# Can/should anything be done about US shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263 "2015-12-02T23:16:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/121 "2015-12-04T03:09:16Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Do you have guns? I’m coming to GRAB them. You can try, but remember he is the one with the guns. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/122 "2015-12-04T03:10:22Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > We do. Which is why when there’s a mass murder (which, by and large, there really isn’t), it is typically the act of terrorists enmeshed within networks and logistics. Not Joe Six Pack going on a murderous lark with his store-bought 20mm Bushmaster autocannon. And we’ve had a grand total of three over the past 15 years (I’m counting 1996 as one, even though it was a bombing campaign). Our last _bona fide_ shooting spree (i.e. unhinged guy with a gun opening up on a random crowd) was in 2012. The one before that was in 2002, then 1995. > That’s over all of France btw, not just Paris. We’ve had zero (0) school massacres and one (1) guy going postal at work back in 1992. > > That’s it. Gun control : much like Science!, it works, bitches. > > Oh, and in case **doorhinge** is wondering, we do not experience a particularly large number of drive-by knifings or spree ropings instead. Or any at all, really. Didn’t France used to get hit by Terrorists every frikking month a few decades back?? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/123 "2015-12-04T03:28:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Didn’t France used to get hit by Terrorists every frikking month a few decades back?? They did? Are you talking about the Action Directe(sp) or the OAS? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/124 "2015-12-04T03:34:30Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > You can try, but remember he is the one with the guns. He has guns, so he’s a tough guy. Not a man to be trifled with unlike us other mooks. It doesn’t surprise me insecure people would purchase weapons for ‘protection’ even from entities owning them wouldn’t do any good, like the government. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/125 "2015-12-04T09:48:26Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > CA has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. For one thing that’s a rather low bar ;), for another laws are contingent on their enforcement which from what I understand can be sketchy in California, for a last one it’s pretty much a given that any efficient gun control in the US would have to happen at the federal/national level. Otherwise it is and will remain trivial to hop a state border and get gats. [QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi] Didn’t France used to get hit by Terrorists every frikking month a few decades back?? [/QUOTE] Not… really ? Not sure what you’re talking about. The OAS killed a whole bunch of guys but that was in the 60s. Most OAS members were either from the army or veterans and had direct support (including weapons and ammo) from high ranking members of the active military (generals, plural) so circumventing gun control laws proved surprisingly easy for them on account of being \*issued \*their guns :p. Action Directe managed about 12 over its ~8 years of existence. I suppose the slow-burning fires of the Corsican and Basque separatists could count, they’re certainly tooled up and love the whole balaclava & AK aesthetic ; but there again it’s \*\*really \*\*not an “every frikking month” proposition and never has been to my knowledge. Besides both groups tend to limit themselves to material damage, i.e. blowing shit up at night or setting fires rather than shooting people. Same goes for the Breton separatists. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/126 "2015-12-04T16:53:51Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > They did? > > Are you talking about the Action Directe(sp) or the OAS? > **[List of terrorist incidents in France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_France)** > > This is a list of terrorist attacks in France from 1800 to the present. Several 19th-century French rulers were targeted in unsuccessful assassination attempts which killed innocent bystanders. > Since December 1973, terrorist attacks have been taking place regularly over the country, with more than 400 people killed and over 1,700 others injured. > France has a lengthy history of terrorist attacks carried out by a variety of groups from the extreme right, extreme left, extreme Basque, Breton an... ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/127 "2015-12-04T16:56:43Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > For one thing that’s a rather low bar ;), for another laws are contingent on their enforcement which from what I understand can be sketchy in California, for a last one it’s pretty much a given that any efficient gun control in the US would have to happen at the federal/national level. > Otherwise it is and will remain trivial to hop a state border and get gats. > > Not… really ? > Not sure what you’re talking about. The OAS killed a whole bunch of guys but that was in the 60s. Most OAS members were either from the army or veterans and had direct support (including weapons and ammo) from high ranking members of the active military (generals, plural) so circumventing gun control laws proved surprisingly easy for them on account of being \*issued \*their guns :p. > Action Directe managed about 12 over its ~8 years of existence. > > I suppose the slow-burning fires of the Corsican and Basque separatists could count, they’re certainly tooled up and love the whole balaclava & AK aesthetic ; but there again it’s \*\*really \*\*not an “every frikking month” proposition and never has been to my knowledge. Besides both groups tend to limit themselves to material damage, i.e. blowing shit up at night or setting fires rather than shooting people. Same goes for the Breton separatists. Well I guess I wasn’t just talking about guns. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/128 "2015-12-04T17:01:32Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That’s it. Gun control : much like Science!, it works, bitches. Nope. Not like science at all. We had very strict gun control in DC during a time when it was the murder capital of the nation (and perhaps the world). Like most other things, its not that simple, but I understand your need to believe it is. There is no conceivable form of gun control that will eliminate all 300 million+ guns from our society short of house to house searches. There is virtually no way to get rid of guns in criminals hands. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/129 "2015-12-04T19:11:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Nope. Not like science at all. > > We had very strict gun control in DC during a time when it was the murder capital of the nation (and perhaps the world). Are you taking the piss ? _Of course_ a weapon ban covering a single fucking city is going to do jack squat. You might as well conclude that outhouses are worthless because even though one house in the village bought one there’s still shit everywhere in the streets. > [@](#): > > There is no conceivable form of gun control that will eliminate all 300 million+ guns from our society short of house to house searches. There is virtually no way to get rid of guns in criminals hands. Nonsense. Sure, there’s no way to do it _overnight_, but if what you want from laws are overnight results, you’re going to be forever disappointed and/or everything will become impossible. Also, no gun control law or measure is going to solve the problem entirely\*, _but only idiots expect it to_. \*France has an estimated ~25 to 30,000 illegal guns floating around, including 4,000 so-called “war weapons” (which would be your AKs, your surplus M-16s, the odd lost or stolen FAMAS etc…). But you know people might possibly conceive of \*some \*ground to be gained, along with some harm reduction, somewhere between “absolute laissez-faire, fuck it, let’s just give up” and “perfect 0.000 guns detected anywhere”. [QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_o…ents\_in\_France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_France) [/QUOTE] Excluding this years’ two, I count 22 occurences of “Shooting” for a grand total of 51 dead. That’s since 1914 - guns weren’t even controlled then, gun restrictions were voted in '49 I believe. I figure y’alls do more damage than that on an average Friday night in Detroit 😛 As for bombings, not quite sure how they’re related to gun control ; or how an absence of gun control would prevent them for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/130 "2015-12-04T19:51:23Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Do you have guns? I’m coming to GRAB them. Just gotta express my opinion that more harm might be avoided if someone grabbed all them ukuleles! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/131 "2015-12-04T20:12:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Gun control didn’t help the French avoid something similar, after all, even if this was home grown American crazies (still to early to tell but that’s what it looks like from the evidence so far). > > As to what can be done about it, I don’t know. More gun control within the realm of reality wrt how the US actually works, how the people think and how our political system works wouldn’t stop events like this. It might have a slight effect (over the already downward slant in gun violence in the US that’s been happening anyway, despite lessening the amount of gun control overall in the US) on total deaths, but it’s not going to be massive, especially considering that, all in all, we are only talking about 30-40k deaths a year total, which SOUNDS like a lot until you look at it in perspective to other things. > > I can’t think of anything to stop bizarre one off shootings like this. Like I said, these happen even in countries with much higher gun control. . Good post overall. It’s important to note there were only “8,855 total firearm-related homicides” last reporting year- 2012. That same year, about 50000 Americans died from Second hand smoke- that’s innocent victims, not smokers. About 11000 people are killed each year by drunk drivers. Of the “mass shootings” publicized in the last few years, I saw exactly one that could have been stopped by "moderate’ and “reasonable” gun control. That shooter should have been properly reported as being unfit mentally and barred from owning or purchasing a gun, as is the current law in some States. So, outsides of gun laws that would violate the 2nd Ad, no, there is really nothing. And even there, the reduction in gun homicides would likely not be significant. People forget there are really damn few “gun nuts” in this county. Many own guns for hunting or for their jobs (I was a armed security guard for years). The NRA has maybe 3MM members, and there are 300MM Americans. So, maybe 1% of Americans are 'gun nuts", even tho almost 100MM Americans own a gun. So, it’s not “Gun nuts” or whatever crazy name dudes are calling them today. It’s your neighbor Bob who shoots skeet, you cousin George who hunts deer, your Aunt Mable who inherited her husbands Police .38, your co-worker Alice who was raped and bought a gun to keep under her pillow. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/132 "2015-12-05T04:05:59Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Well let’s go through it point by point then. > I’m sure you agree that the US has the highest per capita gun ownership, so I shouldn’t have to give a cite for that one. > So let move on to murder rates. According to [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country) we are not 111th like the video stated, we are 121st. Sorry for the error, but it isn’t helping your argument. 🙂 > So let’s move on to city death rates According to [here](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Detroit-Michigan.html) in 2012 Detroit had a murder rate of 54.6 per 100,000 population. Which would have put Detroit 2nd on Wiki’s list of countries. However Detroit pales against the new murder champ East St. Louis with a murder rate of [101.9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis,_Illinois#Crime) and Camden NJ at [86.2](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Camden-New-Jersey.html)! Excuse me, I mis-typed that, the actual number is 86.3. If East St. Louis were a country it would be the deadliest in the world. :eek: > > As far as Plano Texas, 0.4 is the correct number as of [2012](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Plano-Texas.html). Just so you don’t think I’m cherry picking anything, Arizona which has more guns that people and open carry is and always has been legal has Chandler a suburb of Phoenix which has a rate of 0.4 and even Phoenix with it’s barrios and illegals and a fair amount of crime only has a murder rate of [7.9](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Phoenix-Arizona.html) > I don’t think I need to mention that purchasing a gun in New Jersey, Michigan or N.J., and California is much harder than it is in Arizona, and Texas If you doubt it, here are the [laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state), knock yourself out. > > Now before you trot out the countries above us on the murder list are third world hell holes, you might want to read [this](https://mises.org/blog/mistake-only-comparing-us-murder-rates-developed-countries): That’s one of the most ludicrously pathetic arguments I’ve ever seen on any subject. Here are the gun death rates and gun homicide rates [for some comparable countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate), per 100,000 population: UK 0.26 (0.05 are gun homicides) Australia 0.86 (0.11 are gun homicides) Canada 2.22 (0.51 are gun homicides) USA: 10.5 (3.55 are gun homicides) So in round numbers the US has **five times** the gun death rate of Canada, and almost **seven times** the gun homicide rate. Canada however has the problem of so many guns being smuggled in from the US; when this problem of proximity to a place totally overrun with guns is eliminated, as in the UK and Australia, the US has, respectively, **71 times and 32 times the gun homicide rate** of those countries. The numbers are just incredible no matter how you look at them. The CDC did a study of how children were affected; they found that in the US more children under 18 are killed or injured by gunfire either intentionally or by accident than in all 12 other countries they looked at _ **combined** _. To argue that there isn’t an epidemic of gun violence is just as completely ludicrous as trying to argue that the problem isn’t caused by guns, or the kind of nonsense you keep posting – no, you’re not going to “cherry-pick” your examples, you’re just going to pick some obscure town or suburb with perfect demographics that’s a complete statistical outlier. Why not look at the states those places are in – as bad as US gun violence is overall, both Texas and Arizona where you cherry-picked paradises are located have gun violence rates that are even worse than the national average. And trying to argue that the US should be compared with third-world war zones in assessing its gun violence instead of other industrialized countries is just laughably pathetic. The lunatic you quote argues that someplace like Canada is a terrible example for gun violence comparisons even though it’s culturally and economically almost identical to the US – much better to compare US gun violence with Mexico, one of the most corrupt and lawless countries on the entire planet, a place that’s practically run by drug cartels. Some of the folks trying to make these kinds of arguments just have no shame. Why not at least be honest and say that you love your guns so much that it’s worth all those tens of thousands of preventable deaths? Part of the difficulty in addressing the problem is not just the intransigence of the gun lobby in blocking any form of progressive policy changes, but also their active role in suppressing research on gun violence and blocking the tracking of accurate statistics. Former Congressman Jay Dickey [was in the news recently](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jay-dickey-gun-violence-research-amendment_561333d7e4b022a4ce5f45bf) when his conscience apparently caught up with him for doing just that as the NRA’s point man in Congress, a role that he now sorely regrets. A lot of the stats on things like mass shootings have to come from unofficial sources tracking new stories, and those stats are just as horrific and disturbing as the general gun violence stats I quoted above. [One such source](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mass-shootings-us-numbers-1.3349917) counted 365 mass shootings in the US in 2013, 336 in 2014, and 354 so far this year. Some of the facts are just incredible: The list shows that the longest stretch this year without a mass shooting in the U.S. was eight days, from April 8 to 15 inclusive. But on April 18, there were five separate mass shootings — setting a new high for a single day in 2015. That record would be matched four more times in 2015. That’s almost one mass shooting every day, part of the average of about 86 gun deaths every single day from all sources – homicide, accident, and suicide. Gun violence in the US is a bloody epidemic, plain and simple. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/133 "2015-12-05T05:57:15Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Studies pretty consistently demonstrate that US states or regions with higher gun prevalence have higher rates of violent crime, gun crime and homicides. See, just for example: > > Duggan, M. (2000). More guns, more crime (No. w7967). National Bureau of Economic Research. > > Miller, M., Azrael, D., & Hemenway, D. (2002). Rates of household firearm ownership and homicide across US regions and states, 1988-1997. American journal of public health, 92(12), 1988-1993. > > Monuteaux, M. C., Lee, L. K., Hemenway, D., Mannix, R., & Fleegler, E. W. (2015). Firearm ownership and violent crime in the US: an ecologic study.American journal of preventive medicine, 49(2), 207-214. Well no duh. More crime= more need to own a gun. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/134 "2015-12-05T06:10:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well no duh. More crime= more need to own a gun. Well, on the plus side, as someone who has taught college level statistics, I know I could always find work as apparently tons of people fail to understand the most basic concepts! ---
**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 5, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/135 "2015-12-05T13:26:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well no duh. More crime= more need to own a gun. That’s the way these discussions always go. First, it’s “more guns=less crime”. Then you show them the empirical evidence, and its "but, when _I_ look at [random data source/cherry picked pair of places] I can refute the empirical evidence. Then, eventually, it’s, “Well, duh! Of course it’s more guns=more crime because of reverse causation!” What’s also interesting is that when you lag predictors, more guns now predicts more crime in the future. ---
**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 5, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/136 "2015-12-05T13:27:56Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Well, on the plus side, as someone who has taught college level statistics, I know I could always find work as apparently tons of people fail to understand the most basic concepts! Where have you been?!?! ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/137 "2015-12-05T13:42:46Z")
Honest question for those who oppose what some of us are calling “reasonable gun control” (from a guy who doesn’t know or care anything about guns or cars): In this country, we have pretty significant [regulation](http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/FMVSS/) about features and characteristics that cars that are sold by manufacturers must meet. Hundreds of specific regulations, without which the car is not able to be sold. Why is it impossible to do something similar with guns, and still have everyone (gun aficionados included) be satisfied on the other end? Is it utterly impossible to have specific regulations that limit two major categories?: 1. Firing rate 2. Capacity Leaving aside what the “correct” values for these categories are. I’m not saying this is fool proof. Obviously someone with a still legal weapon could still rampage, but would have to do so more slowly than current lunatics; this would be an improvement, not a cure. Obviously someone could alter the weapon post manufacture, though this would now be an illegal weapon. But, the same could be said of cars which can still be used dangerously and altered. Is there anything different physically about guns that somehow makes it impossible to make specific codes that limit the rate and capacity? Would you (as a gun control opponent) still oppose a hypothetically bullet proof (sorry) law that managed to do this without infringing on your rights to own weapons for hunting, sport, protection or anything else? If you would still oppose such legislation, is there no limit to what weapons should be legal to sell? Can we avoid the slippery slope argument and assume that this is not an attempt to grab guns? ---
**Author:** ![wendigo100](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6a8cbe/32.png) [@wendigo100](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wendigo100)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/138 "2015-12-05T14:14:48Z")
Though these are not guaranteed to stop all gun violence obviously they may be able to cut the number down at least in regards to some instances. I would say we need more extensive screening where we look into the mental health records of an individual (granted not everyone is going to have records even if they are crazy), longer waiting periods before receiving gun (maybe allow for some of the aggression to blow over if its somehow related to them wanting to get a gun), don’t allow people on a no fly list to buy guns (because as it stands right now they actually can wtf), and ban armor piercing bullets from being sold to civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/139 "2015-12-05T17:24:33Z")
_The New York Times_ makes its first front-page editorial in almost a century: [End the gun epidemic](http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/04/media/new-york-times-gun-control-front-page-editorial/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/140 "2015-12-06T06:55:23Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Are you taking the piss ? _Of course_ a weapon ban covering a single fucking city is going to do jack squat. You might as well conclude that outhouses are worthless because even though one house in the village bought one there’s still shit everywhere in the streets. That’s a silly analogy. Gun control folks always have reasons why gun control didn’t work the last time or the time before that. The grand daddy of them all is that gun control didn’t work because we only made them illegal in some places and not everywhere. > [@](#): > > Nonsense. Sure, there’s no way to do it _overnight_, but if what you want from laws are overnight results, you’re going to be forever disappointed and/or everything will become impossible. I don’t mean literally overnight but frankly we have guns in America and it is up to YOU to convince us. We are not obligated to simply believe something because it is obvious to you. > [@](#): > > Also, no gun control law or measure is going to solve the problem entirely\*, _but only idiots expect it to_. Who expects that? I expect most forms of proposed gun control not to work at all. (see assault weapons ban). > [@](#): > > \*France has an estimated ~25 to 30,000 illegal guns floating around, including 4,000 so-called “war weapons” (which would be your AKs, your surplus M-16s, the odd lost or stolen FAMAS etc…). 300 MILLION \> ~30,000 like 10,000 times greater. > [@](#): > > But you know people might possibly conceive of \*some \*ground to be gained, along with some harm reduction, somewhere between “absolute laissez-faire, fuck it, let’s just give up” and “perfect 0.000 guns detected anywhere”. And where do we have “absolute laissez-faire, fuck it, let’s just give up”? Or are you making stuff up to bolster your argument? > [@](#): > > Excluding this years’ two, I count 22 occurences of “Shooting” for a grand total of 51 dead. That’s since 1914 - guns weren’t even controlled then, gun restrictions were voted in '49 I believe. > I figure y’alls do more damage than that on an average Friday night in Detroit 😛 > > As for bombings, not quite sure how they’re related to gun control ; or how an absence of gun control would prevent them for that matter. The prior comments wasn’t directed at shooting. It was directed at terrorism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=8)