Mass Shootings, Guns, and the US

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by coldkidc

Agreed. We need to help our fellow man.
Through education we can mitigate the problem step by step.

We need to find those individuals who feel they have nothing to lose, and show them they have a lot to lose.
Although it's true many are completely lost at this point, I believe it may be best to focus on the younger generations and attempt to give them the skills they need to avoid tragedies and horrible mistakes.

I agree fully with this. ME being younger, I am more susceptible to having anger outbursts since I have a lack of knowledge. So knowing this, I am not going to have as much experience as someone who is 40 or 50 dealing with an idiot who doesn't know what they are talking about. There for I am more susceptible to acting in violence rather in words of wisdom without the proper parental advisory as a child growing up. This is also the exact reason for other issues like people turning gay some where in their adolescent years. If a son only has a mother to raise him growing up, he will not learn man hood. If a daughter only has a dad raising her, she will not learn the way of a woman, which means when a child is being raised it is crucial for there to be both parents. Though there can be problem with this too. What happens if the mom is the masculant one in the family and the dad is the more feministic one? What happens when a kid grows up all their years with the same mom and dad which get divorced after once they become a young man? These are questions I raise in situations like this. Never the less, you can't forget about the brainwashing the government does through the television and other media outlets.

reply to post by ComeFindMe

Surely you would end up with gun fights over every persons perceived notion of appropriate morals being broken - how 'threatened' would you need to be to use it? Have a weapon pulled on you...be verbally insulted...be looked at the wrong way?

That theory has already been proven wrong. There are 90 guns per 100 people in the US, and that was in 2007, the gun sales have been broken all previous records in 2008,9,10,11,12, so there are a LOT more guns now than there were then. We are the most armed country in the world BY FAR, yet out crimes per capita are lower than other the countries with tighter restrictions. Our accidental shootings are not a significant number, and when there are accidental shootings, it is very, very rarely a case of mistaken identity.

The questions you ask like "how threatened would you need to be" are already spelled out in the laws, and when something is unclear, it goes to a jury trial for a decision to be rendered.

And no, the only time people get shot over looking at someone the wrong way, is when that someone is crimeboss or gang-banger. Regular armed citizens are not out walking the streets just looking for a reason to shoot someone. It just doesn't happen. I've been in multiple fights, with my gun safely in its holster, and never once thought about even mentioning it was there, let alone actually pulling it out. It just very, very rarely happens that way. The guns don't escalate the violence, they work as a cooler. People are more respectful and less aggressive towards one another when the ratio of force is equal. Go back to the "Why the gun is civilization" I quoted earlier. The gun equalizes the force equation and puts everyone on equal standing. The 90lb old woman and the 250lb bodybuilder have mutual respect, because they have equal force with a gun.

reply to post by Siddharta


Yup. WWI. WWII. No problems.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
I just think it's sad that you can go into a shop and buy an assault rifle. Do people have to have any background checks or do you just walk straight in and take your pick?

I'm glad the UK went the way it did with guns. Murders are at the lowest for 30 years here at the moment. Still I understand you guys love your guns and understand its's different strokes for different folks.

I wonder if your county's newspaper is wrong as it reports that things have gotten much worse not better since the gun ban. Gun Crime UP

Originally posted by Realtruth
Here is the text from the OP's original source and the breakdown by country.

Hmmmm how many of those other countries are guns illegal to have and carry in?

And these are just incidents that have gone on record.

(Reuters) - Here is a timeline of some of the worst shooting incidents carried out by one or two gunmen around the world in the last 25 years:

.....

Just about all of those massacres mentioned were, in fact, covert operations based upon evidence of additional shooters.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Great post OP, I particularly respect the way that you have followed through on the post. Excellent job and thanks.

Originally posted by whywhynot

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
I just think it's sad that you can go into a shop and buy an assault rifle. Do people have to have any background checks or do you just walk straight in and take your pick?

I'm glad the UK went the way it did with guns. Murders are at the lowest for 30 years here at the moment. Still I understand you guys love your guns and understand its's different strokes for different folks.

I wonder if your county's newspaper is wrong as it reports that things have gotten much worse not better since the gun ban. Gun Crime UP

I'll take solace in the fact murders are at their lowest since records began and high school masacres aren't a national sport.

Originally posted by antonia

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by antonia

 

I disagree. You might not have won, might have even been killed, but how many would have escaped and survived while you distracted him?

Unless you can conceal a shotgun in your pants you are wasting your time. You could have jumped on him to cause a distraction too.

you can't disagree that you would have stood a chance, as you would have stood a chance, a much better chance than if you were chucking popcorn at him

Banning guns is impossible. We have had lot shootings in Finland, though we have very strict gun laws. Those guns are always illegal, but its so easy to get weapons anyway via black market.

Ban never works

Here is a Reuters Article running down the worst mass shootings in the past 25 years. You'll notice that 11 of the 16 incidents did NOT occur in the United States. And these are only the GUN incidents. I'll try to find some more info for generalized mass murders that may have used gas, or poison, or explosives. The Russian incident comes to mind right off hand.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Where is the "Santa" shooting, or the Fort Hood Shooting? 6 and 13 shot and killed respectively.

Originally posted by antonia

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by antonia

 

I disagree. You might not have won, might have even been killed, but how many would have escaped and survived while you distracted him?

Unless you can conceal a shotgun in your pants you are wasting your time. You could have jumped on him to cause a distraction too.

I assume that you have never been shot wearing body armor? You definitely feel getting hit (putting it mildly) and with the gas mask you will be disoriented.

I guess it all depends if you want to be able to fight back or not, or depend on others for your safety. I would rather be able to fight back.

Originally posted by Thebel
Banning guns is impossible. We have had lot shootings in Finland, though we have very strict gun laws. Those guns are always illegal, but its so easy to get weapons anyway via black market.

Ban never works

I agree. They've banned drugs and they're more prevalent than ever. They've banned prostitution and there 1000 people openly advertising on Craigslist and Backpage in every town. Banning things doesn't work.

AND, even if it did work, guns are no where near the top of the list of deadly things in the US. First is Prescription Drug accidents and Doctor Errors. Those two things are both completely LEGAL! After that is automobile accidents, also LEGAL. After that are obesity-based ailments like Diabetes and Heart Disease..... also rooted in completely LEGAL habits.

Banning guns would be the most illogical thing imaginable.

Originally posted by Morg234

Here is a Reuters Article running down the worst mass shootings in the past 25 years. You'll notice that 11 of the 16 incidents did NOT occur in the United States. And these are only the GUN incidents. I'll try to find some more info for generalized mass murders that may have used gas, or poison, or explosives. The Russian incident comes to mind right off hand.

reply to post by getreadyalready

 

Where is the "Santa" shooting, or the Fort Hood Shooting? 6 and 13 shot and killed respectively.

Good question. I was wondering about several other massacres I remember hearing about in the news? I don't remember the "Santa" shooting, but I definitely remember the Fort Hood, and I know of several triple homicides just from right here in my town, and I'm sure every other town is similar, and I remember a car driving through a crowd and killing several and injuring dozens...... oh wait, the article is only about shootings. Still doesn't explain the Ft. Hood one missing though?

As far as im concerned, AMERICA gunned down those people.

Each and everyone of you are to blame.

reply to post by getreadyalready


All I can say is that my heart goes out to the families of the victims.

No words can right what went wrong here. Only actions.

If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns. Like the guy at the Colorado Theater shooting.

1. 01-Aug-66 AUSTIN, TEXAS UNITED STATES - University of Texas was the site of a massacre by Charles Whitman, who killed his mother and wife at their homes before killing 14 and wounding 32 others at the University atop the university tower before the police killed him

2. 18-Jul-84 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES - Gunman James Oliver Huberty killed 21 people in a McDonald's restaurant before being fatally shot by a SWAT team sniper.

3. 19-Aug-87 Hungerford, England - A gunman armed with semi-automatic rifles and a handgun killed 16 people before committing suicide.

4. 06-Dec-89 École Polytechnique,Montréal, Quebec, Canada - Marc Lépine, claiming to fight feminism, shot and killed 14 female students of the École Polytechnique de Montréal and wounded 14 other people before turning his gun on himself. The event led to stricter gun control laws[305] and changes in police tactical response to shootings in Canada.

5. 13-Nov-90 Aramoana, New Zealand - Lone gunman David Malcolm Gray began shooting indiscriminately at people, killing 13 people before being killed by police himself, allegedly after a dispute with his next door neighbor. It remains New Zealands deadliest criminal shooting.

6. 16-Oct-91 Killeen, Texas, United States - George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot and killed 22 people, wounded another 20 and then committed suicide by shooting himself.

7. 08-Jan-93 Palatine, Illinois, United States - Seven people were murdered at the Brown's Chicken and Pasta in Palatine

8. March 13, 1996 – BRITAIN/SCOTLAND - Gunman Thomas Hamilton burst into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.
9. April 28, 1996 - Port Arthur, Tasmania, AUSTRALIA - Martin Bryant unleashed modern Australia's worst mass murder when he shot dead 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern state of Tasmania.
10. April 20,1999 – LITTLETON, COLORADO UNITED STATES - Two heavily-armed teenagers went on a rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Denver, shooting 13 students and staff before taking their own lives.
11. July 1999 - UNITED STATES - A gunman killed nine people at two brokerages in Atlanta, after apparently killing his wife and two children. He committed suicide five hours later.
12. April 26, 2002 - GERMANY - In Erfurt, eastern Germany, 19-year-old Robert Steinhauser opened fire after saying he was not going to take a math test. He killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman at the Gutenberg Gymnasium, before killing himself.
13. October 2002 – WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES - John Muhammad and Lee Malvo killed 10 people in sniper-style shooting deaths that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.
14. 25-Mar-06 Seattle, Washington, United States - 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff entered a rave afterparty in the southeast part of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood and opened fire, killing six and wounding two, before committing suicide.

15. April 16, 2007 - Blacksburg, Virginia UNITED STATES - Virginia Tech, a university in, Blacksburg, Virginia became the site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.
16. November 7, 2007 - FINLAND - Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse, the principal and himself with a handgun at the Jokela High School near Helsinki.
17. September 23, 2008 - FINLAND - Student Matti Saari opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland, killing nine other students and one male staff member before killing himself.
18. March 11, 2009 - GERMANY - A 17-year-old gunman dressed in combat gear killed nine students and three teachers at a school near Stuttgart. He also killed one other person at a nearby clinic. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police. Two additional passers-by were killed and two policemen seriously injured, bringing the death toll to 16 including the gunman.
19. 05-Nov-09 Ft. Hood, Texas, United States - Gunman Malik Nadal Hasan, a Major in the U.S. Army, killed 12 soldiers and one civilian, and wounded at least 30 on the base at Ft. Hood. Initial reports indicate Hassan was upset at being deployed to Iraq.

20. June 2, 2010 - BRITAIN - Gunman Derrick Bird opened fire on people in towns across the rural county of Cumbria. Twelve people were killed and 11 injured. Bird also killed himself.
21. 08-Jan-11 Tucson, Arizona, United States - One man, Jared Lee Loughner, attacked a group of people outside a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. His intent was to kill U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords only, but he ended up killing 6 and wounding 19 – though grievously wounded (and despite initial reports to the contrary), Giffords herself survived. Those killed in the incident included United States District Court for the District of ArizonaChief Judge John Roll and one of Gifford's staffers.

22. April 9, 2011 - NETHERLANDS - Tristan van der Vlis opened fire in the Ridderhof mall in Alphen aan den Rijn, south of Amsterdam, killing six before turning the gun on himself.
23. July 22, 2011 - NORWAY - Police seize a gunman who killed 69 people at a youth summer camp of Norway's ruling political party, on the small, holiday island of Utoeya. Anders Behring Breivik is later charged with the killings, as well as with an earlier bombing in Oslo which killed eight people. The trial ended last month with Breivik saying that his bombing and shooting rampage was necessary to defend the country - prompting a walk-out by relatives of his victims.
24. December 13, 2011 - BELGIUM - Gunman Nordine Armani killed three people, including a 17-month-old toddler, wounding 121 in a central square in the eastern city of Liege, before shooting himself. The next day Belgian investigators found the body of a woman in warehouse used by the gunman raising the death toll, including the killer, to five.
25. July 20, 2012 - Auroa, Colorado, United States - Twelve people have been killed and 58 wounded after a masked gunman shot moviegoers at the latest 'Batman' premiere in Colorado. The attack is the worst in the state's history since the infamous Columbine High School massacre in 1999.Law enforcement officials have identified the gunman responsible for killing 12 people and injuring 58, at the 'Dark Knight Rises' premier in Colorado's third largest city of Aurora in Cinema #9, as 24-year-old James Holmes.
Here is some to add to your list from Wikipedia. New ones added are in italics. The first mass killing on record was in Austin Texas, in 1966. The next incidence did not happen for 22 years, then one almost every 1-4 of years after that. The only other mass killings recorded in history were military, civil unrest or war related, not individuals or pairs going out and killing humans at random and this list may still be incomplete. What happened in 1966 to start this trend? The worst year for mass killings was 2011; 4 of them, 3 in the Netherlands and 1 in the US. Of 25 of those listed here, 12 are in US, 6 in the Netherlands, 3 in Great Britain, 2 in Germany, 2 in Australia/New Zealand, 1 in Canada,

Please note that i did not have time to go back and italicize all i already did in word and the italics are not in this document