# 27 dead, 18 children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 14, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050 "2012-12-14T18:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/101 "2012-12-14T21:12:49Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The methodology certainly has problems in trying to find this information, but those who’ve tried to quantify it have ranged from around 250k at the low end to 3 million at the high end. The 250k number came from a group that set out to prove that it’s so rare that it’s negligible. If there are credible studies that put the number lower than that, I’d like to see them. > > I don’t see what’s so implausible about it, in any case. Out of tens of millions of gun owning households, does 250k of them per year having the chance to use their gun defensively (and this doesn’t mean shooting someone - it could just mean scaring them off by racking the slide on a shotgun) implausible? Exactly what was the methodology behind the 250K estimate? ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/102 "2012-12-14T21:15:57Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The position of “the only reason you need a gun is to defend against other people with guns” has always been ridiculous and yet I hear it quite a bit. > > If no one has a gun, those with the greatest physical prowess and element of surprise then control the situaton. Criminals generally tend to be young men - usually healthy and strong. You’re saying that a woman wouldn’t need to carry a gun because her rapist wouldn’t have a gun either? What about the fucking massive physical strength advantage the rapist has over her? Pepper spray, whistle, taser, knife, baton, fucking blowdarts. There are a whole host of ways to end the situation without needing a handgun. ---
**Author:** ![Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lago_Ys-Transform)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/103 "2012-12-14T21:16:34Z")
Personally, I think that the Second Amendment is in of itself the biggest threat to citizens’ rights in the United States. Private citizen militias have been historically the greatest instigators of extra-legal disenfranchisement in both the United States and in world history. I mean, shit, the United States had the **motherfucking Ku Klux Klan setting civil rights back several decades** and we’re supposed to believe that groups of private citizens wielding weapons without government oversight is the best way to protect democracy? To speak nothing of even more disastrous examples such as, oh, the SS. So gun advocates, please stop feeding us a line of bullshit about how private gun ownership is supposed to protect us against a tyrannical government. Private gun ownership has done _very little_ to protect people from government militaries; they have been used to deprive _other_ citizens of their rights countless times. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/104 "2012-12-14T21:16:57Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > This doesn’t even make sense. If you were to give up your guns to prevent murder by firearms, you wouldn’t need guns anymore. Given the choice between a perfectly ideal situation where everyone, including you, is safe, and children dying, you choose children dying. What? There’d still be break-ins and rapes and robberies and murders and all the other crap that goes on that doesn’t include murder by firearm, that’s why. I seem to recall an incident not too long ago where multiple people were killed by some nut in England with a knife, and sure enough some whinger there started complaining that “_We have to find a way to get these knives off our streets._” :rolleyes: I foresee a glorious liberal future where all flatware is forbidden by force of law and plastic sporks are the only utensils allowed for eating. 😃 I have no idea what will sub for ball bats and automobiles and poisons and explosives and rope (and cord, nylon string, stockings, underwear - all of which can be used as ligatures), and rocks and concrete blocks and…well, you get the idea. People gonna kill. Best you can do is try to create a civilized society where people don’t do that very much. We’ve been heading the opposite direction these last fifty years or so. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/105 "2012-12-14T21:17:38Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Exactly what was the methodology behind the 250K estimate? They’re all based on surveys, so rough estimates. I’m not really interested in debating the minutia. I’m being generous by quoting the lowest numbers, the ones most unfavorable to me, the ones who were generated by people whose agenda ran against mine. If you want to suggest that defensive gun uses never happen in any significant quantity, that’s simply implausible. The reality is that gun use isn’t universally negative, and that you aren’t even weighing the variables against each other because you’re excluding any positive variables. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/106 "2012-12-14T21:18:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > What’s the actual magazine limit? A limit of 8 would be more restrictive than either Norway or Germany, and they have very low gun crime. > > In Germany 16 students were killed in a spree shooting some years ago by a guy who owned a pistol with a 15 round magazine. I do not know if you’ve ever shot a weapon, but with a semiautomic pistol like the one that shooter used, unless the victims are actively working to disarm the shooter there isn’t a huge difference between 8 and 15. Namely because reloads are very, very fast. > > Assuming a “perfectly enforced ban” I think you’d need to ban all rifles other than single shot rifles, and all pistols other than revolvers. You would need to criminalize ownership of revolver autoloaders, and perhaps even mandate revolvers be double-action. That would make it difficult to get a high rate of fire, and would make it easier for unarmed people acting in concert to disarm the shooter. That’s fine with me. I am happy leaving guns in people’s hands that let them (a) hunt (and I don’t see anything wrong with hunters having to actually have some amount of skill) and (b) shoot a home invader. Beyond that, I think the onus should be on would-be gun owners to justify why they need something that could hurt a lot of people in the wrong hands. As I said, I don’t expect this to magically solve gun violence. But I also don’t see the harm. I value the lives of those kids in Connecticut about a million times more than I value the enjoyment of a hobbyist who likes to shoot off powerful weapons. I get that the latter is often a responsible person who poses no threat to society. But it’s not worth the cost to me. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/107 "2012-12-14T21:19:52Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I’m willing to accept the tradeoff. But let me turn this around on you. > > If everyone reacted to these events as I do, with a “_shrug_, shit happens, sucks, there are crazy people in a country of 315m”, these things would be a lot less frequent. I don’t give them the glory and the infamy. I don’t fuel the weeks of media coverage. Well, you know, that’s what I WAS doing for quite a few years. But the goddamned massacres kept happening anyway. > [@](#): > > When people do this, they want to become infamous, to go out with a bang, to show the world something. And you are the ones who give them that. You attaching yourself to this, getting all worked up, watching 24/7 news coverage - you are the ones giving them what they want, the reason they did this. You are more responsible for this tragedy than the countless gun owners who’ve done nothing wrong themselves. > > So turn this around. Quit all of this “OMG GUN OWNERS HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH WITH YOURSELVES!!!” > > You are giving the perpetrator of these crimes exactly what he wants. In turn, some other crazy guy will see this, realize he’ll get what he wants, and do it in the future. How do YOU live with yourself? Yeah, these guys kill dozens, then turn the guns on themselves, because they know that afterwards, people like me will talk about them on Internet message boards, and maybe even blogs! I’m making it all happen. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuure. But if you and your kind would kindly react like you SAY you do, "with a “_shrug_, shit happens,” when it comes time to try to **limit the capacity** of people like this to engage in slaughter, maybe we’d get somewhere. And you know what? That would be a MUCH more appropriate reaction to a law limiting magazine capacity, than to the murder of a couple dozen people. At least, normal people would think so. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/108 "2012-12-14T21:21:57Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > That’s fine with me. I am happy leaving guns in people’s hands that let them (a) hunt (and I don’t see anything wrong with hunters having to actually have some amount of skill) and (b) shoot a home invader. Beyond that, I think the onus should be on would-be gun owners to justify why they need something that could hurt a lot of people in the wrong hands. I find it hard to believe that you’ve missed the dozens of threads in which people who actually know shit about guns have explained to you that you don’t, that the things you propose don’t actually make sense. I know people around here like to dismiss those facts as “gun nut trivia”. The most deadly thing you can use in a spree like these is a standard 12ga shotgun. Those things absolutely destroy things at close range, which is where all of these things take place. Shooters often pick cooler looking weapons - not because they’re more effective but because they look cooler. They’re going for infamy. The sort of push you’re making is what results in nonsensical assault weapons bans that ban stuff like bayonet lugs and pistol grips because they can’t actually ban functionality, because you fail to realize that the difference between these scary looking guns and more common guns that you’d consider wholesome and normal looking is exactly that - cosmetic, not functional. ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/109 "2012-12-14T21:22:26Z")
First step to gun control: anybody legally buying mass quantities of guns and ammo should get a visit from the feds just like people who buy mass quantities of fertilizer. Second: across the board serious background checks and waiting periods. Obviously these measures won’t stop all incidents but it would probably make a dent in the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/110 "2012-12-14T21:22:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > There’d still be break-ins and rapes and robberies and murders and all the other crap that goes on that doesn’t include murder by firearm, that’s why. I seem to recall an incident not too long ago where multiple people were killed by some nut in England with a knife, and sure enough some whinger there started complaining that “_We have to find a way to get these knives off our streets._” :rolleyes: > > I foresee a glorious liberal future where all flatware is forbidden by force of law and plastic sporks are the only utensils allowed for eating. > > I have no idea what will sub for ball bats and automobiles and poisons and explosives and rope (and cord, nylon string, stockings, underwear - all of which can be used as ligatures), and rocks and concrete blocks and…well, you get the idea. People gonna kill. Best you can do is try to create a civilized society where people don’t do that very much. > > We’ve been heading the opposite direction these last fifty years or so. As mentioned by another poster above: Knives - used for cooking and eating things Ball bats - used for playing ball Automobiles - used for travelling Poisons - used as pesticides Explosives - used in demolition, quarrying etc Cord - tie backs on curtains, to name one Nylon string - to tie up brown paper packages Stockings, underwear - clothing, and alluring for sexyfuntime Rocks - kind of just exist, but handy for a rockery Concrete blocks - building walls, etc Guns? Shooting things. That is it. Why do we need guns? ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/111 "2012-12-14T21:23:36Z")
FYI: [22 Children were slashed in a school attack in China today.](http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html) School attacks can happen just fine without guns. Of course, in this case none of the children died–and I have no doubt that the casualty count could have been higher had the perpetrator been better armed. [But past knife attacks at Chinese schools have proven deadly.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_(2010%E2%80%932011)) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/112 "2012-12-14T21:23:40Z")
I’m so F\*\*cking sick of politics. We’ve sunken so low as a people that we can’t even wait for children’s corpses to cool before we start arguing about gun control laws. Being right is more important than being human. This day has been disappointment after disappointment - in myself, in my friends, in humankind. We can’t even act worthy of what little comforts we are given in this life. I’m trying to think of a reason to stay on this godforsaken hellhole of a planet but nothing comes immediately to mind. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/113 "2012-12-14T21:24:51Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And you know what? That would be a MUCH more appropriate reaction to a law limiting magazine capacity, than to the murder of a couple dozen people. > > At least, normal people would think so. We had a magazine limitation capacity law from 1994 to 2004. Did it stop these incidents? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/114 "2012-12-14T21:25:00Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > They’re all based on surveys, so rough estimates. I’m not really interested in debating the minutia. I’m being generous by quoting the lowest numbers, the ones most unfavorable to me, the ones who were generated by people whose agenda ran against mine. If you want to suggest that defensive gun uses never happen in any significant quantity, that’s simply implausible. The reality is that gun use isn’t universally negative, and that you aren’t even weighing the variables against each other because you’re excluding any positive variables. I’m asking you for a cite for your bullshit claim. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/115 "2012-12-14T21:25:43Z")
> [@Reyemile](#): > > FYI: [22 Children were slashed in a school attack in China today.](http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html) School attacks can happen just fine without guns. > > Of course, in this case none of the children died Thank you for dismissing your own factoid so the rest of us didn’t have to. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/116 "2012-12-14T21:27:37Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > First step to gun control: anybody legally buying mass quantities of guns and ammo should get a visit from the feds just like people who buy mass quantities of fertilizer. Do people who go on shooting sprees need especially large quantities of ammo? I occasionally see news stories where someone gets arrested and then the reports will say “and when his home was searched, they found _gasp_ 400 rounds of ammunition!” as if that were proof of ill intent. Anyone who shoots regularly buys ammunition in bulk, by the thousands of rounds. I usually have 2000-3000 rounds in my closet and I barely shoot anymore. This is just another example of the “WE MUST DO SOMETHING” crowd just throwing up totally nonsensical shit, as usual. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/117 "2012-12-14T21:28:39Z")
It’s probably too late to inject a note of sanity into this discussion, but surely it is obvious that there’s far more at play here than gun laws? The USA does have a problem with gun violence and gun fetishism, I’d agree. But that doesn’t entirely explain why it has such a jarringly high crime rate as opposed to other rich countries. I think it obvious that if you want to reduce these sorts of things there are many other issues that need to be looked into. Stigmatization of mental and psychological illness is something that is long overdue to be addressed, and that remains a huge public health problem. You’ve got other crime-related problems as well, that might not apply to this particular incident but that affect crime rates in general; the USA is incarcerating insane numbers of people for no clear public good, the population and the media thatserves it seems at time to be almost wholly mptivated by fear and suspicion, the government is engaged in a war on drugs that accomplishes nothing, and I won’t even get into systemic racism. (And make no mistake, Canada has similar problems. I ain’t playing olier-than-thou.) A serious discussion of America’s crime problem isn’t\*\* just \*\*about guns. It might not even be mostly about guns. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/118 "2012-12-14T21:28:45Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > a) If no gun regulation is possible without repealing the Second Amendment, then that should be our goal. > > I don’t believe that’s the case. I believe that the Second Amendment allows for common-sense gun regulation. But if it doesn’t, and it’s an all-or-nothing choice, then fuck the Second Amendment with a bayonet. Again, none of the commonly proposed gun control regs would have stopped this shooting. Licensing, registration? We just know who the shooter is a lot quicker, and can say, “Yep, that’s his lawfully registered handgun.” Waiting periods? Anyone willing to do what happened today is not going to be detered by a 5, 10, or even 30 day wait. Magazine size restrictions? The Columbine Killers used 10-round magazines, which were the federally prescribed size-limit imposed by the Brady Assault Weapons Ban. Ban semi-auto handguns? Revolvers with speed loaders would be more than sufficient for this guy’s purpose. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > b) These kids were the victims of a seriously disturbed individual who might have been able to kill three or four of them if he’d had a knife or an axe. Maybe a half-dozen with a chainsaw. > > Guns make mass murder a hell of a lot more possible. Yes, these kids died for your rights. \*The fact that you, with your clean record, get to have guns, means that the crazies do too. \* (Because not all the crazies are identifiable in advance. Not that you gunnies are making it easier to deny gun access to identified crazies.) \*And they kill. So their victims die to preserve your rights. \* > > Deal with it. But don’t pretend for a minute that that isn’t the tradeoff, unless you are willing to go along - and hopefully, as a knowledgeable gun owner, **propose** - ways of preserving as much as possible of your rights to own guns, while minimizing the resulting carnage as much as possible. HIPPA laws and similar privacy protection regs, none of which I can recall the NRA sponsoring or lobbying for (not to say that they are for or against them one way or another, I just don’t recall getting any NRA mailers on the subject) do more to block identifying potential crazies. The school counselor for the Colorado Theater Shooter had all the info she needed to raise a serious red flag about him, but took a “not my job” attitude since he was dropping out of school. Blaming guns, or acces to guns, for stuff like this is like blaming easy access to alcohol or marijuana for Bath Salts Killers, or dunk drivers who kill someone while drunk as a skunk behind the wheel of a car. People commit crimes, full stop. Unless you want to repeal the 2nd, ban all guns, go house-to-house conducting thorough searches (serious 4th Ad. issues there), and start imprisoning people at rates that make our current “Highest Incarceration Rate In The World” look like chump-change, you are not going to stop these incidents. I agree with other that express the view that sensationalised media feeds the kind of people who would do these kinds of acts with motivation; it’s why these things come in spates. Pissed off, angry, lonely, feeling rejected and neglected? And want to get even, and be SOMEBODY? Kill 20+ people and go out in ablaze of angry glory, and you’ll get your 15 minutes of \*(in)_fam_(y)\*e. Here’s an idea: peel back or otherwise modify HIPPA and other patient privacy acts so that physicians and social workers can identify and report people they think may be potential threats for these kinds of things; encourage people to come forward to identify friends or family members who might, a) be having the kinds of problems, and expressing the kinds of sentiments, that typically lead up to these kinds of shootings, and, b) have access to firearms, or express interest in aquiring them. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/119 "2012-12-14T21:28:58Z")
> [@Scougs](#): > > As mentioned by another poster above: > > Knives - used for cooking and eating things > Ball bats - used for playing ball > Automobiles - used for travelling > Poisons - used as pesticides > Explosives - used in demolition, quarrying etc > Cord - tie backs on curtains, to name one > Nylon string - to tie up brown paper packages > Stockings, underwear - clothing, and alluring for sexyfuntime > Rocks - kind of just exist, but handy for a rockery > Concrete blocks - building walls, etc > > Guns? Shooting things. That is it. Why do we need guns? But again, aside from the UK most of the world allows some level of reasonable gun ownership (even in the UK there are ways to get legal shotguns.) Do you really think the United States will become the second country in the world to impose UK style gun regulations? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/120 "2012-12-14T21:29:29Z")
How long are we going to let these gun nuts hold our culture hostage to their deep seated insecurities? One more news cycle, at least I guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050.md?page=7)