Incomprehensible mass shooting happens again

[[DHT]Osiris]

and if you can't give me a single low-hanging fruit of what we consider acceptable loss of children's lives, then i'm going to have to assume you don't actually have any good examples. at the end of the day, it's a risk-benefit analysis. does the benefits of hundreds of millions of firearms outweigh the risks associated with them?

i don't doubt that some number of children are hurt or killed through mundane activities every year. it's a matter of do the benefits outweigh the risks. do the benefits of sporting activities outweigh the risks associated with injury and death? just about everyone will agree that the answer is yes. a key element to that though is that other people playing sports doesn't put you at risk. you can either choose to play the sport and accept the risk associated with it or not. it is solely a personal choice. when other people own guns though, there is a risk to you, not just the gun-owner. much like covid, it's not just about the risk to the individual "i don't care about catching covid" but the risk to society as well - "i don't want to spread covid" and analagously -"i don't want someone else to be a victim of gun violence"

Since you edited and called me out, sure.

Let's start with vehicles.
1053 under 14yo deaths in 2019 (skipping 2020 since COVID likely skews vehicular numbers). I'm presuming the DOT excludes 15 and above as you start to get into driver permits/licensing territory which will skew the number far higher, though I'd like to see that too.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813122

Of those, 608 were 12 and younger. 43% of 8-12yo were unbuckled, presuming that rolls all the way down to infants, that rolls out to 261 deaths in vehicles due to unbuckled seatbelts, about the most idiotic fucking way for a child to die. It would be trivial, fucking trivial for vehicle manufacturers to design an ignition system that refused to turn on if a seatbelt was unbuckled, they already fucking scream at you if you unbuckle them in motion. There's no push for congress to sign into law that all vehicles on the road with child passengers be equipped in such a way, no protests, no letters to the editor. We just accept that ~250-300 children deaths a year is acceptable so we don't have to be bothered to enforce seatbelt rules.

Child Passenger Safety: Get the Facts | Transportation Safety | CDC

Child Passenger Safety: Get the Facts

www.cdc.gov

23% of those children died from alcohol related accidents, no calls for vehicles equipped with breathalyzers, just a cost of doing business so we aren't inconvenienced with the increased costs and bothersome requirements before driving.

As for guns, right now guns are indeed the highest cause of kids dying (as of 2019 I think), and I'd love to see change on that front, but the equation isn't just whether it makes logical sense to do so, because we aren't a species of logic as much as we'd like to say we are. There's a momentum behind firearms in this country that I don't think is going to change, at all. If it was going to, it probably would have after Columbine. Shit we waged a war for 20 years over about 2k people very tragically dying in NYC. We're very, very capable of all sorts of things, but the pressure just isn't there. Maybe it will be, but I just don't see it happening. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. And I still say people are lying to themselves about the reasons why they want gun control.

 

[nakedfrog]

It took surprisingly few deaths per year to get backup cameras mandated in cars.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I'm sure you feel that we should just completely ignore other forms of terrorism too, right?

Nope, lots should be done about that too. Ironically more efforts go into stopping traditional terrorists than school shootings though it seems. When was the last time you read about a school shooter getting busted pre-shooting? We hear about them occasionally still for boilerplate domestic terrorists.

But kids die of guns and we get "yeah kids die, let's go put more guns in schools!"

Idiotic assessment, always has been. More guns don't fix gun problems any more than more salt fixes salty food.

You're argument is basically like the guy on here that used to always say as long as anyone was exposed to secondhand smoke, nothing about guns could be done.

Oh don't get me started on the 'known unknown' number of deaths, illness, and long term consequences of burning coal and climate change induced wildfires on children's developing lungs In the grand scheme of the rest of human existence (however long it is), self induced violent deaths through guns is a vanishingly small problem and it always has been. It's fucking terrible, but so is every way children die.

 

[Zorba]

Nope, lots should be done about that too. Ironically more efforts go into stopping traditional terrorists than school shootings though it seems. When was the last time you read about a school shooter getting busted pre-shooting? We hear about them occasionally still for boilerplate domestic terrorists.


Idiotic assessment, always has been. More guns don't fix gun problems any more than more salt fixes salty food.


Oh don't get me started on the 'known unknown' number of deaths, illness, and long term consequences of burning coal and climate change induced wildfires on children's developing lungs In the grand scheme of the rest of human existence (however long it is), self induced violent deaths through guns is a vanishingly small problem and it always has been. It's fucking terrible, but so is every way children die.

Leading cause of death of kids is vanishingly small...

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Leading cause of death of kids is vanishingly small...

If you want to get down to it, yes. I'd happily trade my firearm for no more child deaths from firearms, if such a thing were possible. I'd also (unhappily) trade this current crisis if I felt it would free up our apparently zero sum social resources to spend on reversing climate change so our species actually exists in a hundred years. You think a thousand deaths a year is bad? Wait until shit gets real with water wars, food shortages, mass migrations, and widespread heat deaths. You'll fucking wish we were in 2022.

 

[eelw]

If you want to get down to it, yes. I'd happily trade my firearm for no more child deaths from firearms, if such a thing were possible. I'd also (unhappily) trade this current crisis if I felt it would free up our apparently zero sum social resources to spend on reversing climate change so our species actually exists in a hundred years. You think a thousand deaths a year is bad? Wait until shit gets real with water wars, food shortages, mass migrations, and widespread heat deaths. You'll fucking wish we were in 2022.

Okay thank you for at least saying you’d give up your guns if you’d thought it would stop any future deaths. But why are most other gun nutters too selfish to even want this? Nope MUH RIGHTS! MUH FREEDUMS!!!

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Okay thank you for at least saying you’d give up your guns if you’d thought it would stop any future deaths. But why are most other gun nutters too selfish to even want this? Nope MUH RIGHTS! MUH FREEDUMS!!!

In my case, gun. Bought a 30-30 Winchester when I worked at Walmart (and sold an absolute fuckton of guns) because I knew there were changes happening to the manufacturing process, and figured it'd be worth more later. Essentially, an investment vehicle, and given that brief online searches are pricing it at 3-4x the price, probably a good one. I've always been fascinated by firearms from a physics perspective, and I've also always ranked authoritarian governments as my #2 existential threat behind climate change (which is consistent with my posting history, if anyone cares to look). I've never, however, been a gun nut, and I cannot fathom non-collectors 'collecting' firearms to the degree that we do. I can conjure up possible reasons but they're all just thinly (or non) veiled psychological damage.

I'd love for Americans to have a more healthy association with firearms, alongside vehicles, alcohol, mental health, each other, and about a thousand other things I can list of the top of my head. Unfortunately we're a society borne of generational trauma, sickness, and a disregard for mental health. Hopefully we'll reverse some of that before we collapse in on ourselves.

 

[Bitek]

Since you edited and called me out, sure.

Let's start with vehicles.
1053 under 14yo deaths in 2019 (skipping 2020 since COVID likely skews vehicular numbers). I'm presuming the DOT excludes 15 and above as you start to get into driver permits/licensing territory which will skew the number far higher, though I'd like to see that too.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813122

Of those, 608 were 12 and younger. 43% of 8-12yo were unbuckled, presuming that rolls all the way down to infants, that rolls out to 261 deaths in vehicles due to unbuckled seatbelts, about the most idiotic fucking way for a child to die. It would be trivial, fucking trivial for vehicle manufacturers to design an ignition system that refused to turn on if a seatbelt was unbuckled, they already fucking scream at you if you unbuckle them in motion. There's no push for congress to sign into law that all vehicles on the road with child passengers be equipped in such a way, no protests, no letters to the editor. We just accept that ~250-300 children deaths a year is acceptable so we don't have to be bothered to enforce seatbelt rules.

Child Passenger Safety: Get the Facts | Transportation Safety | CDC

Child Passenger Safety: Get the Facts

www.cdc.gov

23% of those children died from alcohol related accidents, no calls for vehicles equipped with breathalyzers, just a cost of doing business so we aren't inconvenienced with the increased costs and bothersome requirements before driving.

As for guns, right now guns are indeed the highest cause of kids dying (as of 2019 I think), and I'd love to see change on that front, but the equation isn't just whether it makes logical sense to do so, because we aren't a species of logic as much as we'd like to say we are. There's a momentum behind firearms in this country that I don't think is going to change, at all. If it was going to, it probably would have after Columbine. Shit we waged a war for 20 years over about 2k people very tragically dying in NYC. We're very, very capable of all sorts of things, but the pressure just isn't there. Maybe it will be, but I just don't see it happening. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. And I still say people are lying to themselves about the reasons why they want gun control.

Unintentional injuries are the #1 cause of death for children and all younger Americans (ages 1-44, before heart disease and cancer starts kicking in.) Suicide tends to be #2 save for little children.



What are unintentional injuries?




Homicide is horrific, but still quite a bit lower in rates. This includes all types of murder, inc mass shootings, which is only a fraction of the total number.

Listening to the news, you would think it's only guns guns guns. I guess because banning alcohol, drugs and cars would be universally unpopular. Note that data set on drowning?...

Houses with pools have been far more deadly to children than houses with guns.

But hey, won't anyone think of the children?!?!??!!

NVSS - Leading Causes of Death

National Center for Health Statistics

www.cdc.gov

Unintentional Injury Statistics

Statistics relating to unintentional injuries

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

 

[Zorba]

If you want to get down to it, yes. I'd happily trade my firearm for no more child deaths from firearms, if such a thing were possible. I'd also (unhappily) trade this current crisis if I felt it would free up our apparently zero sum social resources to spend on reversing climate change so our species actually exists in a hundred years. You think a thousand deaths a year is bad? Wait until shit gets real with water wars, food shortages, mass migrations, and widespread heat deaths. You'll fucking wish we were in 2022.

Maybe if we weren't funding police to go to war and armoring school doorways we could use that money for more productive activities.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Maybe if we weren't funding police to go to war and armoring school doorways we could use that money for more productive activities.

I'd fucking love that. Give me a ranked choice voting system and it might actually happen.

 

[DrunkenSano]

The federal government has granted vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer and Moderna immunity from liability if something goes unintentionally wrong with their COVID-19 shots.

You realize the US big pharma isn't a good thing either, right? Just because US big pharma is an issue doesn't make guns not an issue. America has a LOT of problems that needs to be fixed.

 

[ivwshane]

You realize the US big pharma isn't a good thing either, right? Just because US big pharma is an issue doesn't make guns not an issue. America has a LOT of problems that needs to be fixed.

Guess which party he supports that has yet to offer any solutions to any problems this country faces?

 

[HomerJS]

While mental screening sounds like a good idea, I’m guessing that in practice it would be about as effective as some states and their “training requirements” which are a complete joke.

If we trust pilots to fly planes why can’t trained psychologists be trusted?

 

[HomerJS]

Anyone want to take a crack as to why AR - 15s are the preferred weapon of choice for mass murderers?

 

[nickqt]

Okay thank you for at least saying you’d give up your guns if you’d thought it would stop any future deaths. But why are most other gun nutters too selfish to even want this? Nope MUH RIGHTS! MUH FREEDUMS!!!

At the point where people who own firearms are supposed to say "I'd surely give up my firearm today for no more gun deaths tomorrow", it is just performative. It's nonsense.

I'd set myself on fire in 10 minutes if it would mean worldwide peace and that the species would work together to prevent catastrophic collapse, but me saying it doesn't do a god damn thing, nor would me setting myself on fire do anything. So, I don't.

The sheer amount of performance involved in the "gun debate" is part and parcel of why NOTHING happens. Either come up with actual policies that will make a difference and are remotely possible to get passed, or it's just performance theatre using dead people as props.

99.99% of guns never get pointed at another human being, so either target the people who are the vast minority who do point guns at people, or just scream while nothing gets done as the people with all of the money and power run out the clock on the public kinda giving a shit (some of those people do so because they get paid to do so, some because they're safe firearm owners, and some because they want their right-wing authoritarian enablers to have firearms for the upcoming "self-defense maneuvers").

So, to be productive here, let me offer a quick example, and it isn't comprehensive. How about everyone who wants to purchase a "semi-automatic" firearm has to get a "Semi-Automatic License"? That license requires fingerprinting. A background check that includes juvenile records. An insurance policy tied to each and every firearm owned that requires annual proof of coverage. Proof of a lock and safe for the firearm to be stored. And a test on safety in assembling, disassembling and storage of that firearm.

That kind of license requirement makes anyone attempting to purchase a "semi-automatic" firearm jump through hoops and take time filling out paperwork, purchasing required insurance, and getting checked to try to weed out the fucking lunatics. That level of background check isn't necessarily onerous if you really want to own a semi-automatic firearm in my opinion. And since you can easily find millions of firearm owners who would ALSO say that it isn't onerous, you can get actual firearm owners to come to your defense with the proposition.

That's how you start. Spell it out, why it will help, and why it won't end up creating tens of millions of felons out of the currently safe firearm owners who aren't going to be shooting up their nearest grocery store from now until the end of time.

Because look...we're STARTING at a place where more and more states are allowing "Constitutional Carry" that doesn't require ANY kind of license to carry a firearm. So, if you're just glossing past where we're actually at NOW, and just start screaming that any piece of metal that can launch other pieces of metal should be banned, then you're might as well be thinking and praying to prevent firearm deaths, because you're not proposing anything that will ever realistically do anything that you claim to be your goal.

AND you end up with people who agree with your goal, disagreeing with your method of going about accomplishing that goal, and guess what, NOTHING HAPPENS.

 

[MrSquished]

At the point where people who own firearms are supposed to say "I'd surely give up my firearm today for no more gun deaths tomorrow", it is just performative. It's nonsense.

I'd set myself on fire in 10 minutes if it would mean worldwide peace and that the species would work together to prevent catastrophic collapse, but me saying it doesn't do a god damn thing, nor would me setting myself on fire do anything. So, I don't.

The sheer amount of performance involved in the "gun debate" is part and parcel of why NOTHING happens. Either come up with actual policies that will make a difference and are remotely possible to get passed, or it's just performance theatre using dead people as props.

99.99% of guns never get pointed at another human being, so either target the people who are the vast minority who do point guns at people, or just scream while nothing gets done as the people with all of the money and power run out the clock on the public kinda giving a shit (some of those people do so because they get paid to do so, some because they're safe firearm owners, and some because they want their right-wing authoritarian enablers to have firearms for the upcoming "self-defense maneuvers").

So, to be productive here, let me offer a quick example, and it isn't comprehensive. How about everyone who wants to purchase a "semi-automatic" firearm has to get a "Semi-Automatic License"? That license requires fingerprinting. A background check that includes juvenile records. An insurance policy tied to each and every firearm owned that requires annual proof of coverage. Proof of a lock and safe for the firearm to be stored. And a test on safety in assembling, disassembling and storage of that firearm.

That kind of license requirement makes anyone attempting to purchase a "semi-automatic" firearm jump through hoops and take time filling out paperwork, purchasing required insurance, and getting checked to try to weed out the fucking lunatics. That level of background check isn't necessarily onerous if you really want to own a semi-automatic firearm in my opinion. And since you can easily find millions of firearm owners who would ALSO say that it isn't onerous, you can get actual firearm owners to come to your defense with the proposition.

That's how you start. Spell it out, why it will help, and why it won't end up creating tens of millions of felons out of the currently safe firearm owners who aren't going to be shooting up their nearest grocery store from now until the end of time.

Because look...we're STARTING at a place where more and more states are allowing "Constitutional Carry" that doesn't require ANY kind of license to carry a firearm. So, if you're just glossing past where we're actually at NOW, and just start screaming that any piece of metal that can launch other pieces of metal should be banned, then you're might as well be thinking and praying to prevent firearm deaths, because you're not proposing anything that will ever realistically do anything that you claim to be your goal.

AND you end up with people who agree with your goal, disagreeing with your method of going about accomplishing that goal, and guess what, NOTHING HAPPENS.

Raising the age to 21 to buy semi-automatic weapons is a seriously reasonable proposal but no R will vote for it. They are all performative.

 

[nickqt]

Raising the age to 21 to buy semi-automatic weapons is a seriously reasonable proposal but no R will vote for it. They are all performative.

To be clear, Republicans are probably not going to vote for anything of substance. That said, you're making the proposed legislation tolerable for all the Democrats, and the Independent™ voters and sane firearm owners. You have to start by having support from all the reasonable people if you want to try to shame/blame/guilt the unreasonable people into not being unreasonable. That's why this issue is so difficult here in the US. A good 47% of the population is pretty much unreachable and unreasonable in any sense of the word.

 

[Jaskalas]

so basically all the TX authorities were...ahem...shooting from the hip....when they gave their first accounts?

seems to me like people ought to STFU until a clear assessment can be done. this would be comical if the situation weren't so fucking disastrous

Catching up on these developments, and holy !@#$. These people....
It's like a Libertarian dream of every man for himself. No accountability, no cooperation. Just anarchy, lies, and back stabbing. The complete opposite of duty, honor, and service. Of community and brotherhood. Instead, Texas appears to foster corruption and the worst of mankind's behaviors. Sort of like Russia.

 

[sportage]

Congress acting on guns? Yeah right...
Already, raising the age limit to 21 is off the table.
There will be no legislation out of this congress, that's for sure. Anything they might propose will be so water down we can no longer call it gun control. At best, congress will propose some BS legislation addressing mental illness while having no intention of funding it. And all those dead kids, lost lives and for what? For nothing? Stay tuned, more murders yet to come. A lot more....

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Anyone want to take a crack as to why AR - 15s are the preferred weapon of choice for mass murderers?

Easy to get, easy to use, inexpensive platform, tactikool, comes in all black? Maybe a few other dumbshit reasons.

At the point where people who own firearms are supposed to say "I'd surely give up my firearm today for no more gun deaths tomorrow", it is just performative. It's nonsense.

It is, because generally speaking most firearm owners know that restricting firearms isn't addressing the real issue.

So, to be productive here, let me offer a quick example, and it isn't comprehensive. How about everyone who wants to purchase a "semi-automatic" firearm has to get a "Semi-Automatic License"? That license requires fingerprinting. A background check that includes juvenile records. An insurance policy tied to each and every firearm owned that requires annual proof of coverage. Proof of a lock and safe for the firearm to be stored. And a test on safety in assembling, disassembling and storage of that firearm.

Replace firearm with voting, how fast would it fly? R's have been screaming for shit like voting licenses and voting fingerprinting etc. Restrictions on Constitutional rights tend to flail around a while before dying on the vine the next time something important happens.

 

[purbeast0]

How many hotels have to been to where any random weirdo can just wander inside and go wherever he wants? This isn't outlandish technology.

You know how I know you've never traveled?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You know how I know you've never traveled?

What, don't all hotels have mantraps?

 

[purbeast0]

My point remains, there's a lot of ways people, children included, die that we accept as a part of modern society.

Like what?

 

[Roger Wilco]

If you want to get down to it, yes. I'd happily trade my firearm for no more child deaths from firearms, if such a thing were possible. I'd also (unhappily) trade this current crisis if I felt it would free up our apparently zero sum social resources to spend on reversing climate change so our species actually exists in a hundred years. You think a thousand deaths a year is bad? Wait until shit gets real with water wars, food shortages, mass migrations, and widespread heat deaths. You'll fucking wish we were in 2022.

Yeah, it seems climate change is going to kill far more children than anything else, and yet we are not laser focused on it…at all.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Like what?

Vehicles, myriad substances we burn, alcohol, etc.