# Looks like another mass shooting
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 5, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529 "2012-08-05T17:11:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/161 "2012-08-06T16:59:12Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Does it have to be firing a weapon each day? Is that required for it to be a potential danger or useful object? Presumably anyone with posession of a gun could go on a killing spree at any time. So with 80 million gun owners, and a spree on average every, I dunno, 6 months? we’ve got one spree per roughly every 3.5 billion man-hours of gun owners just sitting on their guns (stroking lovingly) who aren’t going on killing sprees with them.
>
> I would imagine that compares pretty favorably vs beer consumption/drunk driving death ratio, pool ownership vs drowning ratio, etc.
Sure, an astute analysis, excepting that by your standards we’ll have to change the denominator for the amount of time that cars or buckets or ladders or lakes or rivers or pools or beers just sit there not being used. So, on second thought, not so astute.
> [@](#):
>
> Oh please. You can’t legally drink and drive, and you can’t legally fire your guns in the air or set up a practice range on the playground at your local school or carry without a license (generally).
>
> When people make these analogies, they compare doing actively dangerous or harmful actions with simply owning guns. Yes, the first amendment isn’t a defense against libel or yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater, and the second amendment isn’t a defense against murder or behaving recklessly against guns.
>
> But the analogy you try to make is - you can’t drink and drive, and therefore you shouldn’t be allowed to own guns or certain types of guns, as if the ownership was the reckless action in and of itself.
>
> Pretending that there aren’t already thousands of laws that affect the uses of guns is absurd.
Look, like I said before, quit whining like a bitch about it. You can either just accept that these folks have paid your bill for you and go on about your day or not. What you cannot do is rationalize it away. Either your conscience is pricked or it is not. The rest is just noise.
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### Author:  [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/162 "2012-08-06T17:11:18Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> How is it a sidetrack? The guy posted the thread looking for a gun control fight. “Ooooh, a mass shooting! How quickly can I get on the boards starting a thread about how DUH we need gun control and then berate the people who argue against me for their audacity to talk about gun rights so soon after a mass shooting!”
I’m not arguing that it is. You’re correct that the other thread asked for a discussion on gun control. Given that, I didn’t see why **RNATB** decided to complain about it in this thread.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/163 "2012-08-06T17:14:31Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Sure, an astute analysis, excepting that by your standards we’ll have to change the denominator for the amount of time that cars or buckets or ladders or lakes or rivers or pools or beers just sit there not being used.
That doesn’t quite work either. There’s not really any potential value gained by having a pool sit there. There’s a minor value to gun ownership in that it’s there in the unlikely event that you need it. Their value is closer to fire extinguishers in that sense.
But the other issue - if someone is going to snap and go on a shooting spree, are they only going to do that on a day in which they otherwise used the guns recreationally? No, they could do it any time they were in control of the guns, right? Therefore calculating how many shooting sprees we get per man-hour of gun ownership is logical.
> [@](#):
>
> So, on second thought, not so astute.Look, like I said before, quit whining like a bitch about it. You can either just accept that these folks have paid your bill for you and go on about your day or not. What you cannot do is rationalize it away. Either your conscience is pricked or it is not. The rest is just noise.
Explain to me how I’m whining.
I’m not rationalizing anything, I’m being rational. Assuming you drink, do you feel drunk over every drunk driving death, even if you yourself never drive drunkenly? Should I feel more guilty over every gun death that I had nothing to do with causing?
Society makes these collective tradeoffs all the time. Having alcohol available is deemed more important than the harm it causes. Why is it that gun owners or advocates should feel guilty with actions taken by others, but people who drink or advocate for the legality of alcohol shouldn’t? (Or pool owners/drownings and a thousand other things)
Really, this is all about recreational grief and being lead around by narratives. During the time this thread has taken place, tens of thousands of people (at least) have died horrible deaths to starvation. Warlords and gangs have raped thousands of women. Car/Train/whatever accidents have killed thousands of people. Are you weeping for all of them? Where are the big shows of recreational grief and realizations that We Must Do Something?
Oh, right, the news isn’t in your face presenting it as a narrative, so it doesn’t register on your radar.
Horrible shit is constantly happening to someone at all times. Life is rough. If you actually cared about all of the horrible shit that was happening at every moment, you’d go insane. So why freak out when the news covers one particular incident? Are those 7 deaths more gruesome or relevant than the millions of horrible deaths that have happened since then? Are the occasional Missing Pretty White Girls the news covers for months at a time more important than the millions of girls who are stoned to death or enslaved or kidnapped?
The whole phoenomina of being unable to try to step back and see the world as it is, and instead being lead around by the things the media wants you to be outraged and griefed by in general is pretty abhorrent to me.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/164 "2012-08-06T17:22:36Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Gun rights advocates are universally republican then?
Not universal, but can you tell me one that is not?
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> All gun rights advocates are also against increased access to mental health care, etc.?
The last vote of the Republicans against the ACA tell us that.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/165 "2012-08-06T17:28:40Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> Not universal, but can you tell me one that is not?
Uh, me?
> [@](#):
>
> The last vote of the Republicans against the ACA tell us that.
[And all gun owners are republicans?](http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=270)
There’s also the factor that all republicans aren’t in lock step agreement on things like access to mental health care, but that’s actually a smaller factor than it should be, since republicans do have a very good compliance rate getting people to blindly support every part of their platform.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/166 "2012-08-06T17:30:59Z")
Not quite fair to lump this all on the Pubbies. Every politician in Known Space is shit-your-pants terrified of the NRA. Why do you think so many Dems (like Kerry, for instance) go to such an effort to show photo ops of them hunting, and so forth.
The change will come very slowly, the hard way, the long slog of a change in our culture. That is a repulsive truth, and I take no pleasure in pointing it out. But that’s how it is. If the Dems offer any support to gun control efforts, they will be putting all the rest of their agenda at risk. The Republicans know that, and would like nothing better than for the Dems to come out strongly in favor of massive gun control efforts. Masturbating like a motherfuck at the very idea.
Me, I like guns, I like rifles, want to go down by the _arroyo_ and plink beer cans with a .22? Let’s go, rather be fishing, but it’ll do. But I detest hand guns, and I detest the fear that they embody. But politics wise, little if anything can be done. Gotta go the long, hard route, of slowly changing people’s minds.
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### Author:  [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/167 "2012-08-06T17:31:30Z")
[Quote=Der Trihs]
Page is the former leader of a neo-Nazi music group called End Apathy.
[/Quote]
Bund name!
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/168 "2012-08-06T17:37:53Z")
I think we can plea bargain the charge down to a gross misdemeanor, and get you a sentence of community service. Community service being defined as “being a message board smartass”.
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### Author:  [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/169 "2012-08-06T18:02:39Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> That doesn’t quite work either. There’s not really any potential value gained by having a pool sit there. There’s a minor value to gun ownership in that it’s there in the unlikely event that you need it. Their value is closer to fire extinguishers in that sense.
>
> But the other issue - if someone is going to snap and go on a shooting spree, are they only going to do that on a day in which they otherwise used the guns recreationally? No, they could do it any time they were in control of the guns, right? Therefore calculating how many shooting sprees we get per man-hour of gun ownership is logical.
The only way this distinction makes sense is if ALL gun owners carry their ENTIRE arsenal on them at ALL times. “In case they need it” is only effective if the gun is accessible. Accumulating all ‘man-hours of gun ownership’ would imply that the gun is accessible at all times.
Swimming pools! Please, until there is at least one documented case of a swimming pool showing up at a public venue (office, theater, park, etc) [or the owner of a swimming pool carrying it to a public venue] and drowning a large number of complete strangers. The number of drownings in privately owned swimming pools just don’t make any sense as a comparison. Swimming pools rarely sneak up on complete strangers who had no idea that they were anywhere near by.
> [@](#):
>
> Should I feel more guilty over every gun death that I had nothing to do with causing?
Those who advocate against laws that would make it harder to obtain guns and who elect politicians who vote against such laws do effectively have an impact on the availability (this guy bought his a couple days before). That is part of our society. Now, is it the same as loaning your gun to the guy with the white supremest tattoos because he’s going to go watch the black Church down the street? No.
> [@](#):
>
> Really, this is all about recreational grief and being lead around by narratives. During the time this thread has taken place, tens of thousands of people (at least) have died horrible deaths to starvation. Warlords and gangs have raped thousands of women. Car/Train/whatever accidents have killed thousands of people. Are you weeping for all of them? Where are the big shows of recreational grief and realizations that We Must Do Something?
(a) Just because someone expresses an opinion about gun regulations, doesn’t mean they can’t at the same time also advocate for other solutions to other problems. This is a thread about a mass shooting, so the topic is gun regulations.
(b) The topic has be regulations within the US. I hardly think that the numbers you cited (in the time since this thread was started) above are related to the US and there would be very few US regulations that would influence how other countries operate.
> [@](#):
>
> The whole phoenomina of being unable to try to step back and see the world as it is, and instead being lead around by the things the media wants you to be outraged and griefed by in general is pretty abhorrent to me.
It must suck to be a gun advocate lately with all the nut jobs who are going out and spoiling the name of a perfectly good sport. But the fact is that the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, criminals and many who aren’t exactly flower children share your interests. The more news cycles these nut jobs gain (remember the group in Ohio that wanted to shoot a cop, so they could kill all the cops who attended the funeral?) the more all gun owners get painted with that broad brush.
If I would tell people about my friend Joe who’s an avid NASCAR (sp?) fan, that would bring an image to most people’s mind. Few people would assume that Joe was the CEO of a regional bank that wore a suit everywhere. No. They’re more likely to imagine Joe with a baseball cap, maybe a wife-beater tank, blue jeans, beer in one hand and front teeth optional. That is because (at least in my area), the average NASCAR fan is a toothless hill billy.
When the NRA promotes gun advocates as these back-woods, camouflage wearing survivalists in their own materials, how can you blame the news when they follow up when a similar type person goes on the rampage with a gun?
When the NRA demands that being on a do-not-fly list is not justification to prevent the purchase of a gun, how do we distinguish them from the actual nut jobs and terrorists?
Gun advocates have a severe image problem that they themselves have developed because they don’t “try to step back and see the world as it is” from anyone’s point of view except their own. And their own POV seems to be a very paranoid, almost a conspiracy theorists POV.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/170 "2012-08-06T18:30:24Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Uh, me?
>
> [And all gun owners are republicans?](http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=270)
>
> There’s also the factor that all republicans aren’t in lock step agreement on things like access to mental health care, but that’s actually a smaller factor than it should be, since republicans do have a very good compliance rate getting people to blindly support every part of their platform.
I think we are not too far apart, I do see a difference when you are counted, but it is mostly the lone exception here.
Of course what I’m also saying is that at the same time in congress, not here, there is an effort to get all republicans in lockstep against the ACA that does do a lot on helping cover the holes that currently exist in mental care.
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### Author:  [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/171 "2012-08-06T18:47:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> I think we can plea bargain the charge down to a gross misdemeanor, and get you a sentence of community service. Community service being defined as “being a message board smartass”.
I admit to the deed, if not its criminal nature.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/172 "2012-08-06T19:03:18Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> Explain to me how I’m whining.
>
> I’m not rationalizing anything, I’m being rational.
No, you aren’t being rational. That was the point of my [post #95](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15352448&postcount=95), which you’ve ignored because it directly refutes and undercuts the vapid argument you are trying to make. I’ll try and be real clear here: you are trying to equate murders with accidental deaths. It’s not the same and you look like a raving lunatic for trying to make the comparisons.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/173 "2012-08-06T19:09:30Z")
If your death is caused by a random spree shooter, how is that substantially different from dying from a plane crash or a bridge collapse or just generally sudden “oh shit, you’re fucked” moments? Are you any more or less dead? Were the people at the Batman theater engaging in any more or less dangerous behavior?
From there, you can wonder - what societal resources are we willing to invest to prevent “oh shit, you’re dead” type deaths? What rights are we willing to infringe upon?
That’s my point - chances of death by spree shooting are negligible, and yet people are advocating a massive change to societal policy and resources based on them. It’s not a rational response if your goal is to use the most effective, least intrusive tools society has to prevent senseless deaths. It’s an irrational response to something you’ve decided where 10-20 deaths a year are far more important than hundreds or thousands of deaths per year due purely to an emotional narrative.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/174 "2012-08-06T19:12:24Z")
At risk of participating in the hijack I’ve been moaning about…
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> If your death is caused by a random spree shooter, how is that substantially different from dying from a plane crash or a bridge collapse or just generally sudden “oh shit, you’re fucked” moments? Are you any more or less dead? Were the people at the Batman theater engaging in any more or less dangerous behavior?
>
> From there, you can wonder - what societal resources are we willing to invest to prevent “oh shit, you’re dead” type deaths? What rights are we willing to infringe upon?
Well, we’re willing to wait three effing hours to get on a plane for even more remote risks.
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### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/175 "2012-08-06T19:15:52Z")
Apart from separating out mass or spree killings (there’s a difference) from the daily butcher’s bill, there is merit to the point that most of the means of accidental death involve making a decision to put oneself at risk- boarding the plane, getting in the pool, climbing the ladder. Snowboarder Bo has a valid point.
The same is typically not true for firearms deaths.
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### Author:  [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/176 "2012-08-06T19:28:32Z")
On Friday I made out with another gay man at a Chick Fil A to protest their awful policy of supporting anti-gay groups.
Right now I am waiting for my lane at a shooting range.
Not everyone who understands the obvious individual-rights and solid scientific-thinking reasons to support gun rights is a monolithic right-winger.
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### Author:  [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/177 "2012-08-06T19:30:51Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> If your death is caused by a random spree shooter, how is that substantially different from dying from a plane crash or a bridge collapse or just generally sudden “oh shit, you’re fucked” moments?
Because plane crashes and bridge collapses result in new regulations to prevent future plane crashes and bridge collapses
Random spree shooters only result in a lot of bluster and, well… whining.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/178 "2012-08-06T19:34:20Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> If your death is caused by a random spree shooter, how is that substantially different from dying from a plane crash or a bridge collapse or just generally sudden “oh shit, you’re fucked” moments? Are you any more or less dead? Were the people at the Batman theater engaging in any more or less dangerous behavior?
Yes, quite a bit less dangerous behavior. Absent a crazed person with guns, sitting in a movie theatre is statistically quite a bit less dangerous than dying from a plane crash or a bridge collapse or damn near anything else.
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> From there, you can wonder - what societal resources are we willing to invest to prevent “oh shit, you’re dead” type deaths? What rights are we willing to infringe upon?
>
> That’s my point - chances of death by spree shooting are negligible, and yet people are advocating a massive change to societal policy and resources based on them. It’s not a rational response if your goal is to use the most effective, least intrusive tools society has to prevent senseless deaths. It’s an irrational response to something you’ve decided where 10-20 deaths a year are far more important than hundreds or thousands of deaths per year due purely to an emotional narrative.
Chances of death by shooting spree are not negligible when a shooting spree occurs; in fact, the odds of being injured or killed during a shooting spree are quite good.
You seem to have a block on this issue that is so great that you are wiling to ignore the fact that there is a difference between the events you compare. You conflate willful violence with accidents. As I said, that makes you look like a raving lunatic who has embraced incoherence as his argument.
It doesn’t matter so much that the end result of accidents and murder are both the same; what matters is that one (murder, to be as clear as possible for you) happens because someone _intends_ for it to happen.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/179 "2012-08-06T19:57:06Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> If the media made a big news day out of every time a little kid drowned in their own pool, you’d be here screaming that we must ban outdoor pools because they’re just killing kids left and right!
I have read that risk and liability _are_ pushing outdoor swimming pools out of the picture.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looks-like-another-mass-shooting/630529/180 "2012-08-06T20:20:09Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#):
>
> On Friday I made out with another gay man at a Chick Fil A to protest their awful policy of supporting anti-gay groups.
>
> Right now I am waiting for my lane at a shooting range.
>
> Not everyone who understands the obvious individual-rights and solid scientific-thinking reasons to support gun rights is a monolithic right-winger.
True. And likewise some of us who aren’t staunchly opposed to the idea of gun control—and certainly don’t think it should be a completely radioactive topic to even bring up—have no problem with guns per se, and even own firearms and enjoy shooting them.
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