Wow, that a fascinating statistic you pulled out of your ass.

Let's see what literally THREE FUCKING SECONDS of searching on Google produces

(search term: "Australia homicide rate")

Oh, look!

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2016~Main%20Features~Victims%20of%20Crime,%20Australia~3

Aaaaand I quote:

"Across Australia, the number of victims of Murder decreased by 4% between 2015 and 2016, from 236 to 227 victims

A weapon was used in 69% of Murders (157 victims). A knife was twice as likely to have been recorded as the murder weapon (71 victims), when compared to a firearm (32 victims). (Table 4)"

So there was a DECREASE in the murder rate in 2017. Furthermore, of 227 murders, only -32- were from firearms, or ~14%.

Let's look at mass shootings in Aussieland.

Oh, that's right, we can't: BECAUSE THERE WERE NONE!

How about the good ol' USA where any idiot can purchase a gun?

In 2016, there were 10,182 murders by firearms. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/). A total of 17,250 people were reported killed in the US in 2016, with the number of murders increasing by about 8.6% in comparison to 2015. (https://qz.com/1086403/fbi-crime-statistics-us-murders-were-up-in-2016-and-chicago-had-a-lot-to-do-with-it/)

Let's see here: ~14% of the murders is your maligned Antipodes were committed with a firearm and the murder rate was down while ~60% of the murders here in the US were committed with a firearm and the murder rate is up.

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Oh, yeah, there's this as well:

https://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

And a nb: I know you're going to howl and wail that Chicago has the most restrictive gun laws in the US and people are getting mowed down there left, right and center.

From NPR:
(https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555580598/fact-check-is-chicago-proof-that-gun-laws-don-t-work)

"A 2015 study of guns in Chicago, co-authored by Cook, found that more than 60 percent of new guns used in Chicago gang-related crimes and 31.6 percent used in non-gang-related crimes between 2009 and 2013 were bought in other states. Indiana was a particularly heavy supplier, providing nearly one-third of the gang guns and nearly one-fifth of the non-gang guns."

(actual study here: http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/papers/JCrimLC%202015%20Guns%20in%20Chicago.pdf )

In conclusion: maybe do a little research next time, hmm?

Hmm. Seems like an obvious omission to fail to cut to the seismograph reacting on their custom-made soot paper there at the end...

And those extras (how that much steel survived 2 world wars, etc.) are really fun and interesting details. Too bad they couldn't get worked in, but I guess including them in description text works.

Hmm... not sold yet. Looks pretty, but so did Rogue One. A bit worrying that they barely showed Solo in his own movie....

hmm. ok

If I have to hear about crooked hillary one more time... hey, why do you think all the investigations, testimony under oath, and revisiting of various aspects of Hillary Clinton's supposed crimes never go anywhere?

Hmm? what happened to "Lock her up" ???

Meanwhile, the Mueller investigation keeps mounting evidence...hmmmm

You ought to educate yourself about how the people who supported Nixon acted right up until the moment he resigned @bobknight33

*talks

Hmm, that video recording of the accident could had been useful.

I wonder how many accidents happened from it.

Hmm, yes. Quite woody. Regular flutes, too damn tinny.

It looks nice, but not sure it will be good. Hmm!

hmm

Or a good hard kick in the nuts or elsewhere for the dog. What a bunch of bullshit. Down here in TX, if a human climbs over my back fence after dark I can shoot the son of a bitch because I think he/she is going to steal my property or cause me harm. But if a dog tears up my car I can't do shit? Hmm. Something's screwed up here. Would be a damn shame if that free running dog got run over one day. You know, by accident. Real shame.

Hmm, it was showing up. I used its embed code:
<iframe src='//players.brightcove.net/293884104/SJa0Thl7_default/index.html?videoId=5623837088001' allowfullscreen frameborder=0></iframe>

@dag & @lucky760: Help please?

For now, just go to Time's article link to watch its embedded video.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Hmm, weird. I haven't experienced it. Is it just on submitting or on other places too? Ant are you still on Seamonkey? Eric - I'm assuming Chrome?

Hmm. I disagree with your description text, @ChaosEngine.

I've never shot something fully-automatic. I have shot an AR-15 semi-automatic, and I know where you're coming from when you say that hitting a target on full auto would be difficult, especially for a relatively untrained person (recoil control).

However, I think Vox and others are basically correct when they say that this modification (bump stock) contributed to the Las Vegas shooting being so deadly. Specifically in that sort of scenario.

The dude wasn't picking targets and sniping, going for accuracy. He picked an ideal shooting location (elevation with clear LOS) and sprayed into a crowd. He'd have been more accurate by keeping the weapon on semi-auto and actually aiming carefully, and certainly would have gotten more hits per bullet fired, but on the other hand the rate of fire difference would have so different that people would have had more time between shots to scramble for cover, etc.

He had position, an abundance of bullets, and lots and lots of time. Given those givens, having a rate of fire approximately equal to fully-automatic means a much higher body count than if he'd have been limited to traditional semi-auto.


The NRA is being more cunning than I figured they would, and has come out in favor of banning bump stocks. I agree with you that they see that mostly as a pointless concession, and a distraction from additional / better stuff that needs to happen.

But it isn't a pointless concession. If banning fully-automatic firearms in 1986 (minus the ones grandfathered in) was the right thing to do, extending that to include bump stocks is also the right thing to do. For the same reasons.

@newtboy is correct to note that technically, a rifle with a bump stock isn't a fully-automatic "machine gun". The user's finger still pulls the trigger once for every bullet that comes out -- semi-automatic.

However, I think that the "spirit" of the distinction is that with semi-automatic firing you have to think and consciously decide to pull the trigger each time you want to shoot a bullet, whereas with fully-automatic you consciously decide when you want to start and stop shooting. By the letter of the law, weapons with bump stocks are semi-automatic. But by that definition of the "spirit" of the law, they are fully-automatic. Pull the grip/barrel forward to start shooting, pull it back to stop.

It's a pretty frequent occurrence for technology to outpace the law. The definitions of semi vs fully automatic include the word "trigger" because they didn't anticipate this kind of conversion that makes the trigger sort of one step removed from the conscious decision to fire. The law would have similar hiccups if a weapon was developed that used a button or switch to fire, rather than a traditional trigger.

When those hiccups happen, the solution is to clarify the intent of the law and expand or clarify definitions as necessary. I'm pleasantly surprised that many legislators seem willing to do that with bump stocks, and that the NRA seems like it won't stand in the way. Mission accomplished, situation resolved? No. But a step in the right direction.

Hmm..pretty sure this is a dupe...