[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

Paleocon wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

But wait. There's more.

CNN wrote:

A Florida man has been charged for threatening to commit a mass shooting after his ex-girlfriend alerted authorities to a series of ominous text messages he sent her.

25-year-old Tristan Scott Wix was arrested on Friday in a Winn-Dixie parking lot in Daytona Beach Shores, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood said on CNN Sunday that Wix had sent the texts to his ex-girlfriend, who showed the messages to authorities.

"When you look at this kid's background, he is the profile of a shooter," Chitwood said. "He lost his job, he lost his girlfriend, he's depressed, he's got the ammunition and he wants to become known for being the most prolific killer in American history."

Wix, of Daytona Beach, wrote about wanting to open fire on a large crowd of people, the sheriff's office said. "A good 100 kills would be nice," he wrote in one message, adding that he already had a location in mind. So far, Wix has not told investigators where he wanted to carry out the shooting, Chitwood said.

"A school is a weak target.. id be more likely to open fire on a large crowd of people from over 3 miles away.. I'd wanna break a world record for longest confirmed kill ever," another message reads, according to the sheriff's office.

Wix said he wanted to die and "have fun doing it."

Three miles away? Is he shooting a howitzer? Jfc these people.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I think it shows how juvenile these people are. They want it to be like the movies or their video games (not that I'm saying entertainment is a cause for all of this). Just look at the shooter who dropped his magazines and was thankfully killed before he was able to kill anyone himself (if I'm remembering that correctly).

I was talking to a dedicated 2A believer about the Vegas shooter. His position was that a dedicated sniper with a bolt action rifle could have done more damage than the Vegas shooter did with his semi-auto weapons. But it takes dedication and practice to achieve that level of competency, something most, if not all, of these mass shooters lack.

The idea that a trained sniper with only a bolty could have killed and maimed more people demonstrates a studied ignorance. Aside from a belt fed .30 cal or mortar, he picked about the perfect tools for his terrible task.

Shadout wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

"When you look at this kid's background, he is the profile of a shooter," Chitwood said. "He lost his job, he lost his girlfriend, he's depressed, he's got the ammunition and he wants to become known for being the most prolific killer in American history."

Now I wonder which one of these issues of the human condition that is easiest to fix...

I think it's a 3-way tie for the easiest fixes.

1) Lost his job- well, just get a new one!
2) Lost his girlfriend- He must get her back and show her the errors of her ways. Why's she being so unfair anyway?
3) He's depressed- well, he needs to suck it up and stop being a snowflake.

(This message has been approved by the Republican Party)

I thought this was a very good video on the subject of video game violence and it's relationship to real world violence. Not sure if this is the most appropriate thread to put it on, though. Let me know if it belongs somewhere else.

Edit: I am getting numb to this. This video cut through me in a way another news report couldn't. Maybe this ain't the right place, maybe this isn't going to kickstart a conversation, but if I didn't share it somewhere then I would loop the damn thing again and I really don't want to keep crying.

We almost got through an entire month without another mass shooting:

BREAKING: 30 people have been shot between Odessa & Midland Texas, police tell CBS News.

Well, I mean, it was only 5 dead, 21 injured in the end. No biggie. This is definitely a sane way to live.

17 or it's not newsworthy... Like actuaries, journalists have some stark numbers that really highlight how banal these horrific events have become

I got really pissed off reading some snippets from various interviews the mayor of Odessa has given recently. He emphasized the importance of prayer multiple times. Brought up examples of people being killed by cars and airplanes, basically saying "What can you do? Evil finds a way". Said that the loosening of gun restrictions in schools and churches that just went into effect is going to make everyone safer, but he's been too busy to read the changes in total. And of course the clincher:

I think it’s a problem of the heart, to be honest with you. We have some of the most violent video games that you can see.

Basically parroting one of Trump's big insights into the problem. Yeah, I'm sure the shooter was playing tons of violent videogames when he lived in the middle of nowhere without electricity or running water.

Hell, the police couldn't even find his neighbor's house when she called them a month ago to report he had threatened her with a rifle after she put her trash in a nearby dumpster.

I'm unsure of how to discuss it like with someone like that. For him, mass shootings are as much of an unavoidable act of God as Hurricane Dorian.

I... I genuinely don't know how to address that.

Prederick wrote:

I'm unsure of how to discuss it like with someone like that. For him, mass shootings are as much of an unavoidable act of God as Hurricane Dorian.

I... I genuinely don't know how to address that.

There isn’t any discussing it with a person like that. His own mother could have been involved as a victim and he’d still feel the same way about gun control. Unfortunately, he’s a perfect example of how Texas stubbornly stays red and the general mindset of the ‘rural’ and medium - small cities across the state that continue to persist with this dangerous mixture of ‘guns, jesus, and ‘government independence.’ Well that and oilfield workers don’t do anything but vote republican.

I live in Ft Worth, which finally flipped blue last election but is no guarantee to do so this one. The suburbs have often overwhelmingly voted red and will happily do so against their own interests time and again because of fear / many moves to the suburbs to segregate and they see minorities and democrats as one and the same.

gewy wrote:

I got really pissed off reading some snippets from various interviews the mayor of Odessa has given recently.

I can imagine the mayor of a town named for Odessa being blase about violence--those steps are dangerous.

A 14-year-old in Alabama shot and killed all five members of his family last night.

And the guy who killed seven people and wounded 23 in Odessa was so broke that he lived in a "metal shack that lacked electricity, plumbing, a floor and even furniture" and spent cold nights in his car with the motor running. But somehow he could still afford an assault rifle. And speaking of which, the dude had a criminal record, was called "El Loco" by his neighbors, failed a firearms background check, and yet somehow still ended up with a gun.

OG_slinger wrote:

A 14-year-old in Alabama shot and killed all five members of his family last night.

And the guy who killed seven people and wounded 23 in Odessa was so broke that he lived in a "metal shack that lacked electricity, plumbing, a floor and even furniture" and spent cold nights in his car with the motor running. But somehow he could still afford an assault rifle. And speaking of which, the dude had a criminal record, was called "El Loco" by his neighbors, failed a firearms background check, and yet somehow still ended up with a gun.

From the Odessa article wrote:

On the one occasion she felt threatened, when he paid her an angry visit armed with his black rifle, she called the Sheriff’s Office, but authorities could not find the location and did not arrive.

And Texas responded as one would expect Texas to respond: Looser gun laws in Texas go into effect one day after latest mass shooting

I didn't see this coming: Walmart will stop selling handgun ammunition as well as ammunition commonly used in assault-style weapons after it sells its current inventory. The retailer is also banning open carry in its 4,700 stores.

Walmart is currently responsible for about 20% of all ammunition sales countrywide. The new policy is expected to drop that to 6% to 9%.

OG_slinger wrote:

And speaking of which, the dude had a criminal record, was called "El Loco" by his neighbors, failed a firearms background check, and yet somehow still ended up with a gun.

I'm sure this is not a surprise to anyone, but it's been confirmed that he got it in a private sale- no background check required.

I will admit, the best argument against gun control I've seen is that, like the worst-case scenario with climate change, it's too late. We've flooded the country with firearms for so long that any legislation won't have any actual effect beyond making us feel good, and, as Megan McCain apparently neatly underlined on The View today, any actual gun legislation with teeth would almost certainly cause significant violence.

I don't like this, to be clear, but it's a statement, to me, about how deranged our nation is on a problem that only we have (one that is quite obviously not caused by insufficient faith in Jesus, mental health problems or video games).

It’s too late to outright ban guns, which is what I’m sure Megan “did I mention who my dad is yet” McCain means, since the words “ban” and “regulate” are synonymous to reactionaries. Not all new laws may be overly effective right away but the vast majority of firearms are owned by an increasingly small minority of people, the point is to reduce further propagation and increase accountability for existent owners.

Prederick wrote:

I will admit, the best argument against gun control I've seen is that, like the worst-case scenario with climate change, it's too late. We've flooded the country with firearms for so long that any legislation won't have any actual effect beyond making us feel good, and, as Megan McCain apparently neatly underlined on The View today, any actual gun legislation with teeth would almost certainly cause significant violence.

I’m pretty sure “it can’t get any worse, why regulate” is tantamount to “hold my beer”...

You know what would be simple? Change the law to allow at national gun registry. Right now the National Firearms Act is intentionally limited. Or we can require you to get a license to own a gun. Or allow federal funds to be used to research gun violence. Or allow the ATF to use computers to search their own records.

Wouldn't solve the problem in the near term, but it'd be better than doing nothing. We don't just have a lot of guns--we've got frankly ridiculous laws about guns.

Hell, the 2nd Amendment says nothing about the right to own ammunition. Just tightly regulate ammo (and gunpowder) and the problem will self-correct in a few years. Then gun enthusiasts can own all the hardware they want and the rest of us could still be safe.

Nevin73 wrote:

Hell, the 2nd Amendment says nothing about the right to own ammunition. Just tightly regulate ammo (and gunpowder) and the problem will self-correct in a few years. Then gun enthusiasts can own all the hardware they want and the rest of us could still be safe.

The Chris Rock method. Make a bullet 10k. When you fire it, you really meant it...

That's just bonkers. Like, pants-on-head crazy.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

That's just bonkers. Like, pants-on-head crazy.

I resemble that remark.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

That's just bonkers. Like, pants-on-head crazy.

Yep. I think John Oliver did a last week tonight on this a while back. It's insane. Amazing that we ever catch anyone committing a gun crime.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

That's just bonkers. Like, pants-on-head crazy.

and of course by bonkers-crazy you mean "highly effective and working as intended"

The only solution that has a chance of working is if Soros started funding and arming a new Black Panthers party on a nationwide program with significant scale. Then you might see some movement from the government once enough black people start walking around with AR-15's. Granted that also means those people are basically just going to get murdered by the police.

https://www.history.com/news/black-p...

Prederick wrote:

I will admit, the best argument against gun control I've seen is that, like the worst-case scenario with climate change, it's too late. We've flooded the country with firearms for so long that any legislation won't have any actual effect beyond making us feel good, and, as Megan McCain apparently neatly underlined on The View today, any actual gun legislation with teeth would almost certainly cause significant violence.

I don't like this, to be clear, but it's a statement, to me, about how deranged our nation is on a problem that only we have (one that is quite obviously not caused by insufficient faith in Jesus, mental health problems or video games).

Yes, there's an insane number of firearms in America. But only about 22% of Americans actually own a firearm (a number that's been dropping for decades). They are a minority that is withering.

And not all gun owners are the same. According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, 28% of gun owners have just a single weapon. They account for 6% of 265+ million firearms in circulation. Another 21% of gun owners have two weapons and account for 8% of all the guns in America. So just shy of half the people who own guns in America have only one or two weapons and, together, account for 14% of all the firearms floating around our country.

At the other end of the spectrum are the true gun nuts: those that own more than ten firearms. They represent a tiny minority of gun owners--8%--but they collectively own 39% of all the firearms.

Put another way half the guns floating around the country--about 130 million--are owned by 86% of gun owners and the other half are owned by 14% of gun owners. 14% of gun owners translates to about 7.6 million people, or 3% of the adult population.

How is this information useful? Because half the people who own guns are reachable to the idea of gun control because if they were truly die-hard 2nd Amendment supporters they wouldn't own only a gun or two, a good portion of which are probably languishing forgotten in a closet or attic somewhere.

And when you factor in the demographics of gun owners--overwhelmingly white, male, conservative, and rural--you get f*cked up statements like Meghan McCain's. People who wrap themselves in the flag, have a "Support Our Troops" sticker on their car, say they are law abiding, and think Blue Lives Matter claim they need to own military-style weapons so they can shoot law enforcement and military personnel who might try to take said weapons. Weapons they primary own because its a hobby for them. Not a burning and vital Constitutional right. Just something they like to do in their free time, like Meghan shooting AR-15s over Labor Day weekend.

America shouldn't be held hostage to an infinitesimally small portion of the population who like how lax gun laws are now because it make it easier for them to acquire even more guns. Thousands of people shouldn't have to die every year because of their hobby. A hobby that they'd apparently gleefully murder their fellow Americans over.

The path forward is to stop acting like owning a firearm is a right handed down from God (a view the NRA has promoted for decades). A consistently vast majority of Americans feel that guns--and who is allowed to own one--should be more tightly regulated.

And part of that path forward is to put gun owners like Meghan McCain in the spotlight and make them explain, in excruciating detail, how many cops and soldiers they'd kill to protect their "right" to own guns. Let's have the daughter of a U.S. Senator explain why she can't trust the same American government her father served both in and out of uniform. And make her point out where in the 2nd Amendment it says Americans have a right to own firearms so they have something fun to do over three day weekends.

Gun owners are a minority of adults and we don't need their permission to do anything. We can simply outvote them, something that is bound to happen given demographics and the implosion of the NRA.

In the meanwhile, we can rightly paint the tiny fraction of Americans who own stockpiles of weapons as either callous hobbyists who rather see infants get shot in the face than change their past time or unstable hoarders who, at best, would murder their fellow Americans to protect their weapons, or, at worst, (predominantly white) domestic terrorists-in-waiting who want a stockpile of guns for the coming race war (that they want to start).