The US is NOT the worst country for mass shootings

[Xorzor]

If the US can change their gun laws but refuse to do so, then one must conclude that they are condoning mass-shootings and gun-violence.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

This piece of an Epicurus quote seems very appropriate for the context of my post.

[Machismo]

As a gun rights supporter, I find people like the OP to be utterly despicable. The manipulate data, while ignoring most of it, all to push a bullshit narrative. It’s sad when people lie and ignore data.

[Vankrys]

What percent dead are you, after taking 6 .357 magnum rounds to the face? What percent dead are you, after taking 15 AR-15 rounds to the face?

Nice example, a double action revolver with 6 bullets that take forever to reload, and you don't see the how a rifle is better suited for killing as many target and as fast as possible?

Rifle are more stable, have higher long range accuracy than handgun, including semi auto gun like the M9, 1911, glock. Your target isn't always 3 feet away and standing still. Rifle often have more fire power than gun using the same caliber. Rifle are designed to kill, handgun are more suitable for self defense.

And of course most rifle have higher capacity magazine than handguns.

[kasuke06]

If the US can change their gun laws but refuse to do so, then one must conclude that they are condoning mass-shootings and gun-violence.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

This piece of an Epicurus quote seems very appropriate for the context of my post.

so were you dropped/thrown to the floor as an infant or were you born this stupid? Laws mean less than the paper they're written on to criminals. All you do is tie the hands of law abiding citizens.

[crusadernero]

Considering there have been 3 school shootings....you do the math.

yeah ok then https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ow-many-so-far

[Mihalik]

sip

I find it adorable that you failed to reply to the fact that your original post was debunked on page one.

[Zoldor]

Gun control only affects law abiding citizens because it is a law. Criminals don't care about the law so they find ways around it. Prohibition creates a black market. No amount of gun control in America will stop the bulk of gun violence, which comes from inner city gangs who illegally purchase firearms from Mexican cartels, among other sources. Certainly there needs to be some degree of gun regulations and they need to be strictly enforced, but the total repeal of the Second Amendment in America isn't going to solve the problem or even reduce it enough to justify the loss of a defining attribute of American liberty.

I enjoy this statement, because it basically backs why have any laws at all if people are just going to circumvent them. Then again, go buy a gun on the black market and tell me how easy it is and how expensive it is. This isn't like drugs which are easy to conceal, easy to obtain, and relatively cheap. A black market gun is going to cost you a pretty penny on the mark up, and most these kids doing school shootings aren't going to have that kind of cash laying around. And their parents won't just have them readily accessible.

Criminals in a criminal enterprise aren't the people gun control is going to target. It is targeting putting guns near or with people who are mentally unstable. We have a police force to deal with criminal enterprises.

To the topic at hand, there are only about 4 or 5 countries on that list above the US I'd consider living in or consider first world. And again, a lot of skew based on terror groups. Since these groups can basically drive into the country with all their stuff it skews this as well on the gun control aspect. Terror groups again are not the target of gun control. Criminal and terror enterprises exist throughout the world despite law, it is sort of their MO, kind of like Wal-Mart is cheaper than every other store.

Gun control laws are to prevent people who normally wouldn't have access or shouldn't have access from obtaining guns. To limit effective suicide, school shootings, one off shootings, and things of that nature. Basically a reduction of availability will reduce the option for these types of people. Look at most these mass shooters, they aren't part of the underworld in any legit fashion. They act alone and with little help because they are so socially divergent and wouldn't have the connections for an illegal firearms purchase, which is again, a lot harder to come by than most people realize and a shit load more expensive. Basically the gun triples in value roughly depending.

You don't solve crime with law, you punish crime with law. And you hope that law deters people from said crimes, which in a lot of cases it works, otherwise I think there would be a lot more crime by your average person if there was no consequence they knew about. Won't stop everyone but reducing the rate is the important factor.

[Vankrys]

so were you dropped/thrown to the floor as an infant or were you born this stupid? Laws mean less than the paper they're written on to criminals. All you do is tie the hands of law abiding citizens.

With that reasoning, why having any laws at all? Of course outlaw are going to break the law, that's why they are called outlaw in the first place. That doesn't mean congress should stop making law that make sense. Of course it shouldn't.

It's the job of the executive to enforce the law and the judicial punish whoever break the law. That's how it works. You don't just go, laws are useless, let's live in anarchy.

[Zoldor]

so were you dropped/thrown to the floor as an infant or were you born this stupid? Laws mean less than the paper they're written on to criminals. All you do is tie the hands of law abiding citizens.

Then why have laws? These statements always come from people who have no interaction with the criminal element. Reality, every hard ass gangsta turns into a bitch boy the instant they are faced with jail time. They all talk a hard game until they are shackled up and crying on the phone to their mom and lawyer to hurry and get them out and how bad jail is. And once they've done actual time, not 30 days in county, they normally don't want to do anything that could get them sent back unless they get desperate.

Criminals aren't these movie people saying fuck da law and the ones that are screaming that are until the silver bracelets go on, then it is who can I rat on and how fast can you get me out. Maybe that is just my anecdote from working in the legal field. Ask a cop, they'll tell you all those criminals are scared shitless of them and going to jail. You get the occasional psychopath, but for the most part criminals are scared of going down. Cartel people, terrorists, etc are a different story, they are basically private military groups that rely on criminal enterprise to fund them. Law won't stop them, but for your average on the street citizen the law matters. Hell otherwise they wouldn't hide their activity.

[Mihalik]

Gun control only affects law abiding citizens because it is a law. Criminals don't care about the law so they find ways around it.

Laws against murder only affect people who don't intend to commit murder, criminals will find away around it so, they will keep murdering. Laws against murder are thus pointless.

By your logic all laws pointless. As are things like speed limits, building licenses, parking restrictions or pretty much any rule or regulation of any sort.

Fact. Gun control works in any society that has a functional civil society, strong rule of law and stable government.

[Wolfman31]

I enjoy this statement, because it basically backs why have any laws at all if people are just going to circumvent them.

By your logic all laws pointless.

Laws essentially exist to keep the masses in line through the threat of punishment if you break the laws. Criminals care more about breaking the law than the consequences of getting caught.

So law abiding citizens like that one that just legally bought an assault rifle then used it to shoot up a school?

Considering his background, the system failed when it allowed him to purchase firearms.

Some of you seem to think that if assault rifles were harder to come by, there wouldn't be anymore mass shootings. The amount of mass shootings happening in countries with far more strict gun control laws proves that it really doesn't make much of a difference. In America, gun ownership was much higher 50 years ago but nobody was shooting up schools. We need to look at what changed because trying to pin it all on the gun instead of the shooter is not going to solve the problem. Those with the intent to do harm to others will find a way, whether it's an improvised explosive device they learned how to make on the internet or simply driving a car down a crowded sidewalk. We need to address what causes this behavior in these individuals and not the way they express it. Guns are perfectly safe in the hands of sane, law abiding, and responsible hands. We don't have a gun problem. We have a psychopath problem.

[Better]

Should we add 209 asterisks, and just not give the US one?

I think showing per capita figures is actually pretty good context. I think it's actually the opposite of bad context, like listing murders by nation, with complete disregard for population.

I'm always told Chicago murders don't matter, because the city is so large. I'm told I need to look at per capita figures instead. But now that I want per capita figures, the SAME PEOPLE are crying foul. Imagine that.

I never said there wouldn't be context given to the US. The problem is if there's a country of sufficiently small size, for example; Vatican City. Population 451. If a single terrorist attack happened there and lets say 10 people died. Per capita that's an insane murder rate. Would be the highest in the world by an absolutely absurd amount. Even if you looked at it over the course of 20 years the statistics would be irreversibly skewed. And as such you would put an asterisk by it to give context to a statistical anomaly.

[Khallid]

being unarmed reduces my ability to defend myself. period. whether the attacker have a gun, a knife, or anything else.

No. Unarmed vs a knife is not even comparable to unarmed vs gun. You can run away from a knife, you can overpower a knife with a group of people. But even an 8 year old kid can kill any person with a gun. And one person can beat a dozen or more with a good gun.

[Coolthulhu]

It looks like guns are banned in most of the countries listed.

They are not. Guns are legal to own in the overwhelming majority of EU countries, and although regulated, they are often present in significant numbers and have a strong cultural impact (Switzerland, northern Italy). Granted, in Europe guns are a priviledge, not a right, and the paperwork can be a chore, but law-abiding citizens can get them.
I'm not pointing that out as to give ammo to the anti-gun folks as I'm a gun enthusiast and target shooter myself, just straightening that up as it appears to be a very common misconception.

[Nurasu]

This article was linked on page one, but the relevant part is here:
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-...-5456e83cf326/

While Lott claims the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, his own data tables tell a different story. Accepting his data at face value, between 2009 and 2015, the United States had 25 mass shootings versus 19 in the E.U. and 24 in Europe as a whole. This comes out as a rate of .078 shootings per million individuals in the United States, .038 for the E.U., and .032 for Europe as a whole. The United States has more than double the mass shooting rate of the E.U. and Europe, directly contradicting Lott’s statements about his own data.

Further, Lott’s carefully crafted criteria to include an incident as a mass shooting is highly suspect. Lott goes to great lengths to exclude mass shootings that are the result of burglaries and gang violence, but he includes terrorist attacks. This choice means that while the Texas biker gang gunfight last summer is excluded in his statistics, the November Paris attacks, which accounted for more than one-third of Europe’s mass shooting fatalities, are included.

Can't believe this is still going....

[unfilteredJW]

And there really is no bottom to the well that is Tijuana's intellectual dishonesty.

[Bryntrollian]

You know you're screwed when the data you tried so hard to fudge makes you look even worse.

[Topornic]

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I believe you know who said this. Never give up your arms Americans!

Cool fact: In Poland you can basically buy online a blackpowder gun like Remington and other deadly weapons' working replicas which you can carry around with homemade ammunition loaded and ready to shoot. Those are the kind of weapons that Americans used during their Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of people died.
Yet no one dies, no loud media stories happen. And it has been legal to buy them for over a decade, probably half a milion pieces sold.
Turns out people are not so dumb and they will not shoot each other whenever they can over every simple argument. (Keep in mind people drink a lot of alcohol here, still no casualties)

[Tijuana]

I never said there wouldn't be context given to the US. The problem is if there's a country of sufficiently small size, for example; Vatican City. Population 451. If a single terrorist attack happened there and lets say 10 people died. Per capita that's an insane murder rate. Would be the highest in the world by an absolutely absurd amount. Even if you looked at it over the course of 20 years the statistics would be irreversibly skewed. And as such you would put an asterisk by it to give context to a statistical anomaly.

I agree! What I don't understand, is why you DON'T agree that the reverse is true as well. Disregarding population ALSO skews the figures, when speaking about a huge country like the US. This is the entire point.

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I find it adorable that you failed to reply to the fact that your original post was debunked on page one.

I don't know what you are on about, because you deleted my quote in your response. What a strange thing to do...

[Better]

I agree! What I don't understand, is why you DON'T agree that the reverse is true as well. Disregarding population ALSO skews the figures, when speaking about a huge country like the US. This is the entire point.

Literally in none of my replies did I say that you don't factor in population. In every single one I said you use per capita.