How do you figure that?? Cars are specifically designed to minimize damage to pedestrians in a collision. You have to hit a pedesrian at 42 mph just to have a 50% chance of killing him/her.
The most deadly car attack I know of is the Akihabara Massacre in Tokyo, where a man drove a truck into a crowd, then got off and stabbed more people. He only managed to kill 3 people with the truck - and in an area that usually looks like this. (I’ve been there numerous times, it’s always like that on a Sunday which is when the massacre occurred.) That’s way more pedestrians than you’ll ever see in any US school.
Are you seriously suggesting that, hypothetically, removing all guns would not change the incidence of mass murder like this one single bit? If so, you’re completely delusional in disregarding the following evidence: the entire civilized world outside the US. The US suffered more school shootings in the first 19 weeks of this year – weeks, not months or years – than any other civilized country has had in its entire history, to the best of my knowledge. In a CDC study of gun violence affecting children, among the 12 OECD countries studied, the US had more childhood deaths from guns than all 11 other countries combined.
And the most dramatic difference between all those countries and the US is not in culture, or general crime rate, or any other notable statistic; it is entirely in the absence of the US-specific subculture of gun worship and the universal presence – everywhere except in the US – of strong gun laws. Ignoring this fact is just willful ignorance.
Intent alone isn’t enough. The means to kill is also important, and the handy availability of semiautomatic firearms allows virtually anyone with the intent to kill to do so on a large scale.
Of course I grasp it. I don’t know how old you are, but the murder rate in the U.S. is about as low now as it was in 1965. The idea of a weekly school shooting is fairly recent, though.
I’m afraid you’re sliding into pure fantasy here, and I can’t keep trying to pull you out.
If guns are useful for self-defense, then they’re useful for murder as well. It’s childish to pretend that it’s just as easy to kill people without a gun as with one. If this were true, then military and police (and home defense and hunting, for that matter) would be just as effective without guns as with them, and that’s just beyond stupid.
Yes, strongly affected by culture. At this moment, there’s something in the culture that pushes disgruntled young men to be more likely to address their grievances with violence, and in particular gun violence. The tools available have an impact on how deadly these incidents can be. Certain types of guns are more effective at killing lots of people in enclosed spaces (i.e. schools and churches) than other types. For example, a short barrel carbine is much easier to maneuver in an enclosed space than a long rifle, while also being far more accurate at short and mid-ranges than a pistol. Rifle-caliber ammunition is more likely to result in deadly wounds than pistol-caliber ammunition. And other factors – most of which I learned in the military. There’s a reason why cops, soldiers, special forces, etc., all have different types of weapons available for different scenarios. Some are better than others in different scenarios – this is true for criminals and murderers as well as soldiers and cops.
You can kill with a knife, a gun, a car, baseball bat, a can of gas, or an infinite number of tools. While a gun makes up one method to kill a person it is the lion’s share of defensive tools. Police carry them for that reason.
You are blaming school shootings on the gun and not the person. If you take away the gun you’re still left with the person and the reason behind the murders. It is not a rational act and will not go away if a tool is removed. Another tool will be used.
Violence is committed by people and you have to address it on that level.
So if we just get children to use the society approved gun then school murders will go away or be diminished in number killed? I disagree. It presumes kids are stupid and can’t work around such a minor problem.
We agree there is a cultural component to the issue. We disagree on the proportion of the component.
So you believe special forces can be just as effective with a deer rifle and a revolver vice a submachine gun and a multi-functional assault rifle? That seems like magical thinking. In my understanding and experience, some guns really are more effective than others, and having different weapons available can lead to differences in outcomes. If all guns can be equally effective at killing people in all circumstances, then there would be no need for different types of guns.
Again, you’re just completely ignoring the wealth of evidence from all other countries around the world that this is false. Knives, cars, baseball bats, cans of gas, and “an infinite number of tools” are all readily available in these countries, yet despite being basically culturally similar, and having average crime rates that are not dramatically different, the rate of mass killings in the US – almost always performed with guns – is orders of magnitude higher than in other developed countries. Some of the statistics are just mind-boggling. If you’re just going to ignore the facts and disingenuously equate a high-capacity assault rifle with a baseball bat, it’s a waste of time trying to discuss this with you.
Everybody loves to twist a hypothetical to their advantage. How about we try reality for a change?
Pick a recent school shooting, synagogue shooting, church shooting, concert shooting. How many casualties would you estimate in any of the given scenarios if the killer had a bat or a knife?
But if you want to stick with hypotheticals… you are unarmed in a room with someone intent on killing you and everyone in the room with you. Would you rather the killer had a bat, a knife or a gun?
No, not at all. I believe it’s reasonable to talk about the types of guns that shooters are using, and what characteristics are most effective in killing people in certain circumstances.
Also, what current restrictions have been effective? For example, very few mass shootings involve fully automatic weapons, even though fully automatic weapons can be effective in indiscriminate killing (i.e. shooting into a crowd). This is because regulations and restrictions on fully automatic weapons have generally been effective in making these weapons rare and difficult to acquire.
These are the types of adult, complex discussions we can have about this complex issue. Not silliness about banning guns or “blaming the gun”, but actual in-depth conversations about the technical characteristics of firearms and shootings in America. Such conversations may shed light on the type of policies that may have a chance at reducing the body counts of future deadly shootings.
Obviously the number would go down if that were the only choice. Now pick any person committing the crime. Would they choose a baseball bat if the intent was to kill many people?
The operative word here is killer. A person intent on killing. They are not limited by your intentions to regulate tools. They are limited by your ability to defend yourself.
I’ve been confronted by a group of people intent on harming myself and another person. My preference then is the same as it is now. That I’m not injured or killed. A gun made that preference a reality. Nobody was harmed because the ability to defend myself made it possible.
When I was young I thought my father’s service in WW-II was dawn of a new age. An age of reason and a society that understood the value of life. An age where a gun was an anachronism. The cold war killed that on a national scale but post war America saw the dawn of social change. And I’m not glamorizing that as a smooth transition but we as a nation prevailed.
In my generation, at least in my little corner of the world, kids solved their differences with words and the occasional dust-up. If it came to a fight then there were rules of civility. Of course there were exceptions to the rule and there has always been evil around us. But not to the extent I’m seeing today.
The casual disregard for life is culturally personified with gun violence in the US. If we eliminated all guns then gun violence would cease immediately. It would be replaced with some other violence until changes are made that restore the value of life.
Guns do not enable you to defend yourself. If they did, then the US would have lower rates of all forms of violence than the rest of the world, instead of higher rates. Gun control laws enable you to defend yourself.
And the gun culture in the US is the cultural disregard for life. The first change to make to restore the value of life would be to get rid of the guns.