If it's illegal for mentally ill people to have guns in our society, how did this guy get a high-powered rifle?
What am I missing?
Would some gun advocate explain to me how we can prevent mental cases like this from arming themselves to the teeth and shooting the rest of us poor dumb schlunks?
7 comments:
Well, he said in his suicide note that he wanted to be famous. Why not blame the media that both glorifies fame and gives round-the-clock coverage of these tragedies?
Just curious if you have any knowledge of what portion of the gun murders are committed in these mass-murder rampages.
Maybe the question should be what portion of gun deaths are murder! Alice
Good points, both of you. You are right, the media does emphasize the violent and the grusome. On the other hand, when someone shoots down 12 people in the street, it's news!
I don't have any statistics at hand, and haven't time to look now. Maybe you already know these numbers?
I don't already know, but I can probably hazard a reasonable guess. How many mass shootings happen every year? Maybe about 10. On average, each mass shooter kills maybe 10 people. This is 100 deaths out of 10-15,000 murders. I'm not discounting these ~100 deaths, but it is a small fraction of the total and perhaps should warrant somewhat less attention than it gets. When a couple crack dealer gangsters in North Minneapolis shoot each other, it barely gets a mention in the local paper.
How many mass shootings happen in Australia each year? None since 1996 at Port Arthur, by a mentally ill person. Gun controls were tightened immediately after that. Two drug dealers shooting each other does make the news here, any gun death does. Granted, we have a lot fewer people (21 million), but incidents of mass murder are extremely rare.
My point is that these mass murder incidents are extremely rare in the US, too, at least in regard to the fraction of people who actually die that way.
I would add that there are a lot of people who would drastically restrict gun use and availability regardless of how rare these incidents are. In my experience, people who didn't have early exposure to firearms tend to fear them regardless of what effect they might have on society (or not). It seems to me that a lot of people ask for an inch, when they clearly want to take a mile. That's why pro-gun types like me come off as uncompromising.
I, for one, am relieved that Bud has survived his road trip without dying in an automobile accident. Since he quit participating in street gang activities and crack dealing, car accidents should reasonably be his main concern.
Oh, I just got back from playing golf (actually I don't like to play golf, but I do it because so many others do, and they like to beat me, like my wife for example) (it's sunny and 81 where I am right now -- be jealous) and thought I would check my email and my blog.
Jim is exactly right about one thing: I do worry most about traffic accidents. I really don't expect to be shot. Most of us, as he suggests, live safely amongst non-dangerous people. But, this doesn't diminish the effect of the raw statistics which show us to be a much more dangerous society because there are so many guns.
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