Las Vegas Shooting

[Dr.Hacknik]

not laughing, just to break the tension i guess, sorry if i exaggerated

I respect such. But in times such as these, and topics such as these; Sarcasm may not compute. You might be taken not lightly.

 

[BlueFox gui]

I respect such. But in times such as these, and topics such as these; Sarcasm may not compute. You might be taken not lightly.

yea ikr sorry

 

[Quantumcat]

Did you know that the U.S. has 31% of the world's mass murders despite comprising 5% of the world's population? That's even taking into account unstable and wartorn nations.
I know I said I'd quit replying but it is so hard

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

yea ikr sorry

Then why did you say it?

 

[Quantumcat]

Then why did you say it?

He didn't realise at the time how it would sound

 

[RustInPeace]

I think the picture of Stephen Paddock's dead body is the death photo I've seen the most. Every couple hours when visiting /b/.

 

[BlueFox gui]

Then why did you say it?

i didn't thought people would take seriously, even thought some people liked the comment .-.

 

[Hanafuda]

Ok, one last reply. Did people in Australia suddenly get less deadly between 1996 and the 2000s when the homicide rate dropped considerably following gun law reforms? It isn't people to blame. See this study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26396147/

This is the summary results and conclusions, but you can read the whole study from the link above (Edit: just realised you'd have to pay to see the whole thing, sorry).

Well, my level of concern over remaining engaged in the conversation diminished somewhat since last night, since my only reason for stepping in was to point out that the AK variant rifle in the video wasn't, as a post above stated, a machine gun. But, I said I'd respond to this thing about Australia.

The short answer is, there are just waaay too many factors going on to be able to attribute anything as a definite effect of Australia's gun law reforms.

And for the long answer as to why, I'm going to defer to Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nificantly-after-australian-gun-control-laws/

Now, Ms Lee's a liberal. And this 'factcheck' by her was done for the purpose of trashing a statement by Ted Cruz (and rightly so) that sexual assaults in Australia had "skyrocketed" since the gun law changes, and that women were getting raped because they couldn't defend themselves. If you read the article, she is correct that sexual assault rates did not 'skyrocket,' and she's correct that Cruz doesn't have any facts to back up his claim that more women are being victimized because they don't have guns. But while it's not a skyrocket increase, the Washington Post's numbers do show a 135% increase in sexual assaults from 1993 to 2008. By 2014 the rate had settled to 127% the 1993 level. But, as the article also acknowledges, sexual assault is not an easy crime to keep stats on anyway, since a high percentage of incidents go unreported.

So, the purpose of her article was to throw Pinocchio's at Cruz for making claims about definite effects of Australia's gun law reforms. She did, and she was correct. She should also throw some down on President Obama and Hillary Clinton, though, for conversely claiming (as you did) that the cause and effect are certain and all effects are wonderful. But even if she gave Obama and Hillary a pass, Ms. Lee doesn't agree with either side when it comes to Australia's situation, and she backs it up well.

First, there's a significant cultural difference between Australia and the USA, so it cannot be inferred that any discernible effects of the law changes in Australia would have a similar effect anywhere else.

Second, despite international belief that Australia 'banned guns,' the reality is that only about 20% of the guns affected by the changes were even turned in. And many other guns weren't affected at all. Of about 20 million guns in Australia before the "ban" took effect in 1996, about 650,000 were turned in. When they enacted another 'ban' against handguns in 2003, only 70,000 were turned in. Now, you can of course say, "better than nothing." But the reality is, the majority of Australia's gun owners didn't comply. According to Reason.com, there is now a violent black market for the 'banned' guns in Australia. (LINK)

Now, she moves to the interesting part .. how about gun crimes? Gun homicides. Ms Lee acknowledges that gun deaths were already on a downward slide in Australia before the gun law reforms took effect. That's an effect that has been seen in developed countries all over world since the 1990's ... gradual but real reductions in violent crime, across the board. (I chalk it up to the internet. Really.) Gun homicides in the USA, for example, peaked around 1993 during the crack cocaine epidemic. The US Congress passes the "Assault Weapon Ban" the next year, and people freaked out and started buying more guns. The Assault Weapons Ban only lasted 10 years, but the gun buying kept on going. But what happened to the gun homicide rate in the USA while the number of guns increased dramatically? It went down, dramatically.

Source for data: 2012 Congressional Research Service Report (LINK)


So, more guns = less gun homicides, right? That's what the real gun nuts like to say, but no. This doesn't show causation, only trends. But it does show that more guns in a somewhat stable population doesn't necessarily mean more gun murders. Or at least, it hasn't in the US.

So the gun homicide rate in the USA dropped by 49% between 1993 and 2014. That's awesome. Did you know that? The murder rate in the USA was actually much worse in the past.

Source for data: 2012 Congressional Research Service Report (LINK)

Yes unfortunately over the last 25 years in particular these mass shootings have become a thing. But also happening in Europe. (More died in mass shootings in France in 2015 alone than in the US during Obama's entire 8 years as President.) Yes we also have a real problem with the gun crime rate in certain cities. But a 49% in gun homicides over 20 years? That pretty good, isn't it?

So, with those gun law reforms, how did Australia do when it came to gun homicides??

Sorry, but I'm not seeing this incredible effect you were talking about.

 

[Quantumcat]

I didn't read all of your reply, but one factual error - only some classes of guns became illegal, and the total number of guns decreased by 20%. Not 20% of the types that became illegal.

And in terms of homicides - the graph is quite misleading. It has picked a point to begin from (one that frames the reduction as high as possible), and isn't showing actual numbers, just percent change from that point. I would argue that there are so many guns they've reached saturation point and aren't having more effect. E.g. You have a sponge in a bowl of water. You add more water, and the sponge doesn't get any wetter. Your argument is that water has no effect on wetness. But, you have to take away 3/4 of the water before you can start seeing the effect of water on the sponge. If homicide rates are going down, it's the perfect time for gun laws - Australia's rates were going down, and the gun law reforms accelerated that decline. The last graphic I don't think means what you think it means. The Y axis has no label. My guess is it is percentage of homicides, so it doesn't show whether there was a decline or rise in the actual number at all. If that's the case, this graph is showing there is little substitution effect - an argument favoured by gun enthusiasts is that if you take away the guns, people who want to kill will just use knives or something instead and it won't lower homicide numbers. This graphic shows that the percentages stay the same, you don't have a huge amount of.people switching to knives instead of guns. Once you remove the guns, the homicides go down, the killers just don't kill rather than switch to knives instead.

Edit: in the title it says "%". So what I said is correct, and this graph only proves my points, not yours. Take away guns, and people just don't kill instead of switching to the next available weapon.

Edit 2: just in case the maths is tricky. Say on day 1 there were ten homicides, 4 with guns and 6 with knives. On day 2 there were 5 homicides, 2 with guns and 3 with knives. On both days the gun rate is 40% and the knife rate 60%, so a graph like the one you added would show them as steady. When in fact the homicide rate had halved. Likewise if the homicide rate went up, you can't tell from that graph. The graph has zero information about the numbers of homicides, only what proportion were done with guns or with knives.

 

[Hanafuda]

I didn't read all of your reply, but one factual error - only some classes of guns became illegal, and the total number of guns decreased by 20%. Not 20% of the types that became illegal.

Tell it to the Washington Post. The data is in the article I linked, with cited sources.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Yes unfortunately over the last 25 years in particular these mass shootings have become a thing. But also happening in Europe. (More died in mass shootings in France in 2015 alone than in the US during Obama's entire 8 years as President.) Yes we also have a real problem with the gun crime rate in certain cities. But a 49% in gun homicides over 20 years? That pretty good, isn't it?

The only thing that turned up that was relevant when I searched that was this article: http://gunsnfreedom.com/france-had-...he-us-in-all-of-obamas-term-as-president/5894

Which, a) if you'll notice is titled "gunsnfreedom.com," which almost instantly disqualifies it as a non-biased source, and b) is absolute bullshit, because according to the Gun Violence Archive, the total number of gun casualties in the US in 2015 alone was 27,038

 

[Quantumcat]

Tell it to the Washington Post. The data is in the article I linked, with cited sources.

You failed to read your own article, or substituted what you wanted to see when you did read it.

Australia also created a compulsory national buyback program through which the government purchased 650,000 prohibited firearms, in a country of about 20 million. This represented about 20 percent of the stock of guns in Australia.

As a reminder this is what you said:

the reality is that only about 20% of the guns affected by the changes were even turned in

which is wrong.

 

[Hanafuda]

The only thing that turned up that was relevant when I searched that was this article: http://gunsnfreedom.com/france-had-...he-us-in-all-of-obamas-term-as-president/5894

Which, a) if you'll notice is titled "gunsnfreedom.com," which almost instantly disqualifies it as a non-biased source, and b) is absolute bullshit, because according to the Gun Violence Archive, the total number of gun casualties in the US in 2015 alone was 27,038

The stat was in reference to mass shooting events only. Of course that can depend on how the term is defined. There was that reddit-based 'masshootingtracker' site that was getting quoted by a lot of news sources a few years ago, but their definition was different from the government's and they were including BB guns, any injuries that accompanied a shooting as a qualifying victim to make it a mass shooting, etc. The claim that there were more mass shooting casualties in France in 2015 than throughout the Obama years in the US is from the Crime Prevention Research Center. They document their research at these links:

https://crimeresearch.org/2017/02/f...during-obamas-entire-presidency-508-to-424-2/

https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/c...m-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/

You can discount it if you like, it was just an aside. The real point was that Australia's gun law reforms have not produced definitive, isolated results for either side of the debate.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

You failed to read your own article, or substituted what you wanted to see when you did read it.



As a reminder this is what you said:
which is wrong.

You're correct. I took the 20 million to be the total number of firearms at the time. It was the total population.

Still doesn't change that Australia has seen a 20% reduction in gun homicides over the same time span the USA has seen a 49% reduction, while Australia reduced the number of guns by 20% while the US increased the number of guns by 50%+.

 

[Quantumcat]

The stat was in reference to mass shooting events only. Of course that can depend on how the term is defined. There was that reddit-based 'masshootingtracker' site that was getting quoted by a lot of news sources a few years ago, but their definition was different from the government's

The definition actually disqualifies a lot of mass shootings in America - it doesn't count any involving multiple members of one family or group (gang violence for example). There are a lot of those. This year, there were 273 in the broadest definition (shooting and killing four or more in the same general time and location) and 9 in the narrowest which is what you're talking about (in public place, random victims not a particular group or family)

From CNN Health: https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/index.html

If you go with the raw numbers ...


According to the Gun Violence Archive, which compiles data from shooting incidents, a "mass shooting" is any incident in which a gunman ...

• shoots or kills four or more people

• in the same general time and location

By that definition, according to the Gun Violence Archive, we have seen 273 mass shootings from January 1 to October 3.

That averages to 7.5 mass shootings a week.



Under the narrowest definition ...


The government has never defined "mass shooting" as a standalone category. Let's go with the most commonly accepted definition, from the Congressional Research Service: a shooting in which a gunman ...

• kills four or more people

• selects victims randomly (ruling out gang killings or the killing of multiple family members)

• attacks in a public place

That definition rules out the Congressional baseball practice shooting in June, because the gunman didn't kill four people. In September, a man shot and killed eight people in Plano, Texas -- but that attack doesn't count either because police say the gunman had a "connection to the house."

Using that narrow definition to the Gun Violence Archive numbers, we have seen nine deadly mass shootings from January 1 to October 3.

That averages to one a month.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

The real point was that Australia's gun law reforms have not produced definitive, isolated results for either side of the debate.

They have ---- that was the point of the study I linked in the beginning, to decide one way or the other, rather than people arguing based on emotions. They did proper statistical analysis.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

You can discount it if you like, it was just an aside. The real point was that Australia's gun law reforms have not produced definitive, isolated results for either side of the debate.

I'm going to discount it, because it's pure unadulterated propaganda. And GVA isn't just "some Reddit group," it's an independent group that meticulously goes through reports every day and publishes them with the original source and report on a comprehensive spreadsheet

And, for what its worth, the reason that the US has never produced any conclusive evidence on the federal level is because the NRA has effectively kneecapped any ability on the behalf of the Center for Disease Control to do ANY form of research on the subject whatsoever. Which is a HUGE, GLARING problem and should be seen as a reason to investigate it further in and of itself

 

[SG854]

Wow, there's a debate going on. Its to be expected. I haven't been on this thread since I made my last comment.
I don't even know if I want to engage, i'm too lazy to debate right now.

The shooting though was sad. I've seen videos of Mexican cartels cut peoples head off with chainsaw and blades. I've seen ISIS also cut peoples heads off.
And I still can't get use to people dying. Its just sad.

 

[Quantumcat]

The articles you linked were interesting - having Norway, Finland, and Slovakia near the top. I'll have to think about this.

Edit: here's my thoughts

1. Norway had only 1 mass shooting where they managed to kill 77 people, and has a very low population. So that is explained.
2. Finland had 2 attacks with 8 people killed (6 and 2) and again has a low population.
3. The entry for Slovakia is incorrect. It says 8, but there was only 1 mass shooting and it killed 7. Again low population
4. There were actually 9 not 11 people killed in Israel, wrong again. Over only 2 attacks
5. I can't find any shootings for Switzerland over the time period, I found one in 2001 and one in 1912. So the data in the table seems to be wrong here

These countries have been hand-picked for the table because they have very low populations. It is the norm for all of these countries to experience 1 or 2 mass shootings over the 5 year period, and the ones with very small populations ended up on top of the list because it is sorted by deaths per 1,000,000. Just scan down the column with numbers of shootings. There's one entry that really jumps out at you (38 in the US compared to 1-3 for all others).

 

[TotalInsanity4]

The articles you linked were interesting - having Norway, Finland, and Slovakia near the top. I'll have to think about this.

I have a theory that's not based on anything scientific if that is in fact the case; the populations in those countries are all significantly denser than in Australia or the US, so even if it weren't as big of an issue it would be exacerbated by potential for damage done in a crowded environment

 

[Hanafuda]

I have a theory that's not based on anything scientific if that is in fact the case; the populations in those countries are all significantly denser than in Australia or the US, so even if it weren't as big of an issue it would be exacerbated by potential for damage done in a crowded environment

Well that certainly holds water. I don't have stats handy but I've seen data before that if you isolate 6 major cities in the US the gun homicide rate is as bad as anywhere in the world (Brazil, Honduras, wherever). And if you take the rest of the USA excluding those cities, the gun homicide rate rivals any 'good' place in the world.

 

[SG854]

@Hanafuda:
My point was to actually prove how easy is for a child to acquire guns. If you're just stupid enough to say: "Stupid, the kids aren't buying them, their parents are" then you have something wrong with your statement.
If you're stupid enough to say: "Stupid, he isn't holding an automatic, learn the difference" then once again you have something wrong.
If you're stupid enough to say: "My parents gave me guns when I was a child, and I've hunted with them" while at the same time claiming there's nothing wrong with children acquiring any sort of guns, then you can't come here saying that there isn't a real problem.

And in general, you just CAN'T say that: Oh, I feel sorry for what it happened in Las Vegas and Sandy Hook, shame on the KID WHO LEARNED TO SHOOT THANKS TO HIS PARENT WHO GAVE HIM A GUN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Now tell me, isn't that a REAL MENTAL PROBLEM WITH MOST AMERICANS who defends the idea of CHILDREN LEARNING TO SHOOT, AND SOCIETY ACQUIRING WEAPONS?

That's just hypocrisy. Feeling "sad" for scenarios you've been taught to accept and promote with your stupid laws.

Ah darn it, I'm getting into a debate, sigh.

If owning guns was a problem and it increases shootings then why aren't girls the ones doing the shootings?

The common thing most school shootings have is that the boys grew up in dad deprived homes.
Also in prison populations, the majority of inmates grew up without their dads.

Anthony Sims last face book post was I wish I had a father. He's the Oakland Killer.
Elliot Rodger's father was barely involved in his life.

There has been 1 school shooting per week since Sandy Hook.

Usually shootings are blamed on guns, family values, or mental health problems. But look at girls. Girls are not the ones doing the shootings. They live in the same families, with the same family values, have similar mental health problems, they see the same violence on tv and have access to the same guns, and yet they are not doing shootings.

School shooting are usually white boys acting out their sense of hopelessness and its also their method of committing suicide.
While black on black homicides is blacks acting out their helplessness. They join gangs to get some sort of a male role model they didn't get at home.

Before age 9 boys and girls commit suicide equally. Then at Age 10-14 boys are twice as likely. Age 15-19 they are 4 times as likely. And age 20-14 they are 6 times as likely. The thing you start to see in this trend is that suicide rates increase when the male role starts to become visible and clear to boys. Suicide is boys lack to fulfill their gender role. Men commit suicide at higher rates then women in every single country in the world except for one Middle Eastern country.

Boys go from dad deprived homes to schools with male deprived teachers. Boys do better with male teachers. Feminization of education contributes to boys school problems according to studies done by the UN.

Boys nowadays have lack of purpose in life. Before the males roles were to be a warrior or the sole bread winner, this gave them purpose.
Now the warrior role is not as useful and men are not the sole bread winners anymore.

Feminism expanded girls purpose in life from only being able to raise children, to being able to work to earn money, raise children, or some combination of both.
Mens choices are go to work, go to work, go to work. Or be a loser. Men have a lack of choice. During the recession high male suicide rates were partly due to stricter gender roles to be providers that were enforced on men.

Women gender roles are more flexible. No one came to free men from their roles. Men are years behind women in this sense.
There have been affirmative action to increase women in STEM, but none to increase men in the caring and secretary positions

The Family is the building block of society. People learn and gain values from their family, good or bad values. People that have children out of wedlock are more likely to have children grow up in single parent homes, which usually results in dad being out of the picture.

Over 100 years of research has shown that growing up in single parent homes, specifically mother only homes, causes problems for children.
Growing up in single parent homes kids are

• More likely to have mental health and physical health problems.
• More likely to be poor and earn less money.
• Girls are more likely to be pregnant as teens.
• Boys are more likely to get into crime and commit homicides.
• More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
• More likely to have learning disabilities and not graduate school.

Empathy doesn't come from being empathized with. Too much of that creates narcism. Empathy comes from boundary enforcement and enforcing the respecting of others boundaries, which usually the fathers do. Kids are also more likely to have attention deficit disorder growing up in mother only homes. Both parents are needed in the child's life to create a balancing act. Mothers empathizing helps children care about themselves, since the focus is on the children, while fathers boundary enforcement helps kids respect others.

If you want to start with fixing problems in society then start at the home. And expand the male sense of purpose in life. Also most people aren't doing the shootings only a very small minority. You have more boys holding doors open so that people can escape, and more boys diving in front of bullets to protect others, yet you hardly hear about these.