Mass shootings are not America's main gun problem

[Bells]

How very voluntary that all sounds - especially extended to the warily defended arsenals of the US.

Get a clue, will you please? Coercion of that kind is exactly what is feared. It's a threat. The people advocating gun control in the US are making threats, when they point to Australia.

Threats of what?

'Commin' fer ye guns'?

Australia is pointed to as an example of how gun control measures can work. They aren't saying to do it like we did here. They are saying that gun control measures can work. It isn't a threat. It doesn't involve police going door to door and looking in people's bedside tables. It is about looking at what measures could possibly work in the US, particularly in US society. Of course what we implemented here is not going to work in the US. Firstly, our outlook on these things is vastly different to that in the US. In other words, we are not paranoid about Government tyranny, nor are we paranoid that we need to maintain personal arsenals to keep the Government in check. We have elections for that.

obody said James said "that", whatever you somehow read into my post. Your response is bizarre, and unmotivated by anything I posted.

Well actually, you did.. Perhaps you should refresh your memory about how you word your arguments.

There are no loopholes in the 2nd Amendment, and there has been no such legal "increase" in the types of guns Americans can own. You are failing to read with comprehension, a quite simple sentence in English, because it does not say what you want it to say.

Well, taken literally, the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment appears to be quite broad. Especially when one considers the time the 2nd Amendment was actually written, the history and the events that occurred during and leading up to it. America has moved forward quite a bit. As such, it isn't exactly necessary to form militias to keep the Government in check. The last one that occurred, in a bird sanctuary in Oregon, was a complete disaster and kind of points to individuals wanting things for themselves and believing holding the Government hostage with their guns is the way to go about it. If anything, the actions of Bundy and co prove that the 2nd Amendment is somewhat outdated and frankly, can lead to dangerous situations, especially when one considers the paranoia of groups who form such militias and for the reasons they are formed.

And that's just from an outsider's perspective.. as someone who lives in a democracy and who believes that in a democracy, the best way to effect change is through voting rather than through the belief that having guns will somehow keep the nuclear armed Government in check. Obviously you believe differently. To each their own.

When dozens of posters (like you) recommend policies and advance agendas that would require a general confiscation of private firearms in the US, their obliviousness does not reduce the threat - nor does it increase the confidence that the laws they do enact will be reasonable. Hence the votes of no confidence, and the political deadlock.

Ah yes. I forget. You hear 'gun control' and you seem to automatically picture armed tactical personnel breaching your defenses to come and 'take ye guns'.

As such, you seem unwilling to even discuss the issue and instead prefer to abuse and accuse anyone who even attempts to discuss it. You take it prodigiously personally. As though we are literally threatening your right to defend house and home from the marauding hordes that require Americans to own military style weapons for "self protection".

I get it. Believe me, I do.

Instead of suspecting what they are thinking, read what they write. Yes, they are. Whether they realize it or not. It's inherent in their arguments and justifications, as well as their explicit proposals. And their obliviousness - if sincere - increases rather than decreases the threat they represent.

You mean the arguments against assault style weapons and high capacity magazines? What I have heard from American gun control advocates is better regulation as to who can own guns and restricting the types of guns people can own. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with that. Do you? But wait, you hear 'gun control' and you think 'they commin fer ye guns'.

I don't think there is anything wrong with assault weapon bans and bans on high capacity magazines. You need only look at States that have implemented even basic forms of gun control, such as requiring a license and seeing their gun homicide and suicides drop quite significantly as an example as to how even something as basic as having to get a license and a background check can be meaningful. Something like that on a Federal level could see dramatic drops.

But no, it's best to just bathe in paranoia about all guns being confiscated. Because that makes sense.

 

[Bells]

Let me ask you this: how many times do I have to post one of my various lists of gun control measures I favor, and most Americans favor, which included every single one of those,

how many times do I have to point out that nothing in my posting conflicts with the imposition of badly needed gun control in the US, such as I favor and most Americans favor,

before you cranks learn to read other people's posts with comprehension?

You may not be aware of this, iceaura, but I have yet to see you post any list of various gun control measures you favour.

Perhaps you believe you are posting them in your mind, but you actually aren't.

What I have seen you do, repeatedly, is abuse and accuse anyone and everyone who happens to believe in gun control, as though we are the 'great Satan'. To wit, all you do is whine about gun control. You have never actually detailed what gun control measures you actually favor. Maybe you think we can read between the murky lines of your anger filled posts and connect the dots?

What in all that is holy is the problem with the gun control deadlockers that they cannot read simple English prose? They can't read the 2nd Amendment, they can't read anything I post, they can't even read their own damn posts and realize what they just said. It's striking.

Perhaps because your English prose is simply angry noise?

You keep saying that you have detailed what you favour when it comes to gun control, but you actually haven't. If you have, it was probably lost in the rage of angry typing you do when it comes to this subject matter.

That isn't true. Scientists have been denied government funding to study gun injury as a public health matter, under the auspices of the Federal public health agencies and grants from said sources, in the US, only - which is of course bad enough, and symptomatic, and crazy, but still anyone who wants to study the impact of guns on murder and suicide rates under other auspices or via other sources of funding (such as Homeland Security, say) is perfectly free to do so. And such studies have been done, are being done. Most of the ones I have seen have been very poorly conceived - a waste of money, really, doing things like aggregating their stats by State - but not all, and there is no reason better could not be performed.

Which is bizarre, because guns do constitute a public health crisis in the US. So why deny them the right to study it by refusing to release funding for such studies?

If you want to know why there was an irrational flinch reaction against bringing gun control research under Federal public health agency control, consider the powers of the Health Department, or OSHA, or any of those subagencies in charge of protecting us all from our own behavior, as experienced by the typical gun owner: the lifejacket regulations in his duckboat floating in three feet of water, the seat belt laws and air bag hassles, the intrusive creep of drug and alcohol laws, the piss testing and helmet requirements and safety matches that won't light, the fees and licenses and standing in lines for poor service and arbitrary abuse. He's the guy who was forced to pay thousands of dollars to swap his butcherblock meatcutting tables for metal ones that dull his knives and actually increase the odds of bacterial contamination (the Health Department requirement was based on bad data). He's the guy who watched his teenage daughter get behind the wheel of a car equipped with an air bag that added no safety to the seat belt she always wears and could kill her - because she's short - and could not be disconnected or removed, by law. The Health Department is not an agency you want in your house regulating your behavior any more than is unavoidable.

Well yes, because laws about wearing helmets when riding bikes and motorbikes are so ridiculous. As are seatbelt laws. I mean if people want to go through their windscreens or increase their chances of dying in minor accidents, by God they should damn well be allowed to. And what about laws that require babies be placed in car seats or secure carriers in cars instead of being able to sit in someone's lap in the back or front, or even crawl around on the floor of the car..!? Don't even get me started on laws that regulate medication and prescriptions, or drink driving laws! How utterly ridiculous those are!

Of course we don't want scientists and doctors to actually study gun violence or gun injuries and deaths. I mean, it's not like they have to deal with the consequences of those, is it? It just shows they have a vested interest in wanting to reduce said gun related injuries and deaths. How dare they! It's the 'Gubmint', I tells ya. The 'Gubmint', trying to prevent people dying when they have absolutely no business involving themselves in people's lives this way. Why, I remember back in the day when the kids could pick up a bottle of bleach and drink it if they wanted to. Damn health departments and their regulations demanding child safety caps be put on bottles of chemicals. They are obviously attempting to regulate behaviour.

 

[wellwisher]

The biggest problem about gun laws or any laws that prohibit behavior is, the criminals do not obey the law. Laws work best with honest and law abiding citizens. The net affect is any behavior that is made taboo by a law, such as guns, will still be practiced by the unlawful.

In Chicago, which has some of the toughest gun laws, in America, there are more shootings than in any other city in the USA. These shootings are done mostly by the unlawful, who ignore the gun law. Many innocent people, who obey the gun laws get mugged and shot and have no way to defend themselves. Why do Democrats see this as the example to follow?

Cook and colleagues Susan Parker and Harold Pollack at the University of Chicago interviewed 99 inmates of the Cook County Jail in Chicago. They were looking for criminals who were likely to have used a gun or had ready access to one. The authors described the group of participants as "a convenience sample of gun-involved, criminally active men living in greater Chicago."

"It is difficult to say how representative they are of the larger population with that description," they wrote. "For that reason, we do not place much emphasis on the statistical results, as opposed to the qualitative patterns that emerged from these data."

That said, of the 70 inmates who had possessed a firearm, only 2, or 2.9 percent, had bought it at a gun store. The report found that percentage was in line with the findings of the Chicago Police Department when it traced weapons seized from suspected gang members

The Democrats don't seem to not be very good at math. If we follow Obama and Hillary, we might be able to save 3% of the lives lost by gun crimes in Chicago, if we take away guns from everyone; legally. But they do not have the common sense to address the 97% of illegal guns, which will still be there.

One reason may be that most felons register as Democrats; 70%. If you addressed only illegal guns and saved 97% of the lost lives due to gun violence, the Democrats will lose votes, since felons can't vote. Maybe to the Democrats, lives saved mean less than votes lost. On the other hand, if you make guns illegal, since more conservative now own legal ones, you may be able to arrest the defiant ones; felons, and remove Republicans from voting.

The young liberal needs to think, fact check, and learn basic math skills.

 

[iceaura]

Ah yes. I forget. You hear 'gun control' and you seem to automatically picture armed tactical personnel breaching your defenses to come and 'take ye guns'.

Uh, no, that's you going spla again. I'm a gun control advocate, consistently and continuously for years now on this forum.

Australia is pointed to as an example of how gun control measures can work. - - - - - Of course what we implemented here is not going to work in the US.

When someone points to Australian gun control as an example of what the US should do, they should not be surprised when people interpret that as advocating the US do what the Australians did. Which is a threat.

You keep saying that you have detailed what you favour when it comes to gun control, but you actually haven't. If you have, it was probably lost in the rage of angry typing you do when it comes to this subject matter.

Your utter lack of self-awareness in this is comedy gold.

But you forgot the part about the fact that nothing I have posted conflicts in the slightest with my continuing advocacy of more and better gun control in the US. I am a gun control advocate, always have been. You did notice that, right, after I pointed it out to you - again?

Of course we don't want scientists and doctors to actually study gun violence or gun injuries and deaths.

Some people in the US don't trust the CDC in the matter of gun control, specifically. That's where the funding was cut off. Doctors studying gun injuries, law enforcement studying gun violence, scientists doing their sciency thing, all funded no problem.

Well yes, because laws about wearing helmets when riding bikes and motorbikes are so ridiculous. As are seatbelt laws. I mean if people want to go through their windscreens or increase their chances of dying in minor accidents, by God they should damn well be allowed to. And what about laws that require babies be placed in car seats or secure carriers in cars instead of being able to sit in someone's lap in the back or front, or even crawl around on the floor of the car..!?

By now the reasons for the US deadlock, the cutoff of CDC funding, etc, should be obvious to the reasonable public whether in agreement or not. There is a strain of crazy here on both sides, and deadlock with mistrust is hardly a surprise.

I don't happen to agree with them, btw (I favor research funding via any agency, in particular because with better funding we might get some better research than we've seen so far), but it's hard to argue to somebody that people with that attitude and level of obliviousness can be trusted with political power. They can't. Nannystaters are dangerous.

btw, sidelight: Somebody mentioned car seats. When the infant car seat laws were first passed in Minnesota, they were pretty inconvenient - the kid had to go in the back seat where they were out of care reach (remember when there was a flurry of tragedies in which kids were forgotten in hot cars? They were all in back seats - air bags, kid seats, safety), the carseat had to be replaced three or four times at hundreds of dollars a pop as the kid grew, if you had more than three kids to schlep a normal car for a low income family would no longer carry them, the common practice of tucking a fretful kid in on the front passenger side floor where they would fall asleep in a pretty safe place was no longer legal even in the car seat, it took a long time to load the car even for short trips when one could not leave the kid home for ten minutes, there were strain and back injuries from dealing with the seat and the kid and so forth in cramped circumstances, etc etc. But these concerns were dismissed in the interests 0f safety. Ok.

But then came the beautiful event: one of the chief promoters of the law had to drive a few blocks of residential side street back to her church on Sunday morning to retrieve some stuff she had forgotten, and could not leave her toddler at home unattended. She had food in the oven, needed the stuff before dinner. The car seat took time and hassle in her model of car, the kid hated it and cried. So she tucked the kid in on the front floor, happy and safe, took off for the quick trip - and got pulled over by a cop who had seen the kid's foot in the air over the front seat.

She had to sit for a long time, while the ticket was written. Had to appear in court with lowlifes. She was fined many dollars. Had to walk a toddler home barefoot for suburban blocks without sidewalks and without a spare diaper. Had to arrange to pick up the car. Burned dinner. Missed what she needed the stuff for. Was interrogated by government social workers regarding her fitness as a mother. And boy oh boy was she mad - she wrote a column for the newspaper about the imposition, about the unfairness, about the lack of common sense displayed by police who enforce the letter of laws obviously not intended to be this kind of burden on people, and so forth (that's where I got the background).

Ha.

 

[GeoffP]

A lot of the focus of the latest round of the gun control debate in the US has been on the desire to prevent mass shootings. However, mass shootings make up only a tiny fraction (considerably less than 1%) of the yearly death toll due to guns in America.

...

How long will The United States continue to do nothing about guns?

It's bad but in the current rankings America is ranked a bit lower and lower than several Western nations. My suspicion is that economic factors against economic expectations is responsible for most of it. Gun suicides then correspond to that deviant fraction of the remaining death rate unexplained by the former: the 'easy option'. But ultimately, you're right to say that the US needs better monitoring. The problem in part is devolution of responsibilities to the states: then again, some of the deregulated ones have low gun suicide rates.

 

[Bells]

Uh, no, that's you going spla again. I'm a gun control advocate, consistently and continuously for years now on this forum.

Which is why you pitch fits at the mere words 'gun control'... No, of course it makes sense that you are a gun control advocate.

When someone points to Australian gun control as an example of what the US should do, they should not be surprised when people interpret that as advocating the US do what the Australians did. Which is a threat.

Is this you being a gun control advocate again?

Because I'm not seeing it.

When people point to Australia as an example, they do so in the bid to show that gun control can work. No one is expecting gun happy Americans to let those firearms go from their cold dead hands. But it is clear that there is a gun problem in the US and that is evidenced by the sheer and ridiculous number of deaths that result from so many guns in the population itself.

It isn't a threat. It is an example of how well gun control can work. Do you understand the difference?

There is no threat of the 'ebil Gubmint' confiscating your guns. What is being proposed is tighter restriction and regulation on what is being sold. On the basis of public safety, it's a good idea. Look at Connecticut as an example. They tightened their gun laws and [/start gasp] gun deaths went down! [/end gasp]. They didn't take guns away from people.

Your utter lack of self-awareness in this is comedy gold.

But you forgot the part about the fact that nothing I have posted conflicts in the slightest with my continuing advocacy of more and better gun control in the US. I am a gun control advocate, always have been. You did notice that, right, after I pointed it out to you - again?

You have attempted to rip strips off anyone who even attempts to discuss the issue of gun control. We cannot even discuss it without your angry and abusive rhetoric. We cannot even utter the words 'gun control' without you rushing in ranting as though your skin had been set alight. And this is apparently evidence of your pro-gun control stance? My personal favourite "pro gun control" stance argument you make and have made a few times on this site is when you declare that you can amass an armed militia in a short space of time.. I mean, as a pro-gun control argument, that has to be up there. An apt analogy here would be a member of the KKK declaring they aren't racist because they have black friends. No one is really buying it.

Some people in the US don't trust the CDC in the matter of gun control, specifically. That's where the funding was cut off. Doctors studying gun injuries, law enforcement studying gun violence, scientists doing their sciency thing, all funded no problem.

Right.. "some people"..

If you want to know why there was an irrational flinch reaction against bringing gun control research under Federal public health agency control, consider the powers of the Health Department, or OSHA, or any of those subagencies in charge of protecting us all from our own behavior, as experienced by the typical gun owner: the lifejacket regulations in his duckboat floating in three feet of water, the seat belt laws and air bag hassles, the intrusive creep of drug and alcohol laws, the piss testing and helmet requirements and safety matches that won't light, the fees and licenses and standing in lines for poor service and arbitrary abuse. He's the guy who was forced to pay thousands of dollars to swap his butcherblock meatcutting tables for metal ones that dull his knives and actually increase the odds of bacterial contamination (the Health Department requirement was based on bad data). He's the guy who watched his teenage daughter get behind the wheel of a car equipped with an air bag that added no safety to the seat belt she always wears and could kill her - because she's short - and could not be disconnected or removed, by law. The Health Department is not an agency you want in your house regulating your behavior any more than is unavoidable.

After that little spiel a few posts ago, by "some people", you mean you? Or is this another "pro gun control" advocacy from you?

By now the reasons for the US deadlock, the cutoff of CDC funding, etc, should be obvious to the reasonable public whether in agreement or not. There is a strain of crazy here on both sides, and deadlock with mistrust is hardly a surprise.

I don't happen to agree with them, btw (I favor research funding via any agency, in particular because with better funding we might get some better research than we've seen so far), but it's hard to argue to somebody that people with that attitude and level of obliviousness can be trusted with political power. They can't. Nannystaters are dangerous.

Which is clearly evidenced by your little anti-science rant against the CDC..

I guess that was evidence of your supporting their researching the issue of gun violence and gun related deaths in the US?

btw, sidelight: Somebody mentioned car seats. When the infant car seat laws were first passed in Minnesota, they were pretty inconvenient - the kid had to go in the back seat where they were out of care reach (remember when there was a flurry of tragedies in which kids were forgotten in hot cars? They were all in back seats - air bags, kid seats, safety), the carseat had to be replaced three or four times at hundreds of dollars a pop as the kid grew, if you had more than three kids to schlep a normal car for a low income family would no longer carry them, the common practice of tucking a fretful kid in on the front passenger side floor where they would fall asleep in a pretty safe place was no longer legal even in the car seat, it took a long time to load the car even for short trips when one could not leave the kid home for ten minutes, there were strain and back injuries from dealing with the seat and the kid and so forth in cramped circumstances, etc etc. But these concerns were dismissed in the interests 0f safety. Ok.

But then came the beautiful event: one of the chief promoters of the law had to drive a few blocks of residential side street back to her church on Sunday morning to retrieve some stuff she had forgotten, and could not leave her toddler at home unattended. She had food in the oven, needed the stuff before dinner. The car seat took time and hassle in her model of car, the kid hated it and cried. So she tucked the kid in on the front floor, happy and safe, took off for the quick trip - and got pulled over by a cop who had seen the kid's foot in the air over the front seat.

She had to sit for a long time, while the ticket was written. Had to appear in court with lowlifes. She was fined many dollars. Had to walk a toddler home barefoot for suburban blocks without sidewalks and without a spare diaper. Had to arrange to pick up the car. Burned dinner. Missed what she needed the stuff for. Was interrogated by government social workers regarding her fitness as a mother. And boy oh boy was she mad - she wrote a column for the newspaper about the imposition, about the unfairness, about the lack of common sense displayed by police who enforce the letter of laws obviously not intended to be this kind of burden on people, and so forth (that's where I got the background).

Ha.

If you thought I'd be amused at a parent endangering their child (keep in mind, even a fender bender with an unsecured child can cause death or serious injury to said child).. You would be seriously mistaken.

 

[Bells]

It's bad but in the current rankings America is ranked a bit lower and lower than several Western nations.

Which other Western nation(s) have higher gun deaths?

Or are you also looking at countries like Honduras and El Salvadore as a Western nation to compare the US to?

 

[GeoffP]

Which other Western nation(s) have higher gun deaths?

Or are you also looking at countries like Honduras and El Salvadore as a Western nation to compare the US to?

Suicides, specifically. I didn't make this clear.

 

[Crcata]

A lot of the focus of the latest round of the gun control debate in the US has been on the desire to prevent mass shootings. However, mass shootings make up only a tiny fraction (considerably less than 1%) of the yearly death toll due to guns in America.

Close to two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides and almost one-third are homicides that are not mass shootings. About 4% of gun deaths each year are accidental ('unintentional') or due to 'other causes'.

These statistics, repeated below, are taken from the following article in The Guardian, 21 June 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/21/gun-control-debate-mass-shootings-gun-violence

• The firearm death rate in the USA has remained approximately constant since 1999, at about 10.4 per 100,000 people per year.
• About 33,500 lives are lost each year. That's roughly one every 15 minutes – about the same number of people as are killed on America's roads.
• About 4% of deaths are categorised by the CDC as being 'unintentional', the result of 'legal intervention' (i.e. police acting in the line of duty), or of undetermined causes.
• Almost two-thirds of gun deaths - about 20,000 people per year - are suicides.
• The rest – about 11,000 a year – are homicides.
• Of the homicides, approximately half of the victims are black, despite African Americans making up only 13% of the population.
  
• Mass shootings, defined as 'seemingly indiscriminate rampages in public places' in which three or more victims were killed, account for the tiny proportion of overall deaths - of the order of 100 deaths per year out of the 33,500 total gun deaths.
• In addition to gun deaths, there are also about 70,000 gun-related injuries each year, some very serious.

A common argument put forward by opponents of gun control is that 'criminals' will find ways to get guns even if controls are strengthened. They also point out that mass shooters often purchase their guns legally. These arguments miss the point. Expanding background checks on private sales of guns would help to decrease the market for illicit firearms used not in mass shootings but in everyday gun violence - particularly the homicides and suicides that make up the vast majority of gun deaths every year.

Americans who buy guns often say they own then for 'protection'. However, those Americans are far more likely to die as a result of suicide using their guns, or to be killed or seriously injured by a gun, than they are to successfully 'protect' themselves against somebody else.

Gun violence is a national trajedy for the United States.

So what have other countries done about gun control? If you're interested in a brief overview, read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/15/so-america-this-is-how-you-do-gun-control

Today, about 90 people will die in the United States by a bullet from a gun. The American homicide rate is about 25 times higher than that of comparable high-income nations.

How long will The United States continue to do nothing about guns?

The ugly reality is the United States will do nothing about it for the foreseeable future. A huge portion of the population believe they need guns, and are very very VERY loud when it comes to preaching it and even more stubborn. Right now, to some people, the idea of taking away guns is viewed along the same lines as taking away alcohol, or tobacco. To do so would en site such a bitch fit from such a large portion of the population, and in many cases would absolutely lead to violence.

Some people believe they need it for protection from criminals, some believe they need it for protection from the government (which is about the stupidest argument as of yet) and others believe they simply SHOULD have them, for no other reason than they want them.

I tend not to have strong feelings either way. I see valid points on both sides. On on hand, it would definitely help to have a gun were I to find myself in a situation where I needed it to survive or to even not get hurt. "better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it".

There are also a lot of gun related deaths/injuries that occurred which simply wouldn't have occurred were guns not so available. Arguments and fist fights that would have resulted in minor bruising at most, in many cases are now shootings.

The way I see it is there is a balancing act that happens regardless of what many believe. The more guns we have out there, the more protected you may feel, and perhaps its true in some situations. But the more deaths that will occur.

The bigger issue I think is not a gun issue, its a people issue. If people were more reasonable, less extreme, and not so quick to violence there would be less problems all together.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Which other Western nation(s) have higher gun deaths? Or are you also looking at countries like Honduras and El Salvador as a Western nation to compare the US to?

Most of the Central American countries were caught in President Ronald-may-he-rot-in-hell-Reagan's Iran-Contra debacle. Like most Americans, I still don't quite understand it, but it involved selling guns to the anti-communist militias in Central America, and then using the proceeds to clandestinely ship guns to Iran, which has been identified as an enemy of the USA for 36 years.

If that helps you understand it at all, the TV talk shows will invite you to explain it to everybody else.

 

[kx000]

My idea to gun violence is to counter it by instilling pacifism in faith.
Pacifisim to wisdom to perfection to safety
God would and can be absolutely passive.

 

[Bells]

The more guns we have out there, the more protected you may feel, and perhaps its true in some situations. But the more deaths that will occur.

Meet Christy Sheats.

In January, Mrs Sheats posted this on her facebook page:

“I have 10 guns. Obama wants eight of my guns. How many guns do I have? That’s right, I have 10 guns.”​

In March, Mrs Sheats proclaimed how her numerous guns helped her protect her family.

“It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semiautomatic weapons.”​

She was the "good guy" with a gun. Who had guns for self protection and to protect her family.

On Friday afternoon, Mrs Sheats, on what was apparently her husband's birthday, got into an argument with their two daughters after she called a family meeting.

She then went and got one of the 10 guns she apparently kept to protect and keep her family safe, and gunned her daughters down. By the time police arrived, the two girls were lying in the street, one dead, one grievously injured. Mrs Sheats was still holding her gun and refused to lower it when she was shot and killed by police. Apparently before she shot their daughters, her husband pleaded with her to not shoot their children. The injured daughter was transported to hospital, but died to her injuries a short time later.

The mom had called for a family meeting at their home in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, before she opened fire on her kids inside the house, investigators said Monday.

Father Jason Sheats and the daughters made it outside, but she kept shooting, eventually striking and killing both of her daughters.

Jason Sheats was heard to plead with his wife, “Don’t do this, they’re our kids!” at one point during the carnage.

Law-enforcement sources told The Post that Christy Sheats was hell-bent on shooting her two daughters — and, in the process, almost murdered her own father, who had pulled inside a neighbor’s house for safety as the bullets started flying.

Christy shot her two daughters in the middle of the street, then ran back inside her home to reload her five-shot .38 caliber gun, sources said. She dashed back outside and pumped another bullet into Taylor.​

The daughters were 22 and 17 years of age. The 22 year old was due to be married this weekend.

I am finding it difficult to buy the argument of more guns = feeling more safe.

 

[iceaura]

Is this you being a gun control advocate again?

Because I'm not seeing it.

You are not seeing it because you are mentally screwed up in this matter. You are a perfect illustration of how - the mechanism by which - gun control has come to be deadlocked in the US, despite a vast majority of Americans favoring a wide variety of gun control measures (several of which I have listed in my posts over the years) - the public face of gun control advocacy has been taken over by your brand of discourse, and people in general are refusing to trust that kind of ranting bs with political power even in a good cause.

I mean, look at this in regard to the repeated posting of Australian gun confiscation (ok: call it coerced surrender if you want to - it isn't going to make any difference in the US) as a model for the US:

It isn't a threat. It is an example of how well gun control can work. Do you understand the difference?

Oblivious. Completely oblivious. And this is the voice of a loud, ubiquitous, faction in the US - it's not just foreigners who talk like that.

You have attempted to rip strips off anyone who even attempts to discuss the issue of gun control

No, I haven't. Your brand of crippled mental functioning is not universal, here or anywhere, and I have been moderate in tone throughout - certainly more so than you.

Which is clearly evidenced by your little anti-science rant against the CDC..

No such post from me exists. No anti-science or anti-CDC research post from me exists on this forum. Again.

We need an acronym for this: maybe atlats? (are they lying or are they stupid?).

I have several time repeated my support for CDC research into gun violence, including in this thread. I have explicitly favored expanding, improving, and better funding, the sorry state of such research in the US, by any number of agencies. My sole complaint about research into gun violence in the US has been its poor quality and frequently misleading presentation.

If you thought I'd be amused at a parent endangering their child (keep in mind, even a fender bender with an unsecured child can cause death or serious injury to said child).. You would be seriously mistaken.

I anticipated you missing the point
(that the characteristic obliviousness of nannystaters to obvious and inevitable consequences of their proposals, including the fact that they will not be enforced according to their ostensibly benign intentions)
completely, as you did.

Why do you think you are unable to read my posts with comprehension?

Do you suppose this inability has anything to do with such matters as your - and others - invariable and apparently perfectly sincere denial of the threat of gun confiscation inherent in the posts of so many gun control advocates - latest example being post #29 in this thread?

 

[iceaura]

Most of the Central American countries were caught in President Ronald-may-he-rot-in-hell-Reagan's Iran-Contra debacle. Like most Americans, I still don't quite understand it, but it involved selling guns to the anti-communist militias in Central America, and then using the proceeds to clandestinely ship guns to Iran, which has been identified as an enemy of the USA for 36 years.

It was much worse than that. The US government sold missiles and other high end military gear to Iran, and used the profits (Iran paid top dollar, the US bought wholesale) to finance Contra operations that Congress had refused to fund - including logistical gear and weapons purchases from US manufacturers, massive drugrunning into US territory (including the launch of the crack cocaine epidemic, in southern California http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/ ), and terrorism in the Nicaraguan countryside (blowing up buses and schools and medical clinics, murder and torture and rape of trade union activists, teachers, journalists, and medical personnel, etc).

The ostensible goal was the overthrow of the new government of Nicaragua, and the restoration of rightwing strongman rule allied with the US.

The real life consequences have included quite a bit of gun violence in the US, especially in ghettos gutted by crack and subjected to what amounts to low grade civil war between gangs of one kind and another - far more death and destruction by gunfire than has been inflicted by the occasional mass shootings of suburban white people.