I've addressed this repeatedly, but once again then...sure we could fundamentally change a system, and address a number of contributing factors and hope for a different outcome we think would come from it. Or we could simply do what we've already done to a lesser extent, to some good effect, extend without that larger effort a reasoned protection with examples abounding that the effort will be fruitful.
We do. For all its flaws there's no better one on earth and it's not going to be fundamentally changed. So proposing any solution to mass violence that begins, "Let's start by doing that," is, however well intentioned, a de facto vote for the unacceptable status quo.
That's completely untrue. There are millions of semi-automatic weapons already in this country. And thank God we don't have more nuts or purely evil men scratching that particular itch, but we've had enough of them, too many of them to justify leaving that weapon, distinguished only by its ability to create a full room at the morgue, at ending populations of church and mosque goers, at transforming schools into memorials.
May I remind you, again, that my measures aren't aimed at reducing every sort of crime in which pistols are used, though as many of those are semi-automatic and/or obtain some of their efficacy for evil by virtue of large magazines, the measures I propose would impact them as well.
See: the war on drugs. You can't know if or how that's actually possible, though trying to convince people that any good thing is in their own best interest is never a bad idea.
I don't see how "except" enters into it given what you quoted, but I'm advocating against a class of weapons because, over a long stretch of time, we've seen that where they are in the stream of commerce horror follows, AND because what those weapons can legally do can be done without weapons that invite that horror.
Good, because you'd be wrong. We don't have multiple laws against murder. We have laws that recognize not all murders are the same. And we have laws that distinguish between murder and unintended death that flows from an act but still bears consequence.
You want a slippery slope toward justifying torture, there it lies.
Couldn't disagree with you more, but that's a different thread.
Which would have been a good response except that the argument isn't over combating any evil, but over both the efficacy in approach of what will work in that effort and what is reasonably possible as a response to it. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from advocacy. I'm simply noting what can be done now and why that should be done now. I'm not. I don't. I am. There's no evil in my proposition and no virtue in the possession of weapons distinguished in function only by their ability to accomplish an unlawful task. These weapons are, in their nature, an enticement for the unstable or the evil in men. It is right, just, and good to make an evil thing less likely to happen. Just so. Oppose the NRA and the angry voices of their constituency. |
Agreed, if such a one does not subsequently follow their hand, which I did do.
In the sense that it was factual. If you mean by this my estimation of the value of the study is that it is practically without which, then yes I did make that case rather persuasively. It was a practically useless study, showing the biggest factor in explaining the greater number of people proportionally murdered in mass murders instead of just as individuals, is what year it was. That shows a statistically significant upward trend, which I never denied wasn't very important, but the study itself did nothing to explain the trend, beyond confirming that it is there.
And having already implicitly acknowledged this, I supported by claim with valid reasons. You act like I'm just stating opinions.
Right. The one independent variable was whether or not the "AWB" was in force, or not. Binary. 1 or 0. On or off.
I thought that it was all murders, not just homicides by gun, and I also thought that it was not just 'fatalities' but intentional homicides that they were looking at, but I could have missed it.
Then by your own admission, it's not meaningless at all in this particular case, which is why I mentioned it. Whether the "AWB" is or is not in force, the 'expected mean value' of annual murders in the US is in the neighborhood of 15000.
'Miniscule' isn't a term at all before this thread. If you mean "minuscule," then again, I addressed that it was 'subjective,' and I supported my contention.
So another word here about statistical significance.
It is certainly not that. Before anything is done a much better study must be undertaken, unless this study is that study, and they analyzed factors that statistics ruled out, and if we know that, then that is valuable information, to know which factors positively do not affect their chosen response variable. If they did not cast a very wide net before performing their regression, then that must be done before I would agree with any change, especially in the direction of more gun control, instead of less.
I know. The federal "AWB" that the study in question concerns, was about features of AR and AK patterns (etc.) and magazine capacity, and also did not involve any confiscation /compulsory buybacks. It was a spectacularly ignorant law.
It is not. Statistically what you've done is select a subpopulation according to a nebulous set of conditions, that could instead be included in a more expansive analysis through the inclusion of a variety of binary independent variables. Based on what I recall you saying, you would include binary factors such as 'democracy,' 'European,' 'Western,' etc., each of which being either a 1 or a 0, and then they would all be combined into a single model, that wouldn't exclude any countries for which we have the same data. This would avoid your 'cherry picking' error entirely and produce a far more robust statistical model to explain your chosen response variable.
Percent is percent.
If we weren't running headlong into what to me is blatant and flagrant infringement of The Right to Bear Arms (my meaning, not yours), then I could at least sympathize, but I cannot do so given the circumstances and all of them.
'Supra' seems more a part of an overkill in establishing credibility for an easy dismissal that I still reject as an established conclusion.
It was fine for you to copy-and-paste the abstract of the study, and it was fine for me to poke holes in it too.
Because I could analyze their same data myself, I personally would just want to see that data. As I said, if there are factors that they did include in their study, but that were ruled out, then that too would be valuable information for everybody to see.
I would argue that you do, if you're not trying to hide something. What's the harm in starting back in 1917, for instance, or at least sometime before 1981? If the "AWB" is actually explanatory, the more data would only make the case stronger.
To be a good parallel, we would have to further imagine that all along, independent of the seat belt law, the number of driving fatalities was steadily rising, and that this trend overwhelms any effect due to the seat belt law, which by comparison explains much less than the general upward trend itself does. As far as I can tell from the abstract of the study in question, there is a statistically significant upward trend in the proportion of murders due to mass murder, that the "AWB" hardly influenced at all. It means there's a much more powerful factor operating than the "AWB" /seat belt law.
No. That's incorrect. If my kin were murdered by a suicidal mass murderer using an array of assault weapons, I still would not support gun control. Suicidal mass murderers (and the other varieties also) harden my conviction that gun control is essentially unjust.
Ceteris paribus, I agree with you. But all other things are not equal, namely the difference between what you mean by The Right to Bear Arms, and what I mean by The Right to Bear Arms. And while I'm sure that you also found your view in the appreciation for innocent lives being preserved, I do too. It is never just for an innocent person to be outgunned by their attempted murderer. Never. It is flagrantly infringing, not their right to bear arms, but their right to live, to make laws that increase the chance that innocent people will be outgunned by their attempted murderer.
As mentioned, I value minimizing murders above all, and wrt murders, what you say here is not true. You continue to resist the fact that wrt murders, our great state of New Hampshire is among the safest places in the whole world, including those Western democratic cousins you allude to, and NH also has perhaps the least gun control in the whole world too. And it's also surrounded by states with similarly weak gun laws.
I disagree with you, and you don't have the statistics to back up your view either. It's just a view.
Let me insert here something that's worth mentioning at some point, and that's comparing mass murders according to their legal definition, which includes attempted murder as equal to murder.
If you do, I will examine it.
No, that's completely false. Brazil, Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica, and the list isn't even close to complete there, are way more dangerous than the US. Many of the migrants knocking on our southern border's door are fleeing just those countries, all of them with far stricter gun control than the US has---as I mentioned previously, if you just take civilian gun ownership as a metric for the inverse of strong gun laws, no other country on the earth even approaches the US, and yet there are over 100 countries with higher murder rates, and some of the worst ones are around ten times the US murder rate, even with far less than 10% as many civilian owned guns as in the US.
I found five whole states with 'weak' gun laws and excellent (low) murder rates.
I know that. But it's not Not about the number of guns either. According to your view there should never be countries where civilian gun ownership of any kind is extremely low, and murder rate extremely high, and yet there are numerous examples of this very thing. It would be one thing if there were just one, or a small handful of countries that defied your supposed 'rule,' but there are numerous, which just reasonably challenges that it is a rule at all.
The data doesn't support it. The data supports that the more people with more guns, will not increase murders, and everybody having no guns, will not lower murders either.
I'd say that when you stepped into the "practically" you stepped into the subjective. And then we're back to Sodom and Gomorrah and wondering how many lives are sufficient to do a thing.
As I've noted long ago and repeated from time to time, it's always within the realm of possibility that what we observe in nations and states where stronger gun laws are found and compared to those without them or with lesser versions, are the product of a mind boggling coincidence. But reason argues against it.
The way I've approached it is that there is a right and then there is the exercise of it. We may not, as it stands, deny any Constitutionally guaranteed right. But we may limit the exercise of it from necessity, as rights and people exercising them interact and conflict. That is, a great deal of the law is found in balancing these forces in exercise.
Weak support is still support and the study was never meant as more than an illustration of a larger principle that can be observed and which I have noted repeatedly regarding the safety of the public from mass shooting events.
I'm not arguing for the adoption of it, but for the adoption of any of a number of models already demonstrating their efficacy within similar states to our own, with similar populations and freedoms.
No, the murder rates in the countries I noted are lower as well. We aren't simply shifting one sort of homicide to another. That is, you don't find 10 fewer murders by gun in France, but 10 more murders by vehicle or knife. That said, my principle reason for opposing semi and fully automatic weapons is there efficacy in creating the opportunity for large scale murder, which we've experienced too many times since these weapons began to find serious purchase in the market place.
Subjectively all manner of things may seem to mean whatever is reasonable to the person filtering the information, but it's really just my way of noting a reluctance to repeat an answer given without compelling reason to, especially as I've given it within the body of the writing where you find that note.
But you didn't poke holes in what I meant for it to do. And without a bit more data most of what can be argued against it is speculative in nature.
I'd like to have seen it in full myself, but I wasn't going to pay them for the privilege, and it being a matter more of curiosity than impact...
Having looked at a lot of data over the years relating, I don't know how far back we can reproduce the same sort of numbers/data reliably and I suspect that's in play.
No, driving offenses are criminal offenses. Civil matters are prosecuted by the individual, or can be had where the state is a party, as in land cases, but one that without a number of factors also being present is likely to end with only a fine.
You could say we'd be bound to only recognize that efficacy and that any extension beyond or variation of would impede it and throw its value out of the window, but I'd argue against it, that what you're seeing is a principle supported by reason and illustrated, however weakly, by the study.
I'd say when people speak in the abstract the term "insignificant" tends to be easier to come by and support than it does when we apply it to matters of moment, as with the lives of children. So we may find preventing the loss of a thousand lives insignificant in relation to the impact of that on a rate calculated on populations with hundreds of millions of lives in play. But I think it is inarguably significant in a human way, and as we value or should.
Then I think you're conviction is subject to some idea of principle that impairs your consideration, given that where the laws I support and restraints I argue for are found dramatically fewer of those murders occur.
In none of the models I note have the rights of the people to make laws been abridged and innocent people are demonstrably safer than they are without those laws.
See, this is why I use supra more often than shorthand. I have repeatedly proffered the context for my argument and none of those countries fall within it. I have used Western Industrial Democracies ad nauseam, and because they are our close cousins in every serious sense of the word, having marked similarities in law, traditions, and populations. So it's either supra or if I leave off a word one of you may suddenly, apparently, has amnesia on the point and I'm into this sort of sidebar.
This is where statistics need to meet larger reason in context. Where you find concentrations of poverty you find concentrations of violence. Blacks are disproportionately poor and found in those circumstances. Else, you'll find yourself making silly arguments, that melanin or geography carry violence in them.
If you'd looked for states with the strongest gun laws and highest murder rates you wouldn't have found a single example. But every state that was among the worst had weak gun laws.The rule is not the outlier or exception.
I've literally never had number of guns as a part of my argument. Own as many as suits you, provided they aren't semi or fully automatic and that you don't couple them with large magazines, bump stocks, or speed loaders. And provided you're willing to register them and be certified as having understood their safe operation.
No, that doesn't follow anything I've set out. Now if you had a set of nations with markedly similar characteristics, from law to populations, and looked for the rule, you should find that those with stronger gun laws had safer populations, were less likely to experience mass murder by gun than those with weak laws. That I've said and noted in looking at the very thing.
Can't really, because thanks to the efforts of lobbying groups we rarely have more than a speculative idea of how many guns are in how many hands. You want that figure to be meaningful you'll need registration of guns, so we can distinguish between ten guys in Dakota hoarding a lot of guns for various reasons (from serious collection to end of civilization paranoia) and the idea of who owns what and how it is distributed across populations to what effect.
There's good reason to doubt the data, or note my problems with it, supra. Even Stripe would say if you take away all of the cars we'll have fewer highway fatalities.
I actually like the idea, though I'm not sure it's doable, in which case we have Court with no members and lose a check in the balance of powers. Or, we'd have to tie a lot of penalty and insistence in it, then have some alternative it the threshold wasn't reached. And I'd like the candidate to be provided not by the president, but by representatives from the Bar Association, divided by political lines and with a similar mandate in their designation of a list of acceptable candidates who the president would choose from, so we avoid a few underqualified and embarrassing nominees.
Agreed. And to be clear, as mistaken as I find your approach, I don't doubt your intent or the sincerity of your conviction.
Reminds me of the old quote, an eye for an eye until the whole world is blind. Or in this case, more likely wounded or dead.
To me that's a wild west mentality that invites disaster given the weapons you'd allow. Else, I have no problem with people defending themselves or their property with any of the weapons I support.
I suspect, as someone who has been under fire and had a gun pointed at me, that it's more likely that a lot of additional innocent people would have been killed by a combination of mistake and adrenaline. No, I think it's better to remove those weapons from the stream of commerce. Buy them back, let attrition take the rest. And avoid that nut having the easy possession of a weapon capable of it and the horror that attended his impulse.
Uhgg, now you've got me trying to decide if my demise will be rattling with bullets or a shotgun blast.... I guess I'm with you, the shotgun would have me not really knowing it afterwards....
Or whatever imagined need for defense. I just don't know. I WOULD like to see one in the hand of one who'd take out a terrorist. Likely? Not since that last ones in a truck rack. Just not practical in the city. Maybe just a country gun then?
Well, yeah, and the floor. That's why I came into thread. I need convincing. I'm not really opposed one way or the other but it reminds me of a bill here in WA to stop bear-hunting. The folks in the city, with absolutely no idea, whatsoever, got to vote. Fish and Game, farmers, woodsmen, and those who hunt should have decided this law. There was another time the vote was over deer and because city people didn't want Bambi dead, many thousands died the next winter. The deer population boom also caused other plant eaters to starve to death too. Point: We sometimes only see our own part of our corner of the world. So, yes, I'm wanting to see another's corner or two in thread so of course I want to know between an AK-47 and a tank and everything in between. I'm not sure this thread will be able to deliver on 'all things' but certainly 'a lot of things.'
Yes, but I'm also talking about these, having them at home as well. Call it 'homework.' Is the need there? You can certainly argue "no" but again, there are tens of millions of these weapons. There are definitely not tens of millions nor even a million, nor even a thousand used in crimes. I'm trying to see your side, and then will give my attention to the rebuttal as well. It is a place for each to make a good point before I go vote.
With a semi-automatic? The only place I can see a need, is if the bad-guy already has one. Of the few that are ever used, it might be a great idea if the other ten million have the same weapon capability. Granted, one or two of them have been heinously irresponsible if they allowed their disturbed teen access.
Many crimes are performed with knives as well but I don't want to ban knives at this time (I kind of need them for cooking).
It's ONE answer. Is it the ONLY answer? That's what I have to be convinced of... :think:
So ban those too? Okay, I'm seeing some of your ceiling, but what's next? Nerf cars? I'm not saying all murderers are brilliant, but won't those kinds of kids that shot up Columbine, grab a car, or a bulldozer, next? Is taking away 160 million semi-automatic weapons for the two that will end up killing, the answer? Will it really stop these 6 or 10 kids and mentally ill from 'figuring it out?' When the news begins looking at the kid who dropped a wire into a lake, or the mentally unstable violent man that ran a bus over the fair, or the bomb at the Boston Marathon occurs, do we take away ALL buses, ALL electric, and ALL fertilizer? Should we figure out fertilizer that cannot be used in bombs? Cars that automatically shut off when blood hits it?
Perhaps, but the police officer making this presentation said the media was 'teaching' people how to do it, and do it better. He had statistics to back it up.
As far as the rifle attacks, yes, but the vast majority of attacks are done with handguns.
No, it's saying that as much as they love their quiet enjoyment of that tank, it's not worth the damage and death that some other doofus will use it to produce and that the good news is every single thing a person could want to do with a tank other than matching that particular can be done with another vehicle.
Bites me how? People differing? That's going to happen regardless.
I don't know why. Now if I'd said, "We should get rid of all guns. Then, as with Stripes note on cars, we could eliminate the problem all together." That would be extreme. Or if I said, instead, "We should own any weapon we want, including bazookas." That would be extreme. But I happen to believe that the right can exist in a civil society and actually accomplish a few things that are healthy for us, from hunting and recreation to personal protection, if not unfettered from any sense of cost/benefit analysis.
On gun control, I think I have more in common with most Americans than I do with extremists from either end of the spectrum, where you find, "Any gun I want" and "No guns," as the expression of a rigid approach.
Unless you think the wild west is a good bet to establish a safer society anywhere (and I think I can argue you out of that notion) then leave it with law enforcement. Or, get an AR and find a field. Set some targets up at the far end where you'll shoot. Have a buddy with a bullhorn standing at your back and start walking toward them. At some random point he should start yelling, "BANGBANGBANGBANG..." and keep yelling it. Then you should sprint at top speed for forty yards toward your targets. At the end of that time try to shoot a red one set among other targets in white to get a feel of how your body is responding to the adrenaline. Ideally you should start shooting the second you complete your dash.
To me it's an obvious get. In the last decade, most of the mass shootings have been accomplished with this sort of weapon in the mix and contributing heavily to the fatalities. As I've said before, repeatedly, the only thing this gun can do that another gun can't is kill a lot of people in a very small window of time. If we can protect the right that was served before this weapon was introduced and take away that disproportionately advantageous to a killing field weapon it's a win without any real loss. Unless you value the idea of owning it over the demonstrated cost to human life.
That would be up to the police to set policy.
How many people own the gun, a thing we can't know because the NRA fights attempts to register weapons, isn't material to me. There are only three points that are.
It doesn't follow that your weapon choice makes mine less effective, unless we're having a "who can shoot the most bullets?" contest. In fact, one way my grandfather made me a better shot was by damaging the ejector on my first shotgun, so that I had to remove the spent casing manually. I learned to hit and kill with my first shot.
That's the status quo. That will produce more schoolyard graveyards. How many mass murders has that weapon prevented?
A couple of easy answers then. First, we can't ban knives, by which I mean we can't meaningfully impact their production even without serious manufacturing support. Second, the closer parallel would be outlawing a particular knife like instrument, like a disguised sword that could be brought into play quickly, but it's still a weak parallel, because of the degree of damage we're talking about.
No it isn't the only answer, it's the most effective answer. And we have examples to make that case, most recently Australia, that had 13 mass shootings in about as many years, said no to these weapons and since have had none of them in over twenty years. Now we could simply mandate registration and safety courses and make its possession subject to mental health evaluations where the police have reasonable cause to suspect instability, give them the license to check on gun stockpiling made known through registration, a few things like that would help, might help a great deal. As I said, there are a number of models in play when you look across the pond. But the most effective is the ban and given we don't need these guns to do anything else with that can't be done without them, I'd rather take the road more efficacious.
I've been pretty clear on where I see the rational line in the sand in terms of weapons. It's not a domino waiting to fall because the defining characteristic is unique.
It depends on what you value more.
Largely, yes, because the gun is a unique instrument that doesn't have an easy replacement with its efficacy that requires so little expense or expertise.
I don't believe the response to a preventable evil is to say our inability to perfect protection from it is an argument against the effort that will, inarguably, save human lives. When we had Timothy's bombing we didn't shrug and say, "Well, it's fertilizer, what are you going to do about that?" Instead we started tracking purchases, especially larger ones, and making an effort to impede future home grown terrorists on the point.
Maybe. So do we restrain speech? And where do we draw the line between instruction and simple reporting?
A lot of handguns are semi-automatic and holding large magazines too, Lon. And if you recall, I'd rather see an end to semi-automatic weapons in the hands of anyone who isn't in uniform. But that's a larger argument (not the clips or speed loaders, but semi automatics all together) and with limited clips they're not going to pose the same danger to the broader public as the AR. With easy modification the AR is a machine gun.
Do you miswrite everything? :think:
To demonstrate that in otherwise similar populations and legal frameworks, where those weapons have been banned, there is an observable impact on gun violence and deaths. Much safer societies. And those nations have other guns, just as I want our right to bear arms preserved here.
Mostly have and will.
Not me, but I recognize for most. These wouldn't want the AK. If it ever comes to this, just in case, I would. It's not for everybody, but I'd argue it certainly can be for somebody.
Yes, along with box cutters and airplanes, pistols and cars, and fertilizer
When I was a kid, you could go to army surplus and get these, missile-launcher tubes, and a few other odd items. I don't mind restrictions on some of these, nor a greater accountability. Would you want a restriction on all semi-automatic weapons of any kind?
I'm a much better shot with bullets than the shotgun. I can hop a can 7 out of 9 shots with a pistol at 15 paces (about 40-45 feet). I'm not bad with a bow either. I have a harder time hitting a clay or duck with a shotgun.
More than you'd think and a few with other good defense reasons. Perhaps, being better shots, 'we' don't need them? I don't know. Of all the people I know personally who own them, not one is irresponsible with them. The numbers do show that there are certainly a percentage that aren't responsible.
As doser said, a set of box knives were used to take airplanes, and those to destroy many lives. We did up protection but not box knives. That's why I'm saying 'banning box-cutters' is but one option. The other is costly, but it seems to be working.
And box cutters, bombs, airplanes, and cars. In WA, laws are being written to keep guns out of the 'wrong' hands, rather than just 'hands.' I'm not sure if that's the answer either. It is one answer. The problem with trial and error is policy written is difficult to go back against.
There was a ban on these guns at one time as a kind of experiment.
If we follow reason, shouldn't we be banning semi-automatic handguns first?
No, that's not right. This is another one of those debate tactics that gets you into it on TOL. "Value" isn't on the questioning table here. It is marginalizing. I'd suggest everyone in this thread have the right kind of values at least in principle. By this kind of reasoning, we should ban all guns according to 'what we value more.' You'd have to argue with/for me whether we need ANY gun according to the greater value of human life, or that we should be driving cars, for that matter. Automobiles still kill more people than guns or boxcutters will:
But how did these kids get them in the first place? Wasn't it/isn't it still negligent and/or criminal parents? As soon as any kid figures out something else, the news will begin teaching the next generation 'how to do it' and 'how to do it better.'
B-I-N-G-O. ONE option would have been - "ban fertilizer." Another is to 'track it.' That's what I'm saying too: Banning the AR isn't the ONLY option. It might have worked for Australia (still reading pros and cons), but it is yet only ONE option. If there is a better and more effective one, then that better and more effective one should be employed, especially if it solves the AR-ownership problem.
Right! We didn't 'ban' boxcutters, nor airplanes. That was only ONE option, and we found other ones that weren't so invasive (nor impossible to implement - read that ban experiment and what we learned again).
It used to be, news agencies (and all television) had advisory boards and censors. They were self-regulating. All they need is the value and integrity to do so again, but we have to do something to that one rogue company that is more into $ than responsible reporting. That's what caused the downfall in the first place.
This is where the thread serves, I think. It doesn't have to be only ONE answer. We all want what works. Your 'values, decent, and sensible' comments don't have to ONLY end one way. The decent, sensible and valuable may disagree with the ONE way and choose a different 'decent, valuable, and sensible' solution. :e4e:
This is the most important philosophical dispute going on in the world right now. Between headlines, we stew on our world, and we've been stewing. I called out recently, that if we count attempted murder as murder, then S. Braddock (not his real name) is far and away, categorically, the worse thing done by any individual with a gun in this country. I could be missing something obvious, but afaik that statement is a fact.'The British are coming!' meant, 'The British are coming For the Guns!'
I think sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but if you aren't of the mind to see it, then it's a lit stick being waved at you to no good end...maybe.
Well, you can't really do with any of those what one man in a hotel room managed to do with his AR in a brief span of time. Maybe if you understand how to use the fertilizer to make a bomb, then can transport it without being caught and have enough expertise to set it off when you mean to, but even then the damage you do will be up to a lot of factors that are harder to control. And there's something in the psychology of it too. People who use knives want to be up close and it tends to be personal. Or they're substituting weapons. But it takes a different sort of person to do that, even among killers. And it opens the attacker to being thwarted or killed without accomplishing any of his aim.Yes, along with box cutters and airplanes, pistols and cars, and fertilizer
Well, my idea has a number of expressions with one fundamental truth attached, where it is found people are safer. So there may be any number of ideas, but is there a best idea? My argument is that the data says yes, there is.
Yes. I said that in my last, at the end, and several times before to others. But even simply putting an end to ARs would help, along with registration, safety courses, and the banning of aids like bump stocks and speed loaders. The better course is to ban semi-automatic weapons.
It's not the weapon then, it's what you're shooting at. Try a paper target at relative distance and see. And that's before we get to the psychological advantages of using the weapon for home defense. Or, as Range365 put it:
So we made the doors more secure and upped the ante on martials. But box cutters aren't designed to kill people. In fact, they're not a very efficient instrument in that regard. They can paralyze people who have no reason to believe more than their safety is in question, a thing they could control by complying, they likely believed.
Again, box knives aren't designed to kill, aren't easily used to that purpose, and aren't really an instrument we can meaningfully ban, or one that you'll see someone kill a few dozen people with in a couple of minutes.
But it really isn't an option, because it wasn't purposed to that end and there were many alternatives that could have been as effective. That is, all seeming options/choices aren't equal to the task, again.
Sort of...I posted a study on it. It wasn't what I'm calling for and it didn't last long, but it happened. And it saved lives.
I'm in favor of simply banning semi-automatic weapons as a class. But the conversation at some point was largely about mass murder events and if you want to end those the quickest route is banning the AR, along with large magazines.
It's entirely right. If you understand that banning these things will make children safer and choose not to then you are making a value statement.
This isn't about a set of values. It's about how and what we value.
No, because all guns aren't capable of unleashing this sort of horror, and I've said from the outset that we're talking about a cost/benefit analysis. I believe that without an armed citizenry you would have more death, not less. Because there is a point to self defense that is legitimate. But it is not a point that legitimately extends to a weapon only distinguished by its ability to kill a great many people in a very short order of time. Again, all things aren't necessarily equal.
The kids who do that have larger mental health issues. Charles Manson thought he was being instructed by the Beetles in a song.
Not unless you want to kill a great many more people who would be without food. But, again, it's not really a matter of can we think of some alternative, but can we think of one that is equal or superior in impact? Not that I know of or see supported in working models.
It objectively did work for Australia, if the point was to end Port Arthur like mass shootings. Thirteen in less than two decades before the laws and none in over twenty since.
In the sense that Australia could have chosen, instead, to have a, "Say 'Meh' to Murder" musical that toured the country. That would have been another choice. A pointless one that wouldn't have impacted the death toll negatively and may instead have raised it (a lot of people with weapons might really hate musical theater). So having choices isn't the same as having good or roughly equal choices in terms of efficacy.
The problem is in the gun itself, the potential in its design. The solution is as obvious as it is effective everywhere it's found.
So the danger in such an anecdote is that to the uninformed, it seems to indicate that the best policy is to practice shooting enough so that you can always just shoot once to accomplish what needs to be done.
That's one opinion, and it's far from an authoritative one, and it also conflicts with what troops actually do in similar close quarters situations, when the weaponry judged generally best is still a service carbine like the American M4, with a shorter barrel for better navigating close quarters than the M16 (the American service rifle). A criminal intruder in your home would be an example of 'close quarters.'