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Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by ChaosEngine.

Father of one of the (injured) victims on NPR, when interviewed, took the time to point out he was and will continue to be a 2nd amendment zealot (for there's no other word for these people). He gave a thoughtful comment that one man had affected thousands of lives with his shooting spree. When the interviewer asked the father what he thought about one man having such (fire) power readily available TO ENABLE him to affect so many lives, the father had no response.

Canadian devil's advocate here.

We've got incredibly strict gun laws up here by comparison to the US. So our country has done the 'more than nothing' on gun laws. 3 days before the LA shooting we had a terror attack up here in Edmonton but the attacker used vehicles and a knife.

If we accept the rationale that current levels of freedom to own guns is leading to higher body counts and that restricting those freedoms will reduce body counts, that rationale is slippery.

Here's the parallel.

If we accept the rationale that current levels of freedom to 'practice religion' is leading to higher body counts then restricting those freedoms will reduce body counts.

Because, the Attacker in Edmonton was a Somali refugee. They had an ISIS flag in their car. The US tried to extradite him before Canada welcomed him with open arms. Canadian police even investigated him before when a co-worker reported him advocating genocidal ideas about Shiite scum.

We had a lot of potential red flags that we could have acted harder on or used for profiling and in this case having him in jail would've prevented the attacks.

The thing is, it is NOT immediately self evident that restricting those freedoms is objectively the best answer.

Personally, banning automatic weapons as my country has seems a very sane thing to do. Countering myself though, would the Catalonians in Spain be getting beaten up for holding a vote if the residents had automatic weapon in their basements or would the police show a little more respect to the citizen's than they did?

But, without guns, the freedom to practice religion is fairly safe, without religion, guns aren't.

If the Catalonians had automatic weapons in their basements they would be being shot by the police looking for those illegal weapons AND beaten up when unarmed in public. Having weapons hasn't stopped brutality in America, it's exacerbated it. They don't make police respect you, they make you an immediate threat to be stopped.

I don't disagree that weapons don't necessarily make anyone more free. I also can't say people are wrong to observe in a civil war level of unrest, a dissenting party armed with fully automatic weapons has more leverage than one armed with knives.

Freedom to practice religion is not 'fairly safe' without guns, unless you want to ignore attacks with cars, trucks, IEDs, and, historically, civilian airliners.

I am mostly pointing out that restricting laws on gun ownership to protect people is not so terribly different from limiting freedom to practice/express idealogies. It is readily demonstrable that BOTH those freedoms have directly contributed to civilian casualties.

The difference between say, banning automatic weapons, and the banning of affiliation with extremist groups like the KKK or ISIL is mostly divided along partisan lines, logically they are pretty much two sides of the same coin, with democrats and republicans each decrying one as necessary and the other as evil.

Here's a Canadian example:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/aly-hindy-salaheddin-islamic-centre

A mosque who's former founder has gone off to lead a team of Al Qaeda linked suicide bombers in Iraq. The mosque Ohmar Khadr's father brought their family to before relocating them to fight for Bin Laden in Pakistan. The mosque attended by the leaders of the largest terrorist ring Canada has broken up thus far. Other members have gone off to join terrorists in Somalia and Egypt.

The question of should we be setting up some manner of legal accountability for an organization that is clearly idealogically supporting these things isn't a clear and obvious, nope, nothing can be done. At least not any more than nope, nothing can be done is clearly the answer to the Vegas shootings.

But this is what is going to happen:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/editorial-cartoon/2017-10-04-editorial-cartoon

Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
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Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

Since the mechanization of war, armed citizens stand zero chance against a better trained, armed, and armored military. You can barely buy a rifle that might penetrate a hummer, and they are the least armored vehicles.

You forget, armed coups happen all the time without the support of the populace. See, when the military is overwhelming, no one balks at paying exorbitant taxes, at least not after a few public executions on the spot. Willing public support is definitely not required to retain power. If it were, we wouldn't have a word for tyranny or draconianism.

There are 100 million people with day to day access to arms in the U.S. (granted, of all ages, not all of fighting age).

There are 1.4 million military members.

Bombs destroy the very assets you wish to control. Nukes would be useless.

Tanks run out of fuel, as do jets, without a civil population to resupply them.





I already mentioned the Arab Spring. Governments with tanks and Jets fell to people with rifles.

Soldiers have families. When their families participate in revolt (and become targets of the government), soldiers change sides. Good example would be the Russian revolution against the Tsar, where the army stood down and abandoned the monarchy.

But yes, the military can do its own thing.
Afghan military in the 70's siding with Russia against its government.
Turkey's military ejecting their government whenever it goes bad (*minus this last attempt)

Or even the people can coup vs the people.
The 2014 Ukrainian coup, ethnic Ukrainians ejecting their government to make a new one that deprives ethnic Russians of representation.

-scheherazade

Two words easily dismiss your entire argument: predator drones.

Look, there are plenty of other countries with high gun ownership rates, but a few sensible regulations stop this kind of shit happening, and guess what? Those countries aren’t oppressive dictatorships, they’re modern, progressive societies.

Meanwhile, the USA, for all your talk of guns preventing dictatorship is a disgrace. You have have bigoted asshole running your country, your healthcare is barbaric (and they’re trying to make it worse), your tax system is ridiculous and your minority citizens are being criticised for daring to protest about the systemic racism they have to endure.

Gun control won’t make your country “less free”, because it’s already ranked pretty low there. But it will certainly lower the number of mass shootings.

Same ratio or worse in Syria with insanely more powerful weapons available to citizens and a far lower grade military...actually far more tilted against the military....the military that has won. (Against multiple enemies both foreign and domestic)
Yes, bombs damage assets, but not territory, which is what's really at stake. Buildings only have value if they're in your territory, so if they aren't, it's beneficial to destroy them.
No civil population has successfully denied an armed military what they need to function since the Nazis failed in Russia that I know of. It's really not as simple as it sounds, the only effective way to deny them your resources is to destroy them.

In the Arab spring, I think the government was overthrown because military leaders decided to stand with the people in short order. It could have been quite different, in places it was. This is a better, more recent example of your point, imo.

In open warfare of govt vs people, drones don't matter, just like jets don't matter. I already covered this above.



Nowhere is an oppressive dictatorship - until it is.
[redacted]
I feel like people are too distracted with instagram and other B.S. to bother learning about how the world works.
History is long. The current peace is an anomaly. When things go bad, there is little warning. If you're lucky, a year or so of build up. If you're not lucky, weeks or days. Shit likes to spiral.
In bad times, you have only what you have on hand.


Most western countries with [regardless of gun ownership] don't have a population that's F'd in the head.
Nothing stops a German gun owner from taking his AR15 and shooting up a concert.
Storing his guns in a safe that he can open doesn't mean anything.
Paying for a new license card for every few guns doesn't alter the guns.

Gun laws, as proposed, are fluff. Nothing that makes people safer, nothing that prevents ownership, but plenty to crap on collectors.
* 10 round limit = 2 second pause to reload
* Gun show loophole is a misnomer.
* (re. above) Only private sales (gun show or not) don't require checks - but you still end up in court if the buyer does something bad.
* Assault weapons ban only bans pistol grips and threaded barrels. Cosmetics. Just google "California compliant AR15" (they already have a de-facto AWB).
* There's already laws against straw purchase.
* There's already laws against crazy people buying (already part of the background check)
* Registration is pointless as gun control. Doesn't alter the guns or who has them (background check already tells gov who, when, and where bought a gun).

(I'd sooner vote for mandatory roll cage and 6 point harness in every car. Could eliminate 90+% of car fatalities in one rule - if people cared enough.)


By the way, gun owners hate people like the Vegas shooter even more than anti-gunners hate people like him.
Precisely because assholes like that shooter make anti-gunners turn on their frustration on innocent gun owners.

The call to "do something" is the phrase that perfectly describes the sentiments that led to actions, that in turn became described by either "famous last words" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".





We had shit health insurance before Obama. We had shit insurance during Obama (only you're required by law to buy it, even if it's not a good value), we continue to have shit health insurance during Trump, and no matter what trump does, it will still be shit.
Problem is that the insurance company lobbyists draft the language of the law (no matter the party in charge), and it's not for our benefit.





Re. Minorities, most are living normal lives. The white eutopia that the few vocal people complain about, doesn't exist. At least I have yet to see it. Don't let a few thousand people in a nation of millions guide your thoughts about overall social norms.

I'm happy to see them protest. Frankly, I wish white people had the same solidarity that black people have. When a black gets shot by a cop, they come together. When a white is shot by a cop, other whites say "he probably deserved it". I wish the black community good luck and success.





Yes, I wish we weren't jailing more people than anywhere else on the planet, over things that harm nobody.
I wish we had the drug laws of Portugal (decriminalization)
I wish we had the legal system of Sweden (no jail before conviction).

Know how I said that most countries don't have as many people that are F'd in the head? Same applies for people in government.
None of this shit will get fixes.
Republicans are bible thumping retards that funnel money to defense contractors and campaign donors.
Democrats are buck-passing censors that funnel money to insurance companies and campaign donors.
And people just pick a team and bark at the other team, while each gets fleeced by their very own side.

-scheherazade

And yet, gun laws DEMONSTRABLY work in other countries. There are plenty of other countries with high gun ownership rates (Canada, for instance), but nowhere outside the 3rd world has anything like the gun-related death rate of the US.

Meanwhile, you are caught up in some ridiculous fantasy where you save America from imaginary Hitler.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/6l4l6m/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-scapegoat-hunter---gun-control

edit: fine don't embed the video, then!

Syria had a fractured military, where part went with Assad, and part went with the [effectively "Neo Hama"] rebellion (i.e. anti secularist rebellion).
Russia supported Assad.
Militants from the region came to support the rebellion and were given shelter and resources by rebels.
(Which is why moderate Muslims, Christians, atheists, etc, are now hiding on Assad's side of the conflict (or running to Europe))
That place really sucks. If you're a regular person, the options are bad and worse.

Land and buildings don't produce wealth and taxes without people.

-scheherazade

Precisely. They have those guns in their hands, and don't shoot people.



The only things that I ding Hillary on are :

- Being a part of installing missile launchers on Russia's eastern border, and giving the asinine explanation that it's "to defend against Iran". Antagonizing Russia is so unnecessary and so old. I swear some people are just thirsty for the cold war to return.

- Cheating with the DNC in the primaries and screwing Bernie out of a win... who by the way could have carried the general election against carrot head. I'd rather have the Bern than either a sellout or a clown.


One side sees the other as paranoid.
The other side sees the first as short sighted.

I don't expect to be in a crash, I still prefer to wear a seat belt. But by all means, I don't care if someone chooses not to.

-scheherazade

WTF does Hillary have to do with any of this?

Let's be very clear here. No-one is talking about banning guns (and if anyone is, they can fuck right off). Guns are useful tools. I've been target shooting a few times, I have friends who hunt. I wouldn't see their guns taken from them because they are sensible people who use guns in a reasonable way.

What we are talking about is a reasonable level of control, like background checks, restrictions on certain types of weapons, etc.

BTW, you might want to actually read the 2nd amendment.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

None of these people are in a well-regulated militia, and in 2017 "a well regulated militia" is not necessary to the security of the state, that's what a standing army and a police force are for.

Your seatbelt analogy also makes no sense at all. If I drive around without a seatbelt and crash, the only one hurt is me (I'm still a fucking inconsiderate asshole if I do that, but that's another story). Guns are all about hurting other people, so it makes sense to regulate them.


Fundamentally, the USA needs to grow the fuck up and stop believing "Die Hard" is a documentary.

You are not Roy Rogers.
You do not need a gun for "home defence".
You are more likely to be killed by a criminal if you have a gun than if you don't.
And the most powerful weapon you have against a fascist dictatorship is not firearms, but the ballot box.

The irony is that while your democracy is increasingly slipping away from you (gerrymandering, super PACs, voter suppression), you have a corporate-funded lobby group protecting your firearms.

I think everybody advocating for even more gun control needs to put a nice 24" sign on their yard saying "This home not protected by firearms." For some reason most people hesitate to do that. It's like herd immunity for viruses. General gun ownership keeps everybody safer even if they don't own one, criminals don't like to confront armed people.

"By comparing criminal victimization surveys from Britain and the Netherlands (countries having low levels of gun ownership) with the U.S., Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck determined that if the U.S. were to have similar rates of "hot" burglaries as these other nations, there would be more than 450,000 additional burglaries per year where the victim was threatened or assaulted. (Britain and the Netherlands have a "hot" burglary rate near 45% versus just under 13% for the U.S., and in the U.S. a victim is threatened or attacked 30% of the time during a "hot" burglary.)"

I advocate for more firearm regulations, as does the NRA finally, and more enforcement of them. My home is protected by multiple legal firearms. These two statements of fact are in no way at odds.
Only a provocateur would say any regulation equates to a complete ban. No thinking person would make themselves look so ridiculous by spouting such nonsense.

How about comparing murder rates.....4.8 per 100000 U.S. vs .92 Britain. I'd rather be burgled than murdered.

I'll go further. I'd rather be burgled than kill someone.

If someone broke into my house and tried to steal my TV, as long as they weren't trying to hurt me or my family, hell, I'd help them carry it.

It's just stuff and it's not worth taking a human life over.

Lol, I read "imaginary Hiller" (and assumed you meant Hillary). My bad.



We have reasonable laws already.
Most things people ask for either already exist (and anti-gunners just don't know because they don't have to follow those laws), or only screw collectors and sportsmen while not doing anything to reduce risk (which I already covered, I assume you read the earlier part, eg California compliant AR15, etc).



Nobody expects to need to form a militia.
Nobody expects the country to go to hell.

The seat belt analogy is about preparedness for unlikely events.
Like, you don't "need" flood insurance in Houston - unless you do.

Owning a gun also hurts nobody.
By definition, ownership is not a harm.

Almost all guns will never be used to do any harm.
The very statement that "guns are all about hurting other people" is a non-empirical assertion.

Just shy of every last gun owner doesn't imagine themselves as Bruce Willis. Asserting that they do is a straw man.


You remind me of Republicans that complain that Black people are welfare queens (so they can redirect money out of welfare). Or Republicans that complain that Trans people are pedophiles in hiding (so they can pander to religious zelot voters). Creating a straw man and then getting mad about the straw man (rather than the real people) is self serving.


* Only the rarest few people think they are Roy Rogers. That is a straw man that does not apply to just shy of every gun owner.
* You don't need a gun for home defense... unless you do.
* Differences in likelihood of death armed vs unarmed is happenstance.
(Doesn't matter either way. Googled some likelihoods : http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/02/15/how-likely-are-you-to-die-from-gun-violence-this-interesting-chart-puts-it-in-perspective/
You'd have to suffer death 350'000 times before you're at a 50/50 chance of your next death being by firearms.)
[EDIT, math error. Should say 17'000 years lived to reach a 50/50 chance of death by firearms in the next year]
* Technically, even 1 vote gets someone elected. You don't control who is on the ballot.



NRA and NSSF are on life support. They have to fight the influence of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, most major newspapers. They are way outclassed. Current events don't help either.
The "big bad NRA" rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. As is the rhetoric that the NRA only represents the industry.

-sceherazade

Common sense is not anti gun.
There clearly aren't laws enough. Anyone could put together the arsenal of full auto weapons he had, untraceable if from a gun show, legally, and repeat this. Felons, psychotics, terrorists, libtards, anyone. This is definitely a case of intentional neglect, make no mistake. Congress knows about these devices, they've fought to keep them legal. This hole in the law was by design.

You totally misread or intentionally misrepresent your own dumb, misleading blaze.com chart which separates all different firearm deaths into "firearm discharge, firearm assault, intentional self harm (by firearm) , and accident" Even using their highly suspect numbers and singling out only death by firearm assault, it's 24974/1 , not the 350000/1 that you claim ....and that's total odds of dying by firearm assault per year, not odds that, if you die, it will be by firearms. Math...it's a thing.

I dunno about you, but it cost me lifetime to acquire the funds to buy my shit. I certainly wasn't going to work for the fun of it. I can't get that time back. But if you don't care about being robbed, then sure, help them carry.

I agree that life is worth more than stuff.
I also think that you reap what you sow.

For example, I don't think I should be killed for punching someone.
But if I did punch someone, I wouldn't be shocked if they turned around and killed me for it. It's certainly on the table of possible outcomes for my action, and I know that going into it.

-scheherazade

He didn't have full auto, he used a bump fire stock.
Full auto fires around 20hz. Well practiced bump firing is around 10hz. Well practiced semi auto pull is around 6hz.

Bump firing also sprays so bad it's not aimable beyond a few feet distance. The gun community is even more surprised than other people, most considered the bump stock as a joke doo dad for making noise and wasting money.





All vendors, even at a gun show, must do background checks.

All private sellers, regardless of where (at home, gun show, on the street, wherever), are not required to do checks - but are in practice held liable for subsequent gun crimes if they can't prove they had no idea the buyer was shady.

There is absolutely nothing special about gun shows. The gun show loophole is an entirely imaginary issue (I explained this earlier).




A traceable gun is just as capable of shooting a person as an untraceable gun.



Yes, anyone can put together that arsenal.
Especially anyone with a squeaky clean record who qualifies to be a gun owner no matter what the restriction - like the Vegas shooter.

Hence why *nothing proposed* would have had *any impact* on the Vegas events, short of confiscation raids nation wide and capital punishment for possession.





The reply was to : "You are more likely to be killed by a criminal if you have a gun than if you don't."

I have two interpretations of that chart

1) (my initial thought)
Assault understood as the legal meaning (brandishing, threatening, not necessarily killing).
Discharge understood as firing.
This is what the original math was based on.
But yes, it seems senseless because how can you die to brandishing?

You are correct regarding the "per year".
The original math does include the mistake of thinking it was cause of death, not per year chance of death.
That alters the result from 350'000 lifetimes for a 50/50 chance, down to 350'000 years for a 50/50 chance. AKA 4600 lifetimes worth of years for a 50/50 chance in the next year.

2) (your [likely correct] thought)
Assault understood as being fired upon.
Discharge understood as accidental (what else could it mean?)
This variant is computed below.
However, this challenges conventional assertion, because the common assertion is that accidents kill more than intentional. Maybe that assertion is crap.

1/24974 as caused by assault
That's a 99.995995835669095859694081845119% chance of dying by a cause OTHER than firearms.
Which requires around 17'000 trials for the chance of the next death to be 50% by firearm.
I.E. 99.995995835669095859694081845119% ^ 17'000 = 50.625%, or about 50/50.
AKA 226 lifetimes worth of years to have a 50/50 chance of death by firearm in the next year.

Referring to the study I linked earlier :
http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life
#2 version has a similar death chance to the polstats link, so the #2 variant is likely the appropriate understanding (not my initial understanding).

-schehearzade

Really? You have a complete inventory of his arsenal, because I haven't seen one. He had many bump stocks.
Full auto what is 20 Hz? Different guns have different rates of fire, and he had many. Different bump stocks also deliver different rates, as do different fingers on different triggers.

When your target is a 15 degree arc, it's fine. For aiming, I agree.

Not in my experience at gun shows is all I'll say about that.

My point, these are legal. The traceability comes in if he had escaped.

You don't have to be squeaky clean, just not banned if you buy legally. There's no check at all for the bump stock or other rapid fire mechanism (there are many).

Ban of the rapid fire mechanisms would have at least forced him to buy them on the black market for far more money...if he could find them at all. That's a step, not a solution.

No. I think that's 1 out of every 24974 people are killed by a firearm assault each year....according to her.
Assuming that stays static, that's a 1/2497 chance you'll be killed by guns every 10 years, or an overall 1/250 chance if you live to 100. Not so great anymore.

Edit:where are you getting 1/350000? Not your chart.

Only what they mentioned in the news.
20 ish guns.
2 ar15s, 1 with a bump stock.
1 ak pattern rifle (47 claimed, but the news is clueless. Could be a 74, could be an odd variant), possibly with a bump stock.
Then a bunch of other guns, not described.

Yes, full auto varies. I erred on the higher rate side.
A more realistic rate would be 12hz auto, 6hz bump, and 3hz semi.

Only other non-NFA non-bump rapid fire mechanism that I know of is a binary trigger (fires on pull, and on release). Effectively doubles your semi fire rate.

In any case, he only needed 1 gun and spare magazines.
I assume he brought everything not because it was necessary, but because he was planning to die and he had the stuff, so why not use it one last time (not like he'll get another chance).

To be fair, so far, mass shooters have stuck around for the long haul. Escape hasn't been an issue. But sure, in the future it could be.

True, you don't have to be 100% squeaky clean, but the vegas guy so far does look like he was.

As an aside, our felony code is incredibly expansive. People get disqualified from gun ownership over things that most normal people wouldn't even think would be illegal.

There's a stat that some lawyer published : a person typically commits 3 [obscure] felonies per day just going about normal daily activities. You can basically put anyone in jail if you choose to monitor them.

IMO, felonies should be divided into major and minor, with anything non violent being minor, and not disqualifying of gun ownership or right to vote.

Eg. I don't care if someone is running a pot farm. It isn't bothering anyone, it shouldn't even be a crime. But if it's gonna be a felony, at least it should be some lesser felony than it is now.

-scheherazade

20+ more at home, thousands of rounds and explosives in his car, so he didn't bring everything.

360rpm is nothing to sneeze at. I think he got better than that though.

Just Google rapid fire trigger.

Edit: most minor felonies can be expunged, and they come in classes, a, b, and c.

Either way, he brought plenty more than needed.


Sidenote :
Everyone who shoots regularly (sport, not hunting) has thousands of rounds.
A 1k brick of 223 is ~28c per shot.
If you buy boxes of 20 each at the range, you're gonna pay closer to ~50c per shot.
If you go to the range 2x per month, firing 200 rounds per trip (6 or 7 mags worth), that's 2.5 months to empty a 1k brick.
~110 bucks/month if you buy 1k at a time.
~200 bucks/month if you buy individual boxes at the range.
The choice is simple. 1k bricks to save money.
So if you have 5 different caliber rifles, you have 5 1k bricks.
This is one of those "out of touch" sort of things with TV coverage. They make it sound like thousands of rounds is a lot to have.

Granted, I know hunters that have 40 rounds to their name, and it will take them 10 years to shoot all 40. One shot at season start to check zero. Then 1 or 2 more to take 1 or 2 deer. But they don't like to shoot, they like to hunt.



I googled 'rapid fire triggers'.

Geissele, Timney, Hypertouch, these are all normal triggers.
They are premium offerings. Smooth, low grit, low creep, clean crisp break.
They don't actually have any function that artificially increases rate of fire.
The marketing can fool you if you don't know what they are.
(It's like buying a "no name mouse" vs a "gamer mouse". One feels better, but you still click just as fast.)

Tac Con 3MR does have its own gimmick. It does a partial reset on every fire. Your finger still has to move forward and back to fire again, so you're still limited by your reaction time. In reviews it's no different than a normal trigger rate of fire wise.



4473 just asks if you've ever been convicted of a felony that could (not did) have had a 1 year sentence. That's a pretty broad set.

AFAIK, they all screw your right to vote. I could be wrong.


Note :
Sorry about edits mid your reply.
I have a habit of "word processing" in place - out of fear that I'll click back or something and lose my text.

-scheherazade

Yes, definitely.

Ok, I didn't actually look at exactly what they're selling. In the past, I've seen trigger mods that acted like a bump stock, 'bouncing' your finger on the springy hair trigger but without the springy stock. I don't know what they were called. I've also seen a 'gatling' thing that lets you turn a crank to rapidly bump the trigger, also don't remember the name. I'm sure there are others. Simple solution, ban anything that simulates auto fire in any way.

Hmmmm. Under certain circumstances, your conviction can be vacated and your record can be completely expunged. A judge told my dad that you can legally answer no to those questions after that, and vote, own guns, travel, etc. I hope that wasn't a setup! ;-)

Side note, but you wouldn't normally keep thousands of rounds all loaded in extended mags....and this guy didn't pinch any pennies either.

Also, we may yet find out that the "explosives" were no more than reloading powder and/or tannerite shooting targets that he had lying around his car.

-scheherazade

If you're gonna load 5 mags at the range, you could just load 1 mag 5 times at the range.

I suppose you would have whatever mags you own loaded. Otherwise there's no use in having more than 1.

For some people it's their main hobby. There's some expensive premium stuff out there.
If I wanted to hemorrhage money, I could probably drop 10k on a rifle build.
Heck, here's 3k on just a scope : https://www.usoptics.com/product-category/optics/

-scheherazade

That's my guess. Still, could be 20 lbs of tannerite and smokeless powder which would make shooting the car a bad idea.

@newtboy and @scheherazade,

I think I may have come up with a shorter line of evidence for a well armed population being protection against tyranny.

Granted, a poorly armed population with strong arms control laws doesn't necessarily devolve into tyranny. We can all demonstrate this with counter examples like up here in Canada. However, can anyone name an oppressive dictatorship that had 2nd amendment level freedoms for every man and woman in their state? I can't think of a single example myself.

As I said before, that doesn't lead me to immediately declare zero restrictions on guns are thus worth any cost to forestall future tyranny. However, I have to acknowledge that the NRA style argument for protection against tyranny isn't entirely without merit.

That leads to my objections with declaring that it is objectively obvious that gun freedoms must morally be pulled back, while at the same time objectively obvious that idealogical/religious practice freedoms must not. We have ample examples of extremists gathering together to plot violence, mayhem and death on a grand scale and putting some extra lines in the sand of when that becomes unacceptable is no more obviously immoral than restricting gun ownership.

Probability doesn't stack like that.

Imagine this.
25% chance. I.E. 0.25 ratio.

Using your method, after 10 trials, the ratio is 0.25 * 10 = 2.5, aka 250%. Beyond certain.



The proper method for 10 trials at 25% is : 1-(0.75^10) = 94% chance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution#Assumptions:_When_is_the_geometric_distribution_an_appropriate_model.3F



Hence why 1/24'974 per year (aka 0.004% chance per year) needs 17'000 years to reach 50% chance overall.

If you use the discharge figure (1/514'147), you get to 350'000 years to reach 50%.

-scheherazade

I don't think anyone suggests that civilian disarmament encourages tyranny, merely that civilian armament discourages tyranny.



In any case, there are a variety of applications that aren't "fighting hitler".

No country goes on forever without some domestic strife. Could be domestic war, could be economic collapse, could be the government scapegoating "your kind", could be a weather disaster, could be whatever.
In such an unlikely event, if you happen to be around at the time, you may wish to guard your family, food, fuel, etc.

Note that these events affect a LOT of people when they do happen (as in millions at a time).
Even though they are less frequent than a random shooting, the sheer quantity of people makes them significant.

Eg. The last Houston destruction by hurricane was in 1979 (38 years ago). That's not so infrequent, in a city of 2.3 million people (ish).
That's an upper bound of 60'000 people affected per year on average.
Either way, it's a lot of people that need to guard their homes from looters, etc.
Granted not everyone is on a destroyed street - but you see what I mean.

There have been plenty of disasters and riots in the last few decades where you wouldn't want to be caught helpless - just in case.

That's also a commentary on society. During the Fukushima disaster, nobody was looting or robbing, or whatever. Japan has a better behaved society.

-scheherazade

Ok, statistics class was 28 years ago....and I was pretty high by midnight. We both made mistakes...i still say that blaze chart is bullshit and intentionally misleading in multiple ways.

How many years before a 50% chance of cancer...heart disease, death by stairs...etc. We don't assess things that way, so it's just a nice big number to trot out and pretend it's meaningful.

Statistics can be used to prove anything, forfty percent of all people know that.

What if you put them all together, including suicide and accident, instead of starting by dividing into various gun death categories then choosing the least probable category to extrapolate? Now compare them to other dangers we strongly regulate against with evolving regulations, like automobile accidents. That's how these stats are properly used. Dangers aren't radiation, you don't look at the half life to comprehend them.

You're mistaken. I've heard exactly that suggested by multiple people....not that there's any actual push for disarmament.
No reasonable person suggests that, but people are often unreasonable about this topic.

Let's step back then from arguing against other people's claims.

The claim that tyranny is pretty universally based upon an unarmed civilian population provides at least some real world evidence that civilian armament and freedom have some correlation. Whether that warrants allowing citizen's access to weaponized anthrax and cruise missiles is another matter. Can you agree that a well armed population is incompatible with historical tyranny(Mao, Stalin, Saddam, Gadhafi, the Kim's)?

I'm sorry, but a claim isn't evidence.
There are African countries where there may not be gun rights, but neither are there restrictions, mainly because there's barely government. Armed tyrannical groups have still managed to seize control, even though the populace was moderately well armed. Somalia comes to mind. The same happened repeatedly in central America and South America in the past.

So I disagree it's impossible, but it is more difficult.

Come on, it's ok if we agree on something . Your African examples aren't really oppressive dictatorships, they are collections of failed states or outright anarchy, which I'll readily agree is easily possible with or without a well armed population. If you want to note African examples, when Kagame seized control of Rwanda, he didn't exactly decide to leave the genocidal opponents he cast out open ended gun rights. As is always the case, removing their ability to wage war was kind of prerequisite to his control of the country.

I can rarely agree with a blanket statement, but it I think we do agree that an armed populace is more difficult to oppress, I just contend it doesn't make oppression impossible.

I think people living under the control of warlords would differ and call them oppressive dictators, even if their areas of control might be small.

Yes, but doesn't Rwanda prove my point in a way? The genocidal thugs were armed, yet control was eventually taken from them....although I hope Kagme isn't a tyrant...I honestly don't know about him.

Heck, an armed populace is harder to oppress is really all I was ever suggesting on the count of common ground. One point of commonality.

On Rwanda, the genocidal former government of Rwanda kept their arms and just retreated into the Congo jungle. They've basically kept their "freedom" in the process and subsequently no small reason the DRC has been plagued with horrific violent crimes against humanity the last couple decades.

On Kagame I suppose it depends who you ask about being a tyrant or not. Perhaps pragmatic dictator would be the closest a majority of dissenting experts might agree on? That said, make no mistake that supporters of the former regime weren't allowed to remain armed where Kagame had the ability. Because of the genocide the world largely disregarded it, Kagames forces made large numbers of 'violations' of DRC borders raiding for former genocidairres.

Insurance, dude. Look it up.

And no, you shouldn’t be killed for punching someone. They’re entitled to defend themselves, but in a proportional response.

If you punch me, and I hit you back and you trip and crack your skull, well, that sucks for you, but I’m not in the wrong.

But if you punch me and I pull a gun and shoot you without warning, I’m guilty of man slaughter at the least.