School Shooting in Connecticut

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/index.html

Oh, damn you, science!

The 10 Commandments of Self-Defense Gun Myths

1-3. Guns are not used millions of times each year in self-defense.

4. Most purported self-defense gun uses are gun uses in escalating arguments and are both socially undesirable and illegal.

5. Firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense.

6. Guns in the home are used more often to intimidate intimates than to thwart crime.

7. Adolescents are far more likely to be threatened with a gun than to use one in self-defense.

8. Criminals who are shot are typically the victims of crime.

9-10. Few criminals are shot by decent law abiding citizens.

  On 12/16/2012 at 7:36 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 12/16/2012 at 7:34 PM, ambermonk said:

Well, I stand by the argument that this is less of a gun issue and more of a mental health issue.

'K I'm done here

 

 

i think the majority of people here are in agreement.

It is undoubtedly both, and attempts to persuade otherwise are a bit misguided.

Whether it's more or less of one vs. the other is splitting the fuck out of so many hairs.

  On 12/16/2012 at 7:39 PM, The Overlook said:

Whether it's more or less of one vs. the other is splitting the fuck out of so many hairs.

This is where this argument will always end up.

  On 12/16/2012 at 8:05 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 12/16/2012 at 7:39 PM, The Overlook said:

Whether it's more or less of one vs. the other is splitting the fuck out of so many hairs.

 

 

This is where this argument will always end up.

Quite likely, but I'll argue that the mental illness most likely to be ignored is the one felt, collectively, by the majority of human society.

Here's a case in point, talking to a friend of mine...a notorious 2nd Amendment trumpeter and classically Alaskan nutter.

chicago is a great example of gun control, and how well it works to thwart gun violence. take a look.

blasted real world data!

  On 12/16/2012 at 8:52 PM, MisterE said:

chicago is a great example of gun control, and how well it works to thwart gun violence. take a look.

 

blasted real world data!

D.C. still has its problems, but its greatly improved from a decade or two ago.

after seeing the reddit thread about Aphex Twin I deleted all my comments with this and deleted my account

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/14xrqm/if_you_run_the_song_equation_by_aphex_twin/

  On 12/16/2012 at 7:02 PM, Friendly Foil said:

Blame books! Blame music! Blame movies! Blame videogames!

 

Blame stuff!!

Who is she?

  On 12/16/2012 at 11:18 PM, LimpyLoo said:

Who is she?

Hard to believe, but Christina Aguilera really let herself go

  Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  MisterE said:

chicago is a great example of gun control, and how well it works to thwart gun violence. take a look.

 

blasted real world data!

 

D.C. still has its problems, but its greatly improved from a decade or two ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i guess forbes is considered to have somewhat of a conservative bias, so that should probably be considered, but i've seen the topic of gentrification brought up in other sources when talking about the violent crime rate dropping in DC. now, perhaps the gun control laws in DC contributed to the improvement, but the question is- if that's the case, why is chicago still a frickin' war zone? why is that, when it has been among the strictest places in the country with regard to gun control, for decades? if there is a correlation, why would it just not show up with chicago? strictest gun laws, one of the most dangerous cities. if i'm to assume that the improvement in DC is due to gun control, why isn't it working in chicago?

I would still tap dat but slightly more reluctantly than usual.

am i the only gun owner here who still gets sort of freaked out by the idea of holding a gun in my hand?

to the kid/parenting points with overlook and 303. I'm sure there were plenty of parents that raised their kids proper and they would never shoot anyone. and some of them were just murdered by a kid who wasn't raised proper. so how does that help the family who did the right thing?

parenting is not something you apply a formula too nor do you know shit about if you aren't one.

and when you are one, you still pretty much know nothing either.

You couldn't pay me to own a gun.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html

this also might be interesting to look at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

  gmanyo said:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html

this also might be interesting to look at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

the general tone of those two are kinda contradictory, aren't they? the first one basically says that where there are guns there are deaths, but the second has a chart that you can click on to re-organize the data. if you click it to show homicides by gun per 100,000 pop in descending order, then glance over at the rank by rate of ownership column, the countries with the most gun homicides per capita are pretty low on gun ownership rankings.

so i guess this is an issue where it just depends on who does the study, as to what kind of results they will come up with? the issue at hand here is gun control, and NOT just how many guns are in the country vs how many gun related crimes there are. and as i already pointed out, chicago has among the strictest if not the strictest gun regulations in the country, and it's a warzone. to me, it's unscientific to ignore that when trying to find correlations between gun control and gun violence. someone needs to explain how gun control works, when

chicago.

  On 12/17/2012 at 12:56 AM, MisterE said:

  Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  MisterE said:

chicago is a great example of gun control, and how well it works to thwart gun violence. take a look.

 

blasted real world data!

 

D.C. still has its problems, but its greatly improved from a decade or two ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

well there is always the fact that there are going to be several things influencing crime rate at any given time.http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/10/19/how-washington-d-c-got-off-the-most-dangerous-cities-list/

 

i guess forbes is considered to have somewhat of a conservative bias, so that should probably be considered, but i've seen the topic of gentrification brought up in other sources when talking about the violent crime rate dropping in DC. now, perhaps the gun control laws in DC contributed to the improvement, but the question is- if that's the case, why is chicago still a frickin' war zone? why is that, when it has been among the strictest places in the country with regard to gun control, for decades? if there is a correlation, why would it just not show up with chicago? strictest gun laws, one of the most dangerous cities. if i'm to assume that the improvement in DC is due to gun control, why isn't it working in chicago?

of course its not SOLELY due to gun control laws. nothing happens in a vacuum. this seems to be the most misunderstood aspect of this discussion.

and having been a DC resident myself, there are a lot of negative aspects to gentrification, but that's a whole other can o' warms.

  Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

of course its not SOLELY due to gun control laws. nothing happens in a vacuum. this seems to be the most misunderstood aspect of this discussion.

 

and having been a DC resident myself, there are a lot of negative aspects to gentrification, but that's a whole other can o' warms.

  On 12/17/2012 at 1:08 AM, Awepittance said:

am i the only gun owner here who still gets sort of freaked out by the idea of holding a gun in my hand?

more like one of the a few who will admit to that feeling, I'm sure many feel that way but will never acknowledge it

the last time i heard gunfire in real-life i was coming down off DMT at a campsite, and in my semi psychedelic state i remember thinking it was funny and worthy of ridicule that people enjoyed shooting guns, but as my thoughts tried to form i realized that the way i really feel about guns is just abject fear. Being around guns, shooting them and hearing them activates my fight or flight instinct even if they are being handled by people that i completely trust.

Shooting those flying clay discs with a hunting rifle can be very rewarding. I can perfectly understand why people can have a hobby like that. But having guns at your home, or carrying one around for other purposes is something completely different. I'd feel I'd somehow attract violence, instead of the opposite.

If it said--somehow--in the 2nd amendment that everyone had the right to own atomic bombs, would the argument be "yeah, it sucks that millions of people are dying, but atomic bombs aren't the root problem. Ergo we don't need to address atomic bomb laws"?

how isn't it completely obvious that the core design of guns is to significantly simplify the act of inflicting lethal wounds to another person? in my opinion, owning a gun, even for "sports", is at best a tiny-wang compensation thing, but more likely a sign of more serious mental issues.

if you think i don't know what i'm talking about, full disclosure: i've served the military 10 years ago in a paratrooper unit. Standard issue was the H&K G36, which has aiming aids that make it easy to "hit a human sized target" at a distance of 250 meters, even as an untrained noob. I was the squad machine gunner for a while, issued an MG3, which is an evolved Nazi MG42, a prime example of stereotypical German engineering, a machine gun accounting for many late deaths in WW2.

I know i had issues back then, and many of the guys in that unit were just wannabe nazi assholes in disguise.

so yeah, fuck guns.

  THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

  On 12/17/2012 at 1:08 AM, Awepittance said:

am i the only gun owner here who still gets sort of freaked out by the idea of holding a gun in my hand?

What gun do you own?