which is a huge tragedy in it's own right. but over the top shit like this used to be rare. and it isn't anymore.

[Greenday]

which is why i said large dramatic murder sprees. i'm well aware that over 30-ish people die of gunfire in the states daily, which is a huge tragedy in it's own right. but over the top shit like this used to be rare. and it isn't anymore.

Really? I wouldn't be so sure.

[siead_lietrathua]

Really? I wouldn't be so sure.

most drive by shootings, which is what this is the most similar to, have specific targets in mind. rival gangs, drug involvement, or even disputing neighbors. it's typically a direct attack on the individuals targeted, or a spray-and-pray over the area a target is standing in. yes bystanders can be hit, but there is always the targeted individual/ location.
this man loaded his gun, and drove about firing randomly over a large stretch of road. he did not seem to have any specific target, just firing on people that were out and about.

if you wouldn't be so sure on the increase of "dramatic" attacks, please feel free to look up stats on random attacks of violence on a large-scale over the last 30-odd years and map it out to show that it is not steadily increasing in the US. because everything i have found is showing it has been. if your argument is that you "wouldn't be so sure", then please show me facts as to why!

[Cats]

On thusday, someone in my town shot a BB gun at a school bus two different times. One, the window only cracked, but the other shattered. Thankfully, no one was hurt, even those there were students on both busses...one of them with 3-4 year olds.

Right now, they're chosing to believe it was just a REALLY sick prank. I hope that's all it was.

[Ginger Tea]

Because of yesterdays hyped (in)significance, one might be led to believe that as the guy is dead (and not read the link to see if he left any reasons for his actions) he decided that hey the world is going to end, might as well cause some carnage along the way.

[HYHYBT]

NOW can there be serious consideration of gun restrictions? or do large, dramatic murder sprees have to be a daily thing instead of a weekly for that to happen?

If anything, that would make getting them taken seriously more difficult. As they happen more often, the standard for "large, dramatic" goes up.

[siead_lietrathua]

If anything, that would make getting them taken seriously more difficult. As they happen more often, the standard for "large, dramatic" goes up.

if anything, that concern for the bar being upped should encourage legislators to do something to make it harder for people to get the firepower they need to up the bar. that it could be worse than it is, or might get worse than it already is, is not a valid reason to not do something. quite the opposite.

[wraiths_crono]

You do realize that guns aren't actually the major problem, anyone else remember reading about the 20 kids STABBED TO DEATH IN SCHOOL in China that happened earlier last week? If someone wants to kill, they will find anyway they can to kill. If we want to be safe then we have to: Ban guns, cars, knives, forks, pointy sticks, nails, boards, baseball bats, porcelain figures, and rocks.. Perhaps if the media didn't give celebrity status to the (string of swearing) less-than humans that do this crap, it wouldn't be such a big deal and people wouldn't do it as much because they wont get their 5 min of fame from it.

[monkeyboy]

NOW can there be serious consideration of gun restrictions? or do large, dramatic murder sprees have to be a daily thing instead of a weekly for that to happen?

What restrictions would you suggest? Furthermore, if someone can't get get a gun what's to stop them from using another method?

From what I've seen many people are looking at guns as the culprit and using that as a reason to avoid trying to find the underlying cause that leads people to such extreme acts of violence. Admittedly blaming everything on guns is the easier option, but finding and curing the cause of this violence would likely be more useful in the long run.

[BlaqueKatt]

if you wouldn't be so sure on the increase of "dramatic" attacks, please feel free to look up stats on random attacks of violence on a large-scale over the last 30-odd years and map it out to show that it is not steadily increasing in the US. because everything i have found is showing it has been. if your argument is that you "wouldn't be so sure", then please show me facts as to why!

challange accepted.

Abc News

Occasionally, we have witnessed short-term spikes with several shootings clustering close together in time. In the 1980s, we had a flurry of postal shootings, and the 1990s included a half dozen schoolyard massacres. Other than the copycatting reflected in these cases, the clustering of mass murders is nothing more than random timing and sheer coincidence,"

Which references this mother Jones article

and Discovery news

Since 1900, the highest mass murder rate was in 1929. Mass public shootings are one of several types of mass murder and generally account for roughly 10-15 percent of all mass killings in the U.S.

three reputable sources, refute your claim. And since public shootings are only 10-15% of mass killings, those get the media coverage, and tons of it, so it seems more prevalent(seriously 85-90% of mass killings AREN'T public shootings, so yeah, kinda blows the "OMG PANIC", out of the water doesn't it?), just as violent crime and kidnapping have been declining for the last 20 years, but everyone swears it's on the rise, again, because of increased media coverage. I see News stories about kidnappings across the country, last local kidnapping story(going by statewide, one in October 2012, one in 2007, and one fake one locally back in 2004-it's an epidemic!)

I'll just leave this here

and this-sad that one person is being calm and respectful, and he's being shouted down with misinformation.

[MadMike]

NOW can there be serious consideration of gun restrictions?

Well, that would take the guns out of the hands of the law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, the law-abiding citizens aren't the problem. The people who don't obey the laws are, and they're not going to abide by any new gun laws either.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, that would take the guns out of the hands of the law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, the law-abiding citizens aren't the problem. The people who don't obey the laws are, and they're not going to abide by any new gun laws either.

This is the one fact that most people appear to want to just sort of sweep under the rug.

Barring an all-out ban on guns that makes it illegal for anyone without a specific license to have one, and require all sales to be through licensed vendors with records of every single sale, you're not going to do much at all to restrict criminals who already don't obey the law from failing to obey that one as well. And even if you went there (which I doubt could be made to happen without re-writing the Constitution), I strongly suspect that it still wouldn't do much to stem the tide of criminals carrying guns.

Also, as illustrated so starkly above, taking away guns wouldn't stop more than 15% (at a maximum) of all mass killings, and likely would stop perhaps half that as those who couldn't find guns chose other weapons.

Plus, as scary as guns are, they're still not the most devastating weapon for killing large numbers of people and aren't the most difficult to stop and protect against, either, so I'm not sure making them choose other means wouldn't increase the death toll when these people commit their crimes.

The Aurora killer has his apartment set up with some sophisticated booby traps, and were it not for the fact that he actually warned law enforcement that they were there, he could have caused many more deaths even after he'd been apprehended. At least with just the guns, once the killer is stopped, there won't be any more deaths at his hands.

^-.-^