I make that at least half a million dollars for every family in the lowest third of income in the US. Did they really get this money?? What did they spend it on? Baggy jeans?

Also the nihilist mass shootings are all from the well fed white/asian middle class right?

The problem (as I see it) is that we're conflating every-day street crime (which is statistically more rare than it used to be) with horrific gun rampages (which are statistically more common than it used to be, and obviously more rare than every-day street crimes.) They're completely different animals. Choggie would have us believe that baseball bats are just as dangerous as AR15s. Certainly, statistically, that is true when we're discussing average crime-rates. However, I've never heard of someone bludgeoning a classroom full of preschoolers with a louisville slugger.

As Americans, we have to decide: are we OK with horrific gun rampages a few times every year? Is your right to own a military sidearm or rifle worth the occasional shooting spree? Maybe it is. Maybe that's the price of freedom.

Certainly, absolutely we need to address street crime and the factors that contribute to it. However, its obvious from these statistics that WE ARE. The crime rate has gone down.


And yet the shooting spree rate has gone up.

More awesomesauce from World Nut Daily: Sandy Hook was an Obama consipracy.

Lol, as usual you're wrong. You've taken a piece of right wing propaganda and accepted it as fact. Never mind the fact that armed robberies involving firearms have steadily declined, or that gun suicides have declined. Ignore the fact that in the 18 years prior to the Port Arthur massacre there were 13 mass shootings and in the decade since 1996 there was one.

In fact, the Australian Federal Attorney even told the NRA to please stop mis-interpreting the facts.

If I may : I'm not saying it's all about gun control, I know this would happen even with tighter legislation, I'm saying you're all asking the wrong questions.

Shouldn't it be : with roughly the same type of gun laws, why is the US so dominant in the statistics whereas Canada is almost totally absent ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#Americas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_Workplace_killings


And this : http://o.canada.com/2012/12/14/interactive-mass-shootings-around-the-world-since-1996/

America has by the far the largest amount of guns per person of any country in the world. Nothing short of making them scarce and prohibitively expensive will prevent these massacres and that will not happen in this lifetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

Assault weapon bans, limits on carry laws, metal detectors at schools, all these policies have negligible effect in light of the larger issue above. As far as I'm concerned that's why it's died as a political issue over there and why Obama rightly has no interest in pursuing it.

What grinds my gears is the media and politicians who milk these mass shootings for advertising revenue and popularity to no end.

More on this from wiki.

The pilot Arthur "Bud" Holland (46) was a cowboy, who had often performed risky and flatly unsafe manouvers many times throughout his career. He had even attempted a similar high angle (> 60° angle) turn like this above his daughters softball game - spiralling downwards for some 1000 feet before he could regain control of the aircraft. He was never removed from flight duty for any of his infractions.

The habitual lack of enforcement of safety regulations combined with the distraction of a recent mass shooting at their airbase four days prior failed to prevent Holland from trying the spectacular 360° turn at such low altitude. None of the four aircrew survived the crash.

The incident is used widely to show the importance of adhereing to and enforcing safety regulations, as well as correct crew resource management.

Winston, your arguments are shaky for a number of reasons:

Care to discuss the huge surge in KNIFE killings the UK is experiencing? Ban the guns and the UK turns into a nation of Jack-the-Rippers. Problem is not guns. Problem is stupid people.

The crux of the anti-gun argument relies on the exact same premise but with a more intelligent solution: People are stupid. Therefore, don't give them guns (or knives for that matter).


The context of the argument has also change from that of policeman carrying guns, to that of the general public, which, given the context, invalidates your argument (as it is not the police who are responsible for any surge in knife killings in the UK). But to continue....

You have arbitrarily chosen the UK to gather your statistics, whereas counter statistics can quite easily be found elsewhere in the world. For an example, take a look at the recent history of mass shootings and gun death (or lack thereof) in Australia.


A gun is a tool, like any other.

On the contrary, a gun is a tool that is significantly different from most other tools in that it is intended for killing and killing alone. Compare a gun to say a car, a hairbrush or a computer and you will see that the gun is in fact not at all like these tools.

A tool can make a bad/stupid person better at what they are trying to do badly/stupidly, but take the tool away and they will still do bad/stupid things.

... yes, but less effectively.

Your central posit is that if guns didn't exist, people wouldn't die of violent causes. Bollocks.

I'm quite sure that you have exaggerated his central posit, which is this: if guns didn't exist, fewer people would die of violent causes.

Furthermore, you say:
Pht - don't turn this into an anti-gun thing. That debate is a dead horse.
... yet then promptly spark up a debate. In fact the anti-gun "thing" is not a dead horse in many of the world's states and reducing access to guns has proven very successful in some countries.

Don't worry about it, half of my discards are dupes.

In reply to this comment by Zonbie:
hey, whoops, that was pretty bad, I did not see this was already here, well spotted.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bang-Banned-XBox360-Shootout-ad-from-2005 *discard

hey, whoops, that was pretty bad, I did not see this was already here, well spotted.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bang-Banned-XBox360-Shootout-ad-from-2005 *discard