Las Vegas

[Regina Minx]

A sniper opens fire at a music concert in Las Vegas, killing at least 50 and wounding 200 in the worst mass shooting in US history.

I feel the need to quote David Frum.

"[D]espite the predictable recurrence of these crimes, Americans have developed a strong taboo against ever discussing or even thinking about them. When the killer strikes, it is 'too soon.' The next day, it is 'too late'; we have all moved onto the next topic. Then comes the next massacre, and it is 'too soon' all over again.

Like ancient villagers, Americans accept periodic plagues as a visitation from the gods, about which nothing can or should be done. The only permitted response is 'thoughts and prayers'—certainly never rational action to reduce casualties in future. Even to open the discussion as to whether something might not be done violates the taboos of decency: How dare you politicize this completely unpredictable and uncontrollable event! It is as if gun violence were inscrutable to the mind of man, utterly beyond human control.

The fact that such things do not happen anywhere else with anything approaching the same frequency—that too is the work of some ineffable mystery. Who can say why such things happen so seldom in Canada and Australia and Britain and Germany and France, and so often in the United States? Who would be rude enough even to wonder?

A few hours before the attack on the Alexandria playing field, a lower-income housing tower erupted in flames in London. At least six people lost their lives; 20 more remain in critical condition at latest report. In an interview conducted even as firefighters battled the blaze, the mayor of London said, 'There will be a great many questions over the coming days as to the cause of this tragedy and I want to reassure Londoners that we will get all the answers.' About fires, apparently, it is permitted to use human reason. But not about firearms! Against the much greater toll from those, the only remedy—the only approved response—is to send 'thoughts and prayers.'"

What I'm saying is that there's going to be lots of news stories. Lots of prayers and thoughts and bad feelings. But then things go on, and we won't change a fucking thing.

[Lustful Bride]

This person picked out a killzone, had close to 10 loaded rifles with them and a height advantage. This was well planned and practiced. That's what honestly makes this so terrifying, its not just some random asshole, this was someone who knew their craft. From where he was only someone in a similar position was going to stop him, or a police entry behind him. Which took too long.

Id give up every gun I have ever had and never touch one again if it meant something like this never happening. But il still happen. They will just use vans, bombs, knives, acid, their own hands. What a beautiful world we have ruined.

[gaggedLouise]

This person picked out a killzone, had close to 10 loaded rifles with them and a height advantage. This was well planned and practiced. That's what honestly makes this so terrifying, its not just some random asshole, this was someone who knew their craft. From where he was only someone in a similar position was going to stop him, or a police entry behind him. Which took too long.

Id give up every gun I have ever had and never touch one again if it meant something like this never happening. But il still happen. They will just use vans, bombs, knives, acid, their own hands. What a beautiful world we have ruined.

How can anyone even get away with that kind of rifle buying and preparation without any sane person stopping him, checking him and asking "Hey, what are you up to with this shit?"  ??? Background checks, anyone?

Best song ever about pointless gun crime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T6sHBMvEEc

[Lustful Bride]

How can anyone even get away with that kind of rifle buying and preparation without any sane person stopping him, checking him and asking "Hey, what are you up to with this shit?"  ??? Background checks, anyone?

Best song ever about pointless gun crime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T6sHBMvEEc

I don't know the gunlaws of Nevada so I don't know.

Maybe he did ping alerts but due to his age no one cared. Maybe it was perfectly legal and due to a life of calm behavior no one noticed when he suddenly started arming up and getting a ton of ammunition.

As of late we have been seeing a ton of super owners. Single person/family gun owners who buy up tons of guns and ammo and do nothing with them, just letting them lie and collect dust.

I mean my family has maybe....7 guns I think? Revolver for me, one for mom, dad has a revolver and a sig sauer. A shotgun that he hasn't touched in years, and a Ruger mini 30 which is also mine. And we only really go to the range. We aren't arming for any invasion or end of the world thing, just if something like Katrina,Irma, Maria, happens to us. And with the killings over food and gas going on back in Puerto Rico, and how the government has absolutely dropped the ball on that, I cant say I disagree.

Its this fine line. Until we develop a way to read minds we really wont ever know a person or what they will do, and even then they may change their minds. Some harsher gun laws could go a way to stopping events like this. But at the end of the day a gun is a tool, a tool  for death, to protect or to slaughter. It has no mind of its own and wont do anything without commands. We cant just ignore the science of the killers, we need to understand the people who do this and find a way to anticipate and prevent them. But they always kill themselves before being captured, so unlike serial killers out knowledge base is limited.

[Iniquitous]

I might get fried for this, but I do not think guns are the problem.  Sure, they make it easy to kill - but so does a vehicle, so does a bladed weapon, so does poisoning water/food.

I think the problem, specifically in the US, is the lack of acknowledgment and care of mental illness.  I truly believe that anyone capable of murdering anyone has a mental illness. There is such a stigma attached to mental illness in this country.  No one wants to talk about it, no one wants to admit they or a loved one has a mental illness. 

Do I think there needs to be more gun control laws?  I am honestly not sure.  I do not see a way to ensure that only mentally sound people can purchase a gun.  There is also no way to determine if someone is going to just snap one day.  I certainly do not support the idea of everyone turning in their guns and only police and military possessing them.  There is a reason our constitution was set up the way it was … even if I doubt the current population would ever fight to take this country back.  And I have heard every argument concerning gun control.  ‘A civilian doesn’t need an assault rifle.’  Has anyone ever bothered to learn what an assault rifle is?  I can assure you it is not an AR15.

Either way, remove guns from the American populace and those wishing to kill will find other ways to do so. Bladed weapons, bombs, poison, vehicles.  If someone is determined, they will find a way - which is why I view the issue to not be the weapon used but rather the mental state of the murderer.  Deal with the root problem - not the symptom.

[AmberStarfire]

I was very sad to see the news about Las Vegas. :(

A lot of people in the US have developed a way of living their lives with guns. I'm from Australia, and the vast majority of the population lives their lives without guns. You just don't have them, and generally you don't think to have them, because it's the way things are. Americans have got used to having them in their lives, and having them as a fallback if needed. I can understand not wanting to give them up, and that some people really like their guns. They almost have a sub-culture of their own. It's true though that in a lot of other western countries without easy access to firearms, there are less things like this that happen. Far less. In a country where so many people have guns, you could rationalise that you'd be less safe without them. The problem is that when so many people have them, lots of untrustworthy people do too. And it only takes one person to do something like that.

You've got so many guns out there that I don't think you're at a point where they could easily be 'taken away' and approaches to them easily changed. There are a lot of strong, differing viewpoints. Even a person who's responsible a lot of the time might not always be. Not one is 100%. Everyone goes through emotional troubles, and some people handle that less well than others. Life isn't easy. Even with responsible people, accidents happen, or guns could be taken from them and used against them. A gun can potentially inflict much greater carnage than a knife can, so I don't think they're so easily compared to each other.  The only way things are likely to fully change is if everyone agrees, and time has shown that simply isn't going to happen.

[Regina Minx]

I might get fried for this, but I do not think guns are the problem.  Sure, they make it easy to kill - but so does a vehicle, so does a bladed weapon, so does poisoning water/food.

I have to disagree with you, Ini. Let me show you some data. It's not that the US has a higher rate of crime than other countries. In fact, other countries, which might or might not have a better system of mental health management, have worse crime rates than the United States:




There are more burglaries and assaults per 100,000 people in Germany and the Netherlands than there are in the United States, for example.

It's not that the US has more crime than other countries. It's that the US has more lethal crime than other countries. It's only when we consider the specific crime of homicide that the US has more of these per 100,000 people than other countries:

Either way, remove guns from the American populace and those wishing to kill will find other ways to do so. Bladed weapons, bombs, poison, vehicles.  If someone is determined, they will find a way

The dark bar in the graph above represents homicides by guns. What you're essentially saying is that if there were no homicides by guns, that those same number of homicides would move over to the other part of the bar. And I don't think that's a reasonable thing to say.

Yes, there are ways to kill without guns. But it becomes so much easier. The only method I have at my disposal to kill someone, being a petite-ish Asian woman without ready access to poison nor the means to poison someone, would be to go to a gun store and buy a gun. Take that ability out of my hand, and I would have to work at it in order to kill SOMEONE, let alone many someones or a specific someones.

[Lustful Bride]

You've got so many guns out there that I don't think you're at a point where they could easily be 'taken away' and approaches to them easily changed. There are a lot of strong, differing viewpoints. Even a person who's responsible a lot of the time might not always be. Not one is 100%. Everyone goes through emotional troubles, and some people handle that less well than others. Life isn't easy. Even with responsible people, accidents happen, or guns could be taken from them and used against them. A gun can potentially inflict much greater carnage than a knife can, so I don't think they're so easily compared to each other.  The only way things are likely to fully change is if everyone agrees, and time has shown that simply isn't going to happen.

Highlighted the point that I agree with. We saw what happened when we tried to prohibit alcohol, and it led to a boom in organized crime. I don't want to see what would happen if the government tried hard to regulate guns and take them away. The best thing to do would be to make some changes to laws and intelligent legislation.

Problem is neither party will talk to the other and intelligence is frowned upon in the government. To make actual effective gunlaws it would require both parties sitting down and compromising, working on something that could help crack down on crime and other such things using guns, and hopefully would have people on it who actually understand guns better than just watching movies.

As my father always told me, if you are going to hate something, you need to understand it first, what motivates it, what drives it, what makes them act. But in the government its just "Guns bad! Guns good! Guns bad!" with no actual thought behind it.

[Lustful Bride]

The dark bar in the graph above represents homicides by guns. What you're essentially saying is that if there were no homicides by guns, that those same number of homicides would move over to the other part of the bar. And I don't think that's a reasonable thing to say.

Yes, there are ways to kill without guns. But it becomes so much easier. The only method I have at my disposal to kill someone, being a petite-ish Asian woman without ready access to poison nor the means to poison someone, would be to go to a gun store and buy a gun. Take that ability out of my hand, and I would have to work at it in order to kill SOMEONE, let alone many someones or a specific someones.

You have a large number of ways to kill someone, it just depends on being an active vs passive killer and how much planning is put into it.

Active: Guns, Stabbing, strangulation, smothering with a pillow suddenly hitting them with an object.

Passive: Cutting break lines, poison, waiting till some moment to shove them off of someplace high when they aren't expecting it.

If we took guns away/regulated them harder we would likely see a decrease in gun related suicides and murders in the het of passion, before it rebalanced with something new/people started buying them off the black market. People will end up buying them not because they want to protect themselves, but just because the government tells them no.

[Regina Minx]

As my father always told me, if you are going to hate something, you need to understand it first, what motivates it, what drives it, what makes them act. But in the government its just "Guns bad! Guns good! Guns bad!" with no actual thought behind it.

I also have to disagree with this. At least one major political party has made it all but a mission statement to oppose automatically any legislation related to regulating and limiting firearms, no matter how sensical or pragmatic.:

[Regina Minx]

If we took guns away/regulated them harder we would likely see a decrease in gun related suicides and murders in the het of passion, before it rebalanced with something new/people started buying them off the black market.

I think you overstate how easy it is to buy things off the black market. If I wanted to get ahold of heroin, I could not do so legally. Making things illegal does make it harder for them to get.

[Lustful Bride]

I also have to disagree with this. At least one major political party has made it all but a mission statement to oppose automatically any legislation related to regulating and limiting firearms, no matter how sensical or pragmatic.:

Had to edit my post because it wa sme losing control.

Now that I am more calm, I can say the party is in need of a massive reset button. This only further pushes me to vote Dem because they are less insane by 1%.

I think you overstate how easy it is to buy things off the black market. If I wanted to get ahold of heroin, I could not do so legally. Making things illegal does make it harder for them to get.

To be fair I have never gotten anything illegally so I wouldn't know. It might be insanely easy or as difficult as a broken pinky toe.

[Valerian]

From what I've been reading, the shooter had no military background or training and was generally considered a regular guy with no particular political leanings and no history of violence, money problems, or trouble with the authorities.

As far as the guns, some of them were reportedly bought in California so it's probable he spread his buying around to avoid attention.  And since the U.S. hasn't seen fit to set up a good federal database for purchasing firearms -- since merely recording the fact of someone's gun purchase somehow counts as a horrible infringement of second amendment rights -- no one would have realized he was building up such an armory.  Also, some of the guns he used were altered to function as automatic weapons.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/02/what_we_know_about_stephen_paddock_the_suspected_gunman_in_a_las_vegas_attack.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-attack-stephen-paddock-trnd/index.html

[Darkcide]

This saddens me. I lived in Vegas for four years, I have been checking in on people all day.

[Serephino]

Yeah, sure, I could kill someone with a knife.  First I have to get close to them.  I have to know which vital areas to hit to kill them quickly before they can get medical attention.  Obviously the person is not going to just stand there and let me stab them, so I have to hit those areas with them trying to run, or hit me, or kick me, screaming their asses off for help all the while.  With a knife you can only kill one person at a time, 2 if you're ambidextrous and really awesome at multitasking.  And unless you're a master at stealth, after that one person the alarm is raised and if you want another victim you'll have to chase them down with the cops probably on your ass in short order.

But a gun...  He didn't have to get up close and personal to kill 50 people, did he?  He just had to point and pull the trigger from a distance.  Even with my horrible aim if I found a big crowd and a nice hiding spot with a good view I could do some major damage.

There are only 2 ways to kill several people at a time that don't involve close personal contact.  Guns and bombs.  And even then I think bombs cause more mass injury than death.  They aren't a controllable thing, but a gun is concentrated damage that where it hits depends on the shooter's ability to aim.  So to say that the availability of guns has absolutely nothing to do with the problem, well, I can't say I agree.  It is a whole lot easier to kill a large number of people with a gun than anything else.

Now I do agree that mental health awareness is also important.  Like most things in this world, the solution is not simple and one dimensional.  Some really smart people need to sit down and analyze a whole bunch of data to determine what all needs to be done.  Obviously something needs to be done because this is absolutely insane. 

[Lustful Bride]

I feel like Philip defranco did a good non biased recap of the situation, I cant believe there were people tweeting out false information just for kicks...but then I remember that's par for the course now.

https://youtu.be/byA77xkQBEE

[elone]

I have to disagree with you, Ini. Let me show you some data. It's not that the US has a higher rate of crime than other countries. In fact, other countries, which might or might not have a better system of mental health management, have worse crime rates than the United States:




There are more burglaries and assaults per 100,000 people in Germany and the Netherlands than there are in the United States, for example.

It's not that the US has more crime than other countries. It's that the US has more lethal crime than other countries. It's only when we consider the specific crime of homicide that the US has more of these per 100,000 people than other countries:



The dark bar in the graph above represents homicides by guns. What you're essentially saying is that if there were no homicides by guns, that those same number of homicides would move over to the other part of the bar. And I don't think that's a reasonable thing to say.

This data could also show that armed citizens are a deterrent to said assaults and burglaries.

But really, this country will have an impossible job getting guns away from people that already have them. Our only hope is to enact some serious control on sales and address mental health problems ie. recognition and treatment.  I have no idea where this will go.

[Regina Minx]

This data could also show that armed citizens are a deterrent to said assaults and burglaries

Except that there’s a negative correlation if you look in several lines of comparison. Switzerland has a low rate homicide and assault, and slightly more burglaries than the United States. Norway is low in all three metrics. The United States has more homicides AND assaults than Canada, and so on.

[Skynet]

I might get fried for this, but I do not think guns are the problem.  Sure, they make it easy to kill - but so does a vehicle, so does a bladed weapon, so does poisoning water/food.

I think the problem, specifically in the US, is the lack of acknowledgment and care of mental illness.  I truly believe that anyone capable of murdering anyone has a mental illness. There is such a stigma attached to mental illness in this country.  No one wants to talk about it, no one wants to admit they or a loved one has a mental illness. 

Do I think there needs to be more gun control laws?  I am honestly not sure.  I do not see a way to ensure that only mentally sound people can purchase a gun.  There is also no way to determine if someone is going to just snap one day.  I certainly do not support the idea of everyone turning in their guns and only police and military possessing them.  There is a reason our constitution was set up the way it was … even if I doubt the current population would ever fight to take this country back.  And I have heard every argument concerning gun control.  ‘A civilian doesn’t need an assault rifle.’  Has anyone ever bothered to learn what an assault rifle is?  I can assure you it is not an AR15.

Either way, remove guns from the American populace and those wishing to kill will find other ways to do so. Bladed weapons, bombs, poison, vehicles.  If someone is determined, they will find a way - which is why I view the issue to not be the weapon used but rather the mental state of the murderer.  Deal with the root problem - not the symptom.

Slippery slope argument. There are some folks who want to ban all guns, but the Democratic Party standard is for more background checks, as are most of the voting public. It's mostly rich lobbyists in the NRA who bribe politicians to vote otherwise.

(1) Unfortunately, there's a common line of thinking whenever a white person in the US commits a mass shooting it's blamed on mental illness as a deflection from the issue. What's even worse is that when folks like the NRA's President further uses it as justification to treat all mentally ill people as walking time bombs who need to be documented regardless of the symptoms or disorder like something akin to a sex offender registry. It's the unwillingness to confront the idea that a person of one's in-group/tribe/etc with a chemically balanced brain is incapable of harboring murderous hatred. Some of the worst killers are very, very sane.

I cannot comment on Nevada's gun laws, but overall the NRA and various conservative lawmakers make it explicitly easier for criminals, terrorist suspects, etc to get their hands on firearms without background checks. An example in the Mother Jones article below is a law banning the computerization of records of crimes committed with firearms (2). This goes against the "bad guy with a gun" argument of the NRA, as they are intentionally making it easier for bad guys with guns to get away with crimes.

Former ATF Director Stephen E. Higgins and others intimately familiar with the agency’s history say the root of the problem is that ATF has no political constituency, no one invested in seeing it succeed and willing to stand up against those determined to see it fail. The success of ATF’s critics in reining in its authority is nowhere more evident than in the bureau’s appropriation statute, which is two pages long, devotes 11 lines to describing the agency’s budget and the remaining 76 lines to proscriptions on its powers. Many of these “riders,” as they’re known, go to the agency’s most basic investigative functions. Two of the riders effectively ban consolidation and computerization of records. One limits access and use of crime gun trace data, while another undermines the credibility of whatever trace data are released. One rider overturns ATF efforts to ban the import of large-capacity shotguns, which the agency found had no “sporting purposes.” Another overturned an ATF regulation to limit the import of dangerous weapons under a law originally designed to protect collectors of “curios and relics.”

I heard a lot of the common points. That easy access to firearms will help the populace resist government tyranny. That any form of regulation is akin to a ban. But again and again the people who seem the most gung-ho about gun rights are the same people who are silent towards or rationalize away every death of an unarmed black man in police shootings regardless of circumstance (3), who in 2003 wanted to nation-build in Iraq, who want a wall across the US Mexican border and support most of Trump's legislation (4), who are depriving access to healthcare to society's most vulnerable, who have racists like Tend Nugent on their Board of Directors (5).

The 2nd Amendment needs better defenders.

I am in favor of gun ownership; an outright ban will lead to a Prohibition-era effect, but just like we can regulate drunk driving and medical licenses we can also create more sensible regulation.

Sources:

(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/21/the-nra-wants-an-active-mental-illness-database-thirty-eight-states-have-that-now/

&

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-adams/why-white-mass-murderers-_b_7617412.html

(2) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/atf-gun-laws-nra/

(3) https://reason.com/blog/2017/07/10/nra-breaks-silence-on-philando-castile-s

(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html

(5) http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-nugent-jews-gun-control

[gaggedLouise]

Barely ever seen a public figure at a press briefing looking so devastated and shocked as Carolyn Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas at the long press session yesterday (around 4 pm local time, and past midnight in Europe). The dread and hard effort to keep going were all over the face of that dignified woman.  :-(

Edit: Finally found a good video of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8lrO0Camno

[SINless]

I have to disagree with you, Ini. Let me show you some data. It's not that the US has a higher rate of crime than other countries. In fact, other countries, which might or might not have a better system of mental health management, have worse crime rates than the United States:




There are more burglaries and assaults per 100,000 people in Germany and the Netherlands than there are in the United States, for example.

It's not that the US has more crime than other countries. It's that the US has more lethal crime than other countries. It's only when we consider the specific crime of homicide that the US has more of these per 100,000 people than other countries:



The dark bar in the graph above represents homicides by guns. What you're essentially saying is that if there were no homicides by guns, that those same number of homicides would move over to the other part of the bar. And I don't think that's a reasonable thing to say.

Yes, there are ways to kill without guns. But it becomes so much easier. The only method I have at my disposal to kill someone, being a petite-ish Asian woman without ready access to poison nor the means to poison someone, would be to go to a gun store and buy a gun. Take that ability out of my hand, and I would have to work at it in order to kill SOMEONE, let alone many someones or a specific someones.

These statistics are both inacurate and misleading. Burglaries, yes there are more burglaries in many countries, however 95% of burglaries in the Netherlands for example are done to empty residential OR commercial properties while the inhabitants or staff are away.

In the US, commercial properties aren't added in that statistic. Way to keep the numbers low.

Same for assault. What qualifies as assault varies greatly by country. Therefore we need to look at specific crimes, not crime groupings.

The US has more people per capita shot by toddlers than the Netherlands has shot per capita in total, including criminal on criminal violence.

It has more people shot by accident, than Switzerland has in total, accidentally or purposefully, despite Switzerland having a much higher density of guns.

And another big one: The US is the only country in the west where ASSAULT rifles (remember that name are considered a weapon for self defense. In reality though, it is less useful in self defense than a butter knife. Unless you're defending yourself from a mass of oncoming armed attackers 500 feet away.


A rather scary thought. The US congress is currently debating a bill allowing the unrestricted sale of silencers.

[SINless]

https://youtu.be/ruYeBXudsds

[Regina Minx]

These statistics are both inacurate and misleading. Burglaries, yes there are more burglaries in many countries, however 95% of burglaries in the Netherlands for example are done to empty residential OR commercial properties while the inhabitants or staff are away.

In the US, commercial properties aren't added in that statistic. Way to keep the numbers low.

I don't assume you're accusing me of being misleading by keeping numbers low. However, while the Department of Justice in the US might only count burglaries as theft from residential homes, the report from which the data was gathered does not limit itself or use different methodological measures when collecting data from the US vs. abroad. From the report:

"Burglary was described to mean 'to gain access to  a  closed  part  of  a  building  or  other  premises  by  use  of  force  with  the  intent  to  steal  goods'.  Figures  on  burglary  were  asked  to  include  theft  from  a  factory,  shop  or  office,  theft  from  a  military  establishment,  theft  by  using  false  keys,  and  to  exclude  theft  from  a  car,  theft  from  a  container,  theft  from  a  vending  machine,  theft  from  a  parking  meter  and  theft  from  fenced  meadow/compound."

Your criticism does not appear to reflect the actual data assembled in the report and the graph made from it. They normalized the definition of crimes and asked surveyed member states how many crimes reflected the common definition, instead of using multiple different measurements. I would suggest reading the report and in particular the abstract and methodolgy section in each chapter.

[Silk]

I'm not in the US and by extention my knowledge of gun laws is pretty limited, but I thought there was a mix between special profiling and outright bans on automatic weapons in particular.

Also am I the only one noticing that each time something like this happens, fundamentally the things being said are the same but the positions change?

Non white shooter:
"We shouldn't make this about race!" -left
"His race is a factor!" - right

White shooter:
"We shouldn't make this about race!" -right
"His race is a factor!" - left

I dunno, guess I'm just sick of people using identity politics as a means to push an agenda. Still thoughts with those affected first and foremost.

[gaggedLouise]

I'm not in the US and by extention my knowledge of gun laws is pretty limited, but I thought there was a mix between special profiling and outright bans on automatic weapons in particular.

Also am I the only one noticing that each time something like this happens, fundamentally the things being said are the same but the positions change?

Non white shooter:
"We shouldn't make this about race!" -left
"His race is a factor!" - right

White shooter:
"We shouldn't make this about race!" -right
"His race is a factor!" - left

I dunno, guess I'm just sick of people using identity politics as a means to push an agenda. Still thoughts with those affected first and foremost.

Yeah, change "shooting" to terrorist attack or suicide bomber and non-white to Islamist/Jihadist and you'll find the same split in many countries. ^_ ^