Well, Norway apparently has some people who think you should kill students because too many Muslims are immigrating. Spain has people who think it’s okay to kill people because you speak a different language and thus shouldn’t be ruled by Spanish-speakers. The UK had people who thought it was fine to bomb apartment buildings for a long time.
So yes, there are other countries with sociopathic mindsets present but maybe not exactly the same as the “militia movement” in the U.S.
But you’re speaking out of ignorance. Most militia movement survivalists, the ones who believe they will some day have to fight the government or the UN, are all probably gun nuts, but not all gun nuts are militia types. I believe the SPLC estimates there are at most around 60,000 people involved in that movement. By and large, while they have caused problems like Timothy McVeigh, they are harmless crazy people. They aren’t typically the ones doing spree shootings or even involved in a lot of the gun homicides. You’re making associations that just simply aren’t there. The militia movement is not typical of gun nuts. Even gun nuts are not typical of gun owners. And most gun homicides and spree shootings have nothing to do with the militia movement or gun owners. You’re just jamming a bunch of weird stuff together that has no clear relationship.
I stand corrected, but it still seems like Kindergarten teacher + semi-automatic weapons + mentally ill son=Very poor judgement to say the least.
A handgun for self protection, I could understand. But a Glock, a Sig Sauer, and an assault rifle seem like a strange collection for a kindergarten teacher with a mentally ill son to keep.
Agreed, though I must point out that, other than the fact that he did this thing, do we have any information that he exhibited any signs of mental illness in the days, weeks, years leading up to this?
I ask for information only; not to detract or otherwise mitigate your point.
Actually most of the people I know who own handguns (and in one case a shotgun) own them to protect their families and themselves, while inside their homes, from the thugs, criminals and nogoodniks our society is churning out in record numbers. I don’t know anyone who’s bought them to protect their houses or to fight off the UN. :rolleyes:
For whatever reason there is a loud and vocal portion of the SDMB that thinks the red states are 100% populate by guys who are just Timothy McVeighs waiting to happen. That crazy militia/survivalist/anti-UN/anti-Federal government movement is very, very small. It’s a concern because they have committed acts of domestic terrorism, and have fought police before and killed police, but they are a negligible part of the overall gun crime problem and I do not believe they have ever been involved in a spree shooting like this.
Doubtless a representative sample of the population.
It’s been explained to you in thread after thread - dozens of times, I bet - that violent crime has been decreasing for decades. I have no trouble believing everyone you talk to is a panicky idiot with a gun, and like everyone I celebrate your right to own a gun because you’re scared of TV and what politicians were saying about crime 30 to 40 years ago. But all the same, what you are saying is wrong, and it’s unthinkable to you because it’s too inconvenient for your beliefs- or because you’re a moron.
Apparently the attack on Chinese children did not result in any deaths. I’m sure the Connecticut parents would prefer slashed children to dead corpses.
Along with 8 to 10 thousand gun murders per year in the USA, we have around 18 thousand gun suicides. Guns do the lethal job far more effectively than other methods which is why more suicide attempts are “successful” in the USA than other countries.
I don’t know why I bother participating in thses threads. We’re doomed by the gun manufacturers and their minions in the NRA to more and more of these mass killings and there is nothing that can be done about it.
I know; it was too good a line to pass up. :double, triple checks speelings:
In a meta “what if” sense, I’d be more inclined to a registration system (almost said “scheme,” but that makes it sound hinky) than an personal license plus a separate license for each firearm.
All right, that’s fair enough in concept; in execution, I, like most gun owners I know and have talked to, tend to buy in bulk when prices drop (“Big Bob’s Bullet Bunker Blowout Bonanza! All ammo 1/2 off this Saturday, noon to four! Everything Must Go!”) and finding a gun-safe quality storage container is…problematic.
Hmmm. Wouldn’t necessarily impact me personally, and as such, I wouldn’t personally have much problem with it. I’m not sure it would significantly impact the vast majority of gun owners. I see the impetus in punishing idiot/fool/criminal A for giving a gun to idiot/fool/criminal B, and agree your idea has merit.
How would this impact Range Rentals? Would your average guy John Q. Public, thinking about buying a gun, have to get one of your licenses before going to, say, Top Gun Shooting Sports to try out a range rental 9mm handgun before taking the full plunge and buying a gun?
Agreed, agreed, a thousand times agreed.
Your proposed age cutoff is consistent with most statistical data I’ve seen from sources like the CDC’s NIMH for identifiable crime-related gun usage. There are “outliers,” of course, but there always are, and will be.
One problem (not with your proposal, but with types of gun deaths): around 55%-60% of gun deaths are suicides, white males ~20-35 being a simple majority, white females about the same age making up the rest (still a sizeable %).
I’m not sure that the political cultures map one to the other. I see a lot of resistance to most of this coming out of what’s derisively deemed “flyover country,” who already have violent and violent gun crime rates at, or lower than, the European countries you mention.
I had heard, or read (no cite), that at its height of power, the I.R.A had at most 200 “active shooters” in their ranks, and maybe ten times that number of active supporters (providers of tools, weapons, cars, safe house, etc., but not otherwise engage in active violence).
Fair question and I don’t think there is any hard evidence available yet. Interviews from his friends, former classmates etc described him as having a “personality disorder”, though they didn’t specify which kind. They also described him as dark and brooding, keeping to himself, etc.
Not sure if his mother knew the magnitude of his psychiatric issues, but it’s still hard to understand why a kindergarten teacher would keep such a collection of weapons that a kid with any type of personality disorder would have access to. Maybe it will all make sense as the investigation unfolds, but at this point it just doesn’t compute afaic.
At one point, many years ago, I did own a handgun for home defense (apartment, really). I then learned that most burglaries in our area took place when the home owner/occupant was away, and realized my handgun was actually a liability.
Not necessarily to me, but to the community at large if I my place was ever broken into and my handgun stolen. I then took measures to secure my handgun in such a way that it couldn’t be stolen, at least not easily.
And here we have a prime example of the kind of behavior Martin Hyde was just talking about. The people I referenced can’t possibly be just normal, everyday folks going about their business like everyone else, working at their jobs, raising their families, having cookouts and going to the movies and shopping at Walmart. No, to hear you tell it they’re all “panicky idiots with guns!” :rolleyes:
It’s also possible that you’re full of shit. I live in a fairly large midwestern city in whitebread flyover country. We are on track for a murder rate this year that will be 60% higher than it was just last year alone, if not higher than that. Our murder rate has been going up yearly for quite some time, but the last few years it has really taken off with this year the worst of all.
I realize there’s a phenomenon on this board where my personal experience is directly contradictory to the “statistics” people here love to fall back on, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to believe I happen to live in this tiny little bubble where things go on that are so invariably outside the norm of everyplace else in the country. Plus the area where I live is one of the last ones where you’d expect this kind of thing to be happening. I also find it curious that it’s damn near impossible to come up with detailed murder statistics for previous years for any of the cities I’ve tried to find them for anywhere on the net. It seems the police have never been too fond of releasing them and so there’s no way to test the veracity of the FBI statistics you love to cite.
Plus, while the statistics you are so fond of quoting do show that crime has been decreasing, it’s still much higher than it was during the country’s halcyon days prior to the late sixties when the huge upsurge began. So it’s hardly comforting to hear someone like you say, “Hey, at least there aren’t as many murders as there used to be.” Plus it’s entirely possible that we’re in the beginning of a new upsurge that your several years old statistics don’t reflect.
So basically what we have here is you saying “Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?” I think I’ll continue to go by what I see happening in real life rather than your unverifiable and self-serving statistics. If you don’t mind, that is. Or, hell…even if you do.
And the increase in gun ownership hasn’t fixed that? How weird.
Right, we know the song: crime went way up because of t3h hippies, and it’s been declining for decades because of, um… get off my lawn!
Well that explains why you only started talking this way in the last couple of years. Meanwhile for some reason gun sales have not fixed this problem in your area or nationally. What are we at now, a measly three guns per person? Surely if it gets to four or five, this crime will stop.
Unverifiable statistics. Folks, I give you Starving Artist.
And there you go. Completely irrational and incorrect understanding of facts that leads people to arm themselves. Crime is down; hardly a case of society churning out nogoodniks in record numbers.