Conspiracy theorists pounce on the midnight Batman shooting in CO (RAEG warning)

[shykid]

Wait, they'll call him on possibly being a occupier, but they won't call him on being a devote Christian. Double standards much, Teabaggers?

O Riley says that christians dont kkill people

I can't say I expected better from someone who considers third-grade science beyond human comprehension.

[Stormwarden]

Am I the only one who finds it pathetic that people seem to want to blame everyone but the douchebag who pulled the trigger, even on this forum?

Blame the douche who pulled the trigger, and him alone, at least until more facts come to light.

[Lt. Fred]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

[nickiknack]

The most intelligent way to go about it, is to examine how shittastic mental health care is in this country. It'll do more good than blaming violence in movies or calls for more gun control which only feeds into the paranoia of the gun nutters(I'm in no way targeting anyone here, I'm talking about the jackasses who are obsessed with the gov't taking guns away from them and so forth).

[Smurfette Principle]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

This. Violence doesn't happen in a vacuum.

[gyeonghwa]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

This. Violence doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Yep. And this is hardly isolated. This type of violence is rooted in society.

[Canadian Mojo]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

And I suppose that you can cite your country's banning of guns and subsequent elimination of all gun crimes as proof. Or Great Britain's experience.

Given the number of guns in the U.S. I am willing to go on record as saying you cannot prevent this without taking such draconian measures that you would make the cure worse than the disease. Canada, despite having NO constitutional protections regarding the right to bear arms, and being a country that by in large is much more willing to accept government intrusion into our lives for the greater good, has had significant opposition to the mere registration of firearms. Some estimates place non-compliance (not registering) at 50%.

And this is just for registering. It does nothing to eliminate guns and prevent gun crime. In fact, statistically, it did fuck all.

The bottom line is that in order to prevent crimes like this you are going to have to actually eliminate guns which means kicking down every door in the country, which in addition to being a logistical impossibility, would be the death of any country claiming to be an enlightened liberal democracy.

[Smurfette Principle]

No, the way you prevent crimes like this is deglamorizing violence, enabling access to better mental health care, and limiting what kinds of guns you can carry and in what context.

[Canadian Mojo]

No, the way you prevent crimes like this is deglamorizing violence, enabling access to better mental health care, and limiting what kinds of guns you can carry and in what context.

With all due respect Smurfette, we still have gun violence in my country and you have it in places like Norway, so while you may minimize it, you are not going to prevent it without removing weapons from the public.

[nickiknack]

And how many watch violent shit, and are perfectly fine, don't commit crimes what so ever?? With all the violent shit I've watched over the years, I should be a serial killer, but I don't go about killing folks because I'm stable, and so is most of population.
Also this is America, we love fucking guns, so fucking much that we put them into the fucking Constitution, wanting to limit guns just feeds into the "THEY ARE GONNA TAKE MAH GUNS" crowd paranoia, plus nutters like this fucktard in Colorado will always get the fucking guns if they want to no matter how many roadblocks you put up.
What we should focus is the shitty excuse of mental health care in this country, it would be nice if pro-gun groups would grow a fucking pair, and own up that all of these shooters were nutcases, addressing these issues would help a whole lot, but I'm not going to hold my breath, because this would require them to care about people rather than profit.

Oh yeah, and look at this bs. OH NOES, PEOPLE IN COSTUMES!!!

[QueenofHearts]

And how many watch violent shit, and are perfectly fine, don't commit crimes what so ever?? With all the violent shit I've watched over the years, I should be a serial killer, but I don't go about killing folks because I'm stable, and so is most of population.
Also this is America, we love fucking guns, so fucking much that we put them into the fucking Constitution, wanting to limit guns just feeds into the "THEY ARE GONNA TAKE MAH GUNS" crowd paranoia, plus nutters like this fucktard in Colorado will always get the fucking guns if they want to no matter how many roadblocks you put up.
What we should focus is the shitty excuse of mental health care in this country, it would be nice if pro-gun groups would grow a fucking pair, and own up that all of these shooters were nutcases, addressing these issues would help a whole lot, but I'm not going to hold my breath, because this would require them to care about people rather than profit.

Oh yeah, and look at this bs. OH NOES, PEOPLE IN COSTUMES!!!

Yeah, I read that too. I'd be willing to bet my life that we'll see laws banning costumes before laws limiting guns for this reason. 

[nickiknack]

The whole costume thing is on my bucket list....haven't done it yet, but I will some day.

[Lt. Fred]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

And I suppose that you can cite your country's banning of significant reduction of guns over several decades and subsequent elimination of all massive decline in gun crimes as proof.

Absolutely.

[Canadian Mojo]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

And I suppose that you can cite your country's banning of significant reduction of guns over several decades and subsequent elimination of all massive decline in gun crimes as proof.

Absolutely.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html

[Lt. Fred]

This is not just some natural disaster. It can be prevented, if you want. If you don't, admit that.

And I suppose that you can cite your country's banning of significant reduction of guns over several decades and subsequent elimination of all massive decline in gun crimes as proof.

Absolutely.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html

We should not pretend that Howard was the only guy to do anything about firearm-related deaths. Even before Port Arthur, a bit over 7% of Australians (as opposed to something like 50% of Americans) owned a firearm, declining by 3.5% a year, hence the already-low death toll (one-fiftieth of the US, according to Snopes).

But Howard's reforms probably did have an effect: http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/news/news/2006/Dec/061214.php

Did the ban actually work? Well, it was actually designed to reduce Batman-style massacres, not regular gun crime. The number of people killed in massacres declined from 121 in a decade to 0 in a decade. That's the most statistically significant measure of the policy's success you can find.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/09/09/what-john-howard-could-teach-the-us-about-gun-control/

Criminals have stopped using guns in robberies, according to the ABS. Gun suicides have declined at double the national rate, even though the reform was not designed to have this effect.

But, as I emphasised in the post you responded to, Australian gun regulation is not a single law. When Victoria reformed gun laws in the 1980s (and no other state did so), gun crime reduced relative to the other states.
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/10/5/280.full

Gun ownership by 1996 by 1996 was already low. I can't find historical stats, but it seems that gun ownership was low early in the cold war, increased in the 70s and early 80s, and then declined from the late 80s until now. So you can't point to a single law half-way through that process and say it failed. Australia did have a low rate of gun ownership and a corresponding low rate of gun crime already, even in 1996.



Like I said, if you are willing to pay the cost of regular gun massacres for the value of 'freedom' and 'protection' against an evil state that would totally kill everyone except for a bunch of Kentuckians with .22s (seriously, I've heard this argument more times than I can count), that's fine. But admit it. Gun crime is the cost you pay for 'freedom'.