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[TheBiggerFish]

All right.  Standard please stay calm rules here.  And stop debating in the Sad thread.

Go.

[Cheeetar]

Perhaps you should explain what it is we're meant to discuss in this thread in the first post of it.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting   

[TheBiggerFish]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting   

Yes.  Exactly.

[Spehss _]

This whole thing is really upsetting me. This should have never happened, but due to the sheer stupidity of the system some maniac was able to buy guns and shoot 50 people without any trouble.

Why should this "have never have happened"? Violent crimes are bound to happen once in a while and it's unlikely that 100% of such violent crimes could be stopped without some kind of extreme totalitarianism.

If the guy couldn't get guns legally but hated gay people so much that he felt obligated to go out and kill gay people (killing people is generally illegal in US, one of the biggest of bad things to do) then he could just as well get guns illegally (if he's really wanting to kill people why care if he breaks other laws) or use other methods of killing people (bombs, knives, poisonous gas or chemicals, arson, etc etc). Instead of a spree shooter he could've gone the serial killer route of killing one person every couple of days using less obvious measures than "go out and shoot people in public". Which could be objectively worse because he could kill more people over a longer time and possibly get away with it if cautious and methodical enough.

This (a man killing gay people) could've happened whether the US had stricter gun control or not. Logically I'm seeing that the reason this happened is not the "stupidity of the system" but the fact that there was a guy who decided the best way to deal with his anger towards gay people is kill them. He was Islamic, raised in a family of practicing Islamics, and Islam (based on what I know) does not seem to have the best of "tolerance" towards gay people. He had a series of cultural and religious beliefs, ideals, morals, etc, which I would think Islam contributed to because I suspect it was what he was exposed to growing up amongst his parents, and apparently in this one situation with this one specific individual of Islamic religion clashed with a part of US culture (gay clubbing scene) to the point where he felt the best course of action was to commit a crime.


The only real result against US gun violence I could see stricter gun control or gun sale regulation achieving in the US is lower amount of crimes of passion, where some scrub gets so pissed and illogical that he goes and buys a gun just to shootup whoever or whatever pissed him off. If an individual logically fixates on committing some extreme crime (mass murder or spree shooting for example) then gun restriction could make it harder for them to get the materials but I don't think it would stop the crime if they are dedicated enough.

Whew I typed a bit.

But that's not what the numbers say, Spehss_.

And yes, gun control won't stop all gun crimes, but it'll make them happen less all the same, and that's a good thing.

And the next time a huge spree shooting happens? What will be the solution? It's easy to argue "more gun control". Considering how so far this argument is pushed almost EVERY time some big spree shooting happens, and how there have been regular legislation passed to attempt at "gun control" in the past, logically I think that in the future, every single time an isolated incident of a spree shooting occurs, the solution is more restrictions.

But then what about the spree shooting after that? If the criminals REALLY plan out the shooting then it's not like they'd stop just because of legal gun control. Must need more restrictions. Process repeats. It seems too easy to just completely restrict the rights of citizens like that.

I'm reading about things going on in Europe where people can't even defend themselves or their property without getting some sort of charge for injuring the criminal. Charges for "excessive force" because by protecting themselves, a criminal got hurt "too much" or died. I don't want to see the US get into some situation like that. I don't want to feel powerless or unsafe or unable to even defend myself in a situation where maybe I can't think "am I hurting this criminal too much" before acting.

I'm not even a gun nut. I've never seriously shot a gun in my life. Ignoring that, I already feel really powerless in my life. Seeing in the news all these modern movements restricting speech because of "hate speech" or gun control because "think of those poor kids that got shot by one guy out of millions of nonviolent gun owners" makes me feel even more powerless and helpless in society.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Gun control is an indirect method. Why are murderers allowed to roam freely, if psychological testing can find them so easily?

[TheBiggerFish]

Gun control is an indirect method. Why are murderers allowed to roam freely, if psychological testing can find them so easily?

Because we're not Big Brother.  You have to commit the crime, or at least try to, before you can be punished for that.

[Frumple]

It kinda' can't, so far as I'm aware. Not consistently, anyway, and not without a great frothing pile of false positives. More than that, functionally no one wants to pay for psych testing multiple hundreds of millions of people. Or even mere millions of particularly high risk individuals.

Though murderers generally aren't allowed to run free. Potential ones are, but things being what they are, locking up or tracking everyone that could end up murdering someone is...  not something that's logistically feasible. Crimes of passion are a thing, and comprise a fairly substantial portion of the states' homicide count. Much of the human species fits under that category.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Gun control is an indirect method. Why are murderers allowed to roam freely, if psychological testing can find them so easily?

Because we're not Big Brother.

Minority Report is a better reference. If human nature is mutable, I support rehabilitation. If human nature is immutable, I support precrime.
The science says both, so I support both.

Gun control is an indirect method. Why are murderers allowed to roam freely, if psychological testing can find them so easily?

You have to commit the crime, or at least try to, before you can be punished for that.

Then why do you support gun control?

[TheBiggerFish]

Because it's not punishment for a crime, but a deterrent for a crime in that acquiring the necessary items for a crime has become a crime.  It's not like 'it's not a crime, therefore you can't make it a crime' is a valid argument in any case.  'It's protected by law' is a different story, but the 2nd Amendment is unclear on what actually constitutes 'arms'.  And whether you can bear all of them.

[Frumple]

It's also got a lot to do with stuff that isn't crimes. Easy gun access is more or less getting a lot of people killed or injured with no crime involved. Suicide and accidents are the big ones, particularly the former, and it's... pretty safe to say making guns harder to get to cuts down on both of those quite noticeably, and in particular makes suicide significantly less likely to be successful.

Crime wise, another pretty substantial facet of it's just because in societies that don't have the rampant proliferation that the US does, you're... probably notably more likely to survive encountering violent crime, and come out less injured to boot, even when it's not just flat out less likely to encounter at all. Buncha' other stuff besides, of course.

There's not really a single reason behind most of the more reasonable gun control advocates (which is to say most of them, generally) advocation, basically. There's a fair number of things we're pretty sure at this point that getting firearm saturation (among other things related to gun control) to a more manageable level would improve the state of things in regards to.

And that's just talking about potential legal changes and whatnot. There's an entire other fight to be had in regards to enforcement, which... is not in a good state in the US. ATF et al are basically crippled in most places in this country, last I checked.* S'been a few years since I did, so things may have improved, but... yeah. US would probably be doing better on the firearm related fatality/injury front if we were actually fully enforcing the laws we already bloody have, nevermind actually introducing changes to them.

*E: Anyone know if that legal mandate they had to not digitize bloody anything related to firearm records and whatnot was ever lifted?

[Shadowlord]

Spehss_:

I wouldn't have known about this if smirk hadn't posted it in the america thread, since it never showed up in my news feed. From what you said, I'm guessing you haven't heard about it yet:

Update on the shooting: Dude was apparently a regular at Pulse. Per the Canadian Press:

Ty Smith and Chris Callen recalled the eventual killer being escorted drunk from the Pulse bar on multiple occasions, including one incident where he pointed a knife at a friend.

Both professed shock at seeing his face on TV: "It's the same guy," said Callen, who performs under the name Kristina McLaughlin. "He's been going to this bar for at least three years."

...

Smith said the sometimes-visitor would show up with a buddy and let loose in a way he couldn't when he was closer to the family home in Port St. Lucie: "(He'd get) really, really drunk... He couldn't drink when he was at home — around his wife, or family. His father was really strict... He used to bitch about it."

...

The Daily Beast also reported Monday that the gunman frequently lunched at a diner where the waiter was an openly gay high-school classmate and drag queen. That classmate, Samuel King, said Mateen was friendly; voiced no issues with gays; and might even have gone to see a drag show once or twice.

In separate interviews, both Callen and Smith described one incident that unnerved them.

They said they decided to keep their distance from Mateen after he exploded in anger at a joke told by one of their friends, possibly about religion: "He ended up pulling a knife," Callen said.

"He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it'll turn out."

And similar article from the Orlando Sentinel. What a hot fuckin' mess.

Worth reading one or both of the articles in full, there's more detail.

SwedishChef: Precrime and precogs aren't actually real. But seriously, psych-testing everyone in the country is probably (a) a bad idea, and (b) wouldn't work anyways since everyone knows how to sound perfectly sane for a short amount of time if they perceive it to be really, really, important. Not enforcing psych testing only goes so far as well - denying guns to people who have been involuntarily committed has no effect on people who manage to never be involuntarily committed.

[Erkki]

A lot of the people in the risk group won't pass the psych test: knowing theres a test they either don't bother with legal guns(or guns at all) or their minds are such as mess that they'll fail the test. A lot of people just cant even briefly act sane.

Add a simple interview to that when getting ones first gun and you're set. Not every potential suicider or criminal is caught, but would it, overall, be well worth it if even every other or 1/3 did?

[LoSboccacc]

let me inject some data in this which is mostly a feeling based discussion about gun control, because there IS data, contrary to what people with agenda wants you to believe.

let's start here: do gun control reduce gun crime?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

while Australia shows a reduction in gun related death, uk had none of it. possibly because australia also had a buy back program.

HOWEVER, let me induce the second set.

do gun control reduce violent crime?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

sorry, but all data points to no. people kills people. illegal guns kill people in absence of legal guns.

disclaimer:
I'm totally for gun control laws - but for different reasons. but if you want to argument about gun control from the crime prevention angle, know that your arguments are simply not rooted in the real world

[LoSboccacc]

And to turn that statistic on its head: that right there is a clear demonstration that the ownership of guns does nothing to prevent violent crime either.

precisely.