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Mass shooting in Orlando

447 replies

MissJM1 · 12/06/2016 10:33

How sad. Inside a gay nightclub, they say there are hostages and the shooter could have an explosive

Sad
OP posts:
EmpressOfTheSevenOceans · 13/06/2016 08:15

Chilled, I know you've had a lot of questions to answer and don't want to hassle you but I really would like an answer to mine.

Why do you think the US has regular mass shootings and Europe doesn't, if it's not related to different gun laws?

Thank you.

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 08:28

Hi Empress, I'm not sure why you guys don't have mass shootings on the same frequency but I'm pretty sure it isn't gun laws. Some European nations are less restrictive than the UK with who can own a gun and they don't seem to have any mass shootings, or they have very few, so in my mind it's clearly not a correlation of more guns equals more shootings. I sometimes don't think we do enough to help people with mental difficulties and if we did more about that it could cut down on a lot of shootings. The government seems to be involved more in people's lives in Europe than here, it's possible the treatment for people with those difficulties is more comprehensive which would account for a number of shootings.

Whatever the cause, trust me it's not that us gun owners don't want to keep people safe, we do want people safe. It sounds so obvious that I shouldn't need to say it but I see so many posts here asking why don't we "wake up" and ban guns, that treats us like we are immature and couldn't possibly have thought about gun control as a solution. I can't speak for anyone else but I've read into the arguments for gun control, and I don't agree that it would make the country safer. So it's not that I'm against keeping people safe, it's that I don't share the view that gun control will actually do that.

TheNewStatesman · 13/06/2016 08:43

Apparently the guy sold his house to his sister for ten dollars a few months back.

I think the family definitely knew something. Or, at least, some members of the family did.

lostinyonkers · 13/06/2016 08:59

www.gunviolencearchive.org

This makes sobering reading - there have been 257 CHILDREN killed by guns in the US in 2016. So far. Can you imagine the uproar if this happened in the UK. Having guns so freely available makes it more likely that people will be shot by accident - we've seen numerous instances of children 'playing' with guns that were actually loaded, tiny children shooting their parents. DV situations which may have ended with a beating (terrible, but recoverable from), often end with a gunshot fatality because of the same loss of control.

No-one needs a semi automatic weapon. Surely even those who bleat about the 'Right to bear arms' (which was drafted into the constitution when it was likely there would be a civilian militia required at some point) can see that.

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 09:11

Hey losty, I disagree. You might not feel you need to carry a weapon for protection but I do as you obviously feel you will never need to defend yourself, I don't have that faith. I do not share your complete confidence that I will never

Your point about domestic violence doesn't add up. If someone gets angry enough to kill their partner then they have plenty of items they can use to do that even if guns were out of the picture. Go into your kitchen and count the number of objects someone could quickly grab and use to kill you if indeed they got that mad. In any case the proper response to that is punishing the criminal who killed, not punishing innocent people by removing their right to protect themselves. And children shouldn't be "playing" with guns anyway.

Egosumquisum · 13/06/2016 09:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

iPost · 13/06/2016 09:14

Empress

I'm not Chilled, but I remember "climate of fear" striking me as a compelling hypothesis when I watch Michael Moore's films.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine#Climate_of_fear

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 09:15

That should say I do not share your complete confidence that I will never have to defend myself. I don't understand how you can feel so absolutely sure you will never need to defend yourself. I probably won't need to use my weapon but I'm not certain, and unless I was certain I'm not willing to risk my life on it. I prefer to have a safety net to fall back on if god forbid I need to.

Egosumquisum · 13/06/2016 09:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 09:38

Me carrying a gun doesn't have any cost to US society. Don't try to transfer the blame for gun violence away from the perpetrators and onto law abiding citizens.

Hey Ego the problem with direction comparisons like yours is that it ignores the possibility that the cause of that crime could be caused by other factors. The state that I live in allows concealed carry and we have less gun crime than a state which doesn't allow you to carry at all. So if we just make that simple comparison it would say that gun control is more dangerous. But that ignores other factors. Restricting access to guns might make it a bit more difficult for bad people to get them, but it also makes it much harder for law abiding people to get them. Law abiding people will not generally be willing to break as many rules as criminals so while the criminal will happily acquire a gun on the black market, the law abiding good people won't, and will be unarmed if they are ever attacked.

Shallishanti · 13/06/2016 09:38

needing to defend myself...
the thing is, living in a country where it is difficult to access a gun, if I needed to defend myself, the chances are higher that my attacker would not be armed with a gun, so my chances of defending myself would be better, for example, he would have to be in arms reach of me to hurt me, whereas with a gun he could harm me from a considerable distance. Also, the harm inflicted by a gun is likely to be more serious than from another weapon.
It all seems so incredibly obvious.

Egosumquisum · 13/06/2016 09:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 09:45

Hey Shallishanti I hear that argument a lot from gun control supporters but I reject the premise that a criminal who maybe just wanted to rob you of your phone is automatically going to be willing to kill you from a distance. Most criminals don't want to do that. The penalty for killing someone is a lot higher than stealing from them and the authorities will put a lot more effort into catching a murderer than a thief.

chilledwarmth · 13/06/2016 09:47

Ego that's wrong, the cost to other people does matter. But if you turn that around, if you ban guns then the cost is transferred to me and other law abiding people who now aren't allowed to defend ourselves and people would die because they lacked the ability to defend themselves. So is that cost worth it for you?

We try to stop bad people getting guns too. Do you actually know about our laws or do you just assume we freely hand them out to anyone?

Egosumquisum · 13/06/2016 09:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

echt · 13/06/2016 09:59

Me carrying a gun doesn't have any cost to US society. Don't try to transfer the blame for gun violence away from the perpetrators and onto law abiding citizens

The man who killed all the children in Dunblane broke no laws.

The Port Arthur knobend who ran round to hunt his victims broke no laws.

Pretty sure the Orlando chap broke no laws.

FFS, If Australia could control after Port Arthur, and get result, surely the Americans can manage it. I mean, they got a man on the moon so not so thick, eh?

LurcioAgain · 13/06/2016 10:00

On one of these (tragically all too frequent) mass shooting threads, someone posted a fascinating youtube video from one of the major American news networks (a kind of in-depth analysis piece). They took a group of college students in their early twenties and told them they were going to put them on an intensive course in handling concealed-carry weapons, with a view to making them more effective in using their weapons in self-defence. (Classic psych experiment set-up - what was actually going to be tested was quite different as will become apparent). The first day was a session on the range, lectures on situational awareness etc.

The second day started radically differently. (I presume at this stage the experiment organisers had taken the precaution of replacing the students' ammo with blanks, btw). The students were in a lecture when suddenly a masked gunman burst in and started shooting with a semi-automatic - actually staged for the experiment - the gun was shooting paint balls. None of the students, not even the young man who, prior to enrolling in the experiment had practiced down a firing range weekly, even got their guns out of their holsters before they were "killed".

Concealed carry does not make you safer - it gives an illusion of making you safer. The armed forces spend huge amounts of time training people to be combat ready - on edge, keyed up the whole time (and this can cause massive psychological difficulty on return to normal life). The rest of us, going about our daily business, are not in this hyped up state of combat readiness - we'd react as those students did, freeze, fail to get guns out of holders, etc. There is nothing you can do to protect yourself against a nutter with a gun, except create a society where the nutter cannot get hold of a semi-automatic weapon in the first place.

I have no doubt, Chilled, that you sincerely believe that you are safer with your gun. But you are kidding yourself.

OldGuard · 13/06/2016 10:26

A couple of points:

  1. Islam is to ISIS as Christianity is to KKK
  1. Pretty sure the authors of the second amendment weren't contemplating assault rifles - but rather muskets with bayonets
  1. Best argument I've ever heard was in link below - well worth the 3 minutes to watch - but best point is that if you are a responsible gun owner and you've got your gun in a safe, it's pretty useless as a defense against the bad guys in the middle of the night
OldGuard · 13/06/2016 10:33

For those interested Jim Jeffries does a 15 minute spot on it - split in the two links below

Grimarse · 13/06/2016 10:42

I have seen hundreds of these on-line arguments between Americans and Europeans about the USA and gun crime. Nobody ever changes their mind, and lecturing does not help, no matter how well-intentioned.

Canada has a similar number of guns per head as the USA. But the USA has seven times the number of gun-related murders. Canada's level of gun crime is comparable with Ireland and Switzerland. And this in a country that has similar gun laws to the USA, and is right next door.

It is a cultural problem in the USA. Their next door neighbour has the same access to weapons, and yet does not have the same problem. Interestingly, Canada also has a healthcare system similar to the NHS - access for everyone, not just the wealthy.

I understand why we in Europe go a bit knee-jerk when this shit happens over and over and over again. But the answers, as usual, are more complicated then simply banning firearms.

OldGuard · 13/06/2016 10:50

Agreed grimarse - every time this happens the same arguments come out - i also agree with your other comment up thread about the difference between the two countries despite the common language

I do think we should ban assault weapons though - can't see a need to have those nor bullets that shred on entering the body

SukeyTakeItOffAgain · 13/06/2016 10:51

If someone shoots you dead, how are you then able to access your concealed gun and defend yourself?

It's such bullshit.

peachpudding · 13/06/2016 10:53

I can't believe the day after another mass shooting in America we already have people on here defending the right for anyone to buy weapons of mass murder.

Its not a matter of debate its a verifiable FACT
"No other developed country in the world has anywhere near the same rate of gun violence as America."

BungoWomble · 13/06/2016 10:56

One sticking point is that the American's 'right to defend themselves' = gun. I do have some right in Britain to defend myself, and would do so anyway. But I don't carry weapons around, and if I did want to a gun is the last thing I would come up with. It's kind of the 'nuclear weapon' of personal defence, designed for only one thing - attack, not defence.

peachpudding · 13/06/2016 11:01

But we also have to deal with the fear we have of Islam. We should mock mohammed and allah in the same way we mock jesus and god, without fear of death.

Perhaps when its acceptable to see a humorous comic book depiction of allah naked then seeing two men kissing won't incite feelings of mass murder.

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