# Michael Moore: It's the guns -- but, we all know, it's not really the guns **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 24, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066 "2012-12-24T22:35:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/81 "2012-12-26T19:24:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Actually, we are not so much lagging behind the other First World countries as drifting toward the Third World countries. Our conservatives and libertarians seem to aspire to us becoming Somalia. (Widespread gun use, enormous gap beetween the wealthy and everyone else, becoming a failed state (see: secession petitions). Just so this doesn’t go unchallenged: That’s a complete crock. You even got the libertarian = Somalia meme in there. The number of people calling for secession is tiny, and even if it were a major thrust in a state like TX, that would end up being larger than most European countries. Where you get “failed state” from that is anyone’s guess. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/82 "2012-12-26T19:49:44Z")
Well, OK, **John** , who or what embodies orthodox, mainstream Libertarian thought? Ron Paul? You? Has libertarianism congealed enough so that such a thing is even possible? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/83 "2012-12-26T19:52:58Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > As for the general threads here lately re: guns, it seems there’s a disconnect. Presumably we’re talking about this because of headline grabbing spree shootings, yet many of these supposed causes didn’t seem to be at play. These people seem to be disturbed young white men who don’t seem to be particularly poor or disadvantaged, other than needing psychiatric care. They aren’t targeting minorities or their allies. There don’t seem to be any politics involved, as far as I can see. Seems to me they just snap one day, grab a gun, and kill a bunch of strangers so as to go out in a blaze of glory. Of course, mass shootings are a trivial element of America’s gun-crime problem. But they are one element that probably **can** be effectively addressed by gun control. People such as you are describing can be found in every First World country, but in most countries they probably won’t have access to assault weapons on the day they finally snap, and so we rarely hear of them. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/84 "2012-12-26T19:53:51Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > As for the general threads here lately re: guns, it seems there’s a disconnect. Presumably we’re talking about this because of headline grabbing spree shootings, yet many of these supposed causes didn’t seem to be at play. These people seem to be disturbed young white men who don’t seem to be particularly poor or disadvantaged, other than needing psychiatric care. They aren’t targeting minorities or their allies. There don’t seem to be any politics involved, as far as I can see. Seems to me they just snap one day, grab a gun, and kill a bunch of strangers so as to go out in a blaze of glory. That’s kind of the point. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/85 "2012-12-26T20:17:22Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > The US seems to lag behind other western cultures. > > Racial integration. > Gay marriage. > Marijuana. > Health care. > > I guess gun control is the next item on the list. I’m not an American but I’d still like to defend our non-European friends… _Racial integration_ I frankly think that the US is ahead of most of Europe here. Yes there is discrimination in the US and yes the income disparity is vast between ethnic groups, but this holds true for almost all european countries as well. And I think the US does two things better: The social stigma associated with racism is much stronger in the US than in most of Europe. The cultural condemnation of racism is much more unequivocal. The idea that the nation is a nation of immigrants, that the nation should welcome new people and that no matter what ethnic group you belong to you can make a better future in America is an essential dogm in their national identity. _Gay marriage._ The US seem to be about as heterogeneous as Europe is. I might give Europe the nod here because I don’t see obvious hate mongering here on the same scale as in the US. _Marijuana._ Cannabis is still illegal in most of the EU, so once again, it’s pretty simmilar. Here I would give the nod to the US, because there seem to be a broader cultural support of legalisation as well as awareness of the issue. _Health care._ Ok, here I have to agree the US is borderline retarded. They have by far the most expensive health care and it produces among the worst results in the civilised worlds. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/86 "2012-12-26T20:25:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, mass shootings are a trivial element of America’s gun-crime problem. But they are one element that probably **can** be effectively addressed by gun control. People such as you are describing can be found in every First World country, but in most countries they probably won’t have access to assault weapons on the day they finally snap, and so we rarely hear of them. Which gun control measure is going to address mass shootings again? You state it so matter-of-factly that I must have missed it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/87 "2012-12-26T20:50:19Z")
> [@JXJohns](#): > > Which gun control measure is going to address mass shootings again? You state it so matter-of-factly that I must have missed it. Any measure that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines will, at any rate, significantly lower the body count from mass shootings. Professional career criminals-for-profit could still get them, they have channels, but they don’t do mass shootings; a guy like Adam Lanza probably couldn’t, he’d be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/88 "2012-12-26T21:02:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Any measure that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines will, at any rate, significantly lower the body count from mass shootings. Professional career criminals-for-profit could still get them, they have channels, but they don’t do mass shootings; a guy like Adam Lanza probably couldn’t, **he’d be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree.** Do you really believe that? I know that you can’t prove it so I wont ask for a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/89 "2012-12-26T21:10:02Z")
Anyone with a revolver, a little practice and a bag full of speed loaders could be an effective killing machine. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/90 "2012-12-26T21:17:09Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#): > > Anyone with a revolver, a little practice and a bag full of speed loaders could be an effective killing machine. I was thinking shotguns. And the Va Tech shooter showed us what can be accomplished with determination and a couple of handguns. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/91 "2012-12-26T21:29:57Z")
Speed loaders aren’t necessary. The only time limitation here is the length of time before an effective police response. How long for law enforcement to get the call, drive to the scene, and walk down the corridors to find me? I can easily fire six aimed shots from my revolver in as many seconds. Then, even if I’m fumbling rounds out of my pockets or from a cartridge box, I’ll need less than 30 seconds to place six more and snap the cylinder shut. With a captive group like a classroom, no one is going anywhere and no one is stopping me. Call it very conservatively six rounds a minute, although someone skilled with a revolver could achieve much, much higher rates of aimed fire. How far away are the cops? Ten minutes? That’s sixty casualties at my ‘slow’ rate of fire. And using only a single revolver. To reduce the level below 25 we’d need to suppose a police response in under 4 minutes. The whole idea of rapid fire weapons being somehow necessary to a spree shooting needs to be questioned a bit more closely. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/92 "2012-12-26T21:31:31Z")
> [@JXJohns](#): > > Do you really believe that? I know that you can’t prove it so I wont ask for a cite. Of course, because it follows logically: If we had gun control “that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines,” then, of course, an average guy like Lanza with no special connections to illegal gun-dealers probably could not get such weapons and “would be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree.” I think your implied skepticism is actually directed, rather, at the possibility of effective legal control of such firearms, at least in the U.S. (you must know it is effective in other countries). ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/93 "2012-12-26T21:35:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, because it follows logically: If we had gun control “that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines,” then, of course, an average guy like Lanza with no special connections to illegal gun-dealers “would be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree.” I think your skepticism is actually directed at the possibility of such effective gun control, at least in the U.S. (you must know it is effective in other countries). My skepticism is shared with a few other posters in that any gun can, and has been used to deal out carnage. With “only” 400 deaths since the last AW Ban expired in 2004, it surely seems That AW’s are not the problem. Lanza and the guy who shot up the mall in Oregon both had to steal their weapons. Not sure how much harder you can make them to get. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/94 "2012-12-26T21:37:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Any measure that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines will, at any rate, significantly lower the body count from mass shootings. Professional career criminals-for-profit could still get them, they have channels, but they don’t do mass shootings; a guy like Adam Lanza probably couldn’t, he’d be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree. If you could remove the millions of existing ones from private hands, yes, it would probably stop guys like Adam Lanza from using semiautomatic rifles in shooting sprees. This would not, however, necessarily reduce the death toll of such shootings. Seung-hui Cho didn’t need a semiautomatic rifle or any magazine with a capacity higher than ten to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech. But removing semiautomatic rifles from circulation is an impossible goal, and the number of lives saved would be so minuscule that nobody on the pro-gun side would think it justified the massive curtailment of gun rights and the unprecedented confiscation of private property. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/95 "2012-12-26T23:23:17Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > The whole idea of rapid fire weapons being somehow necessary to a spree shooting needs to be questioned a bit more closely. Especially when we are wrestling with the imaginations of others. Ever read those threads where somebody wonders why terrorists don’t just do something other than target landmarks with bombs? If we put our minds to it we can think of a huge variety of ways to fuck up a lot of people in a short amount of time, but it’s not just that. These people have models for how they want to commit these crimes, it’s a social message and that message has to be delivered in the appropriate manner. Anyways, I have really come to appreciate the imaginations of the pro-any-gun crowd. Up until your post, my favorite was the guy in some other thread that wrote, I think seriously, something to the effect of: What if 3-4 people invade my home! I need a semi-auto and huge magazine! Seriously, this thread is about the general problem America has with guns. We need severe gun control legislation to even start to crawl out of the hole we’ve dug. We’re not going to change human nature. There will always be insane people, suicidal and angry people, intoxicated people who were embarrassed by somebody at a party, or paranoid people whose loved one comes home at an odd hour or unexpectedly (among others). We can reduce the number and lethality of these incidents by ridding ourselves of the tool that makes it so convenient to act on impulse, or to act out our hostile fantasies. We can do this without taking away from the firearms’ utility in target shooting, hunting, or home protection. There’s no need for semi-automatics in any of those tasks. There’s no need to make these weapons available without an extremely long training period, there’s no need to make these weapons easy to fire from being picked up, there’s no reason to make these weapons quick-and-easy to reload. We do all these things while addressing all the other elements of the overall problem. It’s really foolish to focus on just one thing. Anything that incrementally helps us with the problem is worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/96 "2012-12-26T23:24:48Z")
> [@Stealth\_Potato](#): > > If you could remove the millions of existing ones from private hands, yes, it would probably stop guys like Adam Lanza from using semiautomatic rifles in shooting sprees. This would not, however, necessarily reduce the death toll of such shootings. Seung-hui Cho didn’t need a semiautomatic rifle or any magazine with a capacity higher than ten to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech. > > But removing semiautomatic rifles from circulation is an impossible goal, and the number of lives saved would be so minuscule that nobody on the pro-gun side would think it justified the massive curtailment of gun rights and the unprecedented confiscation of private property. He wrote semi-automatic weapons. Did Cho use a semi-automatic weapon? ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/97 "2012-12-26T23:26:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, mass shootings are a trivial element of America’s gun-crime problem. But they are one element that probably **can** be effectively addressed by gun control. People such as you are describing can be found in every First World country, but in most countries they probably won’t have access to assault weapons on the day they finally snap, and so we rarely hear of them. Maybe you can ask the Jews of Germany or the good people of India about how incompetent the oh-so-enlightened Western Europeans are at killing on a mass scale (and sure, toss in the Native Americans while you’re at it, unless you propose disarming the US military instead of just the ordinary folks). ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/98 "2012-12-26T23:32:37Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > He wrote semi-automatic weapons. Did Cho use a semi-automatic weapon? He wrote: > [@](#): > > Of course, because it follows logically: If we had gun control “that makes it hard to get rapid-fire weapons with big magazines,” then, of course, an average guy like Lanza with no special connections to illegal gun-dealers probably could not get such weapons and “would be limited to using handguns in his kill-spree.” Cho used handguns. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/99 "2012-12-27T00:13:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > the idea of having guns all around your house, so that there’s one at hand if an intruder storms in, seems comically silly to me and yet several Americans here on the SDMB have said they do precisely that - and this is a left-leaning, granola-munching sample of Americans. But that’s really just one thing among many. > > Again, this is just my impression, but it’s a very strong one. YMMV. And a few Dopers have reported actually _ **having** _ intruders (attempt to) storm in, only to be deterred by the sight of a gun. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Were machine guns restricted in the Great Depression to quell revolutionary and/or counter-revolutionary violence? Possibly, but I think it was more to quell their use by criminals such as bank robber John Dillinger and the mobsters that slaughtered each other over the illegal alcohol market. And before enforcement of the Hayes code began in 1934 Hollywood luridly played up the use of “Tommy Guns” in crime melodramas. To respond to the OP: Moore was pointing out that guns aside, Americans do seem to be much more violent than other countries- a point taken up by one of my favorite reference articles, [American Homicide Exceptionalism](http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/polsbyandkates1.htm), in which the authors criticize the “instrumentality” (availability of guns) theory of American homicide rates. To quote from that: > [@](#): > > there is plenty of other evidence that in fact the United States is rather unlike other industrialized countries. Consider, for example, the case of rape–a crime that seldom involves the use of a gun. [37] The United States has far higher rates of rape than other industrialized countries: for example, it is anywhere from thirteen to twenty-three times higher than the English rate; [38] almost five times the French rate; [39] almost six times the German rate; [40] and thirty times the Japanese rate. [41] All of these measurements approximate the homicide rate disparities that show up when the United States is compared with these other countries. [Page 979] It would be a treat to hear an instrumentality-based explanation for American rape exceptionalism, but the point that is illustrated by this disparity is too important to be let stand as a joky debater’s taunt. > \<…\> > The United States records more non- firearms murders than there are murders from all causes in Western Europe and Japan combined, territories more than half again as populous as the United States. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066/100 "2012-12-27T00:21:28Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > \ Anyways, I have really come to appreciate the imaginations of the pro-any-gun crowd. Up until your post, my favorite was the guy in some other thread that wrote, I think seriously, something to the effect of: What if 3-4 people invade my home! I need a semi-auto and huge magazine! \ Anything that incrementally helps us with the problem is worth the effort. Are you including me in your “pro-any-gun crowd”? I strenuously object. I’ve said before that if giving up my guns would solve or even significantly reduce the problem, I’d do it in a minute. I’m a 60’s hippie with solid liberal - progressive cred and I really have no generic issue with governmental solutions to societal problems. And, while I enjoy my guns, my enjoyment would instantly take a back seat to societal benefit. But I made the point because I am concerned about the practical effect of whatever new regulation we decide to impose. I don’t hold with making laws just to make laws, absent a realistic expectation that they will have the intended effect and without significant unintended consequences. So first, I merely point out that regulating rapid fire weapons will, IMHO, do little or nothing to reduce carnage in spree shootings. Any gun, even a single shot bolt action, is capable of devastating effect when employed against the helpless. Second, I fear that a new variant of “assault weapons ban” having little effect (for reasons noted above) then the next obvious step is additional regulation. I think that prohibition of alcohol and the idiotic “war on drugs” have sufficiently proven that mere regulation, even with drastic penalties (the USA has a higher incarceration rate than any other country, most for drug offenses) creates an underclass of criminals but doesn’t remove the prohibited article. Rather than go down this ineffective road with guns, creating a whole new criminal class, I suggest we first examine the premise that prohibiting certain kinds of weapons will actually produce the results we all want – a reduction in spree shootings, and perhaps a mitigation of carnage in other gun homicides as well. The number of semi-automatic weapons already held by the public suggests to me that any kind of removal program is doomed to failure except \*possibly \*after incredible expense and the passage of literally decades. Meantime, given the almost rabid resistance of many otherwise reasonable US citizens to even the suggestion of gun surrender, I’m quite sure the unintended effect of creating a new criminal underclass would be substantial. So this scenario violates both of my caveats with new regulation – ineffective at the intended result while causing serious deleterious unintended consequences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-its-the-guns-but-we-all-know-its-not-really-the-guns/645066.md?page=6)