A Mass Shooting? Wake Me Up when Something Unusual Happens

[rubato]

We don't have to be the worst in the 1st world. That is a choice.


"Do nothing and let them die" is the choice the NRA keeps forcing on us.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

See all those people? We killed them by doing nothing. We Killed Them. We Did:



But the NRA killed them most of all.


If "more guns in more hands" made us safer we would be the safest people in the first world. They don't. They kill us.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

these shootings did not have to happen:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... -news&_r=0

Saying they did have to happen means that your ability to buy as many guns as you want and as much ammunition as you want with no background checks is more important than those lives.

Do human lives matter? Or is it more important that you can buy 10 handguns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition with no accountability.

Which is more important?



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

If we aren't supposed to ask why when so many children's bodies are shattered and bleeding out their lives on the ground, then when? When? When will it matter enough to us to stop thousands of unnecessary deaths a year.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/19/8807851/ma ... charleston

Maybe something will change; maybe this time we will manage to act. But it's difficult to be anything but pessimistic, and when I think about why that is, my mind goes back again to Virginia Tech and 2007, when the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik wrote what is, to me, the single most powerful paragraph I have read on the subject:

The cell phones in the pockets of the dead students were still ringing when we were told that it was wrong to ask why. As the police cleared the bodies from the Virginia Tech engineering building, the cell phones rang, in the eccentric varieties of ring tones, as parents kept trying to see if their children were OK. To imagine the feelings of the police as they carried the bodies and heard the ringing is heartrending; to imagine the feelings of the parents who were calling — dread, desperate hope for a sudden answer and the bliss of reassurance, dawning grief — is unbearable. But the parents, and the rest of us, were told that it was not the right moment to ask how the shooting had happened — specifically, why an obviously disturbed student, with a history of mental illness, was able to buy guns whose essential purpose is to kill people — and why it happens over and over again in America. At a press conference, Virginia's governor, Tim Kaine, said, "People who want to ... make it their political hobby horse to ride, I've got nothing but loathing for them. ... At this point, what it's about is comforting family members ... and helping this community heal. And so to those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say take that elsewhere."

Many things have been written and will continue to be written on America's gun ownership rate (the highest in the world), its gun violence (the worst in the developed world), and the political and social forces that keep this from changing.

What Gopnik captured was not just the horrific costs of gun violence or the frustrating politics of gun control, but the special sort of anguish that we inflict on ourselves in the United States by forbidding any meaningful conversation around the tragedies that unfold over and over again.

There is an unwritten American rule that the aftermath of a mass shooting is the wrong time to talk about gun control. As Gopnik wrote, this logic would be recognized as absurd if applied to anything else: "The aftermath of a terrorist attack is the wrong time to talk about security, the aftermath of a death from lung cancer is the wrong time to talk about smoking and the tobacco industry, and the aftermath of a car crash is the wrong time to talk about seat belts."

Gopnik ended his piece with a call to ban handguns — a political nonstarter in 2007 and, in 2015, something that would be unimaginable to even discuss. That fact itself, that his concluding line has become more politically unthinkable rather than less, seems to drive home his point: that mass shootings will continue in America, and that Americans will refuse to seriously debate whether our culture of gun ownership is worth the costs.

"There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun," he wrote. "At some point, that simple truth will register. Until it does, phones will ring for dead children, and parents will be told not to ask why."

All of those people died because of what we didn't do. And because the NRA wants guns more than they care about our lives.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Rubato's mindless bellowing makes me want to purchase another firearm.

[wesw]

those places are free, in large part, because of us.

hitler stalin and Hirohito fell because of the 2nd amendment and the spirit of the people who birthed it.

if we all become metro- sexuals, well...., we become france.

france doesn t stop tyrants and dictators..., not even their owm.....

[wesw]

dales, did you actually read rubato s posts?

masochist.

[dales]

Oh yes.....word for word...............

[Lord Jim]

Apparently the scumbag killed himself:

Christopher Harper-Mercer killed himself after he fatally shot nine people and wounded nine others during an attack at Umpqua Community College, officials said on Saturday.

During an afternoon news briefing, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said the medical examiner had determined that Harper-Mercer’s death was a suicide.

Officials had originally said the gunman died during an exchange of gunfire with responding officers.

Two days after the attack on the college, among the most deadly mass shootings at a school in two decades, this rural town appeared more focused on mourning the nine killed and praying for the recovery of the nine wounded in the violent classroom rampage, than details about the shooter.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ore ... story.html

[rubato]

hitler stalin and Hirohito fell because of the 2nd amendment and the spirit of the people who birthed it.

... "

Fascinating, a wholly novel theory of WWII and the death of Stalin, a decade later. Please explain.




yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

There were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, down by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993 (figure 1).
The majority of the decline in firearm-related homicides occurred between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, the number of
firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

Gun suicides are becoming far more common than gun-related homicides, accounting for 64 percent of all gun deaths in 2012, according to new statistics. And the suicides have become especially common among older white men.

There were 32,288 deaths from firearm violence in the United States in 2012, a rate that's remained relatively stable over the past few years. But since 2006, gun suicides have increased from 57 percent of all firearm-related deaths, according to research published this month in the Annual Review of Public Health.

Gun deaths by suicide have outpaced homicide-related deaths in the United States over the past 35 years. But since 2006, the decrease in gun-related homicides have almost been matched by the increase of gun suicides

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk ... homicides/

[dales]

More Stupid Feel-Good Legislation That Will Accomplish Nothing Of Substance

considering that it is almost impossible to obtain a CCW in California

California weighs banning concealed handguns on campuses

Updated 3:31 pm, Saturday, October 3, 2015


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is once again considering a move to tighten its restrictions on guns with a ban on the concealed carry of handguns at colleges and schools.

Gov. Jerry Brown is considering the legislation as the nation mourns the school shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, that left 10 people dead, including the gunman, the Sacramento Bee reports Saturday (http://bit.ly/1QR5FB0).

Current California law makes it illegal to possess a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school or on a college campus without permission from administrators. But it includes exemptions for retired law enforcement officers and those with concealed carry permits.

The bill approved by lawmakers in early September would expand the prohibition of guns on school and college grounds to include weapons allowed with concealed carry permits.

Senate Bill 707, by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, puts California in the midst of a policy debate gaining prominence as gun advocates such as the National Rifle Association, having won significant victories guaranteeing ownership rights, turn their focus to the right to carry and the status of firearms in public spaces.

"There's no question that the power of the NRA is at its height today," said John Donohue, a professor at Stanford Law School who studies the effects of gun laws on public safety. "People who want guns don't want to have restrictions that impede them going about their daily lives."

The idea for the bill came from university and college police, who say school officials should have more control over campus safety. Concealed handgun permits, which require residents to show "good cause" that they are in immediate danger, are handed out by county sheriffs, who vary in their interpretation of the policy.

California has faced recent incidents such as the 2014 Isla Vista rampage that claimed the lives of six UC Santa Barbara students and their killer, and a confrontation at Sacramento City College last month that left one dead.

Much of the fight over campus carry boils down to whether guns make us more or less safe. Advocates argue that students with firearms may be able to help prevent crimes such as mass shootings and rapes

Gun control supporters counter that throwing firearms onto a campus with young people, alcohol, mental health issues and strongly held beliefs on controversial topics is a dangerous mix

"This is one of the unusual cases where California law is more lax than other states," Wolk said in a statement. "Most people I hear from are astonished that someone could legally carry a concealed firearm onto school grounds."......I wonder who he has been talking with, obviously someone who is willfully ignorant about the rights and responsibilities that accompany the issuance of a CCW permit. Brown has until Oct. 11 to act.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The point of my last post is that (a) homicides by gun are in fact on the down-swing and (b) suicides by gun are on the upward path.

There are also more guns in private hands, evidenced by sales figures (though not necessarily more households with guns - that info seems more doubtful since it relies upon voluntary responses to survey questions).

Horrible events such as this latest school shooting highlight serious problems and we call for fixes to be made. To heighten the fright, statistics are trotted out (see rubato's post above) to make us all think that 30,000+ 'gun deaths' are in some way just like the most recent awful happening.

Cell phones are ringing in dead students' pockets more often when said students have killed themselves rather than experienced a mass shooting. The anti-gun lobby does not really want to argue on the basis of self-caused death any more than upon accident or justified shooting. Those elicit less sympathy than mass-shootings for obvious reasons.

In 2011, FBI stats show that firearm homicides were 8,583. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/c ... a-table-11. This is a long way from the 30K+ number that gets the highlight. This is bad enough and I do not want to minimize in any way the number of deaths in total.

However, it's almost certain that despite my own movement toward a major change to the 2nd amendment, if draconian new laws seem about to materialize, I shall push off to the local store and spent $150 on .22LR or perhaps a .38 - before it's too late.

[wesw]

meade you exasperating old fart.


oh well, at least you will be subverting big brother too. but quietly, quietly.....

[wesw]

....but yeah, a .22 LR is all I need too. a .38 will knock em down, but a .22 has no kick and I can pop off rounds as quick as can be in an emergency.

I have always wanted a .38 revolver tho.....

[dales]

I shall push off to the local store and spent $150 on .22LR or perhaps a .38 - before it's too late.

For a hundred and a half you will find nothing except a pellet gun.

A nice .22 rifle and a .38 (prefer .357) is an excellent choice. Plan on spending way north of $600 for your "arsenal".

[MajGenl.Meade]

You're wrong there - $149.99 for your choice of handgun - 22LR or 38 at the local bow'n arrer store

ETA $399 to $499 for 9mm

[wesw]

i d recommend the rueger 22 or 9mm meade. spend the extra dough. my son has run thousands of rounds thru his 22, has never cleaned it, and has not had any problems.

i shot it once and that aluminium can caught holy hell . you can fire 10 shots amazingly quickly and accurately.

i would not fire 1000 rounds in the rest of my life, un less there is a zombie apocalypse that is....., and i would clean it, so it would probably last.

[dales]

You're wrong there - $149.99 for your choice of handgun - 22LR or 38 at the local bow'n arrer store

ETA $399 to $499 for 9mm

Not in the SF Bay Area.


I suppose:

I could buy a firearm on the cheap from someplace in flyover country and have it sent to a registered FFL dealer where I live. After conforming to CA firearms statutes (and paying all fees) I might come out a hundred ahead.

Not worth the hassle IMHO for a lousy hundred dollars.

[wesw]

I thought that san fran s last gun shop was closing.....