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Anyone who is not a monster wants the school shootings and other terrible mass gun violence to stop. The knee-jerk response is "We must ban AR-15s and such." Apparently, that's not a solution. It seems like it would be (and there's a 2nd Amendment debate to be had over that), but it's apparently not.
Here's a post by a FiveThirtyEight writer, statistician Leah Libresco.
"I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise."
Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.
Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.
...When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gunowner walks into the store to buy an “assault weapon.” It’s an invented classification that includes any semi-automatic that has two or more features, such as a bayonet mount, arocket-propelled grenade-launcher mount, a folding stock or a pistol grip. But guns are modular, and any hobbyist can easily add these features at home, just as if they were snapping together Legos.
...As my co-workers and I kept looking at the data, it seemed less and less clear that one broad gun-control restriction could make a big difference.
...We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.
It's weird how everyone assumes that both this problem and its solution are the work of government. Nobody can imagine any other mechanism on hand by which we can change people's behavior.
Crid
at February 19, 2018 6:57 AM
By the way, all of you people who've been saying nasty things about Hillary Clinton for the last few years are agents for the commie Russian government.
Crid
at February 19, 2018 6:58 AM
By the way, all of you people who've been saying nasty things about Hillary Clinton for the last few years are agents for the commie Russian government.
Da, comrade.
I R A Darth Aggie
at February 19, 2018 7:37 AM
Every time someone mentions the Australian Gun ban I like to point out that immediately after crime in all categories rose, sometimes as much as an 80% increase in some categories.
It took over a decade for some crime rates to fall below pre ban levels, and some crimes still havent
But dont take my word for it, take the Australian governments word
In 2016 Comrade Putin was busy outflanking Hillary.
“How is it that these Russian operatives knew to focus on purple states like Michigan and Wisconsin and your campaign didn’t?” Nancy Cordes, the host of “Face the Nation,” asked Podesta.
The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns. ~ Leah Libresco
"Against this backdrop, most forms of gun control proposed after each mass killing represent a collective punishment. The rights of the law-abiding are restricted with no real evidence that these alleged 'common sense' reforms will prevent future tragedies in any meaningful way."
"...there is broad conceptual agreement that regardless of whether you view gun ownership as a right or a privilege, a person can demonstrate through their conduct that they have no business possessing a weapon."
"Time and again mass shooters give off warning signals. They issue generalized threats. They post disturbing images. They exhibit fascination with mass killings. But before the deadly act itself, there is no clear path to denying them access to guns. Though people can report their concerns to authorities, sometimes those authorities fail or have limited tools to deal with the emerging danger."
Such a proposal gives the authorities, local and state, the tools to deal with the emerging danger without permanently infringing upon the rights of the law-abiding.
Conan the Grammarian
at February 19, 2018 10:14 AM
"How is it that these Russian operatives knew to focus on purple states like Michigan and Wisconsin and your campaign didn’t?” Nancy Cordes, the host of “Face the Nation,” asked Podesta.
Hillary didn't lose because of Russian collusion or Trumpian shenanigans. She lost because she did not understand how elections were changing and Trump did.
He tweeted regularly from a modern smart phone. She still relied on her obsolescent Blackberry.
She played the technophobe Luddite ("what, with a cloth?"). He embraced modern technology.
He eschewed meetings with billionaires. She sought them.
He was openly human while she tried to sell herself as a modern-day saint.
She counted on people to vote as their parents had. He urged them not to.
He held open rallies. She closed hers to anyone not cleared by the party.
She was a machine politician in an era of populism. He was a populist.
Conan the Grammarian
at February 19, 2018 10:23 AM
This one is interesting -
1. If what she did was done by a man, it would be sexual assault, and the guy would be in jail.
2. Reading the comments, it is interesting to see how many women would happily be this guy's side piece.
So lets pass laws to ban guns.
Basically anyone with a big garage and a couple of CNC machines, which you can have shipped to your doorstep from China, and some G code programs downloaded from the internet, can start cranking out guns.
Ammunition is a little harder, but someone with a very basic knowledge of chemistry, and the above machinery could make caseless ammunition, or go the air rifle route and forego chemical explosive ammunition all together. A well designed air rifle can pack the same punch and has about the same performance as a 45 caliber pistol, which is a pretty mean performer.
And then there are all the guns that have been produced since the beginning of the industrial era that are already out there.
Shootings are a social problem that is not going to be solved by outlawing a readily available object.
Furthermore, contrary to what the liberal MSM would have you believe, mass shootings are not a white male supremacist problem. On almost any weekend, US inner cities, Detroit, St Louis, Chicago, Miami, Memphis, Trenton, East LA, Stockton, etc etc , collectively and far too often individually generate a body count that is multiples of the what a white male run amok does.In the US mass shootings are an inner city problem, inner cities are inhabited by many mass killers, but it politically incorrect to discuss this epidemic of inner city killers.
Jonanothan Whapemheimer
at February 19, 2018 1:29 PM
I'm sure glad that Jennifer Lawrence is on the case. ~ mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:28 PM
"I’m going to be working with this organization as a part of Represent.US… trying to get young people engaged politically on a local level.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with partisan [politics]. It’s just anti-corruption and stuff trying to pass state by state laws that can help prevent corruption, fix our democracy."
I'm also quite glad that Mayim Bialik is on the case. ~ mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:29 PM
And if Michael Rapaport weren't on the case, nuttin' would get done! ~ mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:31 PM
'cause we all know the solution to complex problems is to get young people engaged, blame an advocacy group instead of the perpetrator, and attack anyone who disagrees with you with profanity-laced diatribes.
I'm glad they captured Cruz alive and hope an examination of him will lay to rest this idea that mass shooters pick up guns and say "Sure glad I found this gun, now imma gonna go shoot up a school" as if the gun is to blame; and if not for the gun, would have lived quietly as that weird loner at the end of the street.
I suspect the reasons it didn't catch on, in no particular order, are
1 expensive
2 encouraged troops to waste ammunition
3 more complex, thus more prone to failure, or mechanical fault
I think #2 is pretty much endemic among generals in all military establishments. Which is part of why Custer and the 7th rode out with single shot rifles to face the Souix and Cheyenne, some of whom had those new fangled Winchester and Henry repeaters.
Of course, splitting up your troops into smaller groupings and being numerically inferior at all points didn't help, either.
I R A Darth Aggie
at February 19, 2018 6:23 PM
We must ban AR-15s and such.
If you feel mean, just ask if they'd ban one of these Ruger Mini 14s.
Anyone who'll say "oh, yes, that's ok" should freak out when you tell them that they work the same, and have pretty much the same rate of fire as the evil black rifles they wanna ban.
And they come chambered in the malicious 5.56 mm NATO round.
"This is a Bushmaster XM-15, the same model of rifle used at Sandy Hook. Because it's considered an AR-15-style weapon, it would be subject to the latest assault-weapons ban that has been introduced in Congress. It's semiautomatic, meaning one bullet fires per trigger pull. Its rate of fire depends on how fast its shooter can pull the trigger. The Bushmaster shoots .223-caliber ammunition from a 16-inch barrel. And it accepts a 30-round magazine, which means someone can fire 30 times without reloading."
"Now compare that to this, a Ruger Mini 14. It's semiautomatic. It shoots .223-caliber ammunition from a 16-inch barrel. And it accepts a 30-round magazine."
"There are a few differences in how the innards of each rifle operate. But when it comes to rate of fire, capacity and power -- the things people worry about most in a mass shooting -- these are basically the same rifle." [Emphasis mine]
"In other words, all we'd be doing is banning weapons that look scarier than your common hunting rifle. Which, again, doesn't do anything to protect us from madmen hellbent on bloodshed."
People calling for bans on "assault" rifles don't know what they're talking about. The Mini 14 has been in production since 1973. LIke I've been saying, the guns have always been here, the shootings have not. Something new is driving them; it's not the guns.
Conan the Grammarian
at February 19, 2018 8:02 PM
It's evident to me, from various Facebook postings and things that I've seen over the last week, that a vast number of people believe that the AR-15 is an automatic, and that automatic weapons have been used in all of these school shootings. Further, they think that an automatic weapon holds an infinite number of rounds, and that it can fire continuously for an indefinite amount of time without anything melting. Hollywood has contributed greatly to this perception.
I like to point out to them that a lot of the worst mass murders in history have been done largely or entirely without guns. Then I ask them: "Do you want to be able to tell your friends that you 'made a difference', or do you want the problem solved?"
(P.S.: the reason that most of these school shootings result in so many casualties is that (1) the good guys/gals have been disarmed by the government, and (2) "shelter in place" is one of the stupidest things ever invented.)
Cousin Dave
at February 20, 2018 7:06 AM
...a vast number of people believe that the AR-15 is an automatic, and that automatic weapons have been used in all of these school shootings. ~ Cousin Dave at February 20, 2018 7:06 AM
Charles Joseph Whitman killed 14 with a single-shot, bolt action sniper rifle at the University of Texas in 1966. He had a documented history of mental health and anger issues.
People also tend to forget that Columbine was originally a bombing, but the homemade bombs malfunctioned, so Klebold and Harris were forced to improvise. Their plan had been to shoot students as they fled the building, not to hunt them down in the hallways.
Conan the Grammarian
at February 20, 2018 8:29 AM
And then, before this current trend, there is the school shooting that everyone has forgotten about: I Don't Like Mondays.
Anyone who is not a monster wants the school shootings and other terrible mass gun violence to stop. The knee-jerk response is "We must ban AR-15s and such." Apparently, that's not a solution. It seems like it would be (and there's a 2nd Amendment debate to be had over that), but it's apparently not.
Here's a post by a FiveThirtyEight writer, statistician Leah Libresco.
"I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.79c274b7be4c
More at the link, of course.
Amy Alkon at February 19, 2018 5:24 AM
It's weird how everyone assumes that both this problem and its solution are the work of government. Nobody can imagine any other mechanism on hand by which we can change people's behavior.
Crid at February 19, 2018 6:57 AM
By the way, all of you people who've been saying nasty things about Hillary Clinton for the last few years are agents for the commie Russian government.
Crid at February 19, 2018 6:58 AM
By the way, all of you people who've been saying nasty things about Hillary Clinton for the last few years are agents for the commie Russian government.
Da, comrade.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 19, 2018 7:37 AM
Every time someone mentions the Australian Gun ban I like to point out that immediately after crime in all categories rose, sometimes as much as an 80% increase in some categories.
It took over a decade for some crime rates to fall below pre ban levels, and some crimes still havent
But dont take my word for it, take the Australian governments word
https://aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2013/chapter-1-recorded-crime
lujlp at February 19, 2018 7:49 AM
In 2016 Comrade Putin was busy outflanking Hillary.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/18/cbs-podesta-hillary-interview/
I R A Darth Aggie at February 19, 2018 8:01 AM
Here's an idea for a narrowly tailored intervention that could save lives, the Gun Violence Restraining Order.
"Against this backdrop, most forms of gun control proposed after each mass killing represent a collective punishment. The rights of the law-abiding are restricted with no real evidence that these alleged 'common sense' reforms will prevent future tragedies in any meaningful way."
"...there is broad conceptual agreement that regardless of whether you view gun ownership as a right or a privilege, a person can demonstrate through their conduct that they have no business possessing a weapon."
"Time and again mass shooters give off warning signals. They issue generalized threats. They post disturbing images. They exhibit fascination with mass killings. But before the deadly act itself, there is no clear path to denying them access to guns. Though people can report their concerns to authorities, sometimes those authorities fail or have limited tools to deal with the emerging danger."
Such a proposal gives the authorities, local and state, the tools to deal with the emerging danger without permanently infringing upon the rights of the law-abiding.
Conan the Grammarian at February 19, 2018 10:14 AM
Hillary didn't lose because of Russian collusion or Trumpian shenanigans. She lost because she did not understand how elections were changing and Trump did.
He tweeted regularly from a modern smart phone. She still relied on her obsolescent Blackberry.
She played the technophobe Luddite ("what, with a cloth?"). He embraced modern technology.
He eschewed meetings with billionaires. She sought them.
He was openly human while she tried to sell herself as a modern-day saint.
She counted on people to vote as their parents had. He urged them not to.
He held open rallies. She closed hers to anyone not cleared by the party.
She was a machine politician in an era of populism. He was a populist.
Conan the Grammarian at February 19, 2018 10:23 AM
This one is interesting -
1. If what she did was done by a man, it would be sexual assault, and the guy would be in jail.
2. Reading the comments, it is interesting to see how many women would happily be this guy's side piece.
https://twitter.com/sergeantdaddy/status/964836631302860800
Snoopy at February 19, 2018 10:38 AM
Parents Lose Custody Of Child For Refusing To Support Transgenderism -
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27309/parents-lose-custody-child-refusing-support-amanda-prestigiacomo
Snoopy at February 19, 2018 11:39 AM
So lets pass laws to ban guns.
Basically anyone with a big garage and a couple of CNC machines, which you can have shipped to your doorstep from China, and some G code programs downloaded from the internet, can start cranking out guns.
Ammunition is a little harder, but someone with a very basic knowledge of chemistry, and the above machinery could make caseless ammunition, or go the air rifle route and forego chemical explosive ammunition all together. A well designed air rifle can pack the same punch and has about the same performance as a 45 caliber pistol, which is a pretty mean performer.
And then there are all the guns that have been produced since the beginning of the industrial era that are already out there.
Shootings are a social problem that is not going to be solved by outlawing a readily available object.
Furthermore, contrary to what the liberal MSM would have you believe, mass shootings are not a white male supremacist problem. On almost any weekend, US inner cities, Detroit, St Louis, Chicago, Miami, Memphis, Trenton, East LA, Stockton, etc etc , collectively and far too often individually generate a body count that is multiples of the what a white male run amok does.In the US mass shootings are an inner city problem, inner cities are inhabited by many mass killers, but it politically incorrect to discuss this epidemic of inner city killers.
Jonanothan Whapemheimer at February 19, 2018 1:29 PM
Repítan, por favor.
And here's Larry Correia.
Radwaste at February 19, 2018 3:38 PM
I'm sure glad that Jennifer Lawrence is on the case.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/02/19/jennifer-lawrence-fix-democracy/
mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:28 PM
I'm also quite glad that Mayim Bialik is on the case.
http://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2018/02/19/big-bang-theory-star-mayim-bialik-make-lifes-goal-vote-nra-backed-congressmen/
mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:29 PM
And if Michael Rapaport weren't on the case, nuttin' would get done!
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/02/19/michael-rapaport-attacks-laura-ingraham-lebron-comments/
mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 4:31 PM
'cause we all know the solution to complex problems is to get young people engaged, blame an advocacy group instead of the perpetrator, and attack anyone who disagrees with you with profanity-laced diatribes.
I'm glad they captured Cruz alive and hope an examination of him will lay to rest this idea that mass shooters pick up guns and say "Sure glad I found this gun, now imma gonna go shoot up a school" as if the gun is to blame; and if not for the gun, would have lived quietly as that weird loner at the end of the street.
"It shoots through schools." I miss Joe Piscopo.
Conan the Grammarian at February 19, 2018 5:02 PM
Flashback 30 Years: Guns Were in Schools ... and Nothing Happened
https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/flashback-30-years-guns-schools-nothing-happened/
mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 5:16 PM
When Will We Have the Guts to Link Fatherlessness to School Shootings?
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/will-guts-link-fatherlessness-school-shootings/
mpetrie98 at February 19, 2018 5:43 PM
A well designed air rifle can pack the same punch and has about the same performance as a 45 caliber pistol, which is a pretty mean performer.
Lewis & Clark had such an air rifle with them, chambered in .46 caliber. Held 18 rounds.
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/lewis-and-clarks-girandoni-air-rifle/
I suspect the reasons it didn't catch on, in no particular order, are
1 expensive
2 encouraged troops to waste ammunition
3 more complex, thus more prone to failure, or mechanical fault
I think #2 is pretty much endemic among generals in all military establishments. Which is part of why Custer and the 7th rode out with single shot rifles to face the Souix and Cheyenne, some of whom had those new fangled Winchester and Henry repeaters.
Of course, splitting up your troops into smaller groupings and being numerically inferior at all points didn't help, either.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 19, 2018 6:23 PM
We must ban AR-15s and such.
If you feel mean, just ask if they'd ban one of these Ruger Mini 14s.
Anyone who'll say "oh, yes, that's ok" should freak out when you tell them that they work the same, and have pretty much the same rate of fire as the evil black rifles they wanna ban.
And they come chambered in the malicious 5.56 mm NATO round.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 19, 2018 6:32 PM
Here's an article comparing the Mini 14 and the Bushmaster XM-15.
People calling for bans on "assault" rifles don't know what they're talking about. The Mini 14 has been in production since 1973. LIke I've been saying, the guns have always been here, the shootings have not. Something new is driving them; it's not the guns.
Conan the Grammarian at February 19, 2018 8:02 PM
It's evident to me, from various Facebook postings and things that I've seen over the last week, that a vast number of people believe that the AR-15 is an automatic, and that automatic weapons have been used in all of these school shootings. Further, they think that an automatic weapon holds an infinite number of rounds, and that it can fire continuously for an indefinite amount of time without anything melting. Hollywood has contributed greatly to this perception.
I like to point out to them that a lot of the worst mass murders in history have been done largely or entirely without guns. Then I ask them: "Do you want to be able to tell your friends that you 'made a difference', or do you want the problem solved?"
(P.S.: the reason that most of these school shootings result in so many casualties is that (1) the good guys/gals have been disarmed by the government, and (2) "shelter in place" is one of the stupidest things ever invented.)
Cousin Dave at February 20, 2018 7:06 AM
Charles Joseph Whitman killed 14 with a single-shot, bolt action sniper rifle at the University of Texas in 1966. He had a documented history of mental health and anger issues.
People also tend to forget that Columbine was originally a bombing, but the homemade bombs malfunctioned, so Klebold and Harris were forced to improvise. Their plan had been to shoot students as they fled the building, not to hunt them down in the hallways.
Conan the Grammarian at February 20, 2018 8:29 AM
And then, before this current trend, there is the school shooting that everyone has forgotten about: I Don't Like Mondays.
Cousin Dave at February 20, 2018 11:49 AM
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