Mass shooting at Oregon community college

backslashbaby said:

But a big focus for me really is the illegal gun problems we have here. Those cause the most harm. The criminals using guns really are the least responsible gun owners around, lol. That should be obvious, I think. When gun control advocates focus only on legal gun ownership it bothers me. We could certainly use that energy and lobbying into support for changing sentences for illegal guns, tracking of stolen ones, straw sales, etc. We know those people have bad intentions. We know "street crime" shootings are the biggest reason our statistics are so horrible. We should care more about those kids getting shot every single day than whether I have a gun locked away in my house and why I am allowed to do that here

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The problem is that the bulk of the guns illegally owned are still legally manufactured and originally sold by gun manufacturers. The single most effective way to reduce the amount of illegal guns owned would be to dry up the supply of new guns and ammo into the ecosystem. In this sense, Amadan is 100% right; for many gun control advocates, myself included, the END goal isn't just tighter restrictions on the process of owning a gun, but a significant reduction in the amount of guns out there, period. Significantly complicated the process of owning a gun reduces total gun sales and paves the way for greater restrictions on the gun industry; dramatically reducing the total manufacture and sale of guns will reduce the amount of them that trickle into the criminal ecosystem and thus reduce illegal gun ownership and crime.

(Just to pre-emptively clarify, I'm not supporting a total ban. Like the old saying about abortion, I think gun ownership should be safe, legal, and rare.)

DoNoKharms said:

I am saying that it is extraordinarily unlikely that your gun will be useful as a tool of defense, yes, so its primary utility is as a security blanket. That's not saying it 'couldn't POSSIBLY be useful'. It's very useful in precisely the same way that security blankets and talismans of all kinds are useful. It grants the owner a sense of safety. Humans have had clung to things like this since the dawn of our species; what on earth makes you think you're different?



I would add to this list the possibility of you injuring yourself while moving/cleaning the gun, the possibility of you using the gun in a situation that you have misperceived as a home invasion (i.e. a drunk stranger staggering into the wrong house), the possibility of you using the gun in an actual home invasion situation that could have been resolved non-violently had you not drawn the gun, the possibility of the gun being stolen in transit, the possibility that at some point in the future you'll suffer some kind of a mental breakdown that causes you to misuse the gun, etc., and I would point out that the sum aggregate of all these possibilities, even in the case of a non-drinker with no kids, is still greater than the possibility of a successfully defended home invasion.

The jerry can and extra rations analogy is quite close to the point. My wife is a prepper; she loves to feel ready in the event of any emergency and way too much of our garage is made up supplies and emergency kits. But she also acknowledges that the odds are very unlikely we'll need all or most of this, and she's prepared it primarily for her own peace of mind. That's the necessary first-step in this conversation.

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So what you're saying is anyone who wants to own a gun can't possibly have any logical reason for doing so and that they're just not able to see it.

Hunters? People who have a need to use it for protection? (From people or wild life) People who use them in their line of work, such as cops, military, security, etc...

What about alcohol? Nobody needs to drink alcohol. Sure, someone might think they can be responsible with it. But what if they gradually drink too much and become an alcoholic? Or what if their teen kids get into their liquor cabinet with their buddies? Or what if they have just a little too much then get an emergency call and rush out on the road?

So because I can't promise no lives will tragically lost to booze, I've got to give up mine? I'll never make chicken marasala, or shrimp fra diavlo or red wine pot roast again?

You can't have my dry white wine when you can pry the lightly breaded chicken breast from my cold, dead hands.

I think the biggest game-changer to public safety would be actual convenient public transportation. But that's just me.

I think there is a huge urban/rural divide with mindset with guns. If you live somewhere where there is nothing around to shoot but people and the occasional stray cat, you're going to view guns differently than if you live somewhere where being attacked by bears is a real possibility. I would think making guns very, very difficult to have in places beyond a certain population density might be a good idea, but you can see how well this works with the Chicago/Indiana problem.

The other option is to ban large gatherings of people where they can be shot like fish in barrels, but I don't see that going over very well, either.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I think the biggest game-changer to public safety would be actual convenient public transportation. But that's just me.

I think there is a huge urban/rural divide with mindset with guns. If you live somewhere where there is nothing around to shoot but people and the occasional stray cat, you're going to view guns differently than if you live somewhere where being attacked by bears is a real possibility. I would think making guns very, very difficult to have in places beyond a certain population density might be a good idea, but you can see how well this works with the Chicago/Indiana problem.

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Not to mention that when Chicago tried to ban sales of handguns, it was ruled unconstitutional.

Hapax Legomenon said:

I think the biggest game-changer to public safety would be actual convenient public transportation. But that's just me.

I think there is a huge urban/rural divide with mindset with guns. If you live somewhere where there is nothing around to shoot but people and the occasional stray cat, you're going to view guns differently than if you live somewhere where being attacked by bears is a real possibility. I would think making guns very, very difficult to have in places beyond a certain population density might be a good idea, but you can see how well this works with the Chicago/Indiana problem.

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Exactly. Telling someone intent on committing a murder that they can't legally have a gun doesn't work.

I think there are things that can be done, such as a universal background check.

But the solution to major gun issues isn't going to be taking away the right to own one, or trying to do so by effectively making it so difficult to do so that it's the same as a ban. So that a poor person has no chance of protecting themselves when needed but the rich and powerful just hide behind their security and their secret service.

Vince524 said:

Exactly. Telling someone intent on committing a murder that they can't legally have a gun doesn't work.

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That... that's not what I said. If someone's intent on committing murder, you totally shouldn't sell them a gun. I would go so far as to say that selling a gun to someone you know is intent on committing murder should be illegal.

I meant that enforcing a ban on guns in one place and not another in the US would not work unless you implemented insanely burdensome checkpoint screenings or something.

Vince524 said:

So what you're saying is anyone who wants to own a gun can't possibly have any logical reason for doing so and that they're just not able to see it.

Hunters? People who have a need to use it for protection? (From people or wild life) People who use them in their line of work, such as cops, military, security, etc...

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Yes, there are absolutely some people for whom owning guns is logical and essential, and law enforcement is at the height of this list. I would have thought that, as a given, we were talking about "recreational civilian gun-owners", but perhaps I should specify.

Vince524 said:

What about alcohol? Nobody needs to drink alcohol. Sure, someone might think they can be responsible with it. But what if they gradually drink too much and become an alcoholic? Or what if their teen kids get into their liquor cabinet with their buddies? Or what if they have just a little too much then get an emergency call and rush out on the road?

So because I can't promise no lives will tragically lost to booze, I've got to give up mine? I'll never make chicken marasala, or shrimp fra diavlo or red wine pot roast again?

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I think this analogy proves, rather than contradicts, my point. I'm a drinker, and have been for most of my life; alcohol is very important to me, both in terms of my enjoyment of it and for broader cultural reasons. But I would never claim for a second that I am somehow healthier because I drink (at the quantity that I do) or claim that drinking is the logical well-thought out thing for me to do. I drink because it feels good and because I like it and because it's part of my heritage; it is an unsafe, unhealthy thing that I do because it makes me feel good. Gun ownership is exactly the same way! But the reason having a conversation on this topic is so difficult (does your cultural practice pose a significant risk to the common good?) is because so much of the culture and mentality of gun ownership is not "This is a risky unsafe thing I am doing because it's fun/empowering/enjoyable", but "This actually makes me safe", despite all the evidence against that idea.

If you want to talk to someone about their drinking and they're willing to accept, yeah it's unhealthy and maybe I do it too much, you can make headway. But if they're insisting there is NOTHING wrong with their drinking and they HAVE to drink that much and drinking makes them HEALTHIER, then no, there's not going to be an actual conversation or progress because the denial is that strong.

I guess the problem I have with "we can't ban guns/make it harder to get guns/whatever because if people want to kill, they'll do it anyway with something else!"

While gun safety research has so many issues in the US, there is a similar issue being researched around the world, and that's people committing suicide by jumping from bridges. The argument is that if you put higher barriers on bridges that make them impossible to jump off of, people won't kill themselves as much. This might sound kind of stupid, because people can kill themselves in so many different ways. If jumping off a bridge is no longer an option, they would just find some other way, right?

This is actually wrong. While making bridges unjumpable doesn't prevent all suicides that would, on average, be caused from jumping off that bridge, it does prevent some. A decent amount, an amount that makes people want to build these barriers. We like to pretend that people are actually rational and that, if they have it in their minds to kill themselves or others, they will do it, if not with a gun or a bridge, with something else. But according to research that seems to simply not be true. Some number of people literally are that impulsive. They might even be otherwise intelligent people, but making it harder to do something that's a bad idea does stop at least some people from doing it.

Now if we want to argue that somehow the people killed by making bridges harder to jump off of or guns readily available to anyone if an acceptable loss to society, that's one thing. But you can't say that these measures do, or in the case of gun control, will do, nothing.

Vince524 said:

So what you're saying is anyone who wants to own a gun can't possibly have any logical reason for doing so and that they're just not able to see it.

Hunters? People who have a need to use it for protection? (From people or wild life) People who use them in their line of work, such as cops, military, security, etc...

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No, the poster wasn't saying this at all. The focus of the post in question was very clearly on the large number of people who keep guns around for home security, not hunting weapons, cops, military etc.

What about alcohol? Nobody needs to drink alcohol. Sure, someone might think they can be responsible with it. But what if they gradually drink too much and become an alcoholic? Or what if their teen kids get into their liquor cabinet with their buddies? Or what if they have just a little too much then get an emergency call and rush out on the road?

So because I can't promise no lives will tragically lost to booze, I've got to give up mine? I'll never make chicken marasala, or shrimp fra diavlo or red wine pot roast again?

You can't have my dry white wine when you can pry the lightly breaded chicken breast from my cold, dead hands.

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Interesting analogy. In fact, alcohol use was once an accepted default behavior in nearly all social situations. The three martini lunch, drinks after work to unwind, getting drunk at parties, then driving home. Drinking and driving for teens was practically a rite of passage, and the drinking age was 18 in most states (and not enforced very stringently). But something changed: people became aware of the horrible carnage caused by drunk driving, underage drinking, excessive drinking.

There has been a change--stricter drunk driving laws. As a consequence, driving drunk has become socially unacceptable, and the death rate has declined. And other changes in laws and labeling have led to changes too (stricter enforcement of underage drinking laws, more awareness of hazards of drinking while pregnant, or hunting, or boating, or just in general). Americans drink less overall, and they don't tend to do it in the same situations they once did.

The situation still isn't perfect, but it's better than it was, and a complete liquor ban didn't happen.

That's the frustrating thing to me and other non-gun lovers: other things that have potential impacts on health and safety are more heavily regulated and restricted than firearms. Even fireworks, which (I suspect) kill and injure fewer people than guns each year, are illegal in many states and municipalities, and restricted in others.

Hapax Legomenon said:

That... that's not what I said. If someone's intent on committing murder, you totally shouldn't sell them a gun. I would go so far as to say that selling a gun to someone you know is intent on committing murder should be illegal.

I meant that enforcing a ban on guns in one place and not another in the US would not work unless you implemented insanely burdensome checkpoint screenings or something.

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Well, to be clear I doubt many mass murderers are going into a local gun store and saying, 'hey you know that school across the street? Which gun is best to pick off the kids during recess.'

And more to clarify my point, a gun ban would mean someone like myself who obeys the say couldn't get a gun to protect myself and my family when all of those less than law abiding citizens come to my house. It won't take away the gun of the person who knows they are going to break a law cause they'll simply buy it off the black market.

DoNoKharms said:

Yes, there are absolutely some people for whom owning guns is logical and essential, and law enforcement is at the height of this list. I would have thought that, as a given, we were talking about "recreational civilian gun-owners", but perhaps I should specify.



I think this analogy proves, rather than contradicts, my point. I'm a drinker, and have been for most of my life; alcohol is very important to me, both in terms of my enjoyment of it and for broader cultural reasons. But I would never claim for a second that I am somehow healthier because I drink (at the quantity that I do) or claim that drinking is the logical well-thought out thing for me to do. I drink because it feels good and because I like it and because it's part of my heritage; it is an unsafe, unhealthy thing that I do because it makes me feel good. Gun ownership is exactly the same way! But the reason having a conversation on this topic is so difficult (does your cultural practice pose a significant risk to the common good?) is because so much of the culture and mentality of gun ownership is not "This is a risky unsafe thing I am doing because it's fun/empowering/enjoyable", but "This actually makes me safe", despite all the evidence against that idea.

If you want to talk to someone about their drinking and they're willing to accept, yeah it's unhealthy and maybe I do it too much, you can make headway. But if they're insisting there is NOTHING wrong with their drinking and they HAVE to drink that much and drinking makes them HEALTHIER, then no, there's not going to be an actual conversation or progress because the denial is that strong.

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But of course not all people who buy alcohol drink in excess at all. Hell, I go to the local liquor store enough times that the owner recognizes me. I don't drink. I cook. Nobody is getting into an accident because they had 2nd and 3rd helpings of my chicken & penne in vodka cream sauce.

And people aren't talking about banning alcohol or passing so many laws that while not an outright ban, is pretty much the same thing.

Vince524 said:

Well, to be clear I doubt many mass murderers are going into a local gun store and saying, 'hey you know that school across the street? Which gun is best to pick off the kids during recess.'

And more to clarify my point, a gun ban would mean someone like myself who obeys the say couldn't get a gun to protect myself and my family when all of those less than law abiding citizens come to my house. It won't take away the gun of the person who knows they are going to break a law cause they'll simply buy it off the black market.

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Overnight? No, it wouldn't. But in the even medium term, dramatically reducing the amount of guns being manufactured and sold legally would absolutely reduce the amount of those guns that are sold and used illegally. The illegal gun market in America is only so massive because there is an equally massive legal gun industry creating and selling the guns and ammo that then enter the illegal ecosystem. Without a steady influx of new guns and new ammo, the illegal gun market would quickly dry up, especially if this drought was combined with other measures like reform of gun sales and significant-reward buyback programs.

This argument ("Limiting legal gun sales will only impact legal gun owners") is only valid if you take a very immediate, short term. But if you look out a few years, it's patently wrong. Criminals still need someone to be legally manufacturing new guns and ammo, and then legally selling those to the people who will illegally sell them. If you dry up the supply at the source, everyone along the chain loses out, including the bottom-feeders.

clintl said:

The only thing preventing us from doing what the Australians (who have a very similar culture) from doing is the 2nd Amendment.

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From what I'm reading here, that's not entirely accurate. It might be simpler if it was. But Australia has never had as many guns or seen them in quite the same way as America sees them. I think that does change the dynamic a little - it was easy to make a buy-back happen, simply because it involved very few people, compared to the US. Hunting is not such a wide-spread cultural thing here as it is, say, in France; and also self-protection is not really as fundamentally concerning, because, well, fewer guns. Also, no bears.

ETA: I think if I lived in country USA I might have a gun - but just to amaze my friends with. (Your bears would be quite safe with me, America - I had an air-rifle as a kid and never progressed beyond shooting cans with it.) I wouldn't have one for self-protection though. I doubt I'd be quick or determined enough to use it, if push came to shove.

backslashbaby said:

But a big focus for me really is the illegal gun problems we have here. Those cause the most harm. The criminals using guns really are the least responsible gun owners around, lol. That should be obvious, I think. When gun control advocates focus only on legal gun ownership it bothers me. We could certainly use that energy and lobbying into support for changing sentences for illegal guns, tracking of stolen ones, straw sales, etc. We know those people have bad intentions. We know "street crime" shootings are the biggest reason our statistics are so horrible. We should care more about those kids getting shot every single day than whether I have a gun locked away in my house and why I am allowed to do that here*.

* I of course understand why people would wonder why I and other normal people would have a gun But really, folks like me having a gun or being allowed to is not the gun problem in the US.

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I don't wonder why "normal" people have guns. I do disagree that guns are as useful as a form of defense against home invasions as many people believe, but I understand.

However, while I don't think that "normal" gun ownership is a huge factor in these particular types of crimes, I don't think it's irrelevant in gun safety as a whole. The scary reality is that most gun owners think of themselves as responsible, but not all of them are. Every year, children die when they find and play with unsecured guns. People die in accidental shootings because a friend/relative accidentally shoots a gun while handling it, or mistakes them for an intruder. Ultimately, I think these are bigger risks than school shooting. As alarming as the number of school shootings is, it's still smaller than the number of accidental gun deaths and injuries.

DancingMaenid said:

I don't wonder why "normal" people have guns. I do disagree that guns are as useful as a form of defense against home invasions as many people believe, but I understand.

However, while I don't think that "normal" gun ownership is a huge factor in these particular types of crimes, I don't think it's irrelevant in gun safety as a whole. The scary reality is that most gun owners think of themselves as responsible, but not all of them are. Every year, children die when they find and play with unsecured guns. People die in accidental shootings because a friend/relative accidentally shoots a gun while handling it, or mistakes them for an intruder. Ultimately, I think these are bigger risks than school shooting. As alarming as the number of school shootings is, it's still smaller than the number of accidental gun deaths and injuries.

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Keep in mind that when a gun is used such as in the OP or a child who accidentally kills himself or his friend, it becomes a big news story where we hear people talking about how unsafe guns are.

Nobody writes a headline for a gun owner who never fires his gun except on a range. Or the hunter who never has an hunting accident and keeps his guns safely.

And we usually never mention the ones where guns are used in self defense.

asroc said:

I went through the entire thread and can't find any post like that. I did find numerous comments advocating blanket gun bans and posts both implying and outright stating that there are no legitimate arguments gun owners could possibly bring forth. Where's the willingness to listen and to compromise there?

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That's sorta what I mean - if you don't find those positions reasonable, then dismiss them, don't try to make them into mainstream thoughts as to what the other side believes.

There's zero chance for an outright gun ban in this country. Zero. Trying to argue either from that as a starting point or an endpoint just isn't realistic.

DoNoKharms said:

This argument ("Limiting legal gun sales will only impact legal gun owners") is only valid if you take a very immediate, short term. But if you look out a few years, it's patently wrong. Criminals still need someone to be legally manufacturing new guns and ammo, and then legally selling those to the people who will illegally sell them. If you dry up the supply at the source, everyone along the chain loses out, including the bottom-feeders.

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Out of curiosity, suppose we did all that. Guns are now illegal in the US, there's no legal way for a civilian to purchase a firearm. Legal gun owners have to turn in their weapons, presumably receiving some form of compensation, and the police are doing their best to remove all remaining guns. But it'll take a while.

Meanwhile there's Bob. He wants to be famous, flunked out of high school, never had a girlfriend and blames everyone but himself for his loser status. And he's mad now. So he goes to Mikey the shady underground dealer, purchases an illegal AR-15 clone, goes home, kills his parents, then drives over to his school and starts shooting.

How would you react? Would you look for something to do? Or would you sit back, content with the knowledge that the problem is already solved and this is just the way it's going to be for a while until the supply dries up?

Vince524 said:

Keep in mind that when a gun is used such as in the OP or a child who accidentally kills himself or his friend, it becomes a big news story where we hear people talking about how unsafe guns are.

Nobody writes a headline for a gun owner who never fires his gun except on a range. Or the hunter who never has an hunting accident and keeps his guns safely.

And we usually never mention the ones where guns are used in self defense.

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Sure, but the problem is that it's so difficult to predict how things will go or whether someone is actually responsible or not. And scenarios where someone could be shot by accident usually occur much more frequently than actual self-defense scenarios. Even if accidental shootings don't occur, there are a lot of near misses or opportunities where they could, and that's still dangerous.

Cars can also be dangerous, and there are responsible and irresponsible drivers. But if someone is a very irresponsible driver, that is often (though not always) noticed before they kill someone. The police will pull over someone who's caught speeding or driving erratically. With gun ownership, you really don't know. If you live in an apartment or condo, someone on the other side of a wall from you could be handling a gun recklessly, showing it off to their friends, and you would never know unless a bullet came through your wall.

asroc said:

Out of curiosity, suppose we did all that.

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Great!

Guns are now illegal in the US,

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Wait a minute. . . that's not DNK's argument. Huh, funny how that works.

asroc said:

Out of curiosity, suppose we did all that. Guns are now illegal in the US, there's no legal way for a civilian to purchase a firearm. Legal gun owners have to turn in their weapons, presumably receiving some form of compensation, and the police are doing their best to remove all remaining guns. But it'll take a while.

Meanwhile there's Bob. He wants to be famous, flunked out of high school, never had a girlfriend and blames everyone but himself for his loser status. And he's mad now. So he goes to Mikey the shady underground dealer, purchases an illegal AR-15 clone, goes home, kills his parents, then drives over to his school and starts shooting.

How would you react? Would you look for something to do? Or would you sit back, content with the knowledge that the problem is already solved and this is just the way it's going to be for a while until the supply dries up?

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One of the weird things about the gun debate is that, with shootings like this, the conversation somehow ends up being weirdly singular, as though 'reduce access to guns' and 'invest in much more mental health outreach' are somehow mutually exclusive. There's not one answer to this problem, just like there isn't one cause: rather, we need to simultaneously be taking actions on all fronts (identifying and helping potential shooters, working to identify the cultural forces that are catalyzing this, AND reducing shooters' actions to guns). Removing guns is *just one* out of many things we can do to try to mitigate things like this. So to answer your question more broadly, yes, I would absolutely look for something to do, because I know limiting guns is just one of several things we *have* to do.

I don't think guns *cause* the mass shooting problem, just that they dramatically exacerbate it. So no, reducing/removing guns won't solve the problem, not even in the long term, just like seatbelts didn't solve car accidents and drunk-driving laws didn't solve drunk driving. But it will serve as a measure to reduce the frequency and scale of these shootings while we also work on other solutions. For example, even your hypothetical presumes that Bob knows Mikey the shady dealer. Sure, some shooters might have criminal contacts. But just as many don't. James Holmes, Adam Lanza and Elliot Rodger certainly didn't; they were law-abiding and deeply anti-social loners who could barely navigate their schools and families, much less have the skills to reach out into the criminal underworld and find these shady dealers without getting caught. The gun lobby constantly beats the drum that "it's very easy to get an illegal gun in America", which is both true and isn't; a better statement would add "for some people". Yes, a hardened gang member in Chicago can get an illegal handgun with ease; but the same isn't true for a suburban white teenager whose criminal contact ends at torrenting 'Call of Duty'.

asroc said:

Meanwhile there's Bob. He wants to be famous, flunked out of high school, never had a girlfriend and blames everyone but himself for his loser status. And he's mad now. So he goes to Mikey the shady underground dealer, purchases an illegal AR-15 clone, goes home, kills his parents, then drives over to his school and starts shooting.

How would you react? Would you look for something to do? Or would you sit back, content with the knowledge that the problem is already solved and this is just the way it's going to be for a while until the supply dries up?

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But it's the way it is already, isn't it? So I imagine people would be upset, as they are today - but at least they'd look at the statistics and find that there were far fewer of these kinds of mass-shootings than there used to be when guns were more available.

raburrell said:

There's zero chance for an outright gun ban in this country. Zero. Trying to argue either from that as a starting point or an endpoint just isn't realistic.

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And even right now, this minute, all of the gun manufacturers stopped making weapons... there's still way more than enough to keep the killing going for centuries.

It's a mindset that has to be dealt with - and while increasing background checks and encouraging safer circumstances is a big part of it, we have to deal with the reality that Americans are, for the most part, accepting of resorting to gun violence to solve problems.

Road rage? Shoot the other driver!
Neighbor trouble? Shoot the guy and claim you were "standing your ground"!
Kid where he shouldn't be (in your opinion)? Shoot him and claim self-defence!

When people see using a weapon as the only solution to solving a problem... then there's a problem with the overall mindset and it's not going to change.

However... years ago, within my lifetime, it was considered no big deal to drive drunk. And if you hit someone it was just bad luck, an accident and darn, sorry for you. Now, thanks to MADD and other groups, drunk driving has become unacceptable in our society. People finally stood up and said, yes-you have the right to drink but when you get blitzed and take others out we're going to charge you and put you in jail.

Maybe that's what we need - people to stand up and say that NO, you don't need to have 14 weapons in your house. That maybe when you brag on social media about shooting up a school that you should be visited by the police.

Maybe. Or we'll just keep on going the same old way and next month we'll have a new thread about another bunch of shootings because Americans are a self-destructive bunch who would rather kill each other than make any changes to their liberties and rights to blow each other away.

As usual - jmo, ymmv.

raburrell said:

That's sorta what I mean - if you don't find those positions reasonable, then dismiss them, don't try to make them into mainstream thoughts as to what the other side believes.

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I do dismiss them (although that doesn't mean I can't try to engage in conversation.) But considering how often those positions appear, it's pretty hard to believe they're the fringe. Like you said, gun bans will most likely never happen. But the demand predictably appears on the very first page of this thread, and again and again and again. When are we going to have a conversation about workable changes?

There's quite a bit of that in the thread as well - why not focus on those posts instead?

mccardey said:

But it's the way it is already, isn't it? So I imagine people would be upset, as they are today - but at least they'd look at the statistics and find that there were far fewer of these kinds of mass-shootings than there used to be when guns were more available.

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People aren't that reasonable. This is about emotions, not numbers. Mass shootings are already very rare and make up only a small fraction of American gun crime. Yet the "regular" everyday shootings never get this kind of attention or emotion, even though the thousands of people getting gunned down in places like Oakland or Detroit are just as dead.

raburrell said:

There's quite a bit of that in the thread as well - why not focus on those posts instead?

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Because the bulk of those posts seem to be coming from "my side."

asroc said:

People aren't that reasonable. This is about emotions, not numbers. Mass shootings are already very rare and make up only a small fraction of American gun crime. Yet the "regular" everyday shootings never get this kind of attention or emotion, even though the thousands of people getting gunned down in places like Oakland or Detroit are just as dead.



Because the bulk of those posts seem to be coming from "my side."

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This may be your perception, but I don't think it's accurate.
Just for me personally, I have several posts on the first few pages with links and studies - if you'd care to start there, we can have something to discuss. (Not to say others haven't done so as well)