Stabbings vs Shootings, Warning: about killing and death!

[Stuart G]

A nut goes into a church and kills 2, (with a gun) and puts one in life threatening condition
A nut goes into a temple and stabs 2 into critical condition and one into the hospital
____________________________________________________________________________

Yes, there are nuts and vicious people everywhere, who will do anything anytime. Guns and knives do indeed kill. But the availability of guns allows for more killings then other weapons. It is easier, quicker, and you don't have to get close to your victim with a gun. Shoot from afar. If you are going to kill with a knife, well you got to stab him/her correctly. Victim could fight back. Waving a knife from afar does nothing.

Knives and guns are equally available to nuts. If we outlawed guns, there would be less killings in the U.S.A. then there are now. Why? Much harder to kill with a knife. Awful, but true.

[braddy]

1. The bad guys will come to love the 3D printer.

[Amishman]

22. Unfortunately this is true, the genie is out of the bottle in so many ways

We have 450 million of the things in circulation, and no registry of who owns them. And that number is rising by over a million every month.

It is becoming easier to make them at home as technology improves.

We have half the country refusing to do anything - just look at VA, 90% of the counties have now signed ordinances prohibiting the enforcement of the new gun safety measures that the incoming Democratic majority has promised.

There is no easy answer on this. At least red flag laws are becoming common, which is one of the more viable direct ways of addressing the issue.

I also really want to see extremely tight controls on drones before that is too far gone as well. The potential for weaponizing larger drones is terrifying.

Same for security controls on self driving vehicles. Technology is getting better and the dangers from misuse rise with it. But our bodies are just as fragile as ever.

[braddy]

23. We need to find out what we have done wrong with people, when I was a kid we had knives in school,

guns in our cars, kids in the gun club carrying their guns in, as little children we could walk down the street with our guns as we took it somewhere. focusing on metal tools is to keep us from examining what we have done to destroy our families, marriages, values and communities.

[Amishman]

24. Income inequality and an ever more stressful modern life

Wages aren't keeping up, people are effectively poorer every year. It stresses us out and wears us down.

50 years ago a typical family could at least get by on one average income. Now it takes two incomes to tread water, and often some sort of second job or side gig to get ahead.

Suicide rates are climbing too, another symptom of the same tension and despair. Rampant substance abuse as an escape from reality ties into this as well.

Income inequality and the ever increasing concentration of wealth is literally killing us.

[braddy]

27. That is just repeating the same old same old that created this in the first place, my very point.

[Drahthaardogs]

38. Nah,

I grew up in a dirt poor mining town. We had Hunter's education class after school in 7th grade. Kids brought their .22's to school. We were all dirt poor and are Reagan cheese!

I agree the social Injustice is bad, I don't believe it has ANYTHING to do with mass shootings. I think it's more social related and what people accept today as "acceptable" behavior.

[maxsolomon]

33. Have you priced 3D printers?

Just because there is a theoretical work-around doesn't mean it will become common.

I don't see, for instance, many teenagers in Chicago turf battles acquiring handguns that way. Drug users planning rural home-invasion robberies? Again, unlikely.

Possible =/= Probable.

[braddy]

37. Like everything it will become cheap and common and gangs and criminals will make their own or buy

from others who will make them. Criminals steal what they want or buy what they want from other criminals and countries who supply things, it sort of describes how the criminal world functions.

Want some drugs from any of the far corners of the earth, or from a local lab, criminals operate that supply system and to be able to do it in their own apartments and houses is even more convenient for them.

3D printing will become common.

"“The Internet Effect” with 3D Printing

The same effect will apply to 3D printing in the future: The power to make will be democratized. More people will be able to make more things. Just like the Internet, there will be limitations — few people will be able to print life-size passenger planes from their garage — but there are mountains of changes that are just waiting to be explored."

[maxsolomon]

39. Theoretically, sure.

That's not where we are today.

A future possibility is not a reason to give up on closing the Gun Show purchasing loophole, or extending waiting times to the point where they make an impact, say to 6 months.

[braddy]

40. 3D printers are hardly fantasy while overthrowing the Constitution and removing 450 million current

American guns, future guns being smuggled in to criminals from any where on planet earth, criminals making their own, and 3D guns not becoming more current than they are right now in the next 10 and 20 years, is fantasy.

[maxsolomon]

44. What politician with power is proposing that fantasy as policy?

People are in despair over senseless gun violence, and the "ban them all" reaction is an expression of that frustration.

20 CHILDREN AT SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY GOT MURDERED AND AMERICA SHRUGGED, THEN SAID THEIR PARENTS FAKED IT. That's where we are. I'm not going to worry about slippery slope fantasies like "bad guys" and 3D printed guns.

"450 million current American guns" make that fear moot.

[abqtommy]

2. Let's throw some good mental health practices into the mix too. A lot of people can be

treated to reduce their violent natures and that's a win too.

[Stuart G]

3. I totally agree. Good mental health practices, as well as free availability to all everywhere,

certainly will help with this problem. Further, if this were a "National System of Mental Health" and it was well known by everyone, then that also would reduce violence of this kind. People in need would often need transportation to get that help, and that would be also provided. Some states and localities have that, but it is not nationwide. Also, that one fact, that this is not "nationwide" and not available to all is sad about the U.S.A.

[aikoaiko]

4. Why not outlaw knives, too?

Why not if its about saving lives.

[Stuart G]

5. The purpose of a knife is not to kill, the only purpose of a gun is "to kill." (that is why)

[aikoaiko]

7. Guns are used for other purposes besides killing.

There are the recreational and competitive shooting gun owners.


I will concede that the ability to kill a person or another animal is a prime rationale for most designs.

[Sonny Mirviss]

16. My grandmother used her butcher knife to slice the throats of chickens

To prepare the best oven roasted chicken that you've ever had.

Then she used her carving 🔪 to serve it.

[braddy]

14. Countless knives and edged weapons are designed only to kill, while countless others are like guns

, they have multiple uses, that is why the military still issues knives for war, and soldiers spend up to many hundreds of their own money on knives, tomahawks, etc.

[Marengo]

19. My Fairbairn-Sykes is the first I reach for when cutting veggies in the kitchen...

You’re not as well versed in this subject as you think yourself to be.

[malaise]

21. Correct

Guns were made to kill

[SCantiGOP]

6. And the other major difference:

You can’t kill someone from 20 feet or 100 yards away with a knife.

[Archae]

9. I used to know a guy who was a good knife thrower.

So it is possible to kill with a knife 20 feet away.

A hundred yards? You're right there.

[SCantiGOP]

17. I was thinking stabby stabby

not throwing.
But, you would be out of knife after throwing it.

BTW, the top line is how Dinklage summarized Game of Thrones:
Stabby, stabby, sex, stabby.

[maxsolomon]

32. Happens all the time in the movies and on the teevee, right?

Possible =/= Probable.

[Hoyt]

8. I wondered which gunner would carry the water against the OP's righteous point.

[aikoaiko]

12. and good evening to you, too, Hoyt.

I'm just having my fun.

Its not like removing all non-leo firearms is possible.

[maxsolomon]

35. So fun!

Other's powerless despair over senseless firearm deaths is fun for you?

[aikoaiko]

41. Not at all. To quote you...

...."Every time someone posts about "outlawing" or "banning" firearms entirely, every DU Gunner collectively rolls their eyes at their naivete. I don't have a gun, and I roll my eyes."

By the way, I think regulation is the way to go, too.

I'm against gun bans, but pro-gun ownership regulation.

[hunter]

28. I once fought off a guy with a knife and have a wicked scar on my arm from that.

If the guy had had a gun I might not be here.

I've been threatened by people holding knives, and people holding guns.

Guns are scarier.

My young adulthood was a little rough.

In any case, gun fetishes are disgusting.

I don't let anyone I'd care to shoot live in my head.

"Self defense" is a stupid reason to keep a gun.

Once the guns come out everything is FUBAR.

[hack89]

10. Why not?

Are you going to use the war on drugs as your model or Prohibition?

[Midnight Writer]

11. If you were to ask me, I would use the model of licensing cars and driver's licenses.

[hack89]

13. Hard to conceal a car

Not so much for a gun. There are millions of illegal guns carried in public daily completely undetected. How does requiring a license fix that problem?

[Midnight Writer]

15. Millions of Americans drive drunk everyday. Should that not be regulated, folk will do it anyway?

[hack89]

25. People don't deliberately chose to break the law and drive drunk

Therefore DUI laws have some deterrent value for the general population. Criminals and mass shooters will not be deterred by a license requirement- if you are willing to kill someone then why give a shitabouta license? Especially if you already banned by law from owning a gun?

[herding cats]

18. How does requiring a license hurt that problem?

I've never seen anyone explain that.

When an illegal/unlicensed gun is found in the system, years down the road after implementing such, it'll be easier to be removed. That's a win even if it's going to take decades to undo the damage done to this point. We have to start someplace.

For what it's worth I also think some felons (nonviolent only) should have a federal path back to legal gun ownership. I'm not anti gun, but our current laws aren't working, and are designed to foster a culture of pitting sensible people against two other extremes. Which, thus far, has been an abysmal failure. That is unless you're one of the people who, in various way, is profiting from the current culture. They're winning the day at the express expense of innocent people's lives and a destruction of our society.

Every single person who owns a gun should be licensed and required to take a gun safety class. Like drivers education and a license to drive a vehicle, except more so. Self regulation on responsibility just doesn't work. Sadly, it never has and never will.

Purchase a gun, take a safety class and then register your firearm before taking possession. This is how it should work.

[hack89]

26. A license means nothing to a felon, mass shooter or someone that is suicidal

The first because they can't legally own guns in the first place, the other two because a license won't stop them. So how does a license prevent gun deaths? Those that are eligible and go through all the steps to get one are as law abiding as you can hope for. It's all the others that are not eligible or don't care that don't care who are the dangerous ones.

[needledriver]

50. Great! Let's make cars and guns equal.

My state gun license and registration would be good in all 50 states. I could take my firearms anywhere in the US and use them for any legal purpose with no restrictions. My car license lets me drive everything from a four cylinder economy car to a sixteen cylinder 200 + mph supercar, so my gun license should let me shoot anything from a bolt action single shot to the fastest firing fully automatic firearm. Nobody bans cars because they have cosmetic features like spoilers and racing stripes, so we can stop banning cosmetic features of firearms like pistol grips and bayonet lugs, and it would be silly to ban a car if it had over a ten gallon tank, so we can get rid of bans on magazines over ten rounds. Just like my driver's license my gun license would permit me to me own and operate as many firearms as I care to afford. If I want to upgrade to drive big rigs or motorcycles, I take the course and pass the test and I get the endorsements on my license, just like if I want to upgrade to breech loading cannon or destructive devices. And - if I don't use my car on public roads and use it on private property only, I don't need to register it, so if I only use my firearms on private property I don't need to register them, either.

Is this really what you want?

[dware]

20. Guns are never going to be outlawed in this country,

that's just a plain, simple fact.

[hunter]

29. Slavery is never going to be outlawed in this country.

Drunk driving is never going to be outlawed in this country.

Smoking in public places is never going to be outlawed in this country.

That's just a plain, simple fact.

Oh wait...

The current interpretation of the second amendment is bullshit, just as slavery, drunk driving, and smoking in public places are bullshit.

Public opinion will turn against gun fetishists, they will be scorned just as drunk drivers are now scorned, and the law will follow.

[maxsolomon]

31. It's been 40 years since the "Cincinnati Revolution"

when Lapierre's ilk took over the NRA and began the campaign to liberalize Firearm regulation.

If public opinion is turning, it will take another 40 until the law follows.

[hunter]

43. The rejection of drunk driving was quicker than that, less than a decade.

Cops went from making sure drunk drivers got home safely to taking them to jail and impounding their cars, literally overnight once the law caught up to public opinion.

[maxsolomon]

45. Guns aren't Drunk Driving.

There's no quasi-religion built up around it. It's not mentioned as a right in the Constitution.

[hunter]

46. As I've said, the second amendment is bullshit, just as constitutional slavery was bullshit.

Times change, we recognize the horrors of our old ways.

We live in a nation where any idiot can have a gun and many do.

That's simply not acceptable; not any more than owning slaves is acceptable, or drunk driving is acceptable.

[maxsolomon]

47. You think it will happen quickly; I don't.

I don't think this tide will ebb while I'm alive (currently scheduled through 20450). The machinery that maintains the delusion is entrenched.

But we agree; the 2nd Am. is anachronistic bullshit.

[hunter]

48. Most U.S. Americans don't care enough about guns to bother owning one.

That doesn't bode well for the gun lobby.

[dware]

42. Ok, whatever,

you keep on believing that.

[maxsolomon]

30. REGULATE firearms WELL. It's right there in the Amendment.

We're not going to "outlaw" firearms, for Christ's sake. It's too late; the cat's out of the bag.

Every time someone posts about "outlawing" or "banning" firearms entirely, every DU Gunner collectively rolls their eyes at their naivete. I don't have a gun, and I roll my eyes.

Gun possession needs come with RESPONSIBILITY, to be REGULATED, including Militia duties as a condition of possession. 6 month waiting periods for 1st purchases, and 2 weekends a year marching about in the hot sun ought to weed a few (not all) nut cases.

[dustyscamp]

34. A lot of Sheriffs n sellers keep refusing to enforce firearm regulations though

The RWNJs will keep voting them in every chance they get. I don't know how we can make sure lawmen keep following the laws they are supposed to be upholding

[maxsolomon]

36. Temporary problem.

Eventually they will come into line with State Regulations - those that pass through Judicial reviews.

[needledriver]

49. You are absolutely right.

The Second Amendment clearly states "the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."