CNN: 1 dead in shooting at Seattle college campus

[autoidiodyssey]

 

In 1791, a well regulated militia would have had similar levels of gun/weapon technology as their potential dictators. Today, all of the shotguns in Alabama would not save you if the president became a dictator. 

 

I don't know about that. Iraq did a pretty good job of bogging down the U.S. military with small arms similar to what is available in the U.S. now. But really it is not about fighting a second Civil War. It is about providing a deterrent to government overreach. It is about preventing things from getting to that point. 

 

Look at the images from the Bundy Ranch standoff and compare them to any number of Occupy Wall Street type peaceful protests. Say the UC Davis incident where that cop went down the line pepper spraying those kids in the face. In one you had a stand down and peaceful resolution (for now). The other you have a bunch of kids with face fulls of pepper spray dragged off to jail. Personally I will take the former over the latter every time.

 

As far as these shootings go. In a free society if a person is willing to give up their life to take the lives of others there is not a whole lot you can do about it. If it is not a gun it will be knives, or a car, or a pressure cooker full of nails. We need to look at why people think mass murder is an acceptable outlet for their issues.

 

In this incident the guy used a shotgun. In the wake of Newtown the VIce President, in stumping for an "assault weapon" ban, advocated owning a shotgun. Obama has been photographed shooting a shotgun. That is the type of firearm that will never be banned in this country. Even the most ardent anti gun politicians are not going to try to go after the types of guns regularly used for hunting. That would mobilize a whole new group of gun owners who have been on the sidelines during the "assault weapon"/handgun fights. There are millions of hunters out there who own a rifle and a shotgun and don't care at all about banning AR-15s and handguns. You start talking about what they use and people will start losing elections.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Okay, according to wiki in Russia you can't own more than 10 guns without special permissions, each gun purchase has to be recorded into an official register, you can't have a gun that shoots in burst or more than a 10 cartridge capacity.  To get a gun, you have to take a real gun safety class (6.5 hours), pass a safety test, pass a background check, and you have to have a gun license, and it has to be renewed every 5 years.

 

Can we throw in as part of the safety class/background test, a psychological exam/test?

 

They have 8.9 gun deaths per a 100 as compared to 89 for us.

 

Yet they have a higher violent crime murder rate then we do with fewer guns. 

 

Here is a study that suggests banning guns is not the answer.

 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Yet they have a higher violent crime murder rate then we do with fewer guns. 

 

Here is a study that suggests banning guns is not the answer.

 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

 

Do you really think that arming everyone in Russia right now would be a good idea?

 

Russia is a step away from being Tombstone right now.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Do you really think that arming everyone in Russia right now would be a good idea?

 

Russia is a step away from being Tombstone right now.

 

I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that I advocated arming Russia but to answer your question, no.   I don't believe that Arming everyone in Russia is a good idea.   For one, it would be really expensive.  Two, it would violate Russian Law and three, it's none of our business.

 

Clearly, we have our own problems to solve, with regards to guns in the U.S.

[bird_1972]

I think I'll just wait until next week's shooting to post my thoughts.

 

What do you think? Wednesday or Thursday sound about right?

 

I agree.

 

I tend to mirror Bill Maher's opinion on the ridiculousness of gun rights advocates in this country.

[MartinC]

I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that I advocated arming Russia but to answer your question, no.   I don't believe that Arming everyone in Russia is a good idea.   For one, it would be really expensive.  Two, it would violate Russian Law and three, it's none of our business.

 

Clearly, we have our own problems to solve, with regards to guns in the U.S.

Well at least you admit there is a problem. That's a useful first step.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Well at least you admit there is a problem. That's a useful first step.

 

I'm not certain if this is tongue in cheek or not but it doesn't matter.   I do agree that we have a problem.  On both sides of the issue, we have problems.   Neither side should get all it wants.   There should be a medium found to manage the problems.   That's the only workable approach IMO.

[Bang]

I don't know about that. Iraq did a pretty good job of bogging down the U.S. military with small arms similar to what is available in the U.S. now. 

 

 

Actually, they did no such thing in any way shape or form.

their military caved like a house of cards, and every other engagement in which actual soldiers fought, (not IEDs placed in markets to kill women or at line-ups of police recruits) we crushed them.

The only reason it may seem like they gave us a hard time is because we were very careful to choose our engagements in which civilian casualties and interference could be minimized. We also took great pains to minimize US and allied casualties.

 

In Fallujah, in the largest engagements of the war, we tried to re-take it twice, and the first time we halted operations due to civilian casualties and complaints from the Iraqi government even though we had secured 25% of the city in 3 days.

In the second engagement 6 months later, we we lost 95 soldiers,, they lost 1,350. We took the city and crushed opposition within 6 weeks.

 

Any slowness or appearance of caution on our part throughout the entire war was strictly of our own choosing. Any time we faced any actual resistance fighters or insurgents, we dominated and destroyed them. We were very much more concerned with the well being of civilians than worrying about enemy fighters.

 

~Bang

[skinsmarydu]

Jon Stewart had the best idea. Change the verbiage in the news coverage from "shot" to "s**t his pants." Last night's story would've been read "John **** his pants 4 times on campus, killing one student and sending 3 others to the hospital."

I just bounced my office chair (and my head) against the wall...hubby yelled, "You okay up there?"...so thanks, I just sent it to him & he's LOL...

[PeterMP]

Yet they have a higher violent crime murder rate then we do with fewer guns. 

 

Here is a study that suggests banning guns is not the answer.

 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

 

The Russian violent crime rate has been decreasing very significantly over the last two decades.

 

In 1994, there were over 47,000 homicides in Russia.

 

In 2011 that number was down to 16,798.

 

So the results of the study are going to be very skewed based on the year and even numbers that are even 5 years old are going to be too high so I have to ask what is your source and what year are those numbers from.

 

Post-Soviet break up, they had huge issues with crime, terrorism, and guns entering the market through their own military/police.  They've (slowly) been correcting that problem and large numbers of guns aren't magically reappearing on their own.

 

Clearly a country that is under going an active terrorism campaign and has gone through recent massive changes is going to have issues with enforcing laws and crime is going to change accordingly.

 

Your link talks about a lot about violent crime increasing in England through the 1990's.  You have to be careful with the comparisons for a couple of reason.  One is that different countries define violent crime different and how countries define crimes changes.

 

I didn't look at the references to see how they dealt with this issue, but for example the murder rates of the UK look like this:

 

Now that looks really bad, especially considering that England has consistently tightened their requirements on hand gun laws and even in 1997 essentially completely banned hand guns.  It looks like the ban on hand guns caused a spike in homicide.

 

But:

 

"Here, appearences can be deceptive. In 1998 the Home Office made a change to the way in which homicide was recorded by police, which had a significant impact upon the results produced.

 

Whereas before 1998 multiple murders were considered as a single incident, afterwards each death was considered seperately. In 2002, the figures included the 173 murders committed by Harold Shipman, whereas if these had been committed in 1964, they would have only counted as one incident for the purposes of the Home Office statistics."

 

https://fullfact.org/blog/murder_rate_doubled_death_penalty_abolished-2924

 

So the fact of the matter is, despite now counting victims and not just occurrences, England has a homicide rate lower than before the ban.

 

The end result would be that we'd be forced to conclude that the ban on hand guns in England in a few years greatly reduced the number of homicides (and note that's homicides not homicides by guns).

 

In most cases, this is a much better comparison, then trying to compare the US (a country that has had a stable government for years) to one that hasn't and has a very rapidly declining violent crime rate.  Or even one that has a stable government, but might just define/count things differently.

 

Over  a few years in most places the population isn't changing much and so if you do a reasonable job of taking into account the post- and prior variation of the data, it is much easier to make comparisons.

 

Now, we can do that sort of thing.  There are numerous studies that show the Brady Law didn't do much good.  We can conclude from that gun laws don't matter or the Brady Bill didn't go far enough.

 

There are other situations where we can do similar things:

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/study-claims-violence-surges-repeal-gun-control-laws/

 

"A study claims to have new evidence that proves tighter gun control laws can reduce gun violence. After the repeal of a 2007 Missouri law — a law that required potential gun buyers to be vetted and licensed by a local sheriff — Researchers in Missouri tracked changes to the homicide and non-negligent manslaughter rates.

The report, soon to be published in the Journal of Urban Health, analyzed the data and found there was immediate spike in gun violence and murders, with more than 60 additional gun-related murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012."

 

There appear to be good gun laws (the MO law that was removed) and not good gun laws (The Brady Bill).

 

(And I don't know of a single real study that shows that REDUCING gun laws decreases crime.)

[autoidiodyssey]

Actually, they did no such thing in any way shape or form.

 

So we won that war? Mission Accomplished and all that? I don't think there is anyway to view the occupation phase of that conflict as anything other than a disaster. When the two sides lined up and fought the US stomped them, no doubt about it. But that part of the conflict only lasted about 6 weeks (3/19/2003-4/30/2003) plus a few other battles later on. The other eight and a half years was a total quagmire.

 

The numbers I have seen say there were around 150 US deaths in the opening invasion/war phase. That means around 4300 deaths in the occupation phase. Most of those 4300 deaths and the 50,000 wounded were caused by small arms and IEDs. You could probably add the numbers from Afghanistan to that as well since it is the same sort of sniper/IED fight.

 

That was my point. Small arms and IEDs accounted for the majority of the casualties in Iraq. $1 Trillion spent and eight and a half years of occupation after the regime fell counts as bogged down in my book.

 

Going back to the Alabama example of the previous poster. In a Civil War situation if the US military lined up against a bunch of shotgun toting Alabamians it would be a rout. If US military had to occupy the whole state they would have the same issues as they did in Iraq.

[ABQCOWBOY]

The Russian violent crime rate has been decreasing very significantly over the last two decades.

 

In 1994, there were over 47,000 homicides in Russia.

 

In 2011 that number was down to 16,798.

 

So the results of the study are going to be very skewed based on the year and even numbers that are even 5 years old are going to be too high so I have to ask what is your source and what year are those numbers from.

 

Post-Soviet break up, they had huge issues with crime, terrorism, and guns entering the market through their own military/police.  They've (slowly) been correcting that problem and large numbers of guns aren't magically reappearing on their own.

 

Clearly a country that is under going an active terrorism campaign and has gone through recent massive changes is going to have issues with enforcing laws and crime is going to change accordingly.

 

Your link talks about a lot about violent crime increasing in England through the 1990's.  You have to be careful with the comparisons for a couple of reason.  One is that different countries define violent crime different and how countries define crimes changes.

 

I didn't look at the references to see how they dealt with this issue, but for example the murder rates of the UK look like this:

 

Now that looks really bad, especially considering that England has consistently tightened their requirements on hand gun laws and even in 1997 essentially completely banned hand guns.  It looks like the ban on hand guns caused a spike in homicide.

 

But:

 

"Here, appearences can be deceptive. In 1998 the Home Office made a change to the way in which homicide was recorded by police, which had a significant impact upon the results produced.

 

Whereas before 1998 multiple murders were considered as a single incident, afterwards each death was considered seperately. In 2002, the figures included the 173 murders committed by Harold Shipman, whereas if these had been committed in 1964, they would have only counted as one incident for the purposes of the Home Office statistics."

 

https://fullfact.org/blog/murder_rate_doubled_death_penalty_abolished-2924

 

So the fact of the matter is, despite now counting victims and not just occurrences, England has a homicide rate lower than before the ban.

 

The end result would be that we'd be forced to conclude that the ban on hand guns in England in a few years greatly reduced the number of homicides (and note that's homicides not homicides by guns).

 

In most cases, this is a much better comparison, then trying to compare the US (a country that has had a stable government for years) to one that hasn't and has a very rapidly declining violent crime rate.  Over  a few years in most places the population isn't changing much and so if you do a reasonable job of taking into account the post- and prior variation of the data, it is much easier to make comparisons.

 

Now, we can do that sort of thing.  There are numerous studies that show the Brady Law didn't do much good.  We can conclude from that gun laws don't matter or the Brady Bill didn't go far enough.

 

There are other situations where we can do similar things:

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/study-claims-violence-surges-repeal-gun-control-laws/

 

"A study claims to have new evidence that proves tighter gun control laws can reduce gun violence. After the repeal of a 2007 Missouri law — a law that required potential gun buyers to be vetted and licensed by a local sheriff — Researchers in Missouri tracked changes to the homicide and non-negligent manslaughter rates.

The report, soon to be published in the Journal of Urban Health, analyzed the data and found there was immediate spike in gun violence and murders, with more than 60 additional gun-related murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012."

 

There appear to be good gun laws (the MO law that was removed) and not good gun laws (The Brady Bill).

 

(And I don't know of a single real study that shows that REDUCING gun laws decreases crime.)

 

This is interesting.   I do not completely reject the findings or conclusions here but with respects to how the UK does things, it's simply not feasible to replicate here in the U.S.   This, in part, is why I say we can not look to how other countries handle this because I believe that it is impossible for us to replicate.   That is why I suggest Russia as a better example.   They are large and face some of the geographical inhibitors we face, because of the dynamics in play.  

 

I will read more from the links you provide.   I actually appreciate you taking the time to put this together.  

 

I do believe there needs to be tighter control of guns in this country but, as you know, I am not in favor of constructing laws that could eventually lead to the complete removal of guns in the U.S.   It's a tough line for me but I do believe that there needs to be change.   It just can't be for political reasons with agendas that are going to result in screwing one side or the other.  That will never work.  It has to be a deal that both sides can live with if we ever hope to have good reform where Gun Control is concerned.

[No Excuses]

Word. Just checking. Going even deeper though, I feel that churches, and the public in general, need to step up their game in regards to mental health overall. All we are really doing is writing prescriptions and not actually helping people.

What do you suggest we do to help mentally ill people? Here's something for everyone who suggests we do a better job at treating people with mental health problems. We are much MUCH further along in understanding cancer than we are with mental issues. And we've hardly figured out cancer.

There is no magic wand that can be waved to help the mentally ill. For starters this isn't entirely a mental health issue either. But for some reason it's easier to talk about this than gun regulation.

[PeterMP]

This is interesting.   I do not completely reject the findings or conclusions here but with respects to how the UK does things, it's simply not feasible to replicate here in the U.S.   This, in part, is why I say we can not look to how other countries handle this because I believe that it is impossible for us to replicate.   That is why I suggest Russia as a better example.   They are large and face some of the geographical inhibitors we face, because of the dynamics in play.  

 

I will read more from the links you provide.   I actually appreciate you taking the time to put this together.  

 

I do believe there needs to be tighter control of guns in this country but, as you know, I am not in favor of constructing laws that could eventually lead to the complete removal of guns in the U.S.   It's a tough line for me but I do believe that there needs to be change.   It just can't be for political reasons with agendas that are going to result in screwing one side or the other.  That will never work.  It has to be a deal that both sides can live with if we ever hope to have good reform where Gun Control is concerned.

 

And I'm not for a complete ban (at least not on the federal level), and I'm certainly not for large scale confiscation of legally owned weapons.

 

But the idea that I can't drive a car without passing a written test, get a permit, and then have to come back and pass another test, but and then to actually buy a car, I have to jump through a bunch more hoops (inspections, registration, etc.), but I can go buy a gun, especially some of the guns we sell is a bit crazy, no?

 

And 

 

The Brady Bill was to arbitrary to tackle the situation in a meaningful manner.

 

But I suspect saying you have to have a license to buy a gun and to get a license you have to take 6 hour gun safety class and pass a simple psychological exam or have three people that have not been convicted of a violent crime and have not supported somebody for a gun license that has been convicted of a violent crime "testify" that to the best of their knowledge you are of sound mind and body and don't intend to use your gun to hurt anybody would go a long way in reducing the gun issues we have.

[ABQCOWBOY]

What do you suggest we do to help mentally ill people? Here's something for everyone who suggests we do a better job at treating people with mental health problems. We are much MUCH further along in understanding cancer than we are with mental issues. And we've hardly figured out cancer.

There is no magic wand that can be waved to help the mentally ill. For starters this isn't entirely a mental health issue either. But for some reason it's easier to talk about this than gun regulation.

 

That's a very relevant point and something that I know has been discussed on this board previously.   Over the last few decades, mental health treatment and how we deal with it has changed and I think for the worse.   The severely impaired probably still get attention but it's the people who do not exhibit radical systems who probably are falling through the cracks.  

 

Heck, I'm not even sure we are in a good position to actually identify what the numbers might be in this country, much less, plans for how to treat it. 

[PF Chang]

 

Going back to the Alabama example of the previous poster. In a Civil War situation if the US military lined up against a bunch of shotgun toting Alabamians it would be a rout. If US military had to occupy the whole state they would have the same issues as they did in Iraq.

 

To clarify, my Alabama example was meant to be in the framework of the hypothetical doomsday type scenario of "no guns ---> slavery." Point being that in any "doomsday" type scenario, the gov't could basically wipe Alabama off the map, just as they could have done to Iraq were the war not 100% political. Just as they did to two cities in Japan.  

 

I personally do not know what the solution to this problem is. I am neither for the status quo nor for a complete gun ban. But I think that using the "well regulated militia" spirit of the 2nd amendment as an argument for 2014 makes zero sense. 

[ABQCOWBOY]

And I'm not for a complete ban (at least not on the federal level), and I'm certainly not for large scale confiscation of legally owned weapons.

 

But the idea that I can't drive a car without passing a written test, get a permit, and then have to come back and pass another test, but and then to actually buy a car, I have to jump through a bunch more hoops (inspections, registration, etc.), but I can go buy a gun, especially some of the guns we sell is a bit crazy, no?

 

And 

 

The Brady Bill was to arbitrary to tackle the situation in a meaningful manner.

 

But I suspect saying you have to have a license to buy a gun and to get a license you have to take 6 hour gun safety class and pass a simple psychological exam or have three people that have not been convicted of a violent crime and have not supported somebody for a gun license that has been convicted of a violent crime "testify" that to the best of their knowledge you are of sound mind and body and don't intend to use your gun to hurt anybody would go a long way in reducing the gun issues we have.

 

I don't think that those measures are unreasonable but the problem is that each State has their own set of Laws where this is concerned.   It's hard to herd cats on the best of days.

 

The problem will always be that illegal guns will always be available to people who should not own guns.   No amount of laws will prevent that circumstance.  

 

The things you see and the things we focus on are the things we see in the headlines.   That's not the real problem in my view.  It's the ones the Networks don't cover that make up the bulk of the problem IMO.

[ABQCOWBOY]

One of the very basic problems, where Gun Control is concerned, is the ideology of the Left and the Right.   This is an oversimplification but for the purpose of discussion, I will present the idea.

 

The problem is that the Left trusts the Government more then the Right does.   The Left sees it as sensible measure that will solve the problem and the Right looks at it as worst case scenario in what happens if only Government has access to guns.   That's a real divider in this entire discussion and it gets no real attention, other then to present opportunity to throw up roadblocks in the actual discussion.

 

More focus on what inhibits an actual agreement on Gun Control and less political rhetoric designed to further one party or the other is what is really needed for any sensible law to be passed. 

[Bang]

So we won that war? Mission Accomplished and all that? I don't think there is anyway to view the occupation phase of that conflict as anything other than a disaster. When the two sides lined up and fought the US stomped them, no doubt about it. But that part of the conflict only lasted about 6 weeks (3/19/2003-4/30/2003) plus a few other battles later on. The other eight and a half years was a total quagmire.

 

The numbers I have seen say there were around 150 US deaths in the opening invasion/war phase. That means around 4300 deaths in the occupation phase. Most of those 4300 deaths and the 50,000 wounded were caused by small arms and IEDs. You could probably add the numbers from Afghanistan to that as well since it is the same sort of sniper/IED fight.

 

That was my point. Small arms and IEDs accounted for the majority of the casualties in Iraq. $1 Trillion spent and eight and a half years of occupation after the regime fell counts as bogged down in my book.

 

Going back to the Alabama example of the previous poster. In a Civil War situation if the US military lined up against a bunch of shotgun toting Alabamians it would be a rout. If US military had to occupy the whole state they would have the same issues as they did in Iraq.

I don't know about mission accomplished, but in terms of decimating the forces of Al Quaeda and any of the insurgencies, absolutely.

 

the mission of replacing Saddam is part of the mission of coaxing the jihadists out into the street to fight.

 

If the US Army occupied a state and the people wanted to fight back, they would suffer a few casualties and they would kill most of the people who fought.

 

Small arms did cause casualties in Iraq, but they in no way deterred what we did to their force.

And now the people can and do vote for their future. 

It depends what constitutes victory. We didn't come away with any land or spoils or puppets.. but we did not fail to do what we set out to do militarily. 

And, with the sweep of freedom movements that were attempted in the wake of Iraq, one could say planting the spark may have been accomplished as well.

 

In vietnam the viet-cong didn't have much more weaponry.. mostly small arms and they killed ten times as many soldiers in almost the same time-frame. 

We've learned more about how to fight this sort of war. No war is gong to be casualty-free if you put boots on the ground.  And even though each loss was one too many, I think they did an admirable job of trying to keep casualties, both allied and civilian, to a minimum.

 

~Bang

[ABQCOWBOY]

I don't know about mission accomplished, but in terms of decimating the forces of Al Quaeda and any of the insurgencies, absolutely.

 

the mission of replacing Saddam is part of the mission of coaxing the jihadists out into the street to fight.

 

If the US Army occupied a state and the people wanted to fight back, they would suffer a few casualties and they would kill most of the people who fought.

 

Small arms did cause casualties in Iraq, but they in no way deterred what we did to their force.

And now the people can and do vote for their future. 

It depends what constitutes victory. We didn't come away with any land or spoils or puppets.. but we did not fail to do what we set out to do militarily. 

And, with the sweep of freedom movements that were attempted in the wake of Iraq, one could say planting the spark may have been accomplished as well.

 

~Bang

 

 

I fell like this could be a plug for why we shouldn't kill the A-10!

 

LOL.........

[PeterMP]

Just to be clear, only one side is interested in preventing studies that would help us understand the effect of gun ownership, gun violence, and gun laws.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/06/170844926/debate-rages-on-even-as-research-ban-on-gun-violence-ends

[ABQCOWBOY]

Just to be clear, only one side is interested in preventing studies that would help us understand the effect of gun ownership, gun violence, and gun laws.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/06/170844926/debate-rages-on-even-as-research-ban-on-gun-violence-ends

 

Yes, but only one side is interested in banning guns completely as well.   That's kind of the point.  NPR is not the be all, end all for the right.   We have to get past that part of the debate and move on to what is workable. 

[No Excuses]

Yes, but only one side is interested in banning guns completely as well. That's kind of the point. NPR is not the be all, end all for the right. We have to get past that part of the debate and move on to what is workable.

Who on the left wants to ban all guns?

[twa]

Just to be clear, only one side is interested in preventing studies that would help us understand the effect of gun ownership, gun violence, and gun laws.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/06/170844926/debate-rages-on-even-as-research-ban-on-gun-violence-ends

 

Probably because they did so well presenting global cooling/warming/climate change studies w/o a agenda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Who on the left wants to ban all guns?

 

 

Come on, there are people on this board who believe that we should ban all guns.