a couple of links which prove how freaking easy it is for (“those pulling the triggers” ) idiots to get their
hands on guns... Millions upon millions of accessible guns just waiting to find homes with so many of the ill and insane..

That would just be more ignoring the people pulling the triggers.

They are the ones that are the problem, everyone else not pulling triggers and shooting others, aren't.


Guns are here to stay.

"Guns are here to stay..."

And being the common denominator of gun violence, have nothing at all to do with gun violence.

Guns are here to stay.

Since guns are here to stay.

Guns are the main issue and guns are here to stay. Yep. Thanks again.

Thanks for proving your incapability to answer the simplest of questions:

("Then there will be a senseless shooting and innocent people dying every day". Rex)

Under what set of realistic circumstances is that not the case?

suggestions on how you would solve the problem of preventing guns from getting into
the hands of the “people pulling the triggers”?

Thought not..

That depends, are you more interested in lowering gun violence, or attacking guns, in general?

Iim" interested in lowering gun violence”....Please proceed..

Lack of Mental health facilities, i’m sure where you’ll begin..

Mental Health accessibility? Why don’t you begin with telling me how that would work..

However, that's not the question I was answering.

are "actually pulling the triggers"?

Just under 10,000 in the murder category, and roughly 20,000 in the suicide category.

Americans cannot be more afraid of foreign terrorists than their own lunatics with guns

Time to start calling them what they really are: terrorist enablers.

And time to start voting every single one of them out of office.

And a deep look at the availably of guns in the wrong hands.

With almost two-thirds of those shooting deaths being suicides, that's a valid question.

but let's not let facts get in the way of media hype.

The homicide rate is still way down. It was 10.2 in 1980 and it was 7.9 in 1985 and 9.4 in 1990 and 8.2 in 1995.

It's currently 4.5.

Bodies pile a lot higher when the homicide rate is 9.4 or even 7.9 compared to 4.5.

Granted, that is a lot higher than Europe and Australia and Japan, but if you look at it by state - Maine, Hawaii, North Dakota, Idaho, Minnesota, Utah, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire were all under 2.0 in 2009 with New Hampshire being the best at 0.8

The worst?

Louisiana - 11.8
New Mexico - 8.7
Maryland - 7.7
Tennessee - 7.3
Alabama - 6.9
Mississippi and Missouri - 6.4
Michigan and South Carolina - 6.3

Should we begin putting graphs up to remind us that (despite your attempt to temper our gun death statistics) Comparison with gun deaths with the rest of westernized world?

or meant.

As for the westernized world. Well, I went to look at Australia, to get facts on how well their gun program worked, and it turns out it did NOT. There was NOT a steep drop in the homicide rate in Australia thanks to their gun legislation.

Guns do not appear to be the problem as much as it appears that just a fair amount of Americans want to kill people. However, we have had a good drop in our homicide rate in the last 30 years, and Australia has not.

Someone who feels that if only America had better Mental health facilities and programs for the disturbed.
First of all our general Heathcare in the United States is miserable in comparison to all other western developed countries, so why and how do think our inept medical community can reach out to these people who “want to kill people.”

“Guns do not appear to be the problem” are you freaking nuts.. And then you bring up Australia? Homicides are down as crime is...But gun deaths are way the hell up.. Accidental shootings, suicides, are astronomical..

Study this graph and come back and tell me that we don’t have a problem..

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

and I did not say anything about mental health facilities. I am not a big fan of that industry and all their "meds".

"gun homicides"

Okay, but that does NOT answer the facts. Australia is pointed to as a country that solved the American gun problem, and yet, and yet. there simply is NOT a huge difference between their pre-gun homicide rate and their post-gun homicide rate. It went from 1.9 to 1.3.
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

Over the same period our own homicide rate was cut in half from 9.5 to below 5. Our 50% drop is better than their 31% drop. More importantly, their own 31% drop does NOT seem to be clearly tied to their anti-gun legislation. Not what I expected to find when I researched it, but for some reason I went with the facts rather than what I wanted to find.

Take me to room 101 now.

So now that our homicide rate is half what it used to be we need to freak out about guns? We need to claim "the bodies are piling up"? And cry "woe is me, what is wrong with America?" When, in actual fact, the bodies are piling up at half the rate they used to. Maybe we should be noticing, celebrating the things that are actually going right.

The suicide rate is lower than it was from 1950 to 1980
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html

No doubt that means we have to do something NOW!

Australian Gun Control level was put in place to prevent mass murders only.. And it did....The law only went after certain types of automatic weapons..
I suggest you rethink your arguments.. They're rather silly..

Suicides are down? You have got to be kidding (again)..Why do you continually repeat this?
Since when are guns the only manner in which one can off themselves.
Might be because Australians just don’t kill themselves as much as Americans.

This is becoming boring.
Please stop saying we don’t have a gun problems.. This year guns for the first time will kill more people than
cars...In 2015 there were an average of 35 deaths per day by guns, which excludes most suicides.

Oh Yea, Check this article in Forbes, from this freaking year..And you probably know this but in case you don’t.

Forbes is anything but part of the Liberal Media. 32 thousand people killed by guns last year and we should “do
Nothing? "


And do us all a favor stop comparing australia with the U.S. it doesn’t work I can send you a link if you like..
From the freaking Australian Govt.. In the meantime.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/08/26/americas-gun-violence-problem-in-three-charts/#5dc4f9f58b70

If you'd presented evidence that beevul's post contained inaccuracies, you might have
a point.

But you didn't, did you?

I plainly stated that Australia’s gun law only applied to certain types of automatic weapons..
and it worked.. You want the link.?.

Then he mentions australia suicide numbers.. I explained how irrelevant that argument is...

His whole case is centered around Australia’s gun control (buy back program)

Not an effective argument all..

...which remain readily available in even the most gun-averse locales in the US.

At the same time, they left functionally equivalent lever-action shotguns alone, thus proving that
Australian politicians aren't really any smarter than USAian ones...

It has prevented any mass shootings since it was passed.

...since then, and several other mass killings by other means:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia

Please note that the non-shooting victims are just as dead...

This is a current piece from the N.Y. Times dated Dec 4th 2015.. Now I know you guys consider the Times a piece of crap liberal rag, but nevertheless it still remains one of the most important dailies in the word.

And Wikipedia? Please! Anyone on the internet can edit and add to any piece you read on the site..

Back to the facts..According to this piece:

Intentional gun deaths fell by half in the decade after 1996, even after the population grew.
Rate of gun suicides dropped by 65% from 1995-2006.
Rate of gun homicides fell 59%.
These few tidbits of fact are from one of the most respected Universities in Australia. Australian National Univ.

Well this is only the beginning if you want more info kindly give me a nudge.

But please, no more Wikipedia.. using this site is fun and full of great stuff... But not to be used as a reference document especially with controversial subjects..

shot in schools, movie houses, churches, and other places where we humans tend to gather? Are there statistics for that?

It's not just the numbers. It's the nature of the shootings. Ever since Columbine, (and perhaps before), mass murder in public places has become an almost daily event.

It's become an option for impressionable young people, pissed off people, unhinged people, frustrated people, depressed people, ignored people, unpopular people, notoriety-seeking people, jealous people, fanatical people, hateful people, revenge-seeking people, suicidal people, people who want to send a "message," people with a "cause," and so many others with so many problems/issues. Not to mention those who have just been worn down by life.

Most of the above are not "insane." But a gun was available to them.

Are you saying that you would be okay with a 10.5 homicide rate as long as people are not being shot in schools? That somehow mass murders that add up to 10,000 are worse than non-mass murders that add up to 20,000?

Who it has become an option for is - very few people.

Most of those people simply do not engage in mass shootings.

I've never seen statistics on injury rates. Surgeons (because of war) have gotten much better at getting people to survive these injuries, but at what cost?

They are often left with horrific wounds that they may never recover from fully. Almost no one ever talks about the cost of caring for these individuals for the rest of their lives and about the economic costs of such injuries. When we move on from the latest shooting, we assume that survivors will be okay. Maybe. Or maybe they are left traumatized, unable to work. Gabby Giffords has excellent health care and an astonishing recovery, but even she will never be the same as before. How can we not take all that into account? You can toss around statistics like homicide rates, when in fact these wounds are more survivable than before and so, don't become homicides. Fewer people die in car accidents, too, but that's not because there are fewer accidents. It's because cars are safer and accidents more survivable. I suspect more people are surviving gun shots because of advances in medicine and that is why there are fewer homicides, not because there are fewer shootings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/a-survivors-life/2015/12/05/a228c24c-985b-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html

1980 - 596.6
1985 - 556.6
1990 - 731.8
1995 - 684.6
recently - 387.1

They don't have stats on attempted murder, and even if they did, that would be no measure of how badly somebody was injured.

I may be tossing around statistics, as you say, but that is somehow worse than "suspect"?

"I suspect ..."

It is possible, much as a I hate to say it, or believe it, that putting more people in prison helps to make society less violent.

Also, we have reduced the amount of lead in the environment which is supposed to make people smarter and less violent. Although even in the bad old days, most of us lead-poisoned people did NOT commit violent crimes or homicides.

Don't take my word for it, ask the FBI:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s

used here, but imo, that doesn't really cover all of it.

Shooting people has become an alternative to other anger outlets that have always been available: putting your fist through a wall; screaming until your throat is sore; or writing rabid, hate-filled letters to the editor.

Who knows? Maybe some of these people listen to hate radio and watch Fox "news" so much that they decide to fix the problems of the world by killing a bunch of random "thems."

The reality is that the proliferation of guns in America means that anyone can get a gun anytime, anywhere. And that means that the daily body count will continue to rise.

Try telling that to a politician or someone who owns a dozen guns or more and you'll get the 2nd Amendment spit in your face. (And let's not forget Antonine Scalia who totally ignored the existence of the 2nd Amendment phrase, "A well regulated militia ...&quot

On who is or is not in the "militia" or what that term really means, let's assume that the purpose of the 2d Amendment is to permit the states to call up a militia. Since we now have the national guard, some people seem to think that interpretation means the 2d Amendment no longer serves any purpose. But that is a policy decision, not a legal one, so the decision to scrap the 2d Amendment based on the argument that it is outdated must be made by elected politicians and not by a court.

"The 2nd Amendment" is what is wrong with us.

And it is NEVER going away.

So, we're going to have to live with these shootings, heinous as they are, until we reverse the culture we have created, and get people to hate guns and everything they are capable of, and make the firing of a weapon at any unarmed person a 20 year jail sentence, including when officers shoot an unarmed person.

And unless a person has a gun, officers must be trained to shoot to immobilize, not to kill. Just means more target practice.

Apparently in a mistaken gang shooting. I'd be all for putting the perpetrators in prison for 20 years but you are going to have a whole lot more people in prison for a long time.

Officers shooting to "immobilize" is a myth. It isn't the movies - you shoot center mass and hope you hit something.

A group, predominantly white males, getting even for some societal imbalance that is not favoring their feelings of being entitled. First and foremost I think they are not all insane, just acting out their racial angst in a society becoming more and more diverse with a POTUS part of that diversity.

Since something like 40% of all murderers are African American males and something around the same percentage of murder victims are African American males, even though that group comprises a much smaller percentage of the total population. The relationship between race and murders leads to uncomfortable discussions.

I also know that since AA males are the go to when people want to distract from the point of the ever increasing mass shootings by disgruntled white males, plus I know they are not the only whites killing out there, they are killing, murdering, individually, others of their own race and PoC also. Your 40% of all murders in America statement will NEVER wash with me since I know the numbers can be skewed to reflect any bias. In fact that 40% of ALL murder statement is BS. But in this society a scapegoat is always "THE BLACK THUG" so I can understand the distraction from my main point about white racist male angst. I'm not uncomfortable with any discussion of race and America's problem with that issue as long as the truth is presented fairly without bias.

Why do you think the 40% number is off? That's based on FBI statistics which I have no reason to question. And I'm not trying to scapegoat anyone, just pointing out that with respect to gun-related murders white males are certainly more responsible for mass shootings (and much more likely to be serial killers) but black males are disproportionately responsible for other gun-related murders. Different issues with different contributing factors and different solutions.

Last edited Thu Feb 25, 2016, 02:15 PM - Edit history (2)

Dept of justice stats 2011 of murder offenders by race, latest I could find: total 9485 of which 4729 were white and 5486 were black. That doesn't add up to 40% of "ALL MURDERS" to me. But as I said numbers can be skewed by any number of biases. Americ has a gun in the wrong hands problem, regardles of race, motivation, type of offense whether mass killing or individual. Your numbers are what you want to see, mine are what is written down by DOJ, 2011. Whites commit just as many MURDERS as the other race you mention per numbers of race represented in society. That's fact. Making it seem that PoC are the overwhelming perpetrators of the gun violence in america is disingenuous to me. 40%? No. I will admit only one thing concerning murder rates and I am realistic on this point. The black on black murder rate saddens me and I can only surmise that because of the hate directed toward P.o.C, living in a racist culture, that hate is in fact turned inward and we are the victims of our own self hate. I have seen it acted out time and again and can only surmise this self hate as a major problem in the area of the poor and miserably vulnerable in the black community.

this is the norm now in America

Commonlu used by controller/prohibitionists and often MSM, the expression and similar ones suggest that some Big Change has taken place; yet no figures were presented to suggest a time when "multiple (mass?) Shootings" were NOT the "norm." When homicides rates were much higher in a smaller population, were murderers content with just knocking off one person at a time? Have they decided on some celebrity up-grade since the U. of Texas shootings (1966), or did they wait to do their things at Columbine? When did this sea-change occur? Basic argument would demand some kind of data base, statistics or other figures over a longitude of time, the better to determine the "nowness" of a "norm."

But we have Nothing.

This leads me to conclude that a Brand New definition of homicidal shootings has been concocted in recent year. This allows inellectually dishonest people to claim that there has been some kind of recent social change when compared over a rather long stretch. I realize this is part and parcel of the burgeoning dishonesty of the gun control/prohibition outlook, but this one doesn't even pretend to have some pasted together numbers from da Plenty-O-Studies Foundation, only a pronouncement that data will be collected a new way and VOILA! Mass shootings are "Now" going on like chicken is fried at Church's.

note: penis talk is old hat around here, so it don't mean much.

Slaves may rebel.

Communists.

Al Qaeda.

ISIS.

Very tiny penises.

Etc.

Shows how people respecting, appreciating and loving one another is the answer to our dilemma.

If democracy weren't at stake, it wouldn't be worth the time or bother.

and the only solution is to get rid of the 2nd amendment. If we are going to use our energies, we must do something that will work. Currently, the possibility is about the same as any other gun control solution. Otherwise we are beating our heads against a wall.

Anyone know how to get started on a Constitutional Amendment?

Fortunately for you, others have created a video to illustrate how to get what you want:

What is needed is a Supreme Court to reinterpret it and take the phrase "A well regulated militia ..." into account. Scalia, and those who sided with him ignored that phrase. But all cases can be revisited. A less ideological (saner) majority of Supreme Court Justices can fix this issue without an amendment.

I mean, if your interpretation is correct how would the result be different than now?

What will you do about the states that explicitly protect the individual right to keep and bear arms?

Even if the second amendment were done away with tomorrow, all you'd have is a less protected right at the federal level, while state protections were left intact.

including AWBs, registration, licensing, etc.

amendment; this is one case where he's more moderate than Thomas (Thomas is closer to the NRA's position, at least in his Heller concurrence). Literally the only thing the 2nd amendment legally prevents right now is out-and-out bans like DC and Chicago had (which, let's be honest, weren't terribly good ideas).

Things like voluntary mental health treatment.

I wrote a post yesterday how the Kalamazoo shooter would have passed a mental health background check because he never got treatment.