Texas Elementary School Shooting, as many as 22 dead, including Children

[cubby]

Then more studies, I guess, if that one doesn't meet your standards?

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-ne...cide-risk.html
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7...icleid=1814426

The USA objectively has a massive problem with guns, gun violence, and particularly mass shootings. And the only meaningful difference is the permissive legal status towards guns and the pro-gun culture of the USA. This is a problem that can be solved, Americans just continue insisting they don't want it to be solved, they prefer the high level of violence and rampage killings.

The people who continue to argue with your point above are just content with sacrificing children's lives for the 2A. The evidence is clear and overwhelming.

[Poopymonster]

The people who continue to argue with your point above are just content with sacrificing children's lives for the 2A. The evidence is clear and overwhelming.

Of course they are. It's not their children being slain out of hand. "Fuck you, I got mine". Which lasts right up until someone figuratively fucks them, and literally takes what's theirs. Like turning their kid into a corpse.

[PhaelixWW]

I've been watching this thread, and I've noticed how knowledgeable about guns you have been... I'm actually quite impressed with how in-depth you've been AND how patient as well.

Well, I'm almost at my limit, I think. I spent years and years, rebutting each and every one of these points at length in the gun control thread. Most times since I've just given up on the idea of reasoned discourse, because many posters have no interest in it with regards to this topic. It's all vitriolic name-calling and emotion over reason.

And, I mean... I get it. It's an emotional topic. But so many people just assume that they're right and refuse to even listen to a counter-argument because they (falsely) think it's "morally tainted" or something. There's so much disingenuity, it's liable to choke someone. I can only take it so long before I move on, because, for me, it's just retreading the same ground I spent hundreds and hundreds of pages detailing at length in the other thread.

If people are all that interested, they can go back and read through the literally thousands of my posts on the subject to answer the questions that they have.

The thing that strikes me about your one sentence about how 'the presence of armed resistance' is enough to deter;
If that were true, the sheer amount of available guns, especially in gun friendly states like Texas, you'd think that they'd be some of the places where the LEAST amount of mass shootings and gun violence happens, but frankly that's not even remotely the case.

Except that just because there's high gun ownership does not mean people are continuously armed. Having a firearm for defense does you no good if you're surprised by an attack, for example, and the gun is stored in a gun safe. Still, I'm not about to tell a person that they can't exercise their right to defend themselves just because a lot of other people store their firearms safely away.

And your statistic isn't really true. Once upon a time, I made a graphic that shows the difference between gun ownership in a state and that state's proclivity to firearm homicide vs non-firearm homicide. It was startling to me that states with high gun ownership often had a lower rate of firearm homicide vs non-firearm homicide, and states with low gun ownership often had the opposite. Killers on states with high gun ownership were apparently less likely to "choose" a gun to commit their homicide, despite the prevalence.

Unfortunately, the graphic is no longer hosted on its site, but the posts are still there and you can get the idea in context.

Where people have guns, they're simply encouraged to use them. For instance, that Kyle Carruth case which also happens to be in TX. Going by their state laws, he's totally in the clear for killing another man. Yet, far as I could see in the video, they were both asshats, and nobody needed to lose their life. People have custody arguments all day long, and I can't imagine a world where a custody dispute like that is going to be the norm if everyone else followed the lead of TX there.

The bigger problem there (and in other states) are the "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" laws, of which I'm not particularly a fan. I don't like the "duty to retreat" either, but I don't agree with many states' interpretation of the "stand your ground" ideology. There should be a middle ground that protects people from assault, but doesn't forgive or condone what frankly should be murder, such as in the example you gave.

Regardless, that's one of many examples of a "defensive gun use" that really wasn't necessary and surely wasn't necessary for someone to lose a life over.

This is also why the ideal defensive gun use is one in which no trigger is ever pulled. It's almost like the people who are ignoring that they even exist are suggesting that "it doesn't count unless you blow the guy away!" which is... no, sorry.

[cubby]

Of course they are. It's not their children being slain out of hand. "Fuck you, I got mine". Which lasts right up until someone figuratively fucks them, and literally takes what's theirs. Like turning their kid into a corpse.

Exactly. And we see that with this type of person. A Boomer. A gun "rights" advocate. So many others. Those people who take extreme positions on an issue without any real experience. But when it hit's them personally, they change their tune.

[Draco-Onis]

Yes, but you were talking about your choices to "protect yourself".

I'm just making the case that having a gun for home defense/self defense, in the USA, is like keeping wild rattlesnakes as guard animals in your home. It might help against an intruder, but it's far more dangerous to you and your family. It literally does not make any rational sense.

Humans don't follow logic especially considering how imbedded that thinking is in American life.

[Trifle]

Yes, but you were talking about your choices to "protect yourself".

I'm just making the case that having a gun for home defense/self defense, in the USA, is like keeping wild rattlesnakes as guard animals in your home. It might help against an intruder, but it's far more dangerous to you and your family. It literally does not make any rational sense.

Fun fact, in my country it's illegal to use a use a gun for self defense, or for personal protection (bodyguards etc). Oddly this hasn't resulted in us dying en masse to bad guys with guns.

[D Luniz]

Fun fact, in my country it's illegal to use a use a gun for self defense, or for personal protection (bodyguards etc). Oddly this hasn't resulted in us dying en masse to bad guys with guns.

what about your government, has it fallen to tyranny without the ever-present threat of a poorly trained, and less informed but easily angered 15-30% of the populace with more guns than sense?

[cubby]

Well, I'm almost at my limit, I think. I spent years and years, rebutting each and every one of these points at length in the gun control thread. Most times since I've just given up on the idea of reasoned discourse, because many posters have no interest in it with regards to this topic. It's all vitriolic name-calling and emotion over reason.

And, I mean... I get it. It's an emotional topic. But so many people just assume that they're right and refuse to even listen to a counter-argument because they (falsely) think it's "morally tainted" or something. There's so much disingenuity, it's liable to choke someone. I can only take it so long before I move on, because, for me, it's just retreading the same ground I spent hundreds and hundreds of pages detailing at length in the other thread.

If people are all that interested, they can go back and read through the literally thousands of my posts on the subject to answer the questions that they have.



Except that just because there's high gun ownership does not mean people are continuously armed. Having a firearm for defense does you no good if you're surprised by an attack, for example, and the gun is stored in a gun safe. Still, I'm not about to tell a person that they can't exercise their right to defend themselves just because a lot of other people store their firearms safely away.

And your statistic isn't really true. Once upon a time, I made a graphic that shows the difference between gun ownership in a state and that state's proclivity to firearm homicide vs non-firearm homicide. It was startling to me that states with high gun ownership often had a lower rate of firearm homicide vs non-firearm homicide, and states with low gun ownership often had the opposite. Killers on states with high gun ownership were apparently less likely to "choose" a gun to commit their homicide, despite the prevalence.

Unfortunately, the graphic is no longer hosted on its site, but the posts are still there and you can get the idea in context.



The bigger problem there (and in other states) are the "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" laws, of which I'm not particularly a fan. I don't like the "duty to retreat" either, but I don't agree with many states' interpretation of the "stand your ground" ideology. There should be a middle ground that protects people from assault, but doesn't forgive or condone what frankly should be murder, such as in the example you gave.



This is also why the ideal defensive gun use is one in which no trigger is ever pulled. It's almost like the people who are ignoring that they even exist are suggesting that "it doesn't count unless you blow the guy away!" which is... no, sorry.

I recall your discussions in the other thread on this related topic - and you did make some good points. But we're beyond all that now. The US is the only country that suffers from constant and continuous mass shootings. It needs to end. Getting rid of the 2A and most/all guns will do that.

And nothing else, no other "side argument" or "alternate point" matters anymore.

[Draco-Onis]

Ye...most instances there are no shots fired, no police called, no reports made.

We all know self reported surveys from decades ago from gun owners are the most reliable source of data. I mean it's not like people who buy guns have a hero complex and would lie about their heroism...

[Deus Mortis]

I recall your discussions in the other thread on this related topic - and you did make some good points. But we're beyond all that now. The US is the only country that suffers from constant and continuous mass shootings. It needs to end. Getting rid of the 2A and most/all guns will do that.

And nothing else, no other "side argument" or "alternate point" matters anymore.

You know this will never happen Cubby. We saw how banning alcohol and drugs has worked in this country how do you realistically propose stopping these stats without an even bigger blood bath then we already have:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-2...064021125.html
America has 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation, and more guns than people in the country

There are 20 million AR-style weapons in circulation in the US, according to the NSSF.

They're part of a total 393 million guns owned by US civilians, more than the American population.

Debate on gun ownership has reignited after a massacre at an elementary school in Texas last week.

Around 19.8 million AR-15 style rifles are in circulation in the US, a nationwide tally that's surged from around 8.5 million since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

The more recent estimate comes from a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. In the statement, its President and CEO Joseph Bartozzi called the AR-15 the "most popular rifle sold in America" and a "commonly-owned firearm."

The debate over gun ownership and the public sale of AR-15-style weapons has intensified after the killing of 19 children and two adults in an elementary school shooting last week in Uvalde, Texas.

The gunman carried an AR-15 variant during the attack, and the semi-automatic weapon type has been used in other high-profile shootings and incidents, such as the massacre in Buffalo and in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted in November after fatally shooting two people and injuring a third.

Statistics show that the number of AR-15s owned by the American public has increased dramatically in the last two decades.

There were around 8.5 million AR-platform rifles in circulation in the US before 1994, when the weapons were prohibited under a federal assault weapons ban, per the Associated Press.

The bill, signed by then-President Bill Clinton, only applied to assault weapons manufactured after the law was enacted.

During the 10-year ban, many AR-style weapons were still legally used because they could be heavily modified so they wouldn't fall under the bill, and the number of such rifles in circulation stayed the same, according to the AP.

After the ban expired in 2004, the net import and manufacturing of AR-15 style weapons jumped from 314,000 that year to more than 1 million in 2009, according to the latest firearms production report by the NSSF.

The production rate has consistently stayed above 1 million per year since 2012, and surpassed 2.2 million rifles per year in 2013 and 2016.

An average of 4.14 million guns were manufactured every year between 1990 and 1999. And an average of 3.7 million were manufactured annually between 2000 and 2009, according to the 2021 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives report by the Department of Justice. That annual average jumped to 8.57 million per year from 2010 to 2019, according to the ATF.

US consumers own around 393 million firearms, both legal and illegal, according to 2018 data from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based project from the Geneva Graduate Institute. That means there are more guns than people in the US.

Of that total, around 741,000 are fully automatic machine guns registered in the US, up from almost 457,000 in 2010, per ATF reports.

A November 2020 Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans said they live in households with guns. That would mean that of the 122 million households in the US, the hundreds of millions of firearms owned by Americans are spread among 53.7 million households.

[Draco-Onis]

You know this will never happen Cubby. We saw how banning alcohol and drugs has worked in this country how do you realistically propose stopping these stats without an even bigger blood bath then we already have:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-2...064021125.html
America has 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation, and more guns than people in the country

But guns are not alcohol and drugs, there are so many countries that have gun bans but not on alcohol and drugs. Those categories are diseases that need to be treated not criminalized countries that treat them as such have seen great success. Are you saying gun owners have a disease?

[cubby]

You know this will never happen Cubby. We saw how banning alcohol and drugs has worked in this country how do you realistically propose stopping these stats without an even bigger blood bath then we already have:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-2...064021125.html
America has 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation, and more guns than people in the country

I know it won't, but it's only because gun advocates care more about the 2A and guns than they do children's lives. And if they won't do the right thing, I'll keep banging this drum.

To be clear - it's not banning ALL guns, it's taking draconian measures to drastically reduce the number and kinds of guns. Essentially similar to how the rest of the entire civilized world does it.

[Deus Mortis]

But guns are not alcohol and drugs, there are so many countries that have gun bans but not on alcohol and drugs. Those categories are diseases that need to be treated not criminalized countries that treat them as such have seen great success. Are you saying gun owners have a disease?

Nope I am saying outlawing things that are extremely common, and that vast parts of the country likes in America has not done well. I would say it would be an impossibility in America to ban and get rid of all firearms, especially with 3d printers becoming more common.

[cubby]

Nope I am saying outlawing things that are extremely common, and that vast parts of the country likes in America has not done well. I would say it would be an impossibility in America to ban and get rid of all firearms, especially with 3d printers becoming more common.

I agree - along with all the political and legal maneuvering, it would also take a federalized national guard to coordinate the effort. And even then it might literally not be possible. But it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

- - - Updated - - -

Not to swing this conversation around to full topic, but are we still hearing that the fucking dipshit chief of police waited to go in?

[Deus Mortis]

Not to swing this conversation around to full topic, but are we still hearing that the fucking dipshit chief of police waited to go in?

Filtering through articles from the past 24 hours and it still appears so.
https://www.wdsu.com/article/uvalde-...dates/40127473

Ramos was still inside at 12:10 p.m. when the first U.S. Marshals Service deputies arrived. They had raced to the school from nearly 70 miles away in the border town of Del Rio, the agency said in a tweet Friday.

But the commander inside the building — the school district's police chief, Pete Arredondo — decided the group should wait to confront the gunman, on the belief that the scene was no longer an active attack, McCraw said.

The crisis came to an end at 12:50 after officers used keys from a janitor to open the classroom door, entered the room and shot and killed Ramos, he said.

Arredondo couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday. No one answered the door at his home and he didn't reply to a phone message left at the district's police headquarters.

Edit: Typed in his name and got this from CNN. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/0...do-tsr-vpx.cnn

Uvalde School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo will not be sworn into the city council seat he won in May. CNN's Nick Watt reports on the criticism Chief Arredondo is facing in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

[Draco-Onis]

Nope I am saying outlawing things that are extremely common, and that vast parts of the country likes in America has not done well. I would say it would be an impossibility in America to ban and get rid of all firearms, especially with 3d printers becoming more common.

But that's not true because other countries have done so and we have done so with several harmful substances and items. Drugs and alcohol are addictive guns are not people aren't going into withdrawals because they haven't shot their gun today. Most people cannot work their computers properly let alone a 3d printer, we know bans work because billionaires aren't buying nukes nor can I get a fully armed tank.

[cubby]

Filtering through articles from the past 24 hours and it still appears so.
https://www.wdsu.com/article/uvalde-...dates/40127473

Ramos was still inside at 12:10 p.m. when the first U.S. Marshals Service deputies arrived. They had raced to the school from nearly 70 miles away in the border town of Del Rio, the agency said in a tweet Friday.

But the commander inside the building — the school district's police chief, Pete Arredondo — decided the group should wait to confront the gunman, on the belief that the scene was no longer an active attack, McCraw said.

The crisis came to an end at 12:50 after officers used keys from a janitor to open the classroom door, entered the room and shot and killed Ramos, he said.

Arredondo couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday. No one answered the door at his home and he didn't reply to a phone message left at the district's police headquarters.

Edit: Typed in his name and got this from CNN. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/0...do-tsr-vpx.cnn

Uvalde School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo will not be sworn into the city council seat he won in May. CNN's Nick Watt reports on the criticism Chief Arredondo is facing in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Unless that time-frame and fact-base change, I sincerely hope he spends the rest of a long life in misery. He won't see jail time for this, even though he deserves it (assuming the above stays accurate). For once perhaps the evil of social media will be of some minor use.

[Deus Mortis]

But that's not true because other countries have done so and we have done so with several harmful substances and items. Drugs and alcohol are addictive guns are not people aren't going into withdrawals because they haven't shot their gun today. Most people cannot work their computers properly let alone a 3d printer, we know bans work because billionaires aren't buying nukes nor can I get a fully armed tank.

From my couple mins of googling it appears you can actually get a fully armed tank in some US states, but it requires a shit ton of paperwork, a need for a vast amount of money, and passing what is most likely a metric ton of background checks.

Unless that time-frame and fact-base change, I sincerely hope he spends the rest of a long life in misery. He won't see jail time for this, even though he deserves it (assuming the above stays accurate). For once perhaps the evil of social media will be of some minor use.

Agreed, him being a cowered and holding back other people will follow him forever.

[Draco-Onis]

From my couple mins of googling it appears you can actually get a fully armed tank in some US states, but it requires a shit ton of paperwork, a need for a vast amount of money, and passing what is most likely a metric ton of background checks.

First of all not surprised guess I had too high of standards for my country and the second you missed the point. The second amendment doesn't mean you are allowed to have any weapon you want without restrictions. I don't think banning guns is realistic nor do I want it but strict regulations and oversight is needed. The current system in the US is ad hoc from state to state and mostly a bad joke.

[cubby]

First of all not surprised guess I had too high of standards for my country and the second you missed the point. The second amendment doesn't mean you are allowed to have any weapon you want without restrictions. I don't think banning guns is realistic nor do I want it but strict regulations and oversight is needed. The current system in the US is ad hoc from state to state and mostly a bad joke.

Agreed. The best analogy is drivers license and automobiles. Set up the exact same kind of education, required training, registration, and insurance requirement. It would solve a large portion of the issues.

But that's after we ban everything outside single shot hunting rifles and pistols (not sure why we actually need those, might have to go).

(in before the gun advocates argue with me about "single shot")