'No Way To Prevent This,' says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Canugghead · May 2023

#TeflonWhisperer

dmchicago · May 2023

Another one today. But more guns, yeah?

Botch · May 2023

dmchicago said:

Another one today. But more guns, yeah?

Saw this post 6 minutes ago.
Now, on the news, 9 ambulance victims and "deaths" in a TX mall.

HeavyG · May 2023

https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1655016123048374279

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

http://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1655191674761498625?s=20

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

Legume · May 2023

dmchicago · May 2023

I’ve seen the picture that’s floating around. Graphic. Horrific. Sad.

Some folks say these types of pictures should be shown after every mass shooting.

I don’t know. I wonder how quickly we would become immune to them as well.

Legume · May 2023

Agree, horrific. I don't think it changes any politicians, money is money. It certainly feels like our government is much less representative of the people than in the past (it's been creeping this way for decades), it actually feels like we've become much more dependent on them for what to think and therefore they're setting our fears, our priorities, our direction. Create a fear or crisis and then move the people to believe that's a priority.

I've already seen several opinions praising the good guy with the gun that stopped this. I too am thankful that a cop happened to be nearby and took decisive action, this could've been even worse. However, this isn't the good citizen with a gun that is argued as the "more guns and fewer restrictions saves lives" position. Texas has some of the highest gun ownership and least restrictive regulations, but in a crowded mall that theory fell short, again.

nolaegghead · May 2023

Not that long ago Texas had some strict gun control. Stricter than Louisiana. You couldn’t conceal a weapon in your vehicle. You couldn’t even carry a pistol in your vehicle unless you had a legit reason to move it, like going to the range or gun store.

I would leave them at home when I visited Family there.

Now the governor is encouraging a Texans to buy more guns to be “#1” (in front of California)

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1655626460999155712.html

Thread with info about the Texas mall shooter. Take it with a grain of salt, but… ho lee chit.

Gulfcoastguy · May 2023

We had one in my hometown on Cinco de Mayo. At a party at a downtown bar a suspect run through the security checkpoint and opened fire on a particular person. Of course multiple shots by an untrained person in a crowded bar meant that the target was killed and 8 others were wounded. The bar had been checking IDs and patting people down but he did a bum rush and broke through.Same thing happened a couple of weeks ago at Black Spring Break. A personal shooting in a crowded parking lot resulted in 2 dead and several wounded including a cop. I had drove past 30 minutes earlier. In both cases pistols were used , the primary targets were the same race as the shooter, and the shooter at a minimum was too young to own a pistol, and alcohol was highly present.

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

http://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1655781888190038019?s=20

Buckwoody Egger · May 2023

If we want guns in every place and on every person, basically the same proximity to a paper tissue— and we can’t successfully profile and monitor behavioral trends for prevention — nor can we make most places as gun free as a Trump or NRA convention, then this is the culture that some people want.

The idea of a proliferation of guns creating these spaghetti western good guy vs bad guy stare downs where nobody is shot and everyone calms down has failed. Carnage is guaranteed.

If it’s not what is wanted, then someone please articulate the vision that brings a safer tomorrow.

Canugghead · May 2023

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1655781888190038019?s=20

just follow Carlson and Lemon

caliking · May 2023

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1655781888190038019?s=20

One of the comments on Twitter remarks how sad it is that elementary school kids are shown similar videos to prepare for an active shooter.

caliprince has had active shooter drills since he was 3yo, in daycare. Broke my heart when I first heard of it.

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

WildmanWilson said:

I'm not willing to give up my second amendment rights period. I know history well enough to know governments have slaughtered more of its own people than all wars combined.

Sure, that sounds sane.

lousubcap · May 2023

Would it be appropriate to post "Yes, you are right" here?

Asking for a friend-

Legume · May 2023

Is your argument now that hypothermia and malnutrition kill more people so pay no attention to the guns?

JonWesson · May 2023

WildmanWilson said:

How about this....?

In 2022 there were 45222 total gun related deaths, which means with a population of 328m, that represents .0138%

of that 45,222, 54% were suicides, leaving 19,445

Of that 19,445, 1097 were shot by law enforcement. Another 492 were accidental shootings (the majority of which were under the age of 24)

Leaving 17,856

In those remaining shootings, 3% were made up of assault rifles , with what I expect is a very liberal interpretation of what an assault rifle is, along with 1% being shotguns. 54% were handguns, the remaining instances were not specifically stated. The number of people that die by assault rifles in this country are about the same as those who die of carbon monoxide. More than twice as many people die from hypothermia, 9x as many people die from dehydration, 11x as many people die from malnutrition

While admittedly this is a meaningless stat, if you were divide the 17,856 number by 50 , representing the total number of states, that gives you 357, or an average of less than 1 fatal shooting per day in each state

Looking at 10 traditionally gun violent city total numbers (some numbers were from 2021 but there shouldn't be a significant difference in totals)

St. Louis, MO - 196
Chicago, IL - 556
Detroit, MI - 293
Indianapolis, IN - 293
New Orleans, LA - 280
Washington, DC - 203
Baltimore, MD - 333
Columbus, OH - 173
Los Angeles, CA - 382
New York, NY - 246

For a total of 2955, or about 17% of all gun fatalities after removing suicide, law enforcement and accidental death in the United States.

While these numbers are concerning, based on these numbers, there doesn't appear to be an epidemic of gun violence in this country, and for the overwhelming majority, the reality of facing gun violence should be a much smaller concern than many Americans believe.

If you remove additional risk factors such as not living in the 60 counties that produce a high % of gun violence, do not interact with known felons and of course do not engage in criminal activities, gun violence in the daily life of an American is statistically meaningless. That's pretty cavalier to say to a country indoctrinated in the evils of guns, but even with increases in gun violence , its hard to argue fear of gun violence is a realistic concern for Americans avoiding those 3 factors.

It’s always been that way.

Btw- By comparison, A 2018 John Hopkins study found that over 250,000 people die from medical malpractice in the United States each year which represents .08% of the population. I also won’t get into the deaths just from fentanyl.

yours 1st twos % calculations are incorrecto. please review basic maths to have creds for yours future posting

@WildmanWilson

Legume · May 2023

Finally a good guy with a...slingshot

Michigan kidnapping foiled by slingshot-wielding brother in Alpena Township - https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176191775/michigan-kidnapper-slingshot-alpena-township

Buckwoody Egger · May 2023

Unfortunately guns are the #1 cause of death for kids and teens now, surpassing car wrecks in recent years. Anyone who has been through parenthood in the last 20 years knows about all the safety measures and car seats and research necessary to be in compliance. So the trend is upward for guns and it is unacceptable to be smug about preventing controllable deaths. Simplifying here but the two major categories are situations where “kids don’t fight with fists anymore” and suicides. Mass shootings as a % of the total merit the trend analysis as well.

https://everytownresearch.org/issue/child-teen-safety/

I advocate responsible gun ownership by adults that respect and accept the burden of safe gun ownership. With that burden, they also accept the accountability of its absence.

No one wants to take away the right to gun ownership and so the only conversation worth having about the 2nd is reminding people that regulated means “no bull&$:” allowed no matter which way people want to spin it.

So let’s avoid the talk about wholesale confiscation.

Other thoughts.

I am thankful for the statistical rationalization of risk. It is healthy to most accurately assess the real risk to avoid being paralyzed and not enjoy life. So the analysis about population and quantity of events by type is not without merit and it is needed. But there is no merit in avoiding action when we can responsibly address the quantity of these deaths.

There is a perception that unlocked and loaded for rapid reaction by a good guy is what we all need. But it seems like we might save more lives with locked and unloaded when you count accidents, suicides. Maybe even more when you include “closest weapon available when someone was angry.”

The assault rifles. If we are talking about rejecting paranoia— is the risk of being trampled by stampeding feral hogs really enough to merit assault rifles when we hunt? If so, is anyone willing to compare the total hunters saved vs the mass shooting numbers?

For the gun issue, we need to take the emotion out and not only let the people who are able and trying to solve problems do so — but also encourage them to solve problems. The lack of encouragement to solve problems is the most troubling to me. We should all want a safer America.

Quick quiz for the patriotic among us: what came first in American history: the right to bear arms or the recognition of the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? When you find it keep going and see “safety and happiness” soon after.

Botch · May 2023

^^^ An excellent post, Sir.

Legume · May 2023

Well said. I'll add, the threat of wholesale gun confiscation is a bogeyman created by guns, inc. The threat of tyranny by the government? That seems to be falling into the "every accusation is a confession" category.

Reasonable gun control. Reasonable limits.

Legume · May 2023

I guarantee if Joe Biden said we're gonna lock down the schools, MAGA would lose their shjt. Like they did with masks. (Some 🤡 will post that 0.00000012% of gun related deaths happen in schools, so why trample everyone's freedoms).

The contrarian at all costs mindset has infected too many brains. And society has changed, and always will, but you can't mandate kindness, compassion, patience and understanding.

And you can't "fix" mental illness at a population level, you can keep investing in behavioral care solutions (btw, you can't if you cut healthcare), you can keep investing in medical research. But consider the case where someone doesn't want help or medicine. Can we force them? How does that sit with the anti mask anti vax MAGA community? Can we take away their guns and knives and punish those that allow access? We can't even get decent red flag laws in place nationwide and when we do, there is little oversight or compliance measurement / consequences.

Take the case of drugs / medicines. In this country they are scheduled by acceptable use and the abuse and dependency potential in order to provide a consistent framework for appropriate access. You can't buy morphine over the counter. You can't buy MDMA at all, you are limited and tracked when you buy real Sudafed. Why is that? Drugs don't kill people, misuse of drugs kill people and limits and oversight are necessary. But I'll bet if I said we should schedule, say, guns, by purpose, risk potential, etc....MAGA would lose their shjt.

So Wilson...

HeavyG · May 2023

"Guns have not changed much. Society is [sic]."

One of the funniest Wildman quotes yet. LMAO

Legume · May 2023

ARs are great to hunt things like feral hogs but not the reason we need them. I know of no one that wished they had fewer rounds in a gun fight. Some have fought off multiple invaders in their home because they had an AR with 30 round mag.

I wonder what the stats are on this, these gunfights that good, well meaning people get into and need ARs with 30 rounds, and the home invasion defenses where an AR shouldn't even be the weapon of choice in close quarters. Would you want your neighbor defending their home with an AR in their house vs a shotgun or handgun?

I don't know anyone that's been in a gunfight, in this country, as a citizen, so I can't ask them if they'd wished they had fewer rounds.

JohnInCarolina · May 2023

What Wildman thinks is happening in American homes every night:

Buckwoody Egger · May 2023

Couple more thoughts.

If access is easy, training must be very high. Pretty simple concept. Everyone should encourage that safety and responsibility are ok topics and should be omnipotent messages in media, promotion, etc. Feels like we are really short here. Responsible enthusiasts and parents with gun safes are not the target here because they have the reverence. Seems like other media (music, video games, etc) have free rein to glorify a cavalier gun lifestyle. The politician families Christmas cards is just unfathomable to me.

High powered guns availability, options, etc and the marketing around them have changed drastically in the last 20 years. Mostly about fantasy situations and the glorification of kicking ass. Someone please warn “Hey Kool-aid” to think twice before busting through a wall right into a JR-15 kids party.

We have seen huge differences in police handling in Uvalde vs Nashville. We should not plan to make fortresses where appropriate and allow gun blazing streets the norm. Natural disaster training should be enough but we now have mass shooter training. The entire prevalence of good guys with guns stopping deaths once they start is a bad sales pitch. A gun battle everywhere environment is an infringement on happiness and safety that (quiz answer spoiler alert) our Declaration of Independence sought to establish.

Red flag laws for purchase prevention make sense and are the bare minimum. Unfortunately there is too much opposition to even establish that baseline. We should be exploring what surrender / confiscation options are acceptable for mental diagnosis, domestic situation, behavioral threats, social media signaling, etc. If registration compliance is low, so you can’t say “surrender the ones we know about”, then prompting searches or safety inspections of homes is really pushing it. So how serious are we about registration and penalties for unregistered weapons?

https://everytownresearch.org/report/at-the-forefront-of-gun-safety-removing-illegal-guns/

In summary, I am not an expert just wanted to vocalize a bit because it’s my country too. I see a lot of really earnest work and research happening in a lot of ways to save a lot of lives. That work is worth looking at with an open mind. The increasing personal threats to politicians doesn’t seem to be policed well so we need more consensus support and less moving to the extremes.

I don’t need or want to insult anyone and I just encourage people to take a minute and think about where emotion might be getting us carried away in both directions. Guns are here to stay and hunting is here to stay. We should work to minimize pain and suffering instead of minimizing how we feel about the quantity of deaths it causes compared to other causes. We should all want as many innocent people as we can around to enjoy and work in a safe America with us.

Kayak · May 2023

WildmanWilson said:

Did you ever read the rest of the Bill of Rights?

There's some interesting language in the 5th you might take note of:

"No person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

Do you define guns as property, and if so, are they subject to the governments taking them away with due process?

Or, is "2nd" more important than "5th"?

'No Way To Prevent This,' says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

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