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Community => Society and History => Topic started by: Vanto on February 20, 2020, 06:39:07 pm

Title: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 20, 2020, 06:39:07 pm
https://www.euronews.com/2020/02/20/germany-shootings-what-we-know-about-the-hanau-attacks (https://www.euronews.com/2020/02/20/germany-shootings-what-we-know-about-the-hanau-attacks)

The perpetrator was apparently a right-wing extremist and self-proclaimed incel who accused Trump of stealing his ideas (https://www.insider.com/hanau-terrorist-manifesto-shows-non-white-hatred-incel-trump-theft-2020-2).

And that's all the attention he should be given. We should focus on the people he killed, I'd say.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: dpareja on February 21, 2020, 01:38:33 am
If more people had guns in Germany, there would have been a good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy with a gun there.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 21, 2020, 02:12:17 pm
If more people had guns in Germany, there would have been a good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy with a gun there.

Well, it depends on how close the "good guy with a gun" was. In Charleston, there was none, so Roof could kill his victims at his leisure. In Sutherland Springs, there was one who arrived during the shooting, and he drove off Kelley. In White Settlement, there was one right there, and Kinnunen's attack ended in six seconds.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: dpareja on February 21, 2020, 11:23:21 pm
If more people had guns in Germany, there would have been a good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy with a gun there.

Well, it depends on how close the "good guy with a gun" was. In Charleston, there was none, so Roof could kill his victims at his leisure. In Sutherland Springs, there was one who arrived during the shooting, and he drove off Kelley. In White Settlement, there was one right there, and Kinnunen's attack ended in six seconds.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I was mocking gun-rights advocates who make that sort of argument.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on February 22, 2020, 01:04:07 pm
Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter. 
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Cloud3514 on February 25, 2020, 02:28:31 am
The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: dpareja on February 25, 2020, 03:27:53 am
The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

The point the pro-gun crowd would make is that it's impossible to know how many shootings would have happened but for the possibility of the presence of a "good guy with a gun".

To which I say, look at Australia.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 25, 2020, 11:24:53 am
Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter.

That's because Kelley was targeting a larger group of people than Roof. Would you rather Willeford hadn't been there?

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

Because preventative measures don't reliably work. Chicago's gun crime statistics are proof of that.

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

The point the pro-gun crowd would make is that it's impossible to know how many shootings would have happened but for the possibility of the presence of a "good guy with a gun".

To which I say, look at Australia.

No offense, but if you think Australia's gun control is working... well, let's just say it's a standpoint based on a surface-level understanding of the issue.

For starters, gun-control advocates like to point to the fact that Australia's homicide rates fell after they instituted their 1996 legislation. This ignores the fact that murder rates fell all over the Western world at around that time. Correlation does not equal causation. In fact, studies have debunked the "gun control saved lives in Australia!" narrative (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html).

Also, I'd like to point out that about that same time, many American states loosened their gun laws. You could just as easily argue that this is proof that more relaxed gun laws mean less crime using the exact same logic. But for some reason, the gun control crowd doesn't. Isn't that funny?

Second, Australia has more guns now than it did in 1996. Moreover, their gun laws have accomplished nothing, and have created a violent black market (https://reason.com/2016/03/22/australias-gun-buyback-created-a-violent/). While a lot of people tout the supposed effectiveness of Australia's gun control, Australians may be more at risk from gun violence than ever (https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/). Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." What does that say about people who would give up liberty for the mere illusion of safety?

Lastly, even if gun control did work in Australia, that doesn't necessarily mean it would work in America.

So, if anything, what we can learn from Australia is that gun control does not work. You might as well point to 1920s America as an example of how prohibition works.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: ironbite on February 25, 2020, 05:07:33 pm
Oh lovely.  Vanto's one of THOSE types of gun nuts.

Ironbite-guess he's not aware that in most of the Chicago-based gun crimes, the guns come from neighboring states like Indiana and Wisconsin.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 25, 2020, 06:09:31 pm
Oh lovely.  Vanto's one of THOSE types of gun nuts.

Ironbite-guess he's not aware that in most of the Chicago-based gun crimes, the guns come from neighboring states like Indiana and Wisconsin.

Both of those states have lower rates of gun murder than Illinois. Not just Chicago, Illinois as a whole.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on February 25, 2020, 09:02:22 pm
Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter.

That's because Kelley was targeting a larger group of people than Roof. Would you rather Willeford hadn't been there?

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

Because preventative measures don't reliably work. Chicago's gun crime statistics are proof of that.

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

The point the pro-gun crowd would make is that it's impossible to know how many shootings would have happened but for the possibility of the presence of a "good guy with a gun".

To which I say, look at Australia.

No offense, but if you think Australia's gun control is working... well, let's just say it's a standpoint based on a surface-level understanding of the issue.

For starters, gun-control advocates like to point to the fact that Australia's homicide rates fell after they instituted their 1996 legislation. This ignores the fact that murder rates fell all over the Western world at around that time. Correlation does not equal causation. In fact, studies have debunked the "gun control saved lives in Australia!" narrative (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html).

Also, I'd like to point out that about that same time, many American states loosened their gun laws. You could just as easily argue that this is proof that more relaxed gun laws mean less crime using the exact same logic. But for some reason, the gun control crowd doesn't. Isn't that funny?

Second, Australia has more guns now than it did in 1996. Moreover, their gun laws have accomplished nothing, and have created a violent black market (https://reason.com/2016/03/22/australias-gun-buyback-created-a-violent/). While a lot of people tout the supposed effectiveness of Australia's gun control, Australians may be more at risk from gun violence than ever (https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/). Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." What does that say about people who would give up liberty for the mere illusion of safety?

Lastly, even if gun control did work in Australia, that doesn't necessarily mean it would work in America.

So, if anything, what we can learn from Australia is that gun control does not work. You might as well point to 1920s America as an example of how prohibition works.

Ok Paragon. Where did you find all those old links?

 'The studies have debunked the gun control saved lives in Australia' is not a link to those studies at all. All they were was a link to a journalist who reached a similar conclusion but that doesn't  disclose an actual study or a statistical analysis. Nevermind that there was a mass shooting almost every year in Australia for the years leading up to Port Arthur and that there has been only one or two in the 28 years since. Even those aren't really mass shootings where a shooter starts shooting the public but are rather unfortunately domestic violence shootings where someone wipes out more than 1 family member.

The whole narrative that only criminals have guns being a problem is silly as criminals don't usually go out and commit mass shootings. The most common and horrific mass shooters appear to be marganilised people who are otherwise not worth paying attention to until they flip and shoot a bunch of people. Career criminals are not out there shooting kids at school.

Name the last school shooting in Australia. When was it?

Name the last school shooting in Britain. When was it?

When was the last school shooting in the US? How many others happened that year? The year before?


That is not to say that there aren't cultural issues at play between different countries. The swiss for instance have a huge number of firearms for the population but low mass shootings. That is probably reflective more of the unique cultural qualities at play in Switzerland than the idea everyone should have guns.

I dare say that there are reasons, such as the sheer number of guns, which would make a gun buyback ineffective in the US. But the reality is that the US have decided it is more important that they as a society get to own guns than that their children get to go to school free from the fear of being shot.

The suggestion that isn't a choice is just obfuscation.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: niam2023 on February 25, 2020, 09:31:59 pm
Don't tell me we're doing this again.

If we get two new people at once, and both say something dubious, would you then suggest BOTH OF THEM are actually Paragon?
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on February 25, 2020, 09:37:29 pm
Yes but I haven't been wrong yet.

But it doesn't matter to what I had to say, its just been grating on me for a while.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on February 26, 2020, 12:58:51 am
Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter.

That's because Kelley was targeting a larger group of people than Roof. Would you rather Willeford hadn't been there?

Okay that strikes me as dishonest.  You're completely dodging my point that good guys with guns don't reliably stop mass shootings.  My obviously desired option would be that Kelley not have a gun meaning there would be no need for Willeford to be there.

Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Cloud3514 on February 26, 2020, 02:05:03 am
Yes but I haven't been wrong yet.

But it doesn't matter to what I had to say, its just been grating on me for a while.

Face it, Niam, he's got a point.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: niam2023 on February 26, 2020, 02:09:31 am
He also didn't answer my other question; if two people new here showed up, both of them said something off color or dubious, would you accuse both of them of being Paragon?

I'll have you guys remember this forum is of vastly smaller size than the Discord, fewer people show up in general, so "being right" about the few people that traipse in is a lot less impressive than it looks.

I swear, I'm just sick and tired of this self-congratulatory paranoia.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on February 26, 2020, 02:25:30 am
I did answer it, I said yes.

But as I said it wasn't relevant to my point. So whatever
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Askold on February 26, 2020, 01:55:33 pm
Crimes in Chigago happen due to conditions there and the reason why gun crimes are less frequent in other states are due to a lot of factors and not just how easily available guns are there.

Fact is that the gun laws of Chigago do nothing to prevent criminals from buying guns on the other side of border and driving to Chigago and as long as the supply of illegal weapons is so easily available, Chigago cannot curtail the amount of guns just by making it harder to buy them in Chigago.

Just to get few facts out of the way now, I like guns. I own guns. I shoot guns as a hobby, as a sport and as part of my military training. That does not mean that I want guns to be as easily available in Finland as they are in USA. Having a vetting process to weed out the people who should never be allowed to own guns and having regulations on things like how you need to store your guns and when can you carry them are just things that make sense to me. Gun violence in Finland is low and this is despite us sharing a border with Russia and the amount of weapons that could be smuggled here if someone wanted them. There are illegal guns in the country, plenty of them but again, the things keeping down the gun violence are a multitude and gun laws is just one of them.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 28, 2020, 01:32:03 am
Alright, I'd be a bit more elaborate, but I'm very tired and finally got these forums to cooperate, so I'm gonna keep it brief.

Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter.

That's because Kelley was targeting a larger group of people than Roof. Would you rather Willeford hadn't been there?

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

Because preventative measures don't reliably work. Chicago's gun crime statistics are proof of that.

The "good guy with a gun" rhetoric just flat out ignores that the shooting still happened. Whether it was stopped short or not doesn't change that. The pro-guns crowd never talks about prevention, only reaction.

The point the pro-gun crowd would make is that it's impossible to know how many shootings would have happened but for the possibility of the presence of a "good guy with a gun".

To which I say, look at Australia.

No offense, but if you think Australia's gun control is working... well, let's just say it's a standpoint based on a surface-level understanding of the issue.

For starters, gun-control advocates like to point to the fact that Australia's homicide rates fell after they instituted their 1996 legislation. This ignores the fact that murder rates fell all over the Western world at around that time. Correlation does not equal causation. In fact, studies have debunked the "gun control saved lives in Australia!" narrative (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html).

Also, I'd like to point out that about that same time, many American states loosened their gun laws. You could just as easily argue that this is proof that more relaxed gun laws mean less crime using the exact same logic. But for some reason, the gun control crowd doesn't. Isn't that funny?

Second, Australia has more guns now than it did in 1996. Moreover, their gun laws have accomplished nothing, and have created a violent black market (https://reason.com/2016/03/22/australias-gun-buyback-created-a-violent/). While a lot of people tout the supposed effectiveness of Australia's gun control, Australians may be more at risk from gun violence than ever (https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2015/11/10/australias-secret-gun-problem-exposed/). Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." What does that say about people who would give up liberty for the mere illusion of safety?

Lastly, even if gun control did work in Australia, that doesn't necessarily mean it would work in America.

So, if anything, what we can learn from Australia is that gun control does not work. You might as well point to 1920s America as an example of how prohibition works.

Ok Paragon. Where did you find all those old links?

 'The studies have debunked the gun control saved lives in Australia' is not a link to those studies at all. All they were was a link to a journalist who reached a similar conclusion but that doesn't  disclose an actual study or a statistical analysis. Nevermind that there was a mass shooting almost every year in Australia for the years leading up to Port Arthur and that there has been only one or two in the 28 years since. Even those aren't really mass shootings where a shooter starts shooting the public but are rather unfortunately domestic violence shootings where someone wipes out more than 1 family member.

The whole narrative that only criminals have guns being a problem is silly as criminals don't usually go out and commit mass shootings. The most common and horrific mass shooters appear to be marganilised people who are otherwise not worth paying attention to until they flip and shoot a bunch of people. Career criminals are not out there shooting kids at school.

Name the last school shooting in Australia. When was it?

Name the last school shooting in Britain. When was it?

When was the last school shooting in the US? How many others happened that year? The year before?


That is not to say that there aren't cultural issues at play between different countries. The swiss for instance have a huge number of firearms for the population but low mass shootings. That is probably reflective more of the unique cultural qualities at play in Switzerland than the idea everyone should have guns.

I dare say that there are reasons, such as the sheer number of guns, which would make a gun buyback ineffective in the US. But the reality is that the US have decided it is more important that they as a society get to own guns than that their children get to go to school free from the fear of being shot.

The suggestion that isn't a choice is just obfuscation.

Woah buddy, who pissed in your cornflakes?

1. Correlation does not equal causation. Violent crime sharply declined in the West during the mid-90s. How do we know that wouldn't have happened regardless of gun laws? Especially considering that there are some cases of countries passing tougher gun laws, and mass shooting rates staying the same or even rising.

2. You're hyping up the potential risk of dying in a mass shooting. Americans are 6 times more likely to be killed by constipation, 12 times more likely to be killed by farming equipment, and 30 times more likely to die from falling out of bed. Nor is America particularly prone to mass shootings. The U.S. has 4.6% of the world's population, but only 1.43% of its mass shootings (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3238736).

3. That "your guns are worth more to you than your kids" rhetoric is emotional manipulation with no substance behind it. You sound like a Karen, no offense.

Plus with Kelley even with the good guy with a gun he still killed more then Roof did and there have been other times like the Pulse nightclub shooting where the good guy wasn't able to stop the shooter.

That's because Kelley was targeting a larger group of people than Roof. Would you rather Willeford hadn't been there?

Okay that strikes me as dishonest.  You're completely dodging my point that good guys with guns don't reliably stop mass shootings.  My obviously desired option would be that Kelley not have a gun meaning there would be no need for Willeford to be there.



Kelley wasn't legally allowed to own guns. Unfortunately, the Air Force screwed up. Do you honestly think that the same law enforcement system that can't keep drugs out of prisons will be able to keep criminals from getting guns?

Willeford's actions undoubtedly saved many lives. The fact that it was him, not the cops, who stopped Kelley's shooting really undermines the point you're trying to make. If he supposedly proves that "good guys with guns don't reliably stop mass shootings", what does that say about the 5-0?
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on February 28, 2020, 02:24:44 am
Kelley wasn't legally allowed to own guns. Unfortunately, the Air Force screwed up. Do you honestly think that the same law enforcement system that can't keep drugs out of prisons will be able to keep criminals from getting guns?

Willeford's actions undoubtedly saved many lives. The fact that it was him, not the cops, who stopped Kelley's shooting really undermines the point you're trying to make. If he supposedly proves that "good guys with guns don't reliably stop mass shootings", what does that say about the 5-0?

The point I am trying to make is that you are cherry picking one example where an armed civilian was actually helpful and ignoring the far larger number of mass shootings where they were not.  Mass shootings rarely end like Kelley's did but with the shooters suicide, surrender to law enforcement or killed by the police.  That there is one example of a mass shooter being stopped by an armed civilian does not mean that good guys with guns are reliable just as finding one child who got sick from an MMR vaccine does not mean vaccines are dangerous.

Quote
Nor is America particularly prone to mass shootings. The U.S. has 4.6% of the world's population, but only 1.43% of its mass shootings.

Thank you study was an interesting read.  However I'm not sure if it proves the point you are making.  The short version is that the idea that the USA experiences disproportionate numbers of mass shootings is wrong because there are large numbers of mass shootings that are underreported in poorer parts of the world such as the middle east, Africa and central asia.  Now I am open to this, but I will observe that these are regions with widespread warfare, often little in the way of centralized government authority, large armed militias and organized crime groups that likely make getting guns very easy. 

Parts of the world that are a) peaceful and political stable and b) mostly lack the USA's gun culture and have strong gun control laws such as most of Europe, Canada, East Asia and Oceania (mostly Australia and New Zealand I believe) meanwhile have much lower rates of mass shootings then the United States does, according to this study.

Overall this studies findings strike me as consistent with the idea that gun control heavily reduces the number of mass shootings and the overall death toll from such events* but unfortunately many countries such as Iraq are unable to enforce gun control.

*Admittedly this study does note that the average killed in individual mass shootings in Europe is higher the number killed in the USA.  However my impression is that this is because since mass shootings are rarer police are less prepared to respond then they are in the USA, allowing the likes of Brievik to kill more then he might have been able to in the US.  However the total number of people killed per capita is still lower due to the fact that they occur significantly less often.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on February 29, 2020, 01:32:35 am
Kelley wasn't legally allowed to own guns. Unfortunately, the Air Force screwed up. Do you honestly think that the same law enforcement system that can't keep drugs out of prisons will be able to keep criminals from getting guns?

Willeford's actions undoubtedly saved many lives. The fact that it was him, not the cops, who stopped Kelley's shooting really undermines the point you're trying to make. If he supposedly proves that "good guys with guns don't reliably stop mass shootings", what does that say about the 5-0?

The point I am trying to make is that you are cherry picking one example where an armed civilian was actually helpful and ignoring the far larger number of mass shootings where they were not.  Mass shootings rarely end like Kelley's did but with the shooters suicide, surrender to law enforcement or killed by the police.  That there is one example of a mass shooter being stopped by an armed civilian does not mean that good guys with guns are reliable just as finding one child who got sick from an MMR vaccine does not mean vaccines are dangerous.

Sutherland Springs was hardly unique. There have been many cases where armed civilians stopped what could have been far greater tragedies. It's just that it's harder to exploit an aborted mass shooting than it is to exploit one that was actually carried out.

Quote
Nor is America particularly prone to mass shootings. The U.S. has 4.6% of the world's population, but only 1.43% of its mass shootings.

Thank you study was an interesting read.  However I'm not sure if it proves the point you are making.  The short version is that the idea that the USA experiences disproportionate numbers of mass shootings is wrong because there are large numbers of mass shootings that are underreported in poorer parts of the world such as the middle east, Africa and central asia.  Now I am open to this, but I will observe that these are regions with widespread warfare, often little in the way of centralized government authority, large armed militias and organized crime groups that likely make getting guns very easy. 

Parts of the world that are a) peaceful and political stable and b) mostly lack the USA's gun culture and have strong gun control laws such as most of Europe, Canada, East Asia and Oceania (mostly Australia and New Zealand I believe) meanwhile have much lower rates of mass shootings then the United States does, according to this study.

Overall this studies findings strike me as consistent with the idea that gun control heavily reduces the number of mass shootings and the overall death toll from such events* but unfortunately many countries such as Iraq are unable to enforce gun control.

*Admittedly this study does note that the average killed in individual mass shootings in Europe is higher the number killed in the USA.  However my impression is that this is because since mass shootings are rarer police are less prepared to respond then they are in the USA, allowing the likes of Brievik to kill more then he might have been able to in the US.  However the total number of people killed per capita is still lower due to the fact that they occur significantly less often.

I thought you would say that. But again, you're operating under the assumption that gun laws would work to reduce the number of mass shootings. That isn't necessarily the case.

Take Germany, for example. In the 16 years before they passed their 2003 gun laws, they had only 17 mass shootings. But in the 16 years after they were passed, they had 49. That's right: their mass shooting rate almost tripled.

Or take France. In the 24 years before their 1995 gun laws, they only had 19 mass shootings. In the 24 years after, they had 92. That is an insane jump.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that their gun laws were the cause of these jumps. Like I said, correlation =/= causation. But if their gun laws failed so badly, what makes you think America would have better luck?

I think there are other reasons the countries you cite have fewer mass shootings per capita.

1. Better mental health systems. Think about it: most mass shootings in Europe are explicitly politically motivated, and those that aren't tend to be motivated by some severe bad blood. When was the last time you heard of some European, Canadian, Australian or Kiwi going on a killing spree because they'd snapped?

2. Media is less likely to hype up mass murderers. American media is notorious for plastering mass killers' images everywhere (remember when Tsarnev made the cover of Rolling Stone?) From what I know, that's not such a common practice elsewhere.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on February 29, 2020, 03:08:10 am
Sutherland Springs was hardly unique. There have been many cases where armed civilians stopped what could have been far greater tragedies. It's just that it's harder to exploit an aborted mass shooting than it is to exploit one that was actually carried out.

Now that a failed mass shooting won't get much attention is a fair point, but nonetheless the higher overall rate of mass shootings and homicide in general in the united states despite the good guys with guns makes me skeptical are in general effective at preventing violence, and just saying there are "many cases" is not enough to change my mind.  Cite your sources.


Quote
Take Germany, for example. In the 16 years before they passed their 2003 gun laws, they had only 17 mass shootings. But in the 16 years after they were passed, they had 49. That's right: their mass shooting rate almost tripled.

Or take France. In the 24 years before their 1995 gun laws, they only had 19 mass shootings. In the 24 years after, they had 92. That is an insane jump.

Again can you cite your sources for that.  (Sorry if this was in an earlier link, I didn't have time to read them at the time) My first guess is that this is the result of more recent shootings getting greater coverage.  Small mass shootings from the early 70s can easily be forgotten because they would get little media attention compared with today.  For example I recently was talking to a friend who pointed out that there had been almost no mass shootings in Canada until the 90s, followed by massive numbers since.  However when I looked into it I found that the news story he was citing had missed large numbers of shootings of the 4-8 victim range from earlier decades, including some that had even been media circuses in their own time like the time a conservative MP killed his entire family in the 50s.  Meanwhile practically every instant when at least two people were shot in modern times was labeled a mass shooting but I could no information about small mass shootings from earlier times, but it seems unlikely that they did not occur.  So my guess is this might be a similar artifact of greater press coverage.

Quote
I think there are other reasons the countries you cite have fewer mass shootings per capita.

1. Better mental health systems. Think about it: most mass shootings in Europe are explicitly politically motivated, and those that aren't tend to be motivated by some severe bad blood. When was the last time you heard of some European, Canadian, Australian or Kiwi going on a killing spree because they'd snapped?

That is largely a myth.  Very few mass shooters are mentally ill and few mass shooting are caused by someone snapping.  Mass Shooters usually plan their actions out long in advance after nursing angry grudges against society for years, they don't just snap.  As for mental health most mass shooters don't display any signs of mental illness, unless we include cluster b personality disorders such as sociopathy and narcissism as mental illnesses, which nearly all mass shooters show signs of.  And since at present we do not have effective treatments for these personality disorders, in seems highly unlikely that better funding of mental healthcare would make any real difference (although it should still be done anyway).

Quote
2. Media is less likely to hype up mass murderers. American media is notorious for plastering mass killers' images everywhere (remember when Tsarnev made the cover of Rolling Stone?) From what I know, that's not such a common practice elsewhere.

Well I'm not sure, but in my own experience Canadian mass killers get plenty of media coverage so I don't see that as the full explanation (although I will agree that giving less attention to the shooters will likely help reduce the number).
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on March 01, 2020, 04:57:41 pm
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Woah buddy, who pissed in your cornflakes?

1. Correlation does not equal causation. Violent crime sharply declined in the West during the mid-90s. How do we know that wouldn't have happened regardless of gun laws? Especially considering that there are some cases of countries passing tougher gun laws, and mass shooting rates staying the same or even rising.

2. You're hyping up the potential risk of dying in a mass shooting. Americans are 6 times more likely to be killed by constipation, 12 times more likely to be killed by farming equipment, and 30 times more likely to die from falling out of bed. Nor is America particularly prone to mass shootings. The U.S. has 4.6% of the world's population, but only 1.43% of its mass shootings (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3238736).

3. That "your guns are worth more to you than your kids" rhetoric is emotional manipulation with no substance behind it. You sound like a Karen, no offense.

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I pissed on my cornflakes. That's how I like them.

It's just disingenuous to compare the US mass shootings with what you might get in Somalia or Iraq.

I notice you didn't answer my questions.

Look do you want to speak with my manager? It's not emotional manipulation it's actually just a reflection of what the US considers more important.There's nothing wrong with having a clear eyed view of what is more important to a nation. If the safety of kids at schools was important the US would do something about limiting access to guns. The whole idea that you should be able to have an AR-15 or a military grade automatic rifle at home is crazy. Why stop there, why not an A1 Abrahams tank or a nuclear weapon?
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Eiki-mun on March 02, 2020, 07:33:59 pm
Technically speaking, you can acquire an M1 Abrams or a nuclear weapon in the US if you have the money and the will.

Takes a lot of licensing though.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on March 03, 2020, 01:28:44 pm
Skybison, I can point to many good guys with guns stopping mass shootings: Dmitriy Andreychenko (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-body-armor-armed-rifle-sparks-panic-missouri-walmart-n1040676), Juan Carlos Nazario and Bryan Whittle (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/13/feature/in-all-reality-there-were-three-shooters-oklahomans-kill-an-active-shooter-and-its-not-as-simple-as-it-sounds/), Don Smith and Nathan Taylor (https://eu.floridatoday.com/story/news/crime/2017/12/01/black-friday-schlenker-shooting-what-we-know/911335001/), and of course Jack Wilson (https://www.kut.org/post/man-who-shot-gunman-white-settlement-church-gets-highest-texas-civilian-honor). Their names should be more famous than those of any mass shooter, IMO. Here's (https://crimeresearch.org/2019/05/uber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting/) a handy list of concealed-carry permit holders who stopped mass public shootings and other mass attacks.

Before I post my sources, I'd like you to promise me that you won't dismiss them out of hand, but really consider what they have to say. Not assuming anything about you, I've just seen too many people dismissing my sources without even bothering to examining them. Since I don't hold others to standards I won't hold myself to, I promise I won't immediately dismiss your sources either.

Before I forget, since you're Canadian, it may interest you to know that your country had only 18 mass shootings in the 27 years before 1991 Bill C-17, but 50 afterward. Since there aren't that many, I'll just list them in a couple spoilers. You can verify these shootings if you'd like.

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I pissed on my cornflakes. That's how I like them.

It's just disingenuous to compare the US mass shootings with what you might get in Somalia or Iraq.

I notice you didn't answer my questions.

Look do you want to speak with my manager? It's not emotional manipulation it's actually just a reflection of what the US considers more important.There's nothing wrong with having a clear eyed view of what is more important to a nation. If the safety of kids at schools was important the US would do something about limiting access to guns. The whole idea that you should be able to have an AR-15 or a military grade automatic rifle at home is crazy. Why stop there, why not an A1 Abrahams tank or a nuclear weapon?

Calm your tits, Helen Lovejoy. Your hysteria over mass shooters is embarrassing. School shootings are very rare in America, you're more likely to die from falling out of bed. But if you think it's such a big deal, there's a simple solution: armed guards.

You talk like there are no valid reasons to own an AR-15, like hunting (https://time.com/4390506/gun-control-ar-15-semiautomatic-rifles/).

Oh, and it seems like you actually have higher rates of mass shootings now than you did before your 96 gun laws. In the 23 years before them, you had 16 mass shootings. After them, you had 22. Of course, that's not necessarily to suggest that your gun laws are to blame. Hell, considering the extreme rarity of mass shootings, I'm not sure if we can say anything was responsible for the jump.

TBF, I don't blame you for thinking mass shootings dropped in Australia. I did too until I did some digging for myself.

Since there are so few, even fewer than with Canada, I think I'll list them in a couple spoilers. These can easily be confirmed with Google or Bing.

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Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on March 03, 2020, 04:24:39 pm
Yes, I agree it is very important to read your sources. I read your sources last time and they simply didn't say what you said they did.

Now without checking your sources, why don't we talk about your figures for the pre and post 96 death rates from mass shootings in Australia.

106 dead beforehand and 53 dead after. Bearing in mind that there has been a demographic explosion in Australia since 1996 with there being 18 odd million Australians in 1996 (there where 12.5 million in 1970) and there now being 25 million odd.

So with millions of more people there were double the mass shooting deaths prior to the gun laws. Besides which I accept that gun laws aren't going to prevent organised crime conflicts, eg the bikies, or domestic violence deaths, which sadly are likely to continue irrespective of gun laws. What they do stop is domestic terrorists like that Christchurch wanker or loons like Martin Bryant having access to weapons which could effectively halt a roman legion. Now I accept that loons can still do terrible damage with cars (although we have traffic bollards for that) or a knife. However there are many reasons to prefer to have a loon armed only with a knife. Certainly safer for police.

Again why don't you list the number of school shootings in the US in the last 5 years. How many school shootings in Australia or the UK?

At how many of the school shootings did the school have armed guards? How many times did the armed guards kill or subdue the shooter? How many people died before they did so?

Have you ever thought of the psychological impact it might have on developing kids to have armed guards or clear backpacks? Active shooter drills?

Now I accept that there is a lot of nuance to hunting and not of all it is what you would call recreational, but even so unrestricted access to semi-automatic weapons is not necessary for it. We have big wild boar in Australia too and there hasn't been a spate of hunters/farmers getting mauled or injured due to the lack of semi-automatic weapons. Plenty of people still hunt them with bows and knives.

You certainly don't need an AR-15 to hunt a mountain goat. Trapping is usually more efficient at culling than hunting anyway.

But really I am not being hysterical about this. It says a lot about your position that it is clearly pointed at suggesting that I am.  Any recreational hunter who says that his hobby should continue unrestricted is simply saying that his hobby is worth more than the lives of school kids who have been shot. That's the cost benefit analysis.The same way someone who wants to drive everywhere at 100 km/hr over the speed limit is suggesting that their hurry is worth more than the lives around them. Actions have consequences and it is important that people reflect on what they are. Communities make choices and the US have made their choice on this.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on March 04, 2020, 02:04:46 am
Skybison, I can point to many good guys with guns stopping mass shootings: Dmitriy Andreychenko (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-body-armor-armed-rifle-sparks-panic-missouri-walmart-n1040676), Juan Carlos Nazario and Bryan Whittle (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/07/13/feature/in-all-reality-there-were-three-shooters-oklahomans-kill-an-active-shooter-and-its-not-as-simple-as-it-sounds/), Don Smith and Nathan Taylor (https://eu.floridatoday.com/story/news/crime/2017/12/01/black-friday-schlenker-shooting-what-we-know/911335001/), and of course Jack Wilson (https://www.kut.org/post/man-who-shot-gunman-white-settlement-church-gets-highest-texas-civilian-honor). Their names should be more famous than those of any mass shooter, IMO. Here's (https://crimeresearch.org/2019/05/uber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting/) a handy list of concealed-carry permit holders who stopped mass public shootings and other mass attacks.

Yes I am aware that there are examples of private citizens who stopped mass shootings.  However that is besides my point that I see little evidence that "good guys with guns" are effective at preventing violence in general, just like being able to make a list of people who were harmed by vaccines does not mean vaccines are dangerous in general.

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Before I post my sources, I'd like you to promise me that you won't dismiss them out of hand, but really consider what they have to say. Not assuming anything about you, I've just seen too many people dismissing my sources without even bothering to examining them. Since I don't hold others to standards I won't hold myself to, I promise I won't immediately dismiss your sources either.

Yes I will not dismiss any sources you site out of hand (well unless I have good reason to do so like of you post to a claim by a flat earther or something).  However I find your insistence on this frustrating because...

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Before I forget, since you're Canadian, it may interest you to know that your country had only 18 mass shootings in the 27 years before 1991 Bill C-17, but 50 afterward. Since there aren't that many, I'll just list them in a couple spoilers. You can verify these shootings if you'd like.

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Why did you post that?  Why did you say this as if I was unaware of this argument?  I specifically said in the post you are responding to that I had heard this basic claim before and explained my reasons for why I believe the jumps in mass shootings may be an illusion.  But then you post this list as if I had not just said I was familiar with this claim without addressing why I said I think this might be incorrect.  That does leave me with the impression that you are not paying much attention to what I am saying which is annoying since you are also asking me to promise not to dismiss your arguments out of hand.

Like I said, I believe these jumps to be the result of shootings becoming better reported on due to there just being a lot more media today, the politicized nature of mass shootings and older media sources being hard to find means it is much easier to get information on shootings in the 2000s then in the 1960s.
In short I don't think there are more mass shootings in Canada now, I think they are just easier to find out about.  For example 54 of the 88 shootings you list since 91 were small shootings with 3 or fewer deaths (61%) but only 4 of the 14 you list of earlier were (28%).  In fact of your post 91 list 12 are incidents where no one was killed (13%).  Since the Canadian homicide rate has fallen almost by half since 1970, it seems very hard for me to believe that there were no shooting with 1 person killed and a few wounded before recently.  So I believe this jump is not actually real, but I would need to examine your source to be sure.

Another observation is that while I did not have time to examine every single post 91 shooting, of the various ones I did randomly look up the majority seemed to have been committed with handguns, not the military assault rifles and long guns that the 91 regulations focused on.  The sort of mass shooting where a shooter with an AR-15 or similar weapon kill dozens at once  have not happened in Canada.  Plenty of Canadian gun control advocates have been arguing for a long time now that canadian law hasn't done enough about handguns, and your list seems like an argument in their favor instead of one that the 91 bill c-17 was counter productive.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on March 21, 2020, 12:50:28 am
Okay so I know this thread is old but Vanto I genuinely do want to know what your source was for that list.  Canadian true crime stuff has become an interest of mine lately and I would like to look at it.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on March 21, 2020, 11:55:14 pm
Yeah, my source is a redditor who claims to specialize in investigating cases like this. I admit I was skeptical at first, but my own research seems to back up what they're saying.

Sorry I haven't been that active by the way. I haven't been able to reliably connect to these forums lately. Thankfully, I think I've fixed that issue.

While I'm here, I might as well address some other things:

- What a lot of people seem to not understand is that good guys with guns are a deterrent. There's a reason most mass shooters, including those who want to die, choose gun-free zones: they can kill more people. Deterrence can save many lives (https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/gun-violence-researcher-mass-shooters-would-think-twice-if-victims-were-armed).

- It's not impossible that mass shootings have been more reported on recently, but I don't think it's very likely either. Though I wouldn't mind investigating to find out.

- You know, earlier you suggested Europe having more deaths per mass shooting was a sign that they're not as used to mass shooting incidents as America is. Does the same logic not apply here? Maybe the number of mass shooting deaths per shooting is going down because mass shootings are getting more common in Canada (and Australia too).

- There is evidence to suggest that taking action on handguns wouldn't necessarily work. Over in the UK, gun homicides actually INCREASED after the 1997 handgun ban (https://crimeresearch.org/2016/04/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/). Gun crime is on the rise there again now (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/26/surge-in-knife-offences-fuels-rise-in-violent), at least in some areas. And that's in a much smaller country without any land borders.

Now for some of davedan's points:

- You talk about the psychological impact of armed guards at schools. Well, what about the psychological impact of constantly hyping up the dangers of mass shootings, something that kills fewer Americans every year than falling out of bed? Maybe calling you "hysterical" was unfair, but I feel like you're blowing the issue out of proportion.

- Gun laws do not reliably stop domestic terrorists. Domestic terrorist attacks have been carried out with semi-automatic weapons in France and Canada.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on March 22, 2020, 01:37:44 am
Again why don't you list the number of school shootings in the US in the last 5 years. How many school shootings in Australia or the UK?

At how many of the school shootings did the school have armed guards? How many times did the armed guards kill or subdue the shooter? How many people died before they did so?
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on March 22, 2020, 12:42:02 pm
Well I hope you understand that when I say that I am skeptical the list is complete and ask for your source so I can look at their methodology, just saying "my source is a redditor" without even their username or a link to where they said it isn't going to make me less skeptical. 

Also I have found at least one mass shooting he missed thanks to a podcast I happened to be listening to https://canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes/2018/3/12/21-ernest-desroches So no, his list of per 91 mass shootings was not complete.

As for media coverage, you seem to have missed my point.  It's not just that there is more coverage of mass shootings today, and yes violent crime does get much more coverage today, but that the coverage is much easier to find.  Finding every incident where more then one person was shot requires a massive amount of work reading through old newspapers and missing stuff is very easy.  I've seen other people claim to have exhaustive lists of all Canadian mass murders only to find they missed some, including very big ones.

Also your redditor seems to have a very broad definition of what a mass shooting is.  Normally by Mass Shooting someone means a pseudocommando rampage, where a single angry individual goes on a shooting spree in a public setting as an act of revenge on society or terrorism.  However your redditor instead seems to define mass shooting as any incident where at least two people were shot, and as a result includes a number of incidents that don't resemble what is normally thought of as a mass shooting such as violence in families, bar fights, gang warfare, armed robberies that went wrong etc

For example redditor includes the sheddon massacre.  This was a coup d'etat in the Bandidos motorcycle gang where members where lured to a meeting in the countryside then disarmed and killed one by one, not what is usually meant by "mass shooting".

I have a hard time believing that before 1991 Canada had zero examples of incidents like the Duke of York Tavern shooting, where a guy got into a bar fight, left and got a gun from his friend and returned to shoot the people he had been fighting with wounding bystanders in the process before 91, especially since the homicide rate back then was twice what it is today.

Most of these incidents are over far to quickly for law enforcement to intervene so I doubt that greater experience could be the reason for lots of of small shootings appear on your list in recent years but not in earlier ones.  The study you linked to before on the other hand gives a much narrower definition of mass shooting, closer to what is normally meant by the term, but the averages can be thrown off by one or two very large mass shootings like the Oslo massacre.

With such a broad definition of mass shooting we would probably get a better picture by dropping lists of incidents and focusing on gun violence or homicide rates in general, which in Canada have been falling steadily since the 1970s.

(https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925/c-g/c-g03-eng.gif)
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on May 15, 2020, 09:38:30 pm
Oh hey, I forgot about this thread. Time to fix that:

Again why don't you list the number of school shootings in the US in the last 5 years. How many school shootings in Australia or the UK?

At how many of the school shootings did the school have armed guards? How many times did the armed guards kill or subdue the shooter? How many people died before they did so?

Let me answer your questions with my own questions.

Why are you so fixated on school shootings in particular? Why the last five years specifically? Do you really think a mass shooter would choose to attack a school with armed guards? If armed guards are so ineffective, why did your government let Jewish and Muslim schools hire them? Did you know that only 8 people died in American school shootings last year? Did you know that a single mass stabbing incident at a Chinese school last year equaled that death toll? Did you know that children are hundreds of times more likely to be murdered at home (usually by their own parents) than at school? Did you know that the deadliest school attack in American history was carried out with explosives?

Most important: are you here to seriously discuss this, or are you just trying to catch me in a “gotcha”?

Now, as for Skybison's points:

You're right to point out that people generally don't think of gang-related incidents when they hear the term "mass shooting". However, they're often counted as mass shootings in American crime statistics, so I think it's only fair to do the same when discussing other countries.

Oh, and your noting that Canada's overall gun homicide rates have been dropping since the 70s is proof that you don't need gun bans to reduce gun violence. Thank you for pointing that out.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Skybison on May 16, 2020, 12:26:06 am
Okay since you are posting here again I've got a question  for you that's been bugging me

Why did you post that list of Canadian mass shootings at all?

In the post before you gave that list I said that I had already heard the argument that Canada has more mass shootings now, and at length said why I am skeptical of this claim.

Then right after I said that you go "did you know there are more mass shootings in Canada now?" without addressing the counterarguments I had just given, indeed seemingly unaware that I had just said I had heard this claim before.

TBH, it gave me the impression that you aren't paying attention to what others are saying and didn't read my post before responding to it. 
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: ironbite on May 16, 2020, 07:07:50 pm
That sounds familiar.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: Vanto on May 19, 2020, 08:25:28 pm
Okay since you are posting here again I've got a question  for you that's been bugging me

Why did you post that list of Canadian mass shootings at all?

In the post before you gave that list I said that I had already heard the argument that Canada has more mass shootings now, and at length said why I am skeptical of this claim.

Then right after I said that you go "did you know there are more mass shootings in Canada now?" without addressing the counterarguments I had just given, indeed seemingly unaware that I had just said I had heard this claim before.

TBH, it gave me the impression that you aren't paying attention to what others are saying and didn't read my post before responding to it.

Looking back, yeah, I did kinda miss that part. Sorry man. I'll try to do better in the future. Let me know if you think I'm not paying attention.
Title: Re: Shootings in Hanau, Germany
Post by: davedan on June 01, 2020, 02:23:40 am
Oh hey, I forgot about this thread. Time to fix that:

Again why don't you list the number of school shootings in the US in the last 5 years. How many school shootings in Australia or the UK?

At how many of the school shootings did the school have armed guards? How many times did the armed guards kill or subdue the shooter? How many people died before they did so?

Let me answer your questions with my own questions.

Why are you so fixated on school shootings in particular? Why the last five years specifically? Do you really think a mass shooter would choose to attack a school with armed guards? If armed guards are so ineffective, why did your government let Jewish and Muslim schools hire them? Did you know that only 8 people died in American school shootings last year? Did you know that a single mass stabbing incident at a Chinese school last year equaled that death toll? Did you know that children are hundreds of times more likely to be murdered at home (usually by their own parents) than at school? Did you know that the deadliest school attack in American history was carried out with explosives?

Most important: are you here to seriously discuss this, or are you just trying to catch me in a “gotcha”?

Now, as for Skybison's points:

You're right to point out that people generally don't think of gang-related incidents when they hear the term "mass shooting". However, they're often counted as mass shootings in American crime statistics, so I think it's only fair to do the same when discussing other countries.

Oh, and your noting that Canada's overall gun homicide rates have been dropping since the 70s is proof that you don't need gun bans to reduce gun violence. Thank you for pointing that out.

Why are you afraid of answering my question?