School shootings and gang violence

[Bunkeranlage]

Less than that. $100, depending on what type of gun you are talking about.

1.) I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not you support gun control, because you're arguing a lot of my points for me...

2.) I was assuming quality. You could get a decent AR-15 in 5.56 or a nice Glock 18/M9/RugerSR-9 for about $500. But yeah, $100 will get you a nice little Saturday Night Special.

Recently saw an article saying that a shop sold 6 times the amount of M-16 ammo for the same price.

[Big Jim P]

Less than that. $100, depending on what type of gun you are talking about.

1.) I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not you support gun control, because you're arguing a lot of my points for me...

2.) I was assuming quality. You could get a decent AR-15 in 5.56 or a nice Glock 18/M9/RugerSR-9 for about $500. But yeah, $100 will get you a nice little Saturday Night Special.

What points would those be? I support a limited amount of gun control. We have enough right now.

[The Remnants of Kobol]

It's almost as if Jim is trying to paint a picture of a perfect gun-owning public that doesn't exist.

While you ignore the fact that the VAST majority of the 100 MILLION gun owners don't commit crimes with their 300 million guns. For the actions of a few, you condemn the vast many.

No, I support regulation on the few. Like more background checks. If you're right, and we're all goody two shoes law abiding citizens, then simply making it harder for criminals to obtain legally bought firearms is a no-brainer right?

[Big Jim P]

1.) I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not you support gun control, because you're arguing a lot of my points for me...

2.) I was assuming quality. You could get a decent AR-15 in 5.56 or a nice Glock 18/M9/RugerSR-9 for about $500. But yeah, $100 will get you a nice little Saturday Night Special.

Recently saw an article saying that a shop sold 6 times the amount of M-16 ammo for the same price.

Ammo prices are dropping.

[Big Jim P]

While you ignore the fact that the VAST majority of the 100 MILLION gun owners don't commit crimes with their 300 million guns. For the actions of a few, you condemn the vast many.

No, I support regulation on the few. Like more background checks. If you're right, and we're all goody two shoes law abiding citizens, then simply making it harder for criminals to obtain legally bought firearms is a no-brainer right?

It is, but that hasn't prevented criminals from obtaining guns. It just makes it harder for the law-abiding to do so.

[Big Jim P]

Actually, less than 10,000 (out of 30,000) a year are Homicides. Most gun fatalities (19,000) are suicides.

Ok, so you are suggesting 30% not 50%, a source would be nice, but i can accept that. thats still what a 6% chance if you die it was a gun related homicide?

Furthermore, shouldn't something be done to reduce the suicides?
The below linked article from the Guardian (an admittedly left wing paper, but hey, a source source) states as follows:

This actually opens up the debate about gun regulation rather than narrows it, because recent research has shown that any reduction of gun ownership in a population decreases the number of suicides overall: looking at the years between 2000 and 2009, the study authors found that for each percentage point the portion of gun owners in a population goes down, suicides decrease by at least half a percent.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ntrol-push
The referenced article is no longer free
but was referred to in their source as:

So in a new paper published in the International Review of Law and Economics, we studied the relationship between guns and suicide in the U.S. from 2000 to 2009

Source: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/index.html

"Total
murders"
2007 14831
2008 14180
2009 13636
2010 12996
2011 12664

"Total
firearms"
2007 10086
2008 9484
2009 9146
2010 8775
2011 8583

Handguns
2007 7361
2008 6755
2009 6452
2010 6009
2011 6220

Rifles
2007 450
2008 375
2009 348
2010 358
2011 323

Shotguns
2007 455
2008 444
2009 418
2010 373
2011 356

"Firearms
(type
unknown)"
2007 1820
2008 1910
2009 1928
2010 2035
2011 1684

"Knives or
cutting
instruments"
2007 1796
2008 1897
2009 1825
2010 1704
2011 1694

"Other
weapons"
2007 2095
2008 1938
2009 1864
2010 1772
2011 1659

"Hands, fists,
feet, etc."
2007 854
2008 861
2009 801
2010 745
2011 728

Note the downward trend.

Edit: and gun sales (thus ownership) have been incresing aof late, yet there is NO corresponding increase in gun- crime or fatalities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2 ... s-plummet/

[The Remnants of Kobol]

1.) I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not you support gun control, because you're arguing a lot of my points for me...

2.) I was assuming quality. You could get a decent AR-15 in 5.56 or a nice Glock 18/M9/RugerSR-9 for about $500. But yeah, $100 will get you a nice little Saturday Night Special.

What points would those be? I support a limited amount of gun control. We have enough right now.

Then you're proving my point that it is far too easy to get a gun. You just agreed with me that all you need in the US to get a gun was the money to buy it.

I support far more regulation on who get's the guns. I could care less what good law abiding citizens have, and I don't see why they should care either. If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. However, if it were harder for the insane and criminals to get guns, then problem solved. Every mass shooting I know in the last decade was done with legally purchased firearms at stores (not even private sales, which is a whole other story).

[Armacor]

I found this article: http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/ ... 473203.pdf

discusses suicides vs homicides in the USA.

Their data is from 2006, so getting a little old now, but as far as i can tell, no substantial changes to either increase or decrease the rates have occurred.

They state 32k suicides vs 18k homicides for the year, which included an average of 46 gun related suicides a day (approximately 50% of all suicides).

The conclusion states: Our study suggests that general barriers to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States

[The Remnants of Kobol]

No, I support regulation on the few. Like more background checks. If you're right, and we're all goody two shoes law abiding citizens, then simply making it harder for criminals to obtain legally bought firearms is a no-brainer right?

It is, but that hasn't prevented criminals from obtaining guns. It just makes it harder for the law-abiding to do so.

Background checks are for criminal records. Law abiding citizens are not criminals. They don't have criminal records.

Please. PLEASE be the one who can actually explain how something that doesn't affect non-criminals, affect non-criminals.

[Big Jim P]

It is, but that hasn't prevented criminals from obtaining guns. It just makes it harder for the law-abiding to do so.

Background checks are for criminal records. Law abiding citizens are not criminals. They don't have criminal records.

Please. PLEASE be the one who can actually explain how something that doesn't affect non-criminals, affect non-criminals.

The background check itself affects the citizen. Some argue that it is an undue impediment to a law-abiding citizens purchase of a firearm.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Gang related shootings should not be included. The same amount of gang-related shootings would still happen, given that most, if not all, of their guns are illegal.

What makes you think other shooters are buying their own guns from legal sources and not just stealing them from relatives or buying them illegally?

[The Remnants of Kobol]

Background checks are for criminal records. Law abiding citizens are not criminals. They don't have criminal records.

Please. PLEASE be the one who can actually explain how something that doesn't affect non-criminals, affect non-criminals.

The background check itself affects the citizen. Some argue that it is an undue impediment to a law-abiding citizens purchase of a firearm.

I guess you're not the one to finally explain it to make sense. I just read that to mean: "It's an impediment because we don't like it, not because it doesn't work."

My argument against: I asked a gun store owner about the form I filled out. He said it actually catches a lot of people, and he's had a few fugitives try to buy guns from him over his career. And this is one small town gun store in a town.

[Master Shake]

Gang related shootings should not be included. The same amount of gang-related shootings would still happen, given that most, if not all, of their guns are illegal.

What makes you think other shooters are buying their own guns from legal sources and not just stealing them from relatives or buying them illegally?

Agreed the majority of these school shootings are perpetrated by a child that can't legally buy a gun of their own so they steal their parent's gun.Which is still a criminal action any way you slice it.

Few crimes are committed by legal gun owning citizens who jump through all the hops to buy their gun.

[Cata Larga]

Gang violence usually doesn't happen on school campuses, and when it does, it involves only a very select few people and is usually somewhere secluded such as a bathroom or a back hallway. On the other hand, your typical mentally-ill school shooter shoots, or tries to shoot, either everyone or a general group such as, say, teachers or women. In addition, the factors which contribute to either are quite different.

In short, especially because of that last point, yes, they are different.

[Armacor]

So, does anyone know the stats on suicides by lawful gun owners?

I can find stats on gun related suicides, but nothing on whether the person committing the suicide purchased their gun legally (through all th hoops as Master Shake puts it)

[Cata Larga]

So, does anyone know the stats on suicides by lawful gun owners?

I can find stats on gun related suicides, but nothing on whether the person committing the suicide purchased their gun legally (through all th hoops as Master Shake puts it)

If I remember correctly, gun-related suicides far outnumber gun-related homicides, and almost all of those suicides either purchased their guns legally or were living with someone who purchased their guns legally.

No one would go through the trouble of going to the black market just so they can shoot themself.

[Arthephonis]

why such a country like the usa let assault guns to be sold to the common mortal in a regular shop , if u have the ID and 18+ u can buy it.
and why the hell u want a assault gun to be sold to a civilian in the first place, in my country if u want to buy a gun for ur own "protection" u need to pass a huge burocratic process including police tests on ur psichologic profile and so on, and if even u pass , its not 100% certain u will get the "permit" to have a gun .

i wonder the arsenals being held by many crazy lunatics on their homes right now,doesnt make sense, i see many people stockpilling guns and amunition.
for what ?!? a civilian war ? invasion of mexico or even canadá ? independence of texas ?!
i know the primary industry of the usa is armament and this is nothing more than business.

and someone said
people kill people and not guns, true and not true, why there is guns in the first place, to kill people faster, and who can use guns, people, i think a rabbit cannot pull the trigger of a m16, so u saying , just encarcerate people and let the guns live their own lives, so there will be no killings.
u say there is knives , bats and hammers, ffs , i can even kill someone with a rock or a beat him to death with a pot, but its more easy to carry a gun than a bag of rocks or a pot.
so what u say its a 2 edged-knife as we say on my country, if u know whay i mean.

sry about those statements and questions above, but doesnt make sense a lot of what u guys have wrote, and above all, sry if i didnt wrote something correct ( im not english speaking ).

[Armacor]

If I remember correctly, gun-related suicides far outnumber gun-related homicides, and almost all of those suicides either purchased their guns legally or were living with someone who purchased their guns legally.

No one would go through the trouble of going to the black market just so they can shoot themself.

I beleive that too, i was hoping for some evidence to support it...

Also of interest (if it exists) would be number of gun suicides who purchased the gun legally within the preceeding week.

[Volnotova]

I am inclined to... disagree.

Whatever the reason was, it still involves people firing a firearm inside a school. An oddity compared to most of the rest of the world.

Now, a more interesting (to me) would be one that shows deaths or (severe) injuries that took place inside schools as the result of (extreme) violence - gun related or not.

And then compare that to other countries.

"Sheeple"

Mmmeeehhhh!!!

[Armacor]

Source: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/index.html

"Total
murders"
2007 14831
2008 14180
2009 13636
2010 12996
2011 12664

"Total
firearms"
2007 10086
2008 9484
2009 9146
2010 8775
2011 8583

Handguns
2007 7361
2008 6755
2009 6452
2010 6009
2011 6220

Rifles
2007 450
2008 375
2009 348
2010 358
2011 323

Shotguns
2007 455
2008 444
2009 418
2010 373
2011 356

"Firearms
(type
unknown)"
2007 1820
2008 1910
2009 1928
2010 2035
2011 1684

"Knives or
cutting
instruments"
2007 1796
2008 1897
2009 1825
2010 1704
2011 1694

"Other
weapons"
2007 2095
2008 1938
2009 1864
2010 1772
2011 1659

"Hands, fists,
feet, etc."
2007 854
2008 861
2009 801
2010 745
2011 728

Note the downward trend.

Edit: and gun sales (thus ownership) have been incresing aof late, yet there is NO corresponding increase in gun- crime or fatalities. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2 ... s-plummet/

Using the primary sources from your articles
specifically: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

In 2004, among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of offense, 40% obtained their firearm from an illegal source.
Therefore, 60% were presumably using legally purchased firearms?

Approx 70-80% of all firearm homicides between the assessed years (93-11) were committed with a handgun. --- Does anyone use these for hunting or sport shooting??

Firearm violence accounted for about 70% of all homicides in the time period assessed.

For both fatal and nonfatal firearm victimizations, the majority of the decline occurred during the 10-year period from 1993 to 2002. -- Wasn't this during a period of higher gun controls? (Brady bill or something?)

[Tule]

Defining a school shooting as a shooting at a school is pretty straightforward. Schools are full of children, they should not have shootings. Gang related or otherwise.

Defining a mass shooting as an event where a large number of people are shot is also pretty straight forward, saying that these events are bad is an understatement.

A mass murder is a whole different category of crime that is simply defined as the murder of 4 people or more in one location over a short period. Mass murders can be school shootings, but they can also be arsons for example.

School shootings are very serious, so are mass shootings. Something should be done to stop them and saying that they don't count because they are gang related is absurd, insensitive and suspiciously close to being racist.

No, I support regulation on the few. Like more background checks. If you're right, and we're all goody two shoes law abiding citizens, then simply making it harder for criminals to obtain legally bought firearms is a no-brainer right?

It is, but that hasn't prevented criminals from obtaining guns. It just makes it harder for the law-abiding to do so.

1) The line between criminals and law-abiding citizens is very fuzzy. Current federal law does not for instance prohibit people with a drinking problem from buying guns, even though alcohol abuse is an extremely big risk factor for committing murder.

Then there is the simple fact that nobody is completely law-abiding. Anyone who has ever jaywalked, pissed in public, been drunk in public, watched porn before the age of 18 etc. is a criminal.

Also, law-abiding citizens do commit murder. Not as often as career criminals, but thousands of people do die every year in America at the hands of "law-abiding gun owners", and reducing the number of guns in the hands of law abiding gun owners does reduce the rate of gun deaths.

2) Criminals will never be completely prevented from obtaining guns, but most of the guns they own originate from law abiding entities. Smith & Wesson does not have a secret black market factory. FFL's do not sell guns to convicted felons directly. But at some point the "law-abiding gun owner" sells a gun knowingly/recklessly to a prohibited person or recklessly stores the gun in a way that makes it easy to steal.

Mandating proper storage of firearms and holding gun owners liable for any damage their guns cause will reduce the flow of legal guns to prohibited persons. That's where supply and demand comes in. Fewer illegal guns = higher prices = fewer criminals buying guns = fewer people getting shot.

[Murkwood]

Well, there is a difference. Shooters at places like Columbine do it because they are mentally messed up, which raises the issue of Mental health in America. Gang violence usually isn't perpetrated by deranged individuals, raising another issue.

[Tule]

Well, there is a difference. Shooters at places like Columbine do it because they are mentally messed up, which raises the issue of Mental health in America. Gang violence usually isn't perpetrated by deranged individuals, raising another issue.

Eric Harris was a psychopath. That is a mental disorder, but it's a mental disorder that makes people with it very adept at hiding their disorder.
Klebold was depressed, and that did explain his suicide. But the reason he decided to kill was anger at other Columbine students. The same kind of anger that motivates virtually all violence.

[Big Jim P]

Defining a school shooting as a shooting at a school is pretty straightforward. Schools are full of children¹, they should not have shootings. Gang related or otherwise.

Defining a mass shooting as an event where a large number of people are shot is also pretty straight forward, saying that these events are bad is an understatement.²

A mass murder is a whole different category of crime that is simply defined as the murder of 4 people or more in one location over a short period. Mass murders can be school shootings, but they can also be arsons for example.³

School shootings are very serious, so are mass shootings. Something should be done to stop them and saying that they don't count because they are gang related is absurd, insensitive and suspiciously close to being racist.⁴

It is, but that hasn't prevented criminals from obtaining guns. It just makes it harder for the law-abiding to do so.

1) The line between criminals and law-abiding citizens is very fuzzy. Current federal law does not for instance prohibit people with a drinking problem from buying guns, even though alcohol abuse is an extremely big risk factor for committing murder.

Then there is the simple fact that nobody is completely law-abiding. Anyone who has ever jaywalked, pissed in public, been drunk in public, watched porn before the age of 18 etc. is a criminal.

Also, law-abiding citizens do commit murder. Not as often as career criminals, but thousands of people do die every year in America at the hands of "law-abiding gun owners", and reducing the number of guns in the hands of law abiding gun owners does reduce the rate of gun deaths.

2) Criminals will never be completely prevented from obtaining guns, but most of the guns they own originate from law abiding entities. Smith & Wesson does not have a secret black market factory. FFL's do not sell guns to convicted felons directly. But at some point the "law-abiding gun owner" sells a gun knowingly/recklessly to a prohibited person or recklessly stores the gun in a way that makes it easy to steal.

Mandating proper storage of firearms and holding gun owners liable for any damage their guns cause will reduce the flow of legal guns to prohibited persons. That's where supply and demand comes in. Fewer illegal guns = higher prices = fewer criminals buying guns = fewer people getting shot.

¹ Then we need to stop calling College shootings "school shootings". Yes they are at schools, but the students are adults. Another way of dishonestly inflating numbers while remaining technically correct. Like referring to 11,000 deaths as "tens of thousands"
²"Mass shootings" by the definition I have seen is four, The same standard you mentioned for mass murders in ³.
⁴However gang-related shootings have a different motivation, and although they are indeed a serious problem, they should not be lumped in with other "school shootings" just to inflate the numbers. That is a very dishonest to say the least. As for it being racist, why? Because the fact is that most gang members are minorities? Fact is fact. Calling it racist is nothing more than an attempt to obscure the truth.

Now on to your reply to me:
1: True, but note, as you say law-abiding citizens do commit murder, but do so rarely, and considering the number of guns (est 300 million) and the number of gun-owners (est 100 million) Shootings are already rare events overall. The anti-gun crowd refuse to acknowledge the fact that the overwhelmingly VAST majority of gun owners will not commit a crime and the overwhelmingly vast majority of guns will not be used in a crime. It doesn't fit their agenda or support the lie of "increasing gun-violence".

2:If a gun owner knowingly sell a gun to a felon, he has already committed a crime, thus does not fall under law-abiding. Not storing gun so as to make it harder to steal is stupid on many levels. It is both dangerous and a very good way to lose a fairly valuable/expensive piece of property.

Gun owners are already liable for damage caused by their guns. Once sold (or stolen) they no longer own the gun and should not be held liable for it's use or misuse.

[Brickistan]

Just a thought: What if guns are just outright banned for civilians? Wouldn't that solve much of the problem?

There is a reason some nations have a black market dedicated to weapons.

Remember back in the 20s USA had a thing called Prohibition and the mafia made moonshine and imported booze from Canada to fill the demand.

Same thing happened with the War on Drugs and a similar thing would occur if we banned guns outright.

We NEED more counseling to find and prevent nut jobs from shooting up the schools...

Besides history tends to repeat itself.Doesn't matter what you ban you will create a demand for the banned item....

I'm not entirely sure about that. There must be something else at play here...

America and Switzerland are the only countries in the western world that has such a proliferation of guns. And Switzerland is a case of law, not demand. As such, America is pretty unique in having this demand.

Personally, I would suggest that rather than debating pros and cons of banning weapons, Americans would be well-served to ask themselves why this demand is there in the first place.

No, because all the criminals would get illegal guns and then all we'd have are cops and people who can disarm people without guns to shield us from the bullets.

Indeed. The criminals would have guns,and the cops would have guns. The innocent would be defenseless.

Two issues:

Firstly, without free ownership of guns, criminals would have a much harder time getting hold of guns themselves. The difficulty (not to mention price) involved in obtaining a gun goes up dramatically when guns aren't readily available for purchase.

Secondly, I would suggest that, even if criminals did get guns, they would have little reason to use them. In America the default assumption seems to be that everyone is armed and dangerous, so there's an increased tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. If that assumption wasn't there, then there wouldn't be a need for the criminal to be armed in the first place - muscle, and possibly a knife, is enough to get what they want.

But as I said above, America does seem to be a notable exception to what's considered "normal" in the western world. Certainly, here in Denmark you hardly ever have criminals using guns in their criminal activities. Even hardened gangs (like immigrants and bikers), are generally not particularly well-armed (at least, compared with gangs in the US) and are loath to actually use those weapons. That's not to say that we have no gun-crimes, we do. But it's quite rare and is almost inclusively gang related.