Mass shootings, what do they have in common?

[Mr Neutron]

I am guessing ego and criminality are at least two things they have in common; Careful not to give murderous freaks a scapegoat.

I disagree. Were any of the mass murderers who used guns to kill, criminals before their act? There may be the odd one or two but not very many.
They are already getting the scapegoat of guns, as misguided as it is. The problem is not being addressed rationally, it is an emotional sales pitch to demonize guns.

 

[Mr Neutron]

My reference to 55 mph was in memory of our national speed limit from our recent past, rather than try to assess each states speed limits.
So, I would, in this case, ask why do we need cars that go faster than 70 mph?

 

[Mr Neutron]

Oh, and the cars are more dangerous argument is lame.

How so?????

 

[beardo]

They all started with Milk
Drinking Milk leads to other things.

 

[Mr Neutron]

The argument about access is important, I don't know how you stop a mentally deranged person from so easily purchasing weapons without making access stricter. Yes some people will go through the black market to buy there guns, but for me I don't know shady people nor do I want to. Why would I go to some ghetto trying to buy guns when there is a chance I might get jacked or shot. When I could just go on the internet and buy 6,000 rounds of ammo and guns? What kind of lever can be applied to the misbehavior of guns? There may be an imbalance, but for good reason, we can't prevent someone acting a fool, but we can make it harder for someone to act a fool with a gun. Also people say in countries with gun control that violent crimes go up, well ill tell you one thing I'd rather confront a guy wielding a knife or a bat then someone toting a gun. Hard to kill 26 people with a knife wouldn't you agree?

Why is no one up in arms that they can't get a bazooka, RPG's , grenades? I mean if the real reason is you want to have comparable guns to the military, then why doesn't the NRA fight for that right?

Peace
Salt

Because the NRA compromises.

 

[Mr Neutron]

No, but If you ban assault type guns, then through time availability should diminish. I don't think we should ban hand guns, rifles and shotguns.

Peace
Salt

... for now, anyway

 

[beardo]

Why is no one talking about arming all the kids and having a class like wood shop but instead it's firearms class where they learn gun safety and how to aim, shoot, and clean their weapons and stuff?
Maybe the schools should have a shooting range and maybe even a workshop so they could make their own guns. Seems like it would teach responcibility and respect and be good for society.

 

[Mr Neutron]

Ok, when I say assault type gun I mean High capacity guns that the ability to drain a 100 bullets in a min. You know what I am talking about. Unrestrained fancy? It was obviously not hard enough for the Colorado guy to get his guns. What restrained him? A piece of paper online that he had to fill out? As for the newtown shooter his mom was the idiot and she deserved what she got, cause if she were still alive she would deserve the electric chair. For being a "law abiding" gun owner, her actions caused a world a pain for other families. I say if you sell a gun or a gun gets stolen and you don't notify the proper authorities and that gun is involved in a crime you should be held accountable.

Peace
Salt

Typical knee jerk reaction. Fear is born of ignorance.

 

[Mr Neutron]

So you are saying every law abiding citizen would never sell a gun that might end up in a crime? How can we hold anybody accountable if we just have guns unregistered and unregulated. It is one thing to have daily shootings through out the country, those have seem to be expected and accepted in a gun dominate society. What isn't expected and isn't acceptable is a gunman with fairly easy access to guns and ammo can go into a classroom, shopping mall, movie theater or campus and be able to unload mass amounts of bullets in a matter of minutes.

Peace
Salt

If I sell my car to somebody who then goes out and kills somebody with it, am I responsible?

 

[Mr Neutron]

why go to a mall or any of those places you just mentioned? What makes those places ideal for shooters to shoot people at?

Could it be that they are supposed gun free zones​?

 

[kelly4]

If I sell my car to somebody who then goes out and kills somebody with it, am I responsible?

Did you do a background check?

 

[Mr Neutron]

Dallas watch tower, methamphetamine (Prescribed) + barbituates. Wouldn't surprise me to learn other shootings had old school psychological drugs involved either, but this kind of stuff is hard to dig up.

Are you referring to Charles Whitman, who shot down several people from the tower on the University of Texas campus in Austin?

 

[kelly4]

If I sell my car to somebody who then goes out and kills somebody with it, am I responsible?

Did you modify it? Are there any after market items installed? Is the engine stock? It makes a difference.

If it has bigger than 'normal' tires it could be considered an 'assault vehicle'. Did it have a plow on the front?

If it did, it was pretty irresponsible of you to sell him a modified death machine.

 

[Doer]

I think you will find that the mass killing rate has not changed since the 60s

Mass media and mass emotion tampering is what has changed

 

[cannabineer]

We had far fewer mass shootings back then and I'm not sure that they did NOT have the same similarity. After all, it takes a deranged mind to do something like this, no? Whether it is a naturally occurring disability or if it's caused by the mass proliferation of psychopharmaceuticals means little difference to the victims. It does make a difference if we are creating more mass murderers through medication.

I've been doing some Web sniffing to see if I could corroborate or disprove the proposed fact about there having been fewer mass murders from, say- 1950 to 1970 than in the last twenty. I've not had either result. i am wondering if there really have been more such massacres, or if it's an artifact of reporting. A school (or other public building) shooting is cocaine-frosted donuts to any of today's news presenters, and I suspect but cannot prove a shift in emphasis rather than frequency. cn

 

[Mr Neutron]

I've been doing some Web sniffing to see if I could corroborate or disprove the proposed fact about there having been fewer mass murders from, say- 1950 to 1970 than in the last twenty. I've not had either result. i am wondering if there really have been more such massacres, or if it's an artifact of reporting. A school (or other public building) shooting is cocaine-frosted donuts to any of today's news presenters, and I suspect but cannot prove a shift in emphasis rather than frequency. cn

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/bill-clintons-over-the-top-fact-on-mass-shootings/2013/01/10/7040d61e-5b7a-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_blog.html

The Facts
With gun shootings, you immediately get into some definitional issues. Depending on how one defines a “mass public shooting,” the answers might turn out to be different. There is also surprisingly little historical data about mass murder in the United States to go back all the way to the nation’s founding.
Grant Duwe, director of research and evaluation at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, assembled a data set going back 100 years for a 2007 book titled, “Mass Murder in the United States: A History.” He used the FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports, which date from 1976, and then supplemented the FBI reports with news reports (principally The New York Times) dating from 1900.
Duwe says the Times turned out to be a relatively reliable guide for mass murders across the country, since much of the post-1976 information also turned up in the contemporaneous FBI reports. As far as he knows, he is the only person who has assembled such a historical data set.
According to his research, he has identified 156 mass public shootings in the United States in the past 100 years.
Duwe defines a mass public shooting as an incident in which four or more victims are killed publicly with guns within 24 hours — in the workplace, schools, restaurants and other public places — excluding shootings in connection with crimes such as robbery, drugs or gangs. (Note that this would exclude a number of “mass murders” that sometimes get lumped into the data, such as the Beltway sniper who killed 10 people over a three-week period in 2002.)
Since 2005, when the assault ban expired, there have been 32 such mass public shootings, including seven in 2012, Duwe said. So that’s just over 20 percent of all mass public shootings, which is much less than Clinton’s 50 percent.
Here’s a breakdown per decade of Duwe’s data. It is important to note that these are raw figures; the United States had far fewer people 50 or 100 years ago.
Mass Public Shootings per Decade
1900s : zero
1910s: 2
1920s: 2
1930s: 9
1940s: 8
1950s: 1
1960s: 6
1970s: 13
1980s: 32
1990s: 42
2000s: 28
2010s (three years): 14

 

[UncleBuck]

Well, depending on who's definition and point of view we are taking about, California can be considered a "gun free" zone.

thanks for disqualifying yourself, idiot.

 

[Red1966]

Other than using firearms and not going to gun shops, shooting ranges or police stations to do their killing? They all had a history of anti depressant/ssri drugs... why isn't anybody talking about that? Gun control is like banning cars because of drunk drivers. How about we run background checks on car buyers? Or a bartender has to do a background check before he can serve you that beer? Or banning cars that can go faster than 55 mph, after all, why do you need a car that goes faster than that?

I might go to Montana someday.

 

[Red1966]

The argument about access is important, I don't know how you stop a mentally deranged person from so easily purchasing weapons without making access stricter. Yes some people will go through the black market to buy there guns, but for me I don't know shady people nor do I want to. Why would I go to some ghetto trying to buy guns when there is a chance I might get jacked or shot. When I could just go on the internet and buy 6,000 rounds of ammo and guns? What kind of lever can be applied to the misbehavior of guns? There may be an imbalance, but for good reason, we can't prevent someone acting a fool, but we can make it harder for someone to act a fool with a gun. Also people say in countries with gun control that violent crimes go up, well ill tell you one thing I'd rather confront a guy wielding a knife or a bat then someone toting a gun. Hard to kill 26 people with a knife wouldn't you agree? Why is no one up in arms that they can't get a bazooka, RPG's , grenades? I mean if the real reason is you want to have comparable guns to the military, then why doesn't the NRA fight for that right? Peace Salt

"I'd rather confront a guy wielding a knife or a bat then someone toting a gun." I'd rather confront him with a gun in my hand.

 

[Red1966]

No, but If you ban assault type guns, then through time availability should diminish. I don't think we should ban hand guns, rifles and shotguns. Peace Salt

30 times as many people are killed with hand guns as "assault type" guns. You haven't thought this out.