Violence solves violent problems.
Carrying around a gun is not violent. But if you’re carrying a gun in a mall and someone starts shooting, wouldn’t you agree that taking out your gun and shooting the psychopath would “solve” that problem?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
That’s because the time to apply violence as a tool is usually before it’s a forlorn hope. It’s one way to solve problems. Most of the time, it’s not the best way. Sometimes it is.
It’s not a happy way. It’s not a pretty way. But generally, when applied properly, it is a highly effective way. You don’t hear of Carthage causing problems anymore.
It might. But it will certainly add to the gun violence.
Most murders aren’t executed on the grand scale that Virginia Tech was. Fighting gun violence with guns will usually double the death toll…if you get lucky.
Do you know the demographics of Massachusetts versus Louisiana? Hint: Louisiana is 1/3 black and majority black in some major cities including New Orleans (was?) and Shreveport. I might be missing some others. It is a poor state with lots of intra-racial crime problems. That doesn’t mean the whole state or every town or dangerous. Louisiana has one of the most interesting histories of all states but also the baggage to show for it.
A very liberal enclave called Washington D.C. which has among the most strict gun laws has it worse in this regard as a whole because of similar historical baggage. High populations of certain poor ethnic and racial groups tends to shoot an area’s statistics all to hell. It happens very badly in some Massachusetts towns as well.
Yeah, because that happens every day :rolleyes:
I don’t agree because to take your premise to its logical conclusion, everybody in the mall would be carrying. Not all of them will be good shots, and therefore the likelihood of someone else getting injured or killed would be high - if the rare event that a mall shooting were to even take place.
Since 1966, 188 people have been killed by mass shooters in the US(various sources - there may be more, but not many). Most were in schools (high schools), some in workplaces.
In 2003 in America, 44,757 people died in motor vehicle accidents. Your lifetime chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident is 1 in 84. 742 died in air and space tranpsort accidents. Your lifetime chance of dying in one is 1 in 5,051
I think you’d be much smarter to spend the money you would’ve spent on a gun on buying a parachute for every time you fly, a full body suit of protection, complete with helmet, to wear every time you drive, and several rosaries to pray that you won’t be one of the miniscule fraction of Americans to be killed in a mass shooting during any forty-year period.
Of course this same set of facts illustrates why promoting stricter gun controls on the basis of mass shootings like this one is disingenuous as well. Same can be said for the bookend set of arguments of “guns protect me from being killed by a home invader” and “guns kill children from accidental shootings in the home”. Both are tragic events that are insignificant in the big picture but which make for compelling media pitches.
The gun issue remains: how to allow gun owners their guns while keeping more guns from falling into the hands of those with bad intent? Stricter enforcement of current laws is certainly part of that but that means funding that enforcement. Cracking down on straw man sales. So on.
A mass shooting is like a plane crash: it is headline and attention grabbing but in reality is dwarfed in significance by the carnage that occurs every day without comment.
I’m well aware of the demographic differences, which is why I was surprised when you compared the two. If we are going to compare them however, we might as well use facts rather than subjective perceptions.
If the murder rate in the small town you grew up in were the same as state wide you would expect one murder every 8 years, so it’s not surprising it felt safe.
It was one of the reasons, and a big one at that. George H.W. Bush pissed off a lot of gun owners so many of them stayed home on election day in 1992. The Dems didn’t see the lesson and had to learn the hard way in '94.
President Clinton himself credited it in his January, 1995 State of the Union Address.
Only flaw in this theory, though, is that not one Republican who voted for the AWB lost in '94. Hmmm. 
Speaking of pissing off gun owners, here in PA a state legislator from Philadelphia (Angel Cruz) just introduced a bill to make a $10/year, per firearm application fee for a permit to own, fingerprinting and photographs mandatory. The bill had 8 co-sponsors, who have since been dropping off like flies. Our state lawmakers have been flooded with emails, phone calls and letters from PA residents who overwhelmingly do not want such a registration scheme.
It’s a losing issue in a lot of places.
Of course the Republicans who voted for the AWB didn’t lose. Their democratic opponents didn’t raise awareness of that, as they didn’t think it was a bad thing.