Middle aged man decides to avenge a bitter divorce by a shooting rampage at his former in-law's Christmas party. Dressed as Santa. His first victim was the 8 year old girl who opened the door. He shot her in the face. 6 people were murdered. He's also a middle aged man with no criminal record and no history of violence. A member of the church where he served as an usher described him as the nicest guy you could meet. God knows how many people might've survived such a rampage had guns not been so fucking easy for the guy to get.

Yahoo news story

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 25 2008, 22.48)

with GUN they will find another way. Also here I am refuring to planed out attack not one day he staped type attack wich may be help with soeme gun control

The mere act of trying to find another way will deter many. And of those who will still go through with it, guns are infinitely more lethal than just about every other alternative out there. Could someone use a knife? Sure. But you can run from a knife. Its much easier to wrestle away a knife. People are more likely to survive several knife wounds. Its simply not as lethal. And the knowledge that people are more able to fight, run, or evade would make some reluctant to even try if the knife was all that was available.

The absence (severe curtailment) of guns ensures that such rampages happen less often and are less deadly. There is no getting around that.

QUOTE (El-ahrairah @ Dec 25 2008, 23.05)

No matter what laws are passed against gun ownership in the U.S., our criminals will get somehow their hands on them. Europe, with a lesser history of private firearms, has been able to drastically curtail gun crime, but it would be impossible to move the U.S. to this state given its ingrained weapons culture and vast amounts of both legal and illegal guns.

If we could start from scratch, perhaps the European model would be better, but for the present it is better to arm the citizenry than to leave it defenseless against a still-armed criminal element.

Its possible. But half measures and minor restrictions won't cut it. There needs to be an all out nationwide ban to have the desired effect. Confiscations, halted production (except for military/police use), SEVERE draconian penalties for being found with one. At that point you make the weapons so scarce that not only will the law abiding citizen who snaps not have one, neither will the burgeoning Columbine protege nor your ordinary, run of the mill criminal. Not because its impossible to get, but because its prohibitively difficult and quite expensive to get. Make guns a rare novelty that you risk everything simply by holding.

I will agree that this isn't politically feasible at the moment and quite possibly never will be. But the massive amount of guns could be seriously curtailed if there was a political will to do so.

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 23.06)

It things wrong with america and in case one bad man.

I thought it was rather obvious that we're including the 12,000 other people killed by guns PER YEAR in the discussion. A story like this pops up every few weeks or months. No doubt countless other similar events occur that we never hear about. But every time it does crop up we get this 'one bad man, don't punish the rest of us' crap. Well its abundantly clear that we have a towering shitload of bad men. That some of the 'rest of us' are a bad divorce, a school bully, or a traffic accident away from a shooting spree. And that as a country and society we've proven ourselves again and again to be too irresponsible to have guns. How much longer will we have to continue proving this before people start to come to their senses?

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 23.06)

Sad really that America as come to this

Yes its incredibly sad that 12,000 isn't enough for some people to wake the fuck up. Do we need 20,000 dead annually before we start making serious changes?

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 25 2008, 23.39)

It not guns it some deeper in culture. Aside from that what happens to farmer you need guns? the ten of thousands of people whos life style inovles shoting sport? The hunting Culture of Native Alaska(Culute and the righ to that culural evoles)? People such as the Swiss have shown that guns can be used lawfully by people

It may be some inherent cultural flaw, but until you find a way to fix that flaw, we're left to fix the obvious. That a hell of alot less people would be able to meaningfully act upon their collective 'flaws' if guns were not so abundant and available. Thereby saving a shitload of lives. And call me crazy, but I think several thousand less murders more than makes up for the loss of a hobby or two. And we wouldn't really have to do away with it. Make guns rentable at certain highly regulated locations so that people can go there for leisure, target shooting, sport shooting, or hunting, or whatever. Those are minor concerns in the grand scheme of things that can be ironed out in the details. They are not a counter-argument.

And the Swiss are irrelevant. So are the Canadians. And anyone else with alot of guns but few gun murders. They clearly have little problem with them. We do. So we must act upon that problem.

QUOTE (Commodore @ Dec 25 2008, 23.56)

In a free society....

In a sane society you fix the glaring problems when they arise.

QUOTE (Jacen @ Dec 26 2008, 23.58)

it is a constitutional right (some may argue about the phrasing and intent, but as it is interpreted now you have the right to be armed)

A constitutional right that was suddenly 'discovered' all of a year ago by a conservative stacked court.

QUOTE (Jacen @ Dec 26 2008, 23.58)

How many millions of guns are already in this country? A gun can remain operable for a very long time if properly cared for. Most of the people that own them are going to keep them, I don't care what the penalty is. And that other right we have, that the police cannot enter your home and search it without a warrant, are they going to ignore that to find all the guns?

To confirm the paranoid ravings of NRA types, we'll take their registration lists to get warrants and break down their doors if they're not checked off our list as voluntarily surrendering the weapons. Or if that creates too much trouble, we can just make the penalty for being found with a weapon so severe that it deters them from ever bringing the things out of the house. Same basic effect. They can defiantly thump their chest at the 'tyrannical government' but if a cop happens to see a glock in their glovebox while they're fumbling for their registration at a traffic stop, they're fucked. The knowledge of this will keep most of them at home.

QUOTE (Jacen @ Dec 26 2008, 23.58)

Then of course, if guns were outlawed there would be a massive and thriving illegal gun trade that would spring up overnight. The profits and crime associated with gunrunning in America would probably rival the scope of the drug wars (another tough issue I don't have a clue how to solve)

Guns are big and bulky. It also takes significant industry to produce them in mass. They can't be smuggled in all the little nooks and crannies that a powder drug can. Yes there will be an illicit trade, but no it won't come close to rivaling the drug trade. The logistics of it are simply far more prohibitive. The existing guns would be a much bigger problem than the trickle of new guns created. The goal isn't to wipe them out completely, but to make them as inaccessible as possible. And an all out ban along the lines stated will eventually make them prohibitively expensive for your average street thug. The number of people with access will be far fewer.

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 00.06)

EHK was the one who put forward the idea of a total ban.

I'm in favor of keeping shotguns and rifles conditionally. Right now handguns are the major threat. Get rid of them. If other, more available guns than take up the slack in gun crimes, than we readdress the issue. Though I suspect they probably won't. Alot harder to conceal a 12 gauge.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 00.47)

Humans have been killing other humans mercilessly for thousands of years. The only things that have changed is the methods of killing each other. What would be the point in taking away guns?

Its really quite disturbing how many times this rather simple, self-evident argument must be made. Guns are infinitely more lethal than anything else out there. Period. They will not be killing at the same level with homemade bombs, knives, bats, or clubs. A sword is not as good as a Desert Eagle. Anyone who suggests such idiocy should have some sense bitchslapped into them. People will still be killing eachother in a mostly gun-free society. They'd simply be killing eachother a whole hell of alot fucking less.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 00.47)

why take away the rights of millions of people to save the lives of a few? I mean....that's typically the argument we get against homeland security and every other attempt to take away our rights in the name of safety. It's not worth it taking away the rights and freedoms of the people to hypothetically prevent the death of a few, when you set that precedent there's nothing the government can't do in the name of safety.....and without our guns we won't be able to stop them anyway

States take away a whole shitload of rights with limited complaint? You don't have the right to kill yourself. You don't have the right to ingest whatever substances you like. Why do we do such things? Apparently to prevent death and suffering to a few...or some shit. What's the difference here? A line in the Constitution that doesn't say what a bunch of gun nuts think it says? Hell, at least in the cases of drugs and suicide noone elses rights are being violated by usage.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 00.47)

BTW, I disagree with your notion that it's easy to run away from people with knives or to defend yourself. After all, 4 planes were hijacked with frackin' box cutters.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 03.32)

Guns are only dangerous in the hands of psychopathic assholes with no regard to life.

This was a family man with no criminal record, nor history of violence. Thus far, he doesn't appear to fit the profile of a psychopath. Neither do, I suspect, most people who shoot someone else. Some people simply snap. And when they do, its better if they don't have a bunch of guns handy.

QUOTE (Ser Greguh @ Dec 26 2008, 11.15)

Sigh. This idiotic misrepresentation again.

Yes, it is trivially obvious that a sword is not as "good" as a Desert Eagle when it comes to the act of killing. Quit treating people who shun your fascist tendencies as if we did not know this. We do. If placed in a situation where I was to wager on the person holding a sword or the person holding the Desert Eagle, I go with the Desert Eagle no matter what odds I'm being offered.

But it only fucking matters when it's one against the other. Against someone who's not armed, either one will get the job done, so if it's armed vs. unarmed, what the fuck difference does it make? Had this son of a bitch shown up at the Christmas party with a saber, are you really saying the end result would have been different? For that matter, if you only want to go after handguns, are you saying in this particular instance that a shotgun would have been ineffectual?

Talk about REALLY not fucking getting it. What is so hard to grasp about this concept? It doesn't matter if the other people are armed with knives or twinkies, if the attacker has a gun he's gonna be infinitely more lethal. Yes the outcome of the Christmas party would've been different. People can outrun a lone guy with a blade. They cannot outrun bullets. Someone with a knife or sword is easier to physically overcome, either unarmed or with whatever random objects are handy. The wounds inflicted are less likely to be immediately lethal. Stab wounds are on average less severe than gunshot wounds. A bullet impacting the chest at thousands of feet per second rearranges the fuck out of the insides, a stab wound? Not so much.

Any 'knifing spree' is gonna have a fraction of the death toll of a shooting spree. And just the mere knowledge of the vulnerability and lesser effectiveness of the 'knife rampager' would be enough to deter some from even trying it. A gun can make even the tiniest pipsqueak feel like an invulnerable badass....a knife ain't having the same effect. This is about as obvious as it gets. I can't really believe that the matter is in dispute. As for the shotgun/handgun, the vast majority of gun murders are caused by handguns. Easier to conceal and all. Attack the major problem first. If shotguns become the tool of choice in their absence and murder rates don't significantly drop than we readdress them.

QUOTE (Ser Greguh @ Dec 26 2008, 11.15)

If it's really true that guns = murders, how the fuck do you explain a culture like Switzerland, which has among the highest gun ownership rate in the world but a virtually nonexistent murder rate? How do you explain how in the Middle Ages, long before the invention of the gun, people were slaughtering each other in numbers that make inner city Baltimore look like an idyllic paradise? How do you explain the Assyrians? The Mongols? Should we ban the bow and arrow, too?

I don't have to explain it. They're completely irrelevant. Switzerland doesn't have a gun problem. We do. That's as far as the analysis needs to go. Unless you can find and fix the flaw in our culture that makes us too irresponsible to have guns, than we can only fix the obvious. The guns themselves. This is another one of those baffling arguments. Some countries don't have the same problems we do therefore our problem doesn't exist or its not the problem that most sensible people think it is. That's like California saying that South Carolina doesn't have earthquakes, so we shouldn't bother with earthquake resistant buildings. Or Japan noting that Chicago doesn't have tsunami's, so we shouldn't build walls to prevent them ourselves. You address the problems that your country, people, and society have. If you don't have that particular problem, you move on to something else. We very clearly have a gun problem. Therefore we should address it. Not point our fingers at countries that don't have such problems.

And the rest of your paragraph is just silly. Comparing warfare and state organized slaughter to petty crime. Laughable.

QUOTE (Ser Greguh @ Dec 26 2008, 11.15)

Your argument is staggeringly nonsensical.

The irony in this statement is astounding.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 14.45)

Most guns used in drive-bys aren't legally acquired. And trust me, banning guns won't stop drive bys. The mob, gangs, and any other groups who do such things....they will always be able to get their hands on guns.

Yes. It will. For most of them anyway. Under an all out ban the guns would be prohibitively expensive for your average street thug. No amount of smuggling or black market will make up for the MASSIVE reduction in gun production from the elimination of the businesses and factories that are producing them legally now. The enormous penalties for even being found with one would take care of alot more. Your mid to low level criminal thug doesn't make that much money. And in either case, it'd make them less likely to dispose of murder weapons due to the high cost, making the job of law enforcement a tad bit easier.

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 18.34)

What it means is there very well may be an important factor that makes all the differance some thing that may not be sloved by a gun ban and therefor it more important to get to that core matter an deal with it

Sure it does. But we're not able to reliably identify those factors let alone actually address them. I mean what's the solution? Banning FPS video games? Eliminating the western? Altering our societal predisposition towards rugged individualism? Look, I'm all for working towards that cultural solution. But until we figure out how to manage that level of social engineering (and what aspects exactly need to be engineered), how about we deal with the blatantly obvious in the interim? We have 12,000 deaths per year caused by guns. That number would be alot less with the severe curtailment of guns. So get rid of them. If we ever solve the 'core of the matter', maybe we'll be a responsible enough people to get them back someday.

QUOTE (Saurian @ Dec 26 2008, 19.01)

despite where you stand on the issue of weapons regulation or on weapons themselves.

These were just the tools by which this insanity was carried out. The true issue is the insanity.
Sure we can call this guy a coward, and toss aside any need to give him a moments thought.

This guy was obviously suffering. there was no violent or criminal history with this man (as far as I've read) The Question is, what breaks a man to the point where he sees no other alternative action.

Yeah that is the question. We have no answer. We're not likely to get a reliable, indisputable answer anytime in the foreseeable future. And any answer that we do get is unlikely to have a simple solution that can be applied at a societal level. But we do know that these 'broken down people' and your ordinary criminals as well are a hell of alot less effective and destructive with more limited tools. Until you find a means to identify the broken hearts and minds, and to fix the cultural flaws that lead to our propensity for murder, how about we simply make it more difficult for them to murder in the first place?

QUOTE (Saurian @ Dec 26 2008, 19.01)

and in this case gun control isn't the answer.

Ummm...yes it is. Because controlling guns is straight-forward. Its a problem we can easily identify and directly address. This is like the people who say that the problem of failing students is primarily due to environment and/or bad parenting. Yeah that might be the case, but it doesn't do us any good. Noone has a solution by which the state can fix parenting. And outside of the more serious cases of child abuse, most people would be pretty horrified if the state even tried to seriously intervene in how someone raises their kids. But they do control schools and so they're stuck simply trying to improve them.

QUOTE (Saurian @ Dec 26 2008, 19.01)

This man may be beyond any kind of redemption. But surely the reason(s) should be explored by someone. it should simply never happen again. I don't mean to offend. But to me. Talking about gun control in relation to this tragedy. is like putting on a bandage to cure the flu.

Gun control is the only significant, tangible step that can be taken to address such problems. How do you identify these 'troubled people' on a societal scale? How do you treat them? How do you neutralize the threat they may represent without essentially criminalizing an individual for crimes that have not been committed? I mean forcing someone to go to a psychiatrist because they've had hard times and MIGHT potentially react violently sounds pretty damned Orwellian. All we can deal with are the tools by which some people might cause alot of damage with. Until we figure out the other shit, that is the only realizable, effective solution.

QUOTE (EHK @ Dec 26 2008, 00.28)

Yes its incredibly sad that 12,000 isn't enough for some people to wake the fuck up. Do we need 20,000 dead annually before we start making serious changes?

It not guns it some deeper in culture. Aside from that what happens to farmer you need guns? the ten of thousands of people whos life style inovles shoting sport? The hunting Culture of Native Alaska(Culute and the righ to that culural evoles)? People such as the Swiss have shown that guns can be used lawfully by people

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 05.39)

People such as the Swiss have shown that guns can be used lawfully by people

The Swiss model of gun ownership - based on a genuine militia army consisting of all males in the country aged between 20 and 30 - is basically a licence for domestic violence, and probably will remain so until the Swiss army becomes unisex and wives can threaten to shoot their husbands too. Following the murder of Corinne Rey Bellet by her husband in 2006, ammunition is no longer provided with the guns, and further restrictions are coming in with Schengen.

QUOTE (Eloisa @ Dec 26 2008, 17.44)

The Swiss model of gun ownership - based on a genuine militia army consisting of all males in the country aged between 20 and 30

In the US every male citizan from 18-45with a few expections is a member of Militia a genuine portection that stop Japan from invanting America because they know that freeman would win the war

What the fuck did you just say?

QUOTE (Shryke @ Dec 26 2008, 20.19)

What the fuck did you just say?

I saiud the Japaness did not invade the US when the could have because the the FACT that every man between the ages of 18-45 is a member of Milatia and that freeman would have fought for America and can because they are not disarmed like in Europe

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 21.25)

I saiud the Japaness did not invade the US when the could have because the the FACT that every man between the ages of 18-45 is a member of Milatia and that freeman would have fought for America and can because they are not disarmed like in Europe

Ok, that's what I thought you said.

QUOTE (Shryke @ Dec 26 2008, 20.33)

Ok, that's what I thought you said.

Why that so funny Hitler didn't attack the Swiss only teh disarmed nations Admiral Yamonto him self spoke to the danger of army citizens agist a attack
" You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." Case Closed. Think of how different things would have been had the people of Europe not been disarmed

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 20.33)

I saiud the Japaness did not invade the US when the could have because the the FACT that every man between the ages of 18-45 is a member of Milatia and that freeman would have fought for America and can because they are not disarmed like in Europe

Wait, seriously? We're talking about the Second World War that actually happened, right?

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 20.39)

Case Closed.

...

QUOTE (Lord of the North @ Dec 26 2008, 20.39)

Wait, seriously? We're talking about the Second World War that actually happened, right?

In the early going in would have been possable for Japan to invade but they did not because of this fear

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 20.46)

Japan war goals were reall more to knock out the US Fleet and given them control of the sealanes

I'm not exactly sure why I need to tell you this, or why I even care, but just so you know - Japan was never in a position to realistically invade and occupy the mainland United States (Attu doesn't count). This also has nothing to do with Santa Claus or Gun Ownership. Striking fear into the hearts and minds of Japanese and Germans is not a valid reason for the widespread ownership of firearms.

QUOTE (Lord of the North @ Dec 26 2008, 18.49)

I'm not exactly sure why I need to tell you this.

A number of place I've read state otherwise

QUOTE (Lord of the North @ Dec 26 2008, 18.49)

Striking fear into the hearts and minds of Japanese and Germans is not a valid reason for the widespread ownership of firearms.

keep america free is at the core of gun ownership