Guns in America

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

http://www.ct.gov/ocme/cwp/view.asp?a=2165&q=295124

And here is the data from the Connecticut Medical Examiner. Breaking out murders from suicides from accidents. And grouping them all back together for firearms deaths, to prevent accuracy.

Look for yourself and decide if we are talking about a trend or noise.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

http://www.ct.gov/ocme/cwp/view.asp?a=2165&q=295120
And here's a slightly different chart from the same source showing accidental fatal drug overdoses doubled and fatal vehicle accidents increased nearly 50% since 2012.

Funny, the NYT didn't bring that up.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

Additionally, it would feasible to implement the gun club solution in the US, versus say mandatory military service. You still get to keep your guns, as long as you're not an antisocial psycho who can't get along with people.
Kinda depends on what your standard for feasible is. There is a constitutional amendment to be addressed first.

True, we do that, in fact have done it quite a few times. The last 2 attempts were the ERA and the balanced budget amendment. Both failed. But if you think you can get a constitutional amendment, where you can't get a national law, I question your political acumen.

BRUTE
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Re: Guns in America

Post by BRUTE »

feasible in the sense that 200 million weapons will be grandfathered in, or feasible in the sense that 50 million gun owners will be required to join clubs or threatened with confiscation? what happens in the first 2 years? what happens if the % of gun owners is less than desired? what % will realistically join the clubs?

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

BRUTE wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:01 pm
feasible in the sense that 200 million weapons will be grandfathered in, or feasible in the sense that 50 million gun owners will be required to join clubs or threatened with confiscation? what happens in the first 2 years? what happens if the % of gun owners is less than desired? what % will realistically join the clubs?

I imagine gun clubs would spring up like daisies similar to the "militias" that sprang up when gun-fear-mongers were trying to make the case that gun ownership was limited to men in militias (a.k.a the armed forces).

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

Augustus wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:28 pm
Clubs are the least invasive, most effective option that I see, which is why I say feasible. Aren't a lot of gun nuts already IN gun clubs? I've held various range memberships and participated in various IDPA matches already, and I'm not even that active. Then you've got militias, survivalist groups, the NRA, etc. Gun nuts have a strong tendency to band together, a gun club makes mandatory what many people are already doing. I mean how many people who own guns haven't had a range membership or nra membership? I'd imagine they're in the minority already.
Augustus - I completely understand the merit of your proposal but being part of gun club would constitute an ongoing expense and burden in order to enjoy a privilege guaranteed in our Constitution. Gun club requirements would most likely be struck down as unconstitutional.
Last edited by Campitor on Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

It is worth noting that with many different forms of gun control in different jurisdictions all over the country, we have many examples of how that works out. What works, what doesn't.

Given all this day and history, with some going back over a century, (Sullivan act of 1911), the NYT chose a almost new law in a nearby state that hasn't been around long enough to make a significant difference.

This, by itself, should tell you everything you need to know about the effectiveness of gun grabbers and their utopian fantasies. If they could point to an unqualified success, they would.

BRUTE
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Re: Guns in America

Post by BRUTE »

Augustus wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:28 pm
Feasible in the sense that I only really see 2 practical solutions to massacres
or just do nothing. because statistically, massacres are not a real problem. doing nothing about a non-problem is a very practical solution that has worked well so far. brute wishes a similar solution had been employed after 9/11.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

@ ffj, that is also true. True for the same reason that the NRA doesn't feed comments to the NYT.

Remember where we were in 96, the assault weapons ban and Brady had just passed in 94, and this is the first election after the 94 mid terms that I described above. There was a push to get federal funding to "study" gun violence.

So the red team defunded federal funding of gun violence. Not because the CDC was likely to conclusively prove the link between gun control and crime prevention, that doesn't exist, if it did, they would already have it. But because the red team ran on the "contract with America" that was supposed to cut frivolous spending, and why give the blue team free talking points? They already showed how much respect they had for truth and accuracy when they passed the above bills. Give Clinton his due, he may not have been much of a human being (or maybe he was, I never met him), but he was a world class politician. The man could push legislation. Given the climate, cutting funding was an expedient solution to keep the CDC or any other agency from generating the numbers the blue team wanted. It has worked since.

I think I have made clear that the numbers from both sides are cooked. This was an effort to keep the federal government from doing the same.

Now some of you may think I'm being paranoid. To you I ask why the political appointee i linked to above in Connecticut chose to break out murders from suicide, but recombine them for firearms deaths? Was he afraid people who put the effort into finding the tables couldn't do simple addition? Would two more columns have made the charts oversized and unwieldy? Or was it because that was the politically expedient solution to a question he didn't want to be asked? I don't blame him, it's not a stretch for a political appointee. If I had his job, and the guy who appointed me stuck his face on a gun control bill, I would make sure my reports weren't designed to embarrass him, either.

It's bad enough for both sides to cook the books, we don't need to pay taxes to pay the government to do it too.

BRUTE
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Re: Guns in America

Post by BRUTE »

Augustus wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:28 pm
You're pitting millions of years of instinct - protecting offspring - against statistics and logic. This whole debate is basically framed around that instinct.
there seem to be tons of humans who also don't care enough about massacres to do something (or rather, anything). brute is unsure if they are following logic or the millions of years old instinct of gun nuttery, but in this case, he is on their side.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Guns in America

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

1)Observe-
a) intermittent appearance of individual with extreme poor mental health likely exacerbated by widespread social dysfunction
b) technology that is over 100 years old (4 human generations) and readily available in one form or another
c) vulnerable community artificially confined to small area
d) moderately high likelihood that individual with poor mental health is currently or formerly member of vulnerable community
e) decision makers located outside of vulnerable community-sharp division of opinion on issue
i) technology protects vulnerable
ii) technology harms vulnerable

4) Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
8)Integrate rather than segregate

First Attempt at Systems Level Solution:

In American elementary schools there is a long tradition of a group known as the Safety Patrol. Responsible volunteers in the 5 or 6th grade leave class early at the end of the day, don bright orange belt/sashes and conduct younger children safely across traffic intersections. Automobile pedestrian deaths occur at the rate of 1.6 deaths per hour in the U.S., so this is not a nominal responsibility.

My suggestion is that the safety patrol tradition be greatly expanded and integrated across age groups in community schools, in conjunction with wide-spread instruction on self-defense, and conflict-resolution committee (student population version of U.N or town council.) The safety patrol is kind of like sports because it attracts a good many very high-functioning students, as well as a number of students who although not overall high-functioning have a strong natural tendency towards dominant boundary-protection guardian functioning, so fairly high likelihood that most members of the overall school community would be only 1 degree of social separation (known) to some member of an expanded open-to-all-who-wish-to-volunteer-patrol. This patrol would, of course, be unarmed, but could also be trained in various aspects of defensive technology. Adult members of the wider community would also be integrated into the solution in functional mesh. For instance, the lieutenant mayor of the city would meet weekly with the members of the conflict-resolution committee, and a representative of the local police force would be directly linked with senior student safety patrol representatives. The conflict resolution committee would contain some students who would never want to be on active patrol and vice-versa, but there would be a significant high-functioning level of overlap consisting of the portion of the school population who function well in sports and academics. Also integration across the elementary/middle and high school levels would have to be much more than token, but could be well-integrated with significant cross-age tutoring initiative. A 17 year old football player volunteers in one of the kindergartens I teach, and almost every little boy in the class idolizes him. The manner in which our school (and daycare!) system segregates children into strict age groups is absolutely alien to natural human functioning and contributes to the peer pressure which contributes to the mental health problems.

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

Wow... Trump can't understand that giving guns to a subset of teachers (gun-adept teachers) means "giving guns to teachers". It's as bad as his getting hung up on the inauguration crowd size.

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

Today's revelation about the Florida high school armed deputy is that he was present, but took a defensive position outside the school behind a pillar and thus never had an opportunity to engage the shooter. After investigation, the Sheriff suspended the deputy at which time the deputy resigned. Deputy's salary last year was over $100k.

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

So here's what I think needs to happen before guns are increased in schools:

Teachers should have a means to silently summon remote aid. Use mobile tracking technology inside the school and on school grounds. This will allow first responders to actually respond to threats rather than hide behind pillars outside the school.

Classrooms need a second door, alarmed. That door should be one-way, allowing only egress. This is already standard practice for shop classrooms & theatres to meet fire code, so extending the fire code for classrooms in new construction is straight-forward. Definitely more complicated & expensive to retrofit existing buildings.

BRUTE
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Re: Guns in America

Post by BRUTE »

Augustus wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:45 pm
Expecting the parent voting block to sit idly by because statistically their kid is not likely to get mown down by some angsty teenager is probably a losing argument.
brute would call it a strategy, not an argument. brute is happy to utilize this strategy (again) and see how it plays out.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

@7w5,

Yeah, we could do that, and I think it would help.

But, your solution requires community members to take on new responsibilities, commit more time, do more work. But gun control is sold as a service.

Gun control promises:
"It won't cost you anything!" All the costs are always borne by firearms owners.

"Someone else will make the sacrifice." It's not like gun control is being sold to gun owners.

"Someone else will do all the work." Any additional work, be it serializing magazines, processing paperwork, or confiscating firearms, it is work to be done by The Authorities and gun owners.

If gun control delivered on any of their promises, they would tout that success endlessly. They don't. Instead, they sell gun control as a service to non gun people. Who cares if it's expensive/ineffective/time consuming? It's all sacrificing someone else's time/money/safety.

All that is a much easier sell than the 7w5 plan, if for no other reason than to avoid any personal sacrifice.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Guns in America

Post by ThisDinosaur »

George the original one wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:19 pm
Today's revelation about the Florida high school armed deputy is that he was present, but took a defensive position outside the school
This could be used as evidence on either side. It could be used to show that an armed good guy wouldn't prevent this. Or it could be used to argue an armed teacher on the inside, with his life in danger, would have had skin in the game and start shooting back.

I saw someone arguing that, while most teachers are anti-gun progressives, some are retired police and veterans. So those individuals should be encouraged to concealed carry instead of discouraged as they are now.

IlliniDave
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Re: Guns in America

Post by IlliniDave »

I hadn't seen that but it's a third type failure on the part of armed government authorities in this one instance. I would agree that hiring armed security who cower outside when they are needed won't solve anything. Definitely have to find people willing to fight to protect children and trained to do it effectively. That's why an idea limited to having a few teachers carry a gun doesn't strike me as a high probability of success solution, although integrated with full-time security pros it could be a last line of defense.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Kriegsspiel »

ffj wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:07 pm
I saw that today about the deputy. What was striking was how quickly the department threw him under the bus. Something seems off about this story and I just can't place what it is just yet. That's just my gut reaction, it's just not protocol for the sheriff to publicly call this guy a coward.

It will be interesting to see more details and what becomes of this.
NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch called the sheriff out on not acting on 39 different tips on the shooter. If it's true that the sheriff bungled something, maybe he's trying to deflect attention?

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

There was a school shooting. It doesn't matter who did what right or wrong, it happened. Expect a new sheriff, mayor, dog catcher. Nobody comes out of this clean. Many will be looking for new jobs or new communities after this is out of the news cycle.

If I could think of a feasible plan to stop these school shootings, I would shout it from the rooftops. But I think this is just a part of life in America, now.

Until we are willing to address schools in an entirely different light, redesign the system from the ground up, to make better citizens, I think we are stuck here. I noticed nobody shoots up Montessori or Waldorf Schools.

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