Topic: SE Portland, OR shooting

[markc]

 Sitting here very close to the mall in which the shooting happened on 12/11/12 at 3:27 pm, is a little unreal. That is the main mall I generally go to. I understand that there is always a bit of an elevated feeling when things occur in your own backyard but I am fairly shocked at this event.
 I do not really want to say more as I do not know why the shooter did what he did but I can be very thankful that do to the amount of people present that not more people were injured or killed.


 P.S. If someone things this is a blog type post just report it an I or another mod will remove it.
Happy Holidays
MDC     

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

Maybe you are just (understandably), like you said, shocked by the event. I don’t see anything wrong about talking about it, it’s the best thing to do.

I don’t think guns are the problem. They are, basically, tools. In my opinion, as many French people will say, useless and dangerous ones, but tools nonetheless. It takes someone to pull the trigger.

Looking at this as a foreigner, it is striking that a lot of people want to adress the weapons issue, but very few are asking how the hell someone can walk in a mall or school and start shooting people that never did them any harm at all. It takes a lot, lot of wrong things in your society to bring people to these extremities.
And looking at my own society, it is striking that after the Mohamed Merah affair, people were rambling on about religion but never asked how the hell someone educated in France (and we basically stick together, social protection in France is top notch) could turn his back on his own country and open fire on the military and kids. So, what is wrong in French society?

So, the longer you’ll speak and think about it, the more likely you are to ask the RIGHT questions. So, go on.

[Cory Magel]

At least there you had an armed civilian act. It can be debated what impact that had, but it sounds as if it cut his rampage short.  I'm somewhat middle of the road on guns. I own one and am, generally, a gun supporter, but I also have views that would terrify the gun 'nuts' out there.

Many of the shootings, including some here (Seattle) bring mental issues more to the front than guns. That is an issue that needs to be addressed I think.  Some states have while others have not.

[markc]

 Sorry for the delay but but I lost my post to a 500 Server Error yesterday and did not feel like writing the whole thing again.


  Anyway, guns (weapons) them selves are objects but as objects they can make it easier to kill people with them or not so easy, (if that is the only way you want to look at them).
  [size=78%]Aside joke or observation: It is very easy to tell when a bow is loaded. But it is not funny when a loaded firearm goes off because someone thought it was not loaded. [/size]
 I think we can do somethings to make it harder to get a firearm like close the gun show loop hole that allows people to buy firearms with out a background check (note you state may differ on this).


 As Cory said mental health is also a big issue that needs to be looked at and is going to cost big $$. I think we have been ignoring it and hoping it would not come back and bite us somewhere painful since the 80's. 


 I was also surprised at the NRA's comments on Friday but then again the more I thought about it I was not surprised. They said the same old thing that they always say and point fingers in other directions. The NRA has done a very good job in the image department with people thinking of them first as a defender of the Second Amendment and not a lobbing group of a section of american business's. (That is a bit of a simplification as they do other work also but they also do some strange things as I found out. Such as it is a requirement at many shooting ranges to join the NRA before you can target shoot. Thus possibly inflating their active members pool.)
 I think it we can sit down without politics, money and hatred we might git something done. But I sort of doubt that will happen.


BTW, I do not know if I like the idea from the NRA about putting more security at each school but if they find people who can pass a background and mental health check, why not let the NRA fund those extra security guards?
MDC   

[Cory Magel]

Both sides over-react when this kind of thing happens.  Staunch anti-gun people go ape about banning all weapons (which will never happen imo) and the gun nuts launch into a campaign to arm everyone possibly related to the incident.

Although, I have to say that having a "gun free zone" is a little silly.  It's almost a 'small' version of banning weapons.  The law biding people that could have helped prevent the school shooting wouldn't have been allowed to have a weapon on them (this includes anyplace that serves alcohol or is a government property - such as the obvious, a courthouse, to the less obvious, a community college).  It's like saying "If you commit a crime with a gun here you're in more trouble!"  Like someone assaulting you with a gun is worried about being charged for having the gun in a gun free zone.  Although I have to admit not being allowed to have them in a bar or courthouse is probably a very good idea.  Schools and parks?  Not so sure about that one (in Washington they recently started allowing firearms in state parks).

I have a fairly lengthy post I could put up that I had researched back in college and updated a couple years ago - information was taken from multiple sources and, imo, puts out a reasonably unbiased result.  It shows that positive acts with guns far, far outweigh negatives with guns (i.e. how many deaths are prevented vs how many occur due to firearms) even when you are extremely conservative with the numbers.  Assuming only a little under 4% of the median example of people who believe a criminal death (non-suicide) was prevented due to a firearm were actually correct you're still three times more likely to be saved by a firearm than be killed by someone with one.

For example, do you know that a child up to the age of 15 is three times more likely to be backed over in the driveway than die after finding an adults weapon and killing themselves?  Or, that you are statistically three times more likely to drown in a pool than accidentally shoot yourself?  And those are examples that are more favorable to the anti-gun side than many of the others that could be used.

Anyhow, my opinion since the early/mid 90's has been that guns need to be treated like cars.  To own one you must take (and pass) a gun safety class, if you do something stupid with your gun or it is used negatively by someone else and you did not or do not report the gun stolen you are held responsible in one form or another (anything from a fine, to losing you gun rights, to jail time), guns would have titles that must be transferred when you buy/sell a gun (that would have to clear a licensing dept before you get it - i.e. background check that includes Criminal and Mental detail. If gun shows do not want to make people wait they can get some kind of on-site capacity to do this.  Right now I could go sell my .45 at a gun show and no one would know.  No record of the sale, I don't have to report it, no waiting period, etc.  If it is used in a crime all I have to say is "Oh, yeah, I sold that gun years ago...  Nope, no idea who the guy is anymore..."  What's to stop a gun dealer (a legal one) from 'buying' his own guns (or have a friendly party do it) then re-sell them at a gun show?

Anyhow, as with far too many political debates the 'two sides' are so far off to one side that it gets ridiculous.  I believe the country is far more centered than politicians/lobbies would have us believe.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

Your examples are interesting. All in all, although I despise guns and don’t understand the point in letting civilians own them (even with guns, civilians won’t ever stand their ground against the military, and since everybody can own them, it means criminals will find them easily), it really is a matter of who owns them. I could have an armore vehicle with machine guns mounted on it in my garage, I would never ever use it againts my fellows (but then, why would I own such a useless pile of metal? it’s worth nothing to hold books in a shelf and will accumulate a horrible amount of dust.)

I do own swords and daggers, almost any single one is sharpened (I study medieval swordsmanship). Those are weapons, less dangerous than a gun, but still able to kill efficiently and quickly. Some years ago, a young german guy assaulted a kindergarten and knifed several babies and staff. You don’t need guns to murder people. You can do it with sticks and stones. The point is that guns are mass murder tools, I don’t see the point in letting them in civilians’ hands, except if they are part of a military reserve (like in Switzerland).

Before adressing the guns issue, it would be better to adress the crazy factor. You can’t have so many people walking in public places and starting to shoot bystanders without a global trend going on. This said, I admit that, as a foreigner, I really don’t understand at all US society. It seems to be a large theater of fears and individualistic competition (but then again, that’s from a foreigner, I know I may be totally wrong). Needless to say, for a guy who (happily) paid for every other citizens’ welfare as soon as he earned his first franc, it’s quite hard to fathom how your society really works.

[Thom @ ICE]

While we all agree that the recent shootings are horrible tragedies and we understand the desire to express sorrow over these events, this is not the place for the political discussions regarding gun ownership of society acceptance or rejection of it. Thanks for your understanding.