General News Oregon Shooting

Absolutely horrendous.
I don't care about the killer one bit, but those he killed have my sympathy.

It's the 45th college gun incident this year apparently.

 

I wish that this wouldn't have happened. I don't get why there's so many school shootings every year.

 

Because Americans have the right to bear arms


R.I.P to the10 dead

Dicusting people on 4chan where celebrating the dead normies I went on there to see the fourm the shooter posted before he shot up the school

 

It really is quite awful, but for some reason I'm not as affected by these shootings as I should be anymore. I don't know why, either I've heard too many stories like this, or I'm just jaded as fuck. Don't get me wrong, it is an atrocious tragedy, it's just that my personal perception is as dull as a butter knife by this point when it comes to these occurrences.

 

I had a cross country meet near there a few weeks ago. Literally the last place you would think murder(s) would occur. That place was a "gun free zone". If one other person was packing heat, it would have been different. I know the law makers mean well, but they are making laws that are making the death toll in these situations higher. The nra (BUNCH OF GUN NUT ASSHOLES) are blocking all of the better gun control laws from passing. NRA thinks the democrats are gonna take their guns away. Nra shouldn't be thinking much of anything anymore.

I think the US needs to work on mental health as a country. Not just the politics. The people too. We as a group can solve this problem.

Just too many people. Too many crimes. Numbed by previous incidents.

Too many people...

 

[YOUTUBE]cLCusJEvPuM[/YOUTUBE]

This is undeniably a crisis, yet there have been no clear moves from Congress to even very slightly restrict access to guns.

Obama's quite justifiably angry. I wouldn't blame him if he were angry with the American public, not just his political opponents.

 

The campus was not a gun free zone because of an idiotic state law and there was a good guy with a gun on campus - 'Good Guy With A Gun' Was On UCC Campus At Time Of Massacre | ThinkProgress - He suggested he wasn't the only one either.

Mother Jones has an interesting piece about the good guy myth too - The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys | Mother Jones

It'll never change either, there's too many politicians that are either all too happy to be the NRA's lapdog, too cowardly in the face of the NRA or believe batshit crazy conspiracy theories about big government taking away guns in preparation for some nefarious deed amongst other things.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/3n8uet/lpt_in_an_active_shooter_situation_police/

This is the truth. To clear the waters otherwise muddied by bias, the crux of the matter is that no amount of laws is going to save you when there's a hell-bent bad guy in your business, whether he has a gun or not. I'm glad that Reddit thread came along, because it doesn't even touch the issue of gun legality. Just resist the threat in the best way you can and you can help reduce the damage done.

 

I feel like smacking my head against the wall when people have to repeat the same thing ad nauseam, whenever an incident like this occurs. A dozen or so people are shot dead, and the typical response from most Americans is - no, don't curtail guns, because it won't make a difference, despite all evidence to the contrary, and it's MY RIGHT GODDAMMIT!! 2ND AMENDMENT HUR DUR.

I guess it's up to Americans whether they want to persist with this, but to me, it's madness. Maybe it's the lead or brain-eating parasites in the water that severely impair rational thought.

 

^^

Totally agree with you. From an outsider's point of view, there is not a sightless bit of sense in those measures. I mean, why is so hard to just regulate guns.

Every other country does it, except the states. When do we hear about a shooting somewhere else than the states? The last time I can remember was the Utoya massacre in Norway from 2011. During that time, how many has there been in the US? 300? I seriously don't know, but it's been far too many. At this point, I think that whoever is in charge of gun laws is an accomplice to murder. Why else would nothing be changed after everything is going so terribly wrong?

 

I'll try to keep this brief: "reduced" deaths comes at too high a cost when you account for humanity and not just number of lives. Gun control means the people who do die anyway are helpless, and we have all but killed them ourselves. I can't get as angry at people who feel we should restrict guns because it's a very nuanced difference in thought that separates pro- and anti-gunners. On one hand, reduced gun availability means reduced deaths. But on the other, it means that if you get attacked anyway, you'd better hope you are well off enough without a gun or you're screwed. Free citizens should not find their lives at the mercy of the system running purely on statistical analysis.

It's not as simple as "It's mah rahhtt!" and viewing guns trivially as toys. It's acknowledging the value of the individual against the quantity of individuals. Anti-gunners play the odds and grimly accept the case of rarer, but not impossible, tragedy. People who support gun rights acknowledge we live in a world of real dangers (that are effectively dealt with by active defensive measures such as the ones shown in this shooting) and will prepare to respond accordingly.

 

Truth. We have a sick culture of death.

Fuck the NRA. Fuck every politician that takes their blood money. Fuck the 2nd amendment. Fuck all the cowards in my country who say "we cannot do anything about this". Fuck anyone who mewls that this is just what we must have for "freedom" cause they listen to bullshit propaganda over the tears of innocents. Fuck everyone who is so numb that they do not feel anymore when this routine tragedy happens over and over.

 

It's such a sad tragedy and I just hope that their deaths will mean that the US starts taking action. May they rest in peace.
I just don't understand why they don't just ban guns or at least have much stricter regulations. Every other first world country does it and none of us have gun problems. Also I hate the argument that if people don't have guns then they "can't protect themselves". Yes, they won't have guns, but neither will anyone else! This means that people who might've killed them won't because they don't have the weapons to do it.
Honestly I would feel pretty scared if I lived in America. In my country I don't think we've ever had a school shooting, or if we have then very few times. Why? Because we don't allow guns.

 

The scare quotes are ridiculous. In comparable Western nations, gun control has demonstrably guaranteed hundreds fewer deaths.

They almost always are helpless under your preferred model, anyway.

Free citizens should not have to face the risk of murder at an unduly high rate; that statistical analysis finds that the very personal, very human and very emotional event of murder, especially mass murder, is worsened by high rates of gun ownership. These aren't just dry numbers dictating the way we live; these are statistics drawn from too many incidents in which people's lives have been cut short and their loved ones' lives ruined.

I honestly don't care at all about your freedom when the circumstances that allow your gun ownership are the circumstances that allow these deaths to occur so often.

Could you explain what you mean by this?

Your case is literally not a reality at all. You're relying on the statistically improbable and highly theoretical idea that private guns will protect you in the face of gun violence. That is exceedingly rare because unless you are armed at literally all times and are ridiculously vigilant, you will not be able to adequately respond to a gun threat with guns.

I'm not going to accept your case until you can prove that:
a) lax gun controls demonstrably increase safety and reduce deaths; or
b) that your liberty to possess guns is somehow more morally compelling than others' lives and safety.

 

I have never heard a rational argument from anyone, anywhere to support either of those points and I never will.

It's a matter of regret to me that otherwise intelligent people, who I respect and admire greatly, continue to support lax gun controls. On this issue they seem to abandon all of their good sense.

 

I didn't mean them as scare quotes; I meant them for emphasis. "Reduced" is not "eliminated" and I posit that even a single death of a forcibly unarmed citizen against a villain is not something we should have to live with. **Voluntarily unarmed is another story, as that is personal choice. Mandatory carrying is to me every bit as ridiculous as I'm sure it is to you.

The reason most are helpless anyway is because we have been pushed and pulled by half-ass gun control that's twice as absurd as a full ban. Truth be told I'd almost rather that than a slew of appeasement legislation like magazine capacities, waiting lists, etc. that have turned gun ownership into something only strange, violent people do. This negative attitude of gun ownership by too many does a lot of harm. I am thankful to be able-bodied and trained to defend myself in several different scenarios. Though I currently don't carry a gun (mostly because I can't afford to) it is not unrealistic to assume some carry everywhere. An anecdotal example is my uncle. Granted he's weird and some call him paranoid, but he keeps at least a derringer in his pocket wherever he goes. I liken it to the herd immunization concept. Enough responsible concealed carriers (that is those who are adept at spotting threats and reacting accordingly) will protect the population who cannot provide for their own defense in the event of the unthinkable. Right now we have guns enough to cause us severe problems, but still can't think of them as anything but an affliction. CCW proliferation is absolutely backwards of "no guns, no shootings" but it accounts for any and all contingencies, including illegal guns as unlikely as they may be. When laws cannot protect you, more concrete methods will.

What I mean by my argument is that I'd rather die with a fighting chance than live while someone else is victimized with nothing they could do about it, knowing my number might be next.

As for A, that's what I mean about not even approaching the problem the same way. Until the new scenario of wide acceptance of guns is commonplace (they're around right now but like I said, still stashed away and little spoken of instead of treated like fire extinguishers) we're not going to see any sort of meaningful data. It's either tighter controls or existing controls, neither of which are what I'm talking about.

Criterion B implies the liberty to possess is more important than the liberty of preserving life directly. Gun laws preserve life indirectly, and look awesome on the large scale, but are ineffective on the personal level if somebody is willing and able to hurt people. The right to own and carry guns (as well as the practice to handle one in a crisis) means that personal defense remains with the person. The only weakness to the pro gun argument comes when even that is not enough. But if it isn't enough with a weapon and training, it would almost certainly not be enough without. *That's any potentially deadly confrontation, not just shooters.

The idea that "more guns=more safety" sounds so paradoxical to someone convinced that you can take objects away from disobedient kids to solve the problem. It's not that simple, though, because guns are power. We've tried taking power away from those who can't handle it. But nothing we try can be absolute and we've accidentally taken some away from those who need it, making things worse. The remaining course of action is to return that power in full to the hands of responsible citizens, who may exercise that power when nothing else will work.

**I appreciate your position and passion on the subject. It's really made me think and clarify what the root issues are. Believe me when I say I would prefer not to have another bullet hit another person from now on with just as much intensity. It's just a matter of method and because of politics, the playing field has been just far enough from level to provide a fair comparison.

 

I reject the idea that disarming an individual is likely to compromise their safety. I haven't ever seen credible evidence that self-defence against gun violence with guns is prevalent.

I can't reject off-hand the idea that such a heavily armed population would be more secure, because the only examples of such are in failed states and therefore incomparable to the circumstances you are imagining.

What I can say is that the more guns you have, the more people there are to use them. This counts for accidental deaths, domestic murders, suicides and so on before we even talk about public mass murders, which make up a smaller percentage of total gun deaths. Even if you could wave a wand to reduce accidents, domestic abuse and suicide, I still don't see how the archetypal deranged gunman is going to care about others being armed. If we also accept that virtually everyone should be armed in public, or at least a much larger number of people than at present, then we would also accept people carrying guns almost everywhere. That doesn't sound secure. That means a wolf can much more easily hide in the sheep's holster.

I also don't particularly trust the general public. I don't mistrust people, but I feel my safety should not be entirely in the hands of random citizens who may or may not be the aggressor or my saviour. I'd rather a potential aggressor be less likely to be armed.

I find this thoroughly unconvincing. If you are less likely to be victimised in the first place when harsh anti-gun measures exist, which you have conceded, then the chances that you and many others will need to have a fighting chance at all is rendered unnecessary. Not being shot at sounds nicer to me than being able to shoot back should it occur.

I don't find the fire extinguisher metaphor constructive; fire and fire extinguishers are different things. An attacker's gun is no different from a defender's gun. Fire extinguishers rarely cause fires to worsen. I don't know of any incidents in which a fire extinguisher killed a bystander.

I really dislike splitting the personal level and the broad picture, because the broad picture is entirely made up of many events on the personal level. If people in the broader picture are safe, that means that many more people on the personal level of safe. It's a facile distinction to make.

So even if I accepted your characterisation of guns as able to defend individuals effectively (which I really don't), I can still quite happily ignore that, because I can look at many more individuals who are safer because of what I propose.

America has not effectively tried to remove guns; all American efforts have been pathetic. I don't believe in small anti-gun measures. I believe in buy-backs, mass-confiscation, destruction of firearms en masse, the virtual impossibility of possessing private firearms except in extremely narrow circumstances and enormous penalties for illegal possession. I agree that weak measures are useless. I want to see a purge of guns from the hands of all but a minuscule proportion of the population.

I understand and respect your concerns, but I cannot appreciate your position. You do not want violence, but your position is one that allows violence to occur. This issue costs lives and as much as I want to respect your liberty, there is too great a price to pay for liberty as you have framed it.

 

It's amusing how many people think that guns should ne banned. I for one am jealous of Americans for having easy access to guns.

 

Until Americans understand and accept the insanity of "the more guns we have, the safer we are" these gun murders will continue. Other countries have proven the American mindset about guns is a fallacy, but most Americans are too blind and/or too proud to admit it. For those Americans who have wised up, you need to act quickly and decisively and bravely to fight the enemy. The enemy is anyone who follows the NRA propaganda and agenda... ANYONE... politician, celebrity, friend, family member. Fight them tooth and nail because their sick attitude is killing thousands of Americans every year and endangering your and your family's lives. People outside the USA can't help you. You have to save yourselves! All we can do is urge you to rise up against your enemy.

---------- Post added 3rd Oct 2015 at 07:24 AM ----------

Do Americans have any idea how sick and twisted this appears to the rest of the free world?

Americans' delight at finding a gun from Santa under the Christmas tree - Telegraph