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

[Breccia]

There needs to be strong licensing, training requirements, registration, and tracking of firearms.

1) Texas does not require a license for open-carry of long guns. The shooter could have walked right up to the school's property line without being arrested, had he not been firing wildly at random civilians and the school itself.
1a) No license also means no training requirements.

2) Texas does not require firearm registration.

3) Texas does not require private sale background checks. I don't believe this was the case here, but worth noting in general.

4) Texas does not require a permit.

5) Texas does not ban large magazines.

6) Texas does ban guns on school grounds, but if the local police weren't going to stop him while he was shooting at people and the school itself, they weren't going to stop him for merely holding a weapon of war, either.

Other states share some/all of the above, but they're not the topic of this thread. We'll have to wait until there's a mass shooting in another state before we can talk about them. Probably with a weapon of war. The AR-15 sure gets used to murder a lot of people a lot, we probably won't have to wait long.

For the record, I agree that the amount of regulation on if/when/how you can drive a car, an item that is capable of and does in fact kill many many people per year (including the drivers) and oh hold on

7) Texas does not require insurance to own a gun. Almost nobody does, other than extra riders on your homeowner's insurance if your gun is stolen or injures someone on your property.

So yes, the amount of state regulations on car ownership and use are largely not parallel in gun ownership. Concealed weapons yes (including federal laws) but not long guns. And yes, I'm in complete agreement with you. I need a degree to give someone antibiotics, something not at all designed to kill people, but if I lived in Texas I could buy a weapon of war without ever proving I know how to flip the safety on.

[PhaelixWW]

Other countries enacted strict gun laws after a few shootings, and saw the number drop.

People just really don't bother to actually look at the data, you know?

Here, I'll just drop this here... again.

The Australians even had difficulty making the Australian buyback work. And despite that, there are more firearms in circulation in Australia now than there were before the ban.

Also, the homicide rate and firearm homicide rate in Australia was already falling even prior to the ban, just as they were in the US. In fact, the US fell more from its high in the early 90s during the same period than Australia did, despite the ban in Australia. Here's a post from 5 years ago...

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Between 1995 (the year before Australia's gun ban) and 2012, Australia's homicide rate dropped 32.5%.

Seems like a 16-year ban on guns had some positive results, right?

Well, then consider that the during the same time frame, the homicide rate in the US dropped 39.8%. So... yeah.

Then you look at other statistics. During that same time frame, for example, Australia's violent crime rate rose 38.8% while the US violent crime rate fell 40.1%. And the sexual assault rate in Australia rose 12.7%, while the rate in the US fell 27.1%.

The US had an assault weapons temporary ban and those numbers dropped.

No, sorry. The numbers were already dropping before the AWB because crime numbers as a whole were dropping massively. And rifles (of any type) as a homicide weapon still only account for about 5% of all firearm homicides.

Studies have shown that the federal AWB had no discernible effect on firearm homicides.

How many innocent people have to die before the US does the same? It's not a flawed question, you just don't like that you have to accept that your answer isn't socially acceptable.

No, it's still a flawed question, because you're making unfounded assumptions.

[PhaelixWW]

Semi-autos, all of them, were designed for warfare.

That idea loses is impetus when they've been in common civilian use (not just military use) for over a century. Otherwise, you'll have to paint bows, darts, knives, clubs, etc. ad nauseam with that broad brushstroke.

Firearms themselves were primarily designed, for warfare.

And then following the earlier logic, you must want to ban every single firearm. Either own the "want to ban and confiscate all guns" badge or else the "designed for warfare, regardless of the century of prior, common civilian use" designation is meaningless.

That it doesn't have full-auto is completely irrelevant

Well, gee, the law doesn't think so, and hasn't since 1934.

the M1 Garand was semi-automatic and clearly a "weapon designed for war". The Barrett .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle is bolt-action single-shot, and has no use for hunting, since anything you shot with it would pretty much explode.

And yet the M1 Garand was designed pretty much 100 years ago, but still only after civilians were already using semi-automatic rifles. And I'm not going to advocate for civilian ownership of Barrett 50 cals, but making a man-portable firearm of that caliber a semi-automatic is practically pointless due to the recoil in the first place.

There needs to be strong licensing, training requirements, registration, and tracking of firearms. The same requirements as for motor vehicles, I'll note, as a minimum. And a lot of what's currently sold needs to just not be on the civilian market, at all, including the AR-15.

Registration is pretty much pointless. And motor vehicles are really only licensed and registered for use in public areas, not private areas. They're also not covered by by a Constitutional right.

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Everything the modern versions of the gun, were designed based on the literal weapon designed for military use. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that without modifying the modern AR-15s illegally, they are semi auto only, the original AR-15 designed in 1959 had select fire for full auto.

So... cosmetically they're the same, except for the one fundamental, huge functional difference that would otherwise make the firearm illegal for civilian use pursuant to the NFA?

Yeah, that about covers it.

Without the ability for select-fire, the AR-15 is just any other semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. There's no other function that makes it more lethally capable, just some ergonomic features.

[Skulltaker]

People just really don't bother to actually look at the data, you know?

No, sorry. The numbers were already dropping before the AWB because crime numbers as a whole were dropping massively. And rifles (of any type) as a homicide weapon still only account for about 5% of all firearm homicides.

Okay, let's tl;dr the relevant data. US homicides per capita are what, compared to other civilized nations? In 2020, you were just shy of 20.982. That's more people than the backwater dump I was born in has in citizens, almost twice that count. It puts you at a rate of 6.3 people killed, deliberately, per 100.000 citizens. Now the CDC tells me that 19.384 people were killed, deliberately, by firearms, in the same period. That's 92.38%.

So, I'd say, either the availability of weapons is the issue, or the people themselves are. In any case, they shouldn't have weapons, Semi-automatic or otherwise.

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Well, gee, the law doesn't think so, and hasn't since 1934.

So even you have come to the conclusion that your laws are fucked-up and need adressing. Good for you, gun nut.

[PhaelixWW]

6) Texas does ban guns on school grounds, but if the local police weren't going to stop him while he was shooting at people and the school itself, they weren't going to stop him for merely holding a weapon of war, either.

The police did not engage the shooter outside the school; they weren't on scene yet.

a weapon of war

Still not a weapon of war.

The AR-15 sure gets used to murder a lot of people a lot, we probably won't have to wait long.

Actually, it doesn't, proportionally. Again, rifles of any type only account for about 5% of firearm homicides. Knives are used 4-5x as much as rifles. Hands and feet? ~2x. They're even used less than clubs and other blunt objects.

7) Texas does not require insurance to own a gun.

The concept of insurance is a mostly ridiculous one. Insurance never covers intentional acts, which most firearm deaths are.

a weapon of war

Still not a weapon of war.

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We're not talking about homicide rates, we are talking about *mass shootings*, You are finding what information you can that doesn't directly prove any of your claims (wherever you found them), to make sure you can fit your narrative safely.

Mass shootings didn't really go down during the AWB, despite overall crime numbers plummeting from the previous decade.

BFA was 1995, you may be lying which is [I]super[I] counterproductive.

You mean the NFA? The one that was done in 1996? In response to the Port Arthur massacre of... 1996?

Do you think gun restrictions and reforms need to happen?

I think there are already a lot of effective restrictions in place and I'm totally open to analyzing new suggestions.

Do you think other countries that have had them have not seen improved results after the fact? If not could you kindly show sources and evidence.

Most of the "improved results" have very little to do with the measures to which they're often attributed, as people tend to ignore the concurrent factors in favor of the result that they want to see.

My source and evidence is here.

How many innocent people have to die before changes ACTUALLY get done that do something?

Again, it's a flawed question. But the serious answer is that things won't get better until the issues that actually underlie the crime in this country are adequately addressed. And that likely won't happen until the GoP is a non-entity, as they stand as roadblock to meaningful advances in that regard.

I would really like to see the studies you mention, because I look and find a lot of studies that show the benefits of the NFA.

You're free to look through the supporting evidence in the gun control thread, of course. As for the US, you can start with some information from RAND Corp.

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Okay, let's tl;dr the relevant data. US homicides per capita are what, compared to other civilized nations? In 2020, you were just shy of 20.982. That's more people than the backwater dump I was born in has in citizens, almost twice that count. It puts you at a rate of 6.3 people killed, deliberately, per 100.000 citizens. Now the CDC tells me that 19.384 people were killed, deliberately, by firearms, in the same period. That's 92.38%.

I mean... if you're going to do this, at least get the data correct and not from some random site. If you want to use the CDC numbers, then just use the CDC numbers.

So, I'd say, either the availability of weapons is the issue, or the people themselves are. In any case, they shouldn't have weapons, Semi-automatic or otherwise.

...or the conditions that lead to increased crime is the issue. And a total ban on firearms is pretty much a non-starter in the US. There are uphill battles, and then there's that.

So even you have come to the conclusion that your laws are fucked-up and need adressing.

What are you even talking about? You're not making any sense here.

Good for you, gun nut.

Lulz. I'm hardly a gun nut. But I bet you feel a false sense of smug superiority to throw names around.

[Mekh]

The fixation on the AR-15 isn't helpful. The Ruger Mini 14 is a semi-automatic rifle in the same calibre and of identical clipsize and price. Also, instead of scary black plastic, it's non-threatening wood furniture. You think murderous fucks care at the end of the day? If your rhethoric focuses more on banning the concept of "tacticool" than actual, proper gun regulation, it's worthless.

[Draco-Onis]

The fixation on the AR-15 isn't helpful. The Ruger Mini 14 is a semi-automatic rifle in the same calibre and of identical clipsize and price. Also, instead of scary black plastic, it's non-threatening wood furniture. You think murderous fucks care at the end of the day? If your rhethoric focuses more on banning the concept of "tacticool" than actual, proper gun regulation, it's worthless.

I am not sure what world you exist in because of course they care about how the gun looks that's why they post gun porn on social media before they go on their rampage. At this point people will take any actions on guns regardless of the results it would be better than what we are doing now which is making it worse. Gun laws have gotten looser not tighter with the reich wing supreme court and states like Texas leading the way.

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@Draco-Onis

I knew I had seen it somewhere in some article I had read, but I also saw it on Twitter, and Tiktok videos. I had to find the article I was reading, and I found it.

I know it is 2 days later, but it was eating me up.

Next on the gun nut argument if we don't give guns to everyone with a pulse then the goodier people with guns won't stop the bad guys. This story pretty much blows everything they have out of the water because human nature is a thing even with people trained to handle this. I also expect nothing to change and all these officers to be transferred and keep their jobs.

[Flarelaine]

Cease derailing the thread with gun technicalities.

[tehdang]

Mass shooting thread on page one inspires calls for gun control. Calls for gun control in the wake of mass shootings wither and die legislatively, because most manifest as laws on gun technicalities. What it takes to truly understand them, and the legislative history on them, and the historical record on violent crime or homicide with guns in America, basically makes you a "gun nut" in the eyes of the most passionate proponents of gun control. It's both futile to discuss, for reasons that reading the last few pages will teach you, and a primary reason nothing gets done on the subject, to the frustration of many here.

[Ivanstone]

Mass shooting thread on page one inspires calls for gun control. Calls for gun control in the wake of mass shootings wither and die legislatively, because most manifest as laws on gun technicalities. What it takes to truly understand them, and the legislative history on them, and the historical record on violent crime or homicide with guns in America, basically makes you a "gun nut" in the eyes of the most passionate proponents of gun control. It's both futile to discuss, for reasons that reading the last few pages will teach you, and a primary reason nothing gets done on the subject, to the frustration of many here.

What makes you a gun nut is the pathological need to cosplay as a GI Joe figure. Gun nuts seek no understanding on any subject. What matters is they get their guns and everyone else gets to hope they're not the victim of a mass shooting, other violent crime or accidental shooting.

America also has a large disparity in power. Louisiana gun nuts have a lot more power than California gun control advocates for example.

[Gabriel]

It's the silliest goddamned argument.

Semi-autos, all of them, were designed for warfare. Firearms themselves were primarily designed, for warfare. That it doesn't have full-auto is completely irrelevant; the M1 Garand was semi-automatic and clearly a "weapon designed for war". The Barrett .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle is bolt-action single-shot, and has no use for hunting, since anything you shot with it would pretty much explode.

It's a pointless deflection and ignores that all firearms are "designed for war", fundamentally. If that bothers you, maybe start recognizing the danger firearms necessarily present, because they're tools that are designed to efficiently kill the target, and don't have any other meaningful use (and I don't accept "target practice/competition" as a "meaningful use" that's separate, as that's practicing the same skill set for application to that primary use, the same way martial arts are combat arts, even if you never get in a fight.)

There needs to be strong licensing, training requirements, registration, and tracking of firearms. The same requirements as for motor vehicles, I'll note, as a minimum. And a lot of what's currently sold needs to just not be on the civilian market, at all, including the AR-15.

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Like I just said, all those semi-autos were also designed for warfare. Semi-auto fire was designed for warfare, itself. What's happening here is that weapons designed for warfare have increasingly been sold to civilians with very little checks and balances, in the USA. There's no Venn diagram separating the two, and the line can't be drawn along full-auto and burst-fire mechanics, since there's plenty of explicitly military weapons that don't have those features.

The whole argument just tries to normalize owning these kinds of weapons, when they should be banned. They are here in Canada. And we've got like 70x fewer mass shootings, once you control for populations, as I ran the figures a day or two back when this came up then. Seems like our laws do a lot of good.

I disagree. There are fairly many AR style firearms in Finland, but to get one you need to go through a quite strict application process that involves: proving you have a practical shooting hobby where you need it, a place to do so, no history of violent crime or drug abuse etc etc. I don't think we've ever had a shooting where the perp used an AR style firearms. Americans are just fubar retarded about who gets to access them.

[Poopymonster]

I disagree. There are fairly many AR style firearms in Finland, but to get one you need to go through a quite strict application process that involves: proving you have a practical shooting hobby where you need it, a place to do so, no history of violent crime or drug abuse etc etc. I don't think we've ever had a shooting where the perp used an AR style firearms. Americans are just fubar retarded about who gets to access them.

We're Freedom Fans who apparently have no problem with the Liberation of Patriot Juice from the bodies of children on a regular basis.

[Gabriel]

We're Freedom Fans who apparently have no problem with the Liberation of Patriot Juice from the bodies of children on a regular basis.

The entire discussion about what is a "weapon of war" and what is not is fucking retarded anyway. The only things that matters when categorizing firearms are: caliber, action type(self-reloading/non-self-reloading), ammo capacity and concealability(pistol length/ rifle length).

If a gun is either concealable, self-reloading or has high ammo capacity, just regulate the living shit out of them. It doesn't fucking matter if the stock is made of wood or le-ebin-tacticool polymer.

Trying to outright ban everything is a stupid fucking idea because it will never pass, and it isn't even necessary as evident by non-existent number of mass shootings committed by "assault weapons" in my country.

[tehdang]

What makes you a gun nut is the pathological need to cosplay as a GI Joe figure. Gun nuts seek no understanding on any subject. What matters is they get their guns and everyone else gets to hope they're not the victim of a mass shooting, other violent crime or accidental shooting.

America also has a large disparity in power. Louisiana gun nuts have a lot more power than California gun control advocates for example.

As you can see on the previous page, opinions differ on what qualifies.

[Ivanstone]

As you can see on the previous page, opinions differ on what qualifies.

Doesn't matter.

Power is strictly in the hands of the gun nuts. You can hair split on what qualifies but the most extreme gun nut opinion has more power than more moderate gun users, gun control advocates and gun ban advocates.

To make matters worse gun nut extremists have their own opinions on what causes violent crime (incl mass shootings). They either choose to do nothing or make matters worse. Gov Abbott believes that mental health is the problem but slashed government spending on mental health for example.

[Glorious Leader]

Doesn't matter.

Power is strictly in the hands of the gun nuts. You can hair split on what qualifies but the most extreme gun nut opinion has more power than more moderate gun users, gun control advocates and gun ban advocates.

To make matters worse gun nut extremists have their own opinions on what causes violent crime (incl mass shootings). They either choose to do nothing or make matters worse. Gov Abbott believes that mental health is the problem but slashed government spending on mental health for example.

Yea you can tell all that talk about xyz being the cause is just talk because they never actually follow through with it.

[Spectral]

Mass shooting thread on page one inspires calls for gun control. Calls for gun control in the wake of mass shootings wither and die legislatively, because most manifest as laws on gun technicalities. What it takes to truly understand them, and the legislative history on them, and the historical record on violent crime or homicide with guns in America, basically makes you a "gun nut" in the eyes of the most passionate proponents of gun control. It's both futile to discuss, for reasons that reading the last few pages will teach you, and a primary reason nothing gets done on the subject, to the frustration of many here.

Popehat said it best, back before he had his mind eaten by brainworms:

It's hard to grasp the reaction of someone who understands gun terminology to someone who doesn't. So imagine we're going through one of our periodic moral panics over dogs and I'm trying to persuade you that there should be restrictions on, say, Rottweilers.

Me: I don't want to take away dog owners' rights. But we need to do something about Rottweilers.
You: So what do you propose?
Me: I just think that there should be some sort of training or restrictions on owning an attack dog.
You: Wait. What's an "attack dog?"
Me: You know what I mean. Like military dogs.
You: Huh? Rottweilers aren't military dogs. In fact "military dogs" isn't a thing. You mean like German Shepherds?
Me: Don't be ridiculous. Nobody's trying to take away your German Shepherds. But civilians shouldn't own fighting dogs.
You: I have no idea what dogs you're talking about now.
Me: You're being both picky and obtuse. You know I mean hounds.
You: What the fuck.
Me: OK, maybe not actually ::air quotes:: hounds ::air quotes::. Maybe I have the terminology wrong. I'm not obsessed with vicious dogs like you. But we can identify kinds of dogs that civilians just don't need to own.
You: Can we?

Because I'm just talking out of my ass, the impression I convey is that I want to ban some arbitrary, uninformed category of dogs that I can't articulate. Are you comfortable that my rule is going to be drawn in a principled, informed, narrow way?

That people handwave technical concerns away makes it clear that there isn't a specific goal in mind, but a combination of do-somethingism and a desire to disarm people as much as practicable. Which, of course, leads to "fuck off" as a response.

[Endus]

Popehat said it best, back before he had his mind eaten by brainworms:

That people handwave technical concerns away makes it clear that there isn't a specific goal in mind, but a combination of do-somethingism and a desire to disarm people as much as practicable. Which, of course, leads to "fuck off" as a response.

The problem with this comparison, of course, is that dogs don't primarily exist to kill things.

Guns do. Particularly to kill people, in a lot of cases, such as every handgun on the market, or every rifle originally designed for combat scenarios even if later adapted for hunting purposes.

If you had a breed of dog whose primary breeded purpose was to hunt and kill people, yeah, people might have issues with keeping that as a pet. Not even tigers preferentially hunt people, outside of a few cases which are such a problem they're hunted down and killed when identified.

The technical concerns are a deflection. A way to quibble about terminology rather than deal with the actual issue.

[Glorious Leader]

Popehat said it best, back before he had his mind eaten by brainworms:

That people handwave technical concerns away makes it clear that there isn't a specific goal in mind, but a combination of do-somethingism and a desire to disarm people as much as practicable. Which, of course, leads to "fuck off" as a response.

Thats crap and you know it. Their is specific legislation HR 8 that was passed by the house thats been sitting in the senate. Not a question of technical concerns just bullshit on the part of a deeply entrenched and gun lobby.

I think however this is mostly giving away your hand. The reality is you will likely rather see any legislation if it ever gets passed getting bogged down in technicalities by Republicans. Specifically in order to dull its efficacy and keep vested interests making money.

[Spectral]

The problem with this comparison, of course, is that dogs don't primarily exist to kill things.

Guns do. Particularly to kill people, in a lot of cases, such as every handgun on the market, or every rifle originally designed for combat scenarios even if later adapted for hunting purposes.

If you had a breed of dog whose primary breeded purpose was to hunt and kill people, yeah, people might have issues with keeping that as a pet. Not even tigers preferentially hunt people, outside of a few cases which are such a problem they're hunted down and killed when identified.

The technical concerns are a deflection. A way to quibble about terminology rather than deal with the actual issue.

Yeah, that's how analogies work, they compare things that are not 100% identical to help explain a parallel situation. They do have the weakness that the deliberately obtuse will point out that the situations are not 100% identical though.

Discussing potential regulations with people that stay deliberately ignorant of the relevant technical details is every bit as tedious as the description given.