Ways and means to prevent a future mass active shooter incident in the US

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Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
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There must be demonstrative proof that a nationwide gun ban has had a significant impact on violent crime? I'm not talking about comparing per capita rubbish either, but significant declines in violent crime departing from trends.
Yep. Australia. There has been marked decrease in deaths caused by firearms since gun restrictions. The rate fell 47% from 1991 to 2001. There has also been zero to date (16 years) mass shootings (>4 KIA) since the firearms restrictions compared to 0.7 per annum over 18 years previous.
 

My2Cents

Active Member
Webmaster, why not? It has worked everywhere else.
How can you be so sure it won't work?
If you restrict violent games, or censor even more TV, pretty sure you can't even broadcast the word shit'or fcuk on US TV, isn't that an ifringment on freèdom of speech, what if I wanted to say Nigger on TV? Would that be allowed?
So freedom of speech is regulated, how about gun owneship?
You can use those words and much more on TV, if you own the station. Otherwise the owner has the last word, and he will only stop you because of concern about the potential loss of advertising revenue.

Of course you can now display almost anything simply by hosting your own internet site and displaying it there, like Julian Assange did. Though for things universally illegal, like pedophilia, you might want to restrict access.
 

My2Cents

Active Member
Yep. Australia. There has been marked decrease in deaths caused by firearms since gun restrictions. The rate fell 47% from 1991 to 2001. There has also been zero to date (16 years) mass shootings (>4 KIA) since the firearms restrictions compared to 0.7 per annum over 18 years previous.
That is mass killings by guns only, what about violent crime overall?

Have there been no mass killings in the last 16 years by any means?
 

old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Web by,when all this started in Australia, I was like you, I argued blue in the face about guns don't kill people, people do etc, I lost an SKS and my pride and joy L1A1 SLR,(FNFAL). But I was wrong, we have not had a mass shooting since the laws were introduced. I am happy to be restricted to bolt action,lever action firearms, knowing full well, that when some poor bastard gets the sack, and his wife leaves him, loses his house, he can't just loose it, go buy an AR15 and sit at a NYE party and empty 30 rd mags into the crowd.
No one is saying BAN GUNS, we are saying, restrict and regulate.
It does work.
 

My2Cents

Active Member
They would have ever decreasing access to those weapons which is the point many who argue as you do overlook.

However you want to "explain" 19,000 homicides a year in your country it is a problem that needs fixing, whether it's suicide, murder or accident. There isn't one silver bullet for the problem, a whole range of things have to change, but people not owning military weapons is definitely a big one.
Haven’t had that many since 1996. Less than 2/3rd of that this year.
Gang on gang warfare may be an instance where no-one in "polite society" is particular involved, but is that what you are prepared to tolerate within your community? They can do whatever they like to each other, as long as it doesn't affect me? And here I was thinking Americans were patriots? One nation under god and all that?
Interesting how you can impute an entire range of false motives for derogatory purpose from a simple statement of fact.
No matter what is done, 280 million guns exist in the USA. Until those numbers rapidly decline or people stop thinking that pulling a trigger is the best way to resolve a problem, those "distorted numbers" aren't going to change.
You will have much greater success preventing multiple homicides if you identify those disturbed individuals before they act, and it is likely to be much cheaper as well. The current laws medical privacy prevent that.
It's not a strawman argument at all. Bringing up motor vehicle accidents, swimming pool accidents and the like is the strawman. Every single one of those accidents is addressed through some direct action - safer cars, better designed roads, laws and policies designed to make it safer to drive, swimming pool fences, mandatory swimming training for infants and children and so on, yet your larger and far more visible trouble is ignored due mainly to ignorant lobby groups, interested mostly in the status quo, or if possible (ie: more guns!) increasing their share of it.
I said drowning, not swimming pools. Most people who drown don’t do it in swimming pools.

I guess that since the annual number of deaths from “vehicle accidents, swimming pool accidents and the like”, after all those steps have been taken, when extrapolated over 40 years are still greater than the deaths in Vietnam, that by your standard those policies taken to address the problems are failures.

It is a strawman argument because you can generate any homicide level you want just by changing the period you total the deaths over. Would you accept an argument from me because the deaths from handguns in 1 second is less than 0.0003 is insignificant compared to the 58,000 killed in Vietnam that guns are not a hazard? Of course not, it is ridiculous. So why do you expect me to accept a similar argument from you?
The point you fail to grasp in my analogy, was that the losses in Vietnam were what ultimately caused your politicians to lose the political will to fight there and you therefore stopped.

Yet far great numbers of losses on American soil from gun related homicides haven't inspired them to do a damn thing about the problem...
I failed to grasp your analogy because it is false.
 

Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
That is mass killings by guns only, what about violent crime overall?
The gun replacement theory is a bit of joke. That is if guns are restricted violent crime will find an outlet via other weapons. Come on, we all know guns are more lethal than wooden clubs or knifes or sharp spoons. It’s all about harm minimisation not the abolition of all crime and violence. From the robber on the street to the potential suicide to the school spree killer knives and other weapons will have far less impact than guns.

Have there been no mass killings in the last 16 years by any means?
There certainly haven’t been any cases of someone killing 35 people and injuring another 23 in the space of two hours while armed with a couple of spears, sharp sticks a boomerang and a kitchen knife.
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Technically we had a case here back in 1964 where a guy killed ten and injured 22. In an elementary school. In a lot less time than Adam Lanza needed.

Without a gun. He used a spear. And a homebuilt flamethrower. And insecticide to kill himself.
 

Waylander

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
But there's a fundamental difference in preparing for such a rampage with guns or without guns.

It is much easier to just grab the handguns at your parents house than to build a flamethrower. The same applies to selfmade explosives. There have been massacres with explosives too and there will be in the future as one can't really regulate access to all the ingredients.

But saying that stricter gun controls won't change anything because the same crimes will be done with other means is like leaving sour jewelry open at night because the thieves will come in anyway...
 

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
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Law abiding, good citizens don't commit homicides, criminals do and criminals will always have guns to kill people despite of the laws. They happen because someone breaks into someones house, or its planned ahead of time. If people in those homicides are armed and have the means to protect themselves, would the killing still take place?
Remind me where Mr Lanza got his weapons from again? That's right, he stole them from a person lawfully entitled to possess them.

How much protection did they provide for the late Mrs Lanza? Why did she have them? To protect herself from criminals...

By removing these weapons from society, "criminals" will not always have access to them. Yes there will be incidents where unarmed people willbe killed, under a plan such as I've proposed, but what's the difference to now?

Being appropriately armed (in some people's opinion) still isn't enough to save their lives...

Do you want to live in a society where everyone is armed with Bushmaster .223 rifles 24/7? How ridiculous does it have to get before this mindset changes?

Once again, what's an acceptable amount of homicides you are comfortable with?

If someone wants to go on a killing spree then no amount of gun ban laws are going to help prevent that. What makes someone go on a killing spree?
No, as Abe said it's about risk management. How many incidents of mass killing sprees are there in civil society without guns being involved? One from 1964 I've seen so far...

The liberals in Obama administration (fast and furious scandal) who were supplying guns to the criminal Mexican cartels are the same people who want to ban guns in USA, the blatant hypocrisy of these people. Gun ban could very well turn into something like the anti-drug laws we have in here US. They have not and do not work... drugs are still being made, sold, and we continue to waste billions on enforcing those useless laws.
I agree the hypocrisy is atrocious, but what's more important at the end of the day to you as an American? The problems of homicide in other countries or the problems in yours? I would think that your own backyard has to be the initial priority.

Lets say, for argument sake, guns are outlawed in USA. How should the citizens protect themselves and their families? Who is responsible if a criminal robs a house and kills (with a gun of course) someone during the process? I would rather have the means to defend myself stay alive than become a victim, I rather not see my wife, kids die in my arms while the criminal with a gun roams freely, I don't know about you. :confused:
Well for starters, not once have I called for the outright ban of guns. Only the most dangerous and those most commonly used for homicides, specifically handguns and semi-auto centrefire rifles with large magazine capacities.

In your scenario the criminal is of course responsible and the Government is responsible for investigating and catching the offenders, if they can't stop them first or during the act.

I of course don't want myself or anybody dead I know either, but the facts are undeniable. You've got the highest proportion of homicides in the Western world BECAUSE of your virtually unrestricted access to firearms. Thinking that introducing MORE of them is going to help this problem is just plain crazy.
 
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ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
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Haven’t had that many since 1996. Less than 2/3rd of that this year.
According to the FBI in the most recent stats they've released (29 October 2012) for the 2011 year there were 14,612 people murdered in the USA. 67.7 per cent of these (or 8583) killed by firearms.

FBI — Murder

Those figures don't include guns used in suicides... You can add another 18,735+ deaths by firearms in to those 8,583 deaths if you like according to the CDC... (The numbers of suicides were 2.4% higher in 2011 than 2009, the last year for which published statistics exist for suicide by firearm).

FASTSTATS - Suicide and Self-Inflicted Injury

For a total of 27,336+ US citizens killed by firearms in 2011.

The truth is rather sobering, isn't it?

Interesting how you can impute an entire range of false motives for derogatory purpose from a simple statement of fact.
Pardon me, I mistakenly thought your oaths might induce a desire in you to do something concrete about the deaths of 27,000+ of your countrymen per year, rather than raise red herrings and strawmen all day long...

You will have much greater success preventing multiple homicides if you identify those disturbed individuals before they act, and it is likely to be much cheaper as well. The current laws medical privacy prevent that.
I agree, now just imagine for a moment if you could combine that with an inability for these people to access the very tools that enable them to perpetrate these outrages?

I said drowning, not swimming pools. Most people who drown don’t do it in swimming pools.
And yet realistic attempts to prevent drowning ARE made, no-one throws up a massive whinging list of why it can't or shouldn't be done.

I guess that since the annual number of deaths from “vehicle accidents, swimming pool accidents and the like”, after all those steps have been taken, when extrapolated over 40 years are still greater than the deaths in Vietnam, that by your standard those policies taken to address the problems are failures.

It is a strawman argument because you can generate any homicide level you want just by changing the period you total the deaths over. Would you accept an argument from me because the deaths from handguns in 1 second is less than 0.0003 is insignificant compared to the 58,000 killed in Vietnam that guns are not a hazard? Of course not, it is ridiculous. So why do you expect me to accept a similar argument from you?

I failed to grasp your analogy because it is false.
Or because so you are so ideologically wedded to the idea that you must have a gun, you're unwilling to let it go, no matter what arguments are made or facts are provided...
 
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Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
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Technically we had a case here back in 1964 where a guy killed ten and injured 22. In an elementary school. In a lot less time than Adam Lanza needed.

Without a gun. He used a spear. And a homebuilt flamethrower. And insecticide to kill himself.
You forgot the mace he had. But come on he caused 31 of his 32 inflicted casualties with the flamethrower. So it is hardly a case of “And a homebuilt flamethrower.” Which BTW was a converted insecticide sprayer.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_school_massacre"]Cologne school massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

But apart from confirming that a ‘hot steel’ weapon is far more effective in mass killings than a ‘cold steel’ weapon this example just demonstrates how the removal of easy access firearms makes spree killing much less frequent. Would Adam Lansa or Martin Bryant be able to convert an insecticide sprayer into a flamethrower? Hell no.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Um...last year, the UK had something like 39 firearms related deaths, which is I think less than Baltimore.

In the UK, if someone says "do you remember that school massacre" the reply will be on the lines of "oh, Dunblane, yes."

I'm assuming in the US, folk would say "which one..."

As to the Mail article, it's an apples and oranges comparison - we're arguing firearms related deaths and the US far eclipses any European country in that respect. Even if you wanted to widen it to homicide by any cause the per capita rate for the US is roughly four times that of the UK.

Violent crime is also defined somewhat differently from country to country - as the article itself points out, affray (a bit of pushing and shoving in a car park or a spat over access to an ATM) leading to no physical injury at all will be logged as violent crime in the UK whereas on a rugby pitch, it's all legit.

I'm not particularly a fan of gun control measures per se as they're often misguided in scope or aim but it'd be hard to argue that a lack of guns available to the wider population tends to mean that less people die of gun shot wounds.

Gun control in the US has a massive hill to climb however - the sheer number of unregistered firearms in circulation means that any controls will take decades to bite.
 

Marc 1

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Sheer craziness

Amazing. The argument on here reminds me of an interview on the ABC the day after the school massacre. The reporter asked one of the parents at the school a series of questions. The questions and answers all seemed to be heading to the same logical conclusion - that semi-automatic weapons and large capacity mags should be banned - until the interviewer asked the final question: Should semi automatic assault rifles be banned - and in utter disbelief I listened to the parent say no - as per the second amendment nothing should be banned. Is there something in the water? Logic seems to desert the populace when it comes to the sacred right to bare arms.

The most powerful weapon these days to take down a government isn't a rifle, rather the most effective weapon is the media and the internet/facebook etc. Nixon/Watergate anyone? Nobody shot there as I recall. How about The Ollie North Fiasco? I can understand the 2nd amendment (sort of) a couple of hundred years ago before even the telegraph was invented, but now? I believe they used to goal people for heresy for declaring the earth was flat too, but even the catholic church granted pardons to those recently.

One of the qualification shoots for the marksmanship badge was a rapid fire serial. I used to practice this and believe I could get at least 50 aimed shots away per minute with the SLR (2 mag changes) and hit a man sized target at ranges around 50m just about every time. Impossible to do with a bolt action, far far harder with a lever or pump action (magazine capacity tends to be the main limitation here). Splitting hairs over what the definition of an assault rifle versus battle rifle and semi versus full auto are just distractions.

You have to start somewhere - do what Australia did - if the "disarming of the populous" is such an issue - do what they used to do years ago - have all semi and full auto weapons put in massive armouries, guarded by the National Guard.

One statistic that doesn't seem to be looked at with the counter argument is how many people have been killed by weapons in the home? Someone very close to me blew his brother in half 60 years ago fooling around with weapons at home - both thought the weapon was unloaded - the 6 and 8 year old didn't check - kids don't. And before people start carrying on about weapons being secured - it was the snake gun kept loaded by the back door on a country property. How many times have kids been killed because they found a handgun in dad's bedside table drawer? How many people are killed when a live round is accidentally discharged? I was a regular army officer and I despite the training give to me from when I was a kid by my old man, the training from the army etc I have UD'd (and was fizzed for it).

This idea that only criminals do bad things is tosh too The bloke who committed this massacre was in my class at RMC Duntroon - our equivalent of Westpoint - he had passed all the psyche tests on entry to RMC and was a Regular army soldier before he snapped. [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddle_Street_massacre"]Hoddle Street massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


If what the NRA advocate is to come about, the weapons to arm the headmaster etc need to be easily accessible (otherwise they will be useless). Now as you don't pull a knife in a gunfight, the school headmaster would need to have a slung M4 and a couple of mags on them at all times - again whats the point in having the rifle securely stowed in the office if the headmaster is at the opposite end of the school when armagedon arrives. The headmaster will then engage the shooter with volleys of automatic and semiautomatic fire until the bad guy is killed, regardless of where any riccochett or missed fire is likely to go. Can anybody else see the stupidity in that scenario or is it just me?

Seriously, the world will not end if you guys tighten up the firearms rules. It's time you gave up laws written a couple of centuries ago. In those times doctors used to bleed people believing that would cure them - it killed George Washington and many others. Thank god that practice wasn't written into the constitution eh?
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
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While the intention was to solicit potential solutions which would be viable in the US, the results have been disappointing to say the least.

Many people outside of the US have posted regarding changes to US gun control laws, and/or changes to Constitution of the United States (specifically the 2nd Amendment). Those ideas might have the desired outcome in preventing or minimizing a future active shooter incident.

Unfortunately, many if not most of the suggested gun control changes are not viable suggestions within the context of the US legal and political systems, or US society generally.

To give people outside the US some perspective on how easy it is to amend the Constitution, there have been only 27 amendments made since the Constitution was ratified in 1788. Of these, only 26 amendments are in effect, since the the 18th Amendment (commonly known as Prohibition) was repealed by the 21st Amendment. Also, ten of these amenments (The Bill of Rights) were ratified together just over three years after the Constitution was ratified.

To an idea of the scope of an amendment, they deal in the rights of the citizens, government structure and government function. The 13th and 14th Amendments (passed in the aftermath of the American Civil War) which abolish slavery and involuntary servitude and defines citizenship respectively. The 25th Amendment codifies the line of Presidential succession.

In order for an amentment to pass, either a two-thirds majority vote from both the House and Senate which is then ratified by at least three-quarters of the States, or a Constitutional Convention needs to be held by Congress at the requested of at least two-thirds of the various State legislatures, and then the results of the Constitutional Convention need to ratified by a three-quarters vote of the States.

Basically IMO, in the next decade the Province of Quebec is more likely secede from Canada, or Australia is more likely to become a republic, than the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is going to be repealed or further amended.

Until people understand that, absent a generational demographics change in US firearms ownership and use, a change which itself will likely take not merely decades but generations, these repeated recommendations on gun control which would require amending the Constitution, or outright recommendations to amend the Constitution are not helpful at all.

For those who have suggested that the laws are "just paper" one is speaking of altering the supreme law of the land in the US, which means there is a bit more to it than just paper...

Some things can be done regarding gun control, like introducing a ban on the sale of new semi-automatic rifles with certain barrel lengths, and/or banning new sales of detachable magazine with certain capacities, and other similar sorts of bans on new sales. It would be extremely difficult (and expensive) if not actually impossible to enact gun control laws which retroactively makes something illegal, and have the laws clear the Supreme Court without getting thrown out for violating one or more of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th Amendments.

As for the suggestion to ban handguns/concealable firearms... Again, without repealing or altering the 2nd Amendment, such an outright ban cannot happen. The State of Illinois has lost recent legal arguments which they had been using for years to deny civilians the ability to own or carry concealed firearms/handguns, because the State was infringing on the rights of the citizens.

So again, keeping in mind recommendations need to be viable within the context of the US, do people have solutions? If not, then perhaps it would be better to close this thread.
 

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
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I can not help but wonder what those who drafted the 2nd Amendment would think of the situation today. Would they have inserted additional checks and balances had they known such powerful and dangerous weapons would be so freely available? A clause stating something along the lines of, “until such time as the arms become so powerful and dangerous that no man alone should hold such great power”.

Seriously when you look at the capability a 5.56/7.62mm military style, high capacity magazine fed rifle or carbine provides an individual today the equivalent when the 2nd was drafted would have been for every household to have its own field artillery battery of the day. Was that was what was intended, every house hold being able to go to war against their neighbour should they so desire?

I don’t know the answer but I do believe there is a very serious problem when a document written and amended by men in the not too distant past is seen by many to be sacrosanct no matter the pain and suffering that results from its continuation in a changing and evolving world. The truly sad thing is the founding fathers intended that the Constitution be amended and updated to suit changing times but the more time passes the less often this happens, when in fact the right to change it to make it better as a part of being independent and free was one of the guiding principles in its formulation in the first place.

It looks from the outside that the NRA and others are placing the 2nd Amendment at the same level of importance as the 10 Commandments. It was written by men not god, people should never forget that.
 

old faithful

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
The 2nd amendment does NOT need to be amended. you would maintain the right to bear arms, just not semi autos with huge mag capacity.
No amendment needed, just national laws.
Under the 2nd amendment, what is the definition of arms? thermonuclear bomb?
 

Waylander

Defense Professional
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Well, if we take the impossibility of changing the 2nd Amendment as a given we i fear we are at a dead end.

In a country of 310+ million people one will always have nutjobs trying to end their life with a bang. One can only try to minimize the impact they can make by keeping stuff out of their hands with which they can harm alot of people in a short period of time.

I doubt that modern stuff like violent video games and movies have such a big impact. One just has to look at how much people were exposed to real violence in their youth be it by parents and teachers punishing them, by general violence in their neighbourhood (think of New York and Chicago in the '80s) or by drafting them into the armed forces to fight a war on the other side of the world.

Censurig them reduces exactly the freedom many people in the US want to preserve. The same applies to fortifying all the "soft targets" or compulsory psychological tests. Such a police state like policy is a much bigger threat to a free society. As an OT comment this IMHO also applies to certain measures done in the name of the war against terror.

So in the end the US society has three options. Restrict the access to several classes of small arms, restrict other parts of the freedom the society enjoys today or decide that a certain amount of victims by small arms is a worthy sacrifice for the right to privately own a huge amount of small arms.

IMO there are no other options.
 

Eeshaan

New Member
I think this video pretty much sums it up :

The REAL Reason for the Mass Shooting Epidemic in America - YouTube

Please stop blaming inanimate objects and the media for acts of violence like in Conneticut.

It’s our current society with dysfunctional families,,abuse, broken homes and prescription drug culture that is causing a lot of problems. The lack of positive role models, the lack of the right kind of attention (or an excessive amount of the WRONG kind of attention), it all builds up inside people, especially children. Never ever underestimate the importance of a young child’s life. Because that child can grow up into a monster if not looked after properly.

The worst thing you can do to a child is make him consider using prescription anti-depression drugs, or make him think consider getting his attention in a violent way. Guns are simply the tools that these extremely disturbed people are using to vent their frustration against the society that made them that way.

You can ban weapons all you want, make us fight our wars with sticks & stones ( like Einstein once predicted), that isn’t going to change anything unless the effort is made to mend our own society. Blaming it simply on guns & “closing the case” like that is just looking for an easy way out. Just sharing my 2 cents here.
 

Abraham Gubler

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
While the intention was to solicit potential solutions which would be viable in the US, the results have been disappointing to say the least.
Well I imagine that was the result of the first Jehovah’s Witness Surgery Conference, ie how can we survive surgery while maintaining a prohibition on blood transfusions!

While I agree that restricting gun access in the USA is effectively impossible it is the only practical way to reduce the frequency of spree killings. But like I said in my first post on this topic trying to restrict gun access would directly result in far more violence than the current rate of spree killing in the USA so from an epidemiological perspective is hardly worth it. Sure the cause of such spree killing may be crazy or unbalanced people but eradicating such outcomes in our society is only about a billion times harder than removing every single gun from public possession in the USA.

Guns can be added to the list of other guilty pleasures that cause casualties: fatty foods, alcohol, drugs, driving fast cars, base jumping etc. If you want the good then you’ve got to take the bad.
 
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