At least 10 wounded in Kent car show shootings

[Boudica the Lyoness]

Source: Seattle PI

KENT -- At least 10 people were injured in a mass shooting Saturday afternoon that may have started with an argument over a paint job at a low-rider car show off Pacific Highway.
Police would not confirm what the argument was about, but said the gunfire erupted when a fight broke out among some of the people at the car show.
Police and medics raced to the scene, in the 23200 block of Pacific Highway, as multiple reports of casualties poured in at about 4:15 p.m.
Eight of the victims were rushed to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, arriving in a steady stream with numbers scrawled on their arms and foreheads with black marker. Two of the victims drove themselves to the hospital.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/article/At-least-10-wounded-in-Kent-car-show-shootings-1558322.php

[aquart]

1. Busy weekend for the gun lobby.

[The Straight Story]

52. Yeah, maybe only bush, cops, and people in govt should have guns - their history with them?

well, it is a lot worse than citizens with guns.

But hey- we need to start being afraid of each other, give up rights and power to the wealthy elected folks, and they will sure to take care of us and make us safe.

Cause in the big picture, your real enemy is your neighbor and those guys in ties are your friends.

[ileus]

63. Go prepared....safety first I always say.

Never leave home without your most trusted safety device.

[handmade34]

2. add this...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14265952

'Five dead' at Texas skating rink party shooting

"At least five people have been killed and three injured in a shooting at a roller-skating rink birthday party in Texas, police say.

The shooting happened after an argument erupted at the party in the city of Grand Prairie, close to Dallas.

The gunman is among the dead, having shot himself after opening fire on fellow guests, police say..."

[krispos42]

6. Rick Perry must be loving the map they included

[harmonicon]

9. oh, man....

such not a funny situation, but such an unintentionally funny graphic. my god... I may need to save that.

[petronius]

42. Thanks! I'm saving that one for my GIS classes as a what-not-to-do example...

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

23. wow - Right wing nutters & right wing gun nutters

have totally jumped the sanity shark. Their souls are just saturated and polluted with fear.

[snooper2]

75. I don't have any clue what the guys politics were, but he hated his in-laws

He orderd all the kids out of the party area and started opening fire

[HankyDubs]

3. by the time the gungeon crowd gets done with this

they'll be explaining that if only more guns had been on the scene, none of this would have happened.

[Plucketeer]

5. They must be off at gun shows

Usually by now, there'd be a least a couple here to explain how we should all be "packin'" to prevent irritations like these! :crazy:

[Tejas]

13. I'm sure the grieving relatives agree with you.

There's no way they would want their loved ones to have had a fighting chance.

[Plucketeer]

24. Yeah

I can easily visualize those kids swimming with the Glocks on. It's really disgraceful that Giffords and her unfortunate gathering weren't packin' and could've cooly reciprocated when Loughner started sprayin' lead. Of course, like soldiers in a rice paddy - everybody's locked and loaded 24/7. AND, of course, their counter-fire would ALWAYS find it's mark, instead of innocent bystanders. Kinda cracks me up when folks ASSume that bullets only ever find their intended targets or fall harmlessly without collateral damage.

[HankyDubs]

25. "make my day"

Some people have seen waaaaaaaaay too many movies. I like Charles Bronson as much as the next fella, but I don't confuse movies with real life.

[Plucketeer]

27. Amen to that!

:thumbsup:

[RSillsbee]

10. How much do you want to bet

that there were no legal gun owners involved in this?

[Tesha]

15. What difference does that make to the dead? (NT)

[RSillsbee]

22. I'm sure it makes no difference

but that wasn't my point and you know it.

Why would you restrict my right to self defense because of the actions of a criminal?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

48. To the dead? What dead?

Did anybody die in this shootout?

And I'd be surprised if all those guns were legal.

Anyway, this fight was probably intentional. If I'm at a car show, I don't usually seek out a car's owner to tell him how much his paintjob sucks. That seems like bad manners.

:hi:

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RSillsbee]

21. No, they're not too thick

No one ever said the antis were dumb. They understand my point they just ignore it

[LanternWaste]

76. I often ignore a wholly irrelevant and semi-academic point...

I often ignore a wholly irrelevant and semi-academic point in light of a relevant and non-academic tragedy. But again, we often focus on those things which better validate and (so we think) define us... :shrug:

[democratinnashville]

4. Just more proof

there is absolutely no need for gun control :sarcasm:

[hack89]

26. Care to bet none of the shooters were legal carriers?

criminal control is the real issue.

[flvegan]

7. Thank the Gods we can blame the Gun owners.

We have a point to make, and make it we shall!

[primavera]

30. If the Glock fits... - n/t

[Kablooie]

8. Guns don't kill people.

Gun owners kill people.

[harmonicon]

11. oh, god...

shit... the second post to make me laugh ... oh, and people are dead. How caring are we?

[Tejas]

14. Nutjobs kill people.

Ban guns, it's the best way to be sure that only nutjobs and criminals will have guns.

[brentspeak]

18. Nutjobs who easily obtain guns kill people n/t

[keopeli]

12. I'm the first person to criticize Texas and Texans, but there's nothing funny about this.

I'm not trying to scold anyone for being flip in their post here. It's easy for our minds to confuse tragedy with narrative in our culture, since we communicate through just a few private channels of information. Jokes, however irreverent, are allowed and even expected.

But don't forget the real story(s) here. People died, just like in Arizona.

Just remember the horrors ten years ago, when 3,000 people were killed at once.

There were few snide remarks then, not because we had resolved our political differences, but because we let go of the narrative and saw the real tragedy.

Five people are killed here.
Fifteen there.
A Congresswoman has her head blown through.
A doctor trying to help women; many, many women.

There's a lot more.

Several murderers (a.k.a. terrorists) killing false "villains" that are actually just normal Americans trying to make this a better place to live.

We have a fake "underground" media on radio that preys on people's fears to drive their profits, and a home for their misguided audience on cable t.v. as well.

We know what the problem is and the longer it takes us to turn our head away from the "Islamic Terror" of far, far away and focus on how to stop the increasing violence in our country...the longer the wars will last way over there in "Islamic" countries.

Peace

[freshwest]

36. Well said

[jpak]

16. The GOP/NRA wants guns everywhere by everybody all the time

This is what happens

yup

[friendly_iconoclast]

58. It's right there in The Protocols of The Elders of The National Rifle Association!

n/t

[brentspeak]

17. This weekend alone: mass shootings at a casino, a car show, and roller skating rink/birthday party

[hack89]

28. Yet gun violence is at a 50 year low and steadily declining.

you have never been safer.

[primavera]

29. With 30,000 bullet riddled American corpses a year...

... pardon me if I don't feel particularly safe.

[hack89]

31. More then half of those are suicides

It is very simple - most gun violence is caused by gangs and drugs. Look at any crime map and it is clear that gun violence is clustered in very specific areas - areas that funny enough, are associated with gangs and drug activities.

That tells me two things:

1. If you avoid those areas your chances getting shot are even lower.

2. We know what the real problem is. A two prong approach of decriminalizing drugs and the judicial system hammering violent offenders will get gun violence rates down to where you want them.

[primavera]

35. Actually, "we" don't know that to be the real problem

Much of gun-related violence is assuredly related to drugs and crime, and, to be sure, decriminalizing drug use would unquestionably help reduce gun violence. But drug crime is not responsible for 100% of gun violence. Even if we did decriminalize drug use, we would still have by far the highest per capita gun death rate of any developed nation. As for the efficacy of judges "hammering violent offenders," we already have some of the strictest sentencing guidelines in the world, we have by far the highest percentage of our population behind bars of any nation on earth, and how effective has that been at reducing gun violence?

[hack89]

37. But we know for certain that more guns is not the problem

since gun ownership has skyrocketed while gun violence has plummeted. Legal gun ownership is not the problem. If you are serious about gun violence, then I suggest you concentrate on the real problem - whatever that might be.

[primavera]

38. Not so sure about that either

First of all, I don't know that gun violence is "plummeting." CDC figures on gun deaths and injuries seem to be holding pretty steady at about 30K/year.

Secondly, even if gun violence is in decline, one would need to know what was causing that decline and in what measure before you could conclude that more guns wasn't affecting the statistic. To use a hypothetical for illustration purposes only, say that a revolutionary new gun safety device was responsible for a 50% reduction in gun deaths, but an increase in the overall number of guns was responsible for a 25% increase in the number of gun deaths. Under such a hypo, one could see an overall drop in gun deaths even though increased numbers of guns continued to increase the number of gun deaths. Again, this is just a hypo, I have no idea what is behind any drop there may have been in gun deaths. I'm merely observing that the increase in the number of guns may or may not be causal; it could just be coincidental.

Thirdly, even if increased numbers of guns did contribute to a bona fide reduction in the number of gun deaths, it would still be an uphill battle to prove that such a correlation could compete with the documented successes of the rest of the developed world that, one and all, have vastly stricter gun control laws than we do and, one and all, have vastly lower gun death rates than we do.

[hack89]

39. I am not saying that more guns led to lower crime

an impossible argument to make.

Here is the question you need to answer: What proportion of gun violence is committed by people that are legally entitled to own and carry guns? I suspect it is the vast majority - if not, then you would expect gun violence to increase as legal gun ownership increases. But it hasn't. So, if the real problem is criminals using illegal guns to commit violent crime then any law aimed at legal gun ownership is useless. In a nut shell - go after the criminals and leave us legal gun owners alone.

As for those other countries, lets not forget that our murder rate is skewed by drug violence. Those other countries have much more enlighten drug and social policies - they do not have large ghettos racked with constant drug violence. In Rhode Island, where I live, gun deaths and violence are tightly concentrated in the poorest urban neighborhoods. Moving from such a neighborhood just 10 miles to a new neighborhood could statistically drop your chances of getting shot to near zero. Criminals and drug gangs are the real problem - lets solve that first.

Gun violence is plummeting - instead of the CDC I suggest the FBI. They put out detail crime report every year:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

[primavera]

49. I hear you

And I agree wholeheartedly that the root causes of violence are things like poverty and social inequality, the frustrations that make people feel like the society in which they live is not responsive to their needs. Unfortunately, our society is extremely unfair and inequitable and gives rise to a great many people who, with good reason, tend to feel that way. That begs the question, to my mind, at least, of whether ours is a society that is capable of handling the responsibility of owning and using firearms safely and the empirical evidence seems to suggest that we are not. For the same reason you would not give an infant a flamethrower to play with, it may be the case that we as a society are not mature enough to be allowed to play with guns. And absolutely, any blanket policy is going to constrain those who are able to safely and responsibly use firearms - and I'm the first to admit that there are many such individuals - as well as keeping arms out of the hands of those who are not. But that's a common policy decision. We don't allow people to build bombs, either, to the curtailment of the rights of those who are trained to safely handle explosives, because the negative consequences to the majority of allowing every Tom, Dick, and Harry to own explosives would greatly outweigh the benefits to the minority of allowing free access to explosives. Sorry, c'est la vie, but until the alternative doesn't yield 30,000 corpses a year, as far as I'm concerned, at least, the personal freedom to play with guns is heavily outweighed by the personal need of those 30,000 people to not be filled with bullets.

[hack89]

54. What a patronizing and elitist attitude

since Americans are to immature to handle a civil right in a responsible manner, the government needs to restrict it for their own good? Is that really what you believe? Why don't we institute poll taxes and test to ensure people vote for the right people?

So you will strip a civil right from tens of millions because of the illegal actions of a tiny minority? With such a low threshold, why don't we really go after the problem and mandate no warrant pat downs of any young man in in a high crime area - think how many illegal guns that would bring in.

And what do you think about drunken driving - isn't the annual carnage pretty clear proof that "we as a society are not mature enough to be allowed to" buy and drink alcohol whenever we want? I am assuming you oppose this because, unlike a gun ban, it would impact you directly.

I am always amazed how gun control brings out the authoritarians here at DU - fortunately the Constitution was designed to protect America from people like you.

[primavera]

56. Oh please

Give me a break. We regulate personal behavior in a million ways to protect the general public (for instance, by making drinking and driving illegal, to name but one of many) and there is absolutely nothing unconstitutional about any of it. The only reason you object to regulating guns is because it would stand to impact a behavior that you happen to enjoy. Well, life's hard, I'm sure drunk drivers see value in their chosen behavior as well and feel terribly put upon by the undoubtedly unconstitutional encroachment upon their freedoms as Amurikans to do whatever they hell they damned well please. Get over it.

[hack89]

61. Not one of those things are civil rights

don't you understand the distinction?

I suggest you research the concept of Strict Scrutiny. It explains why guns are different then any of those other examples. It also explains why gun grabbers have been on such a losing streak for past 10 years.


btw - what limits do you wish to place on guns? For example, shall they be regulated exactly like cars?

[primavera]

64. Sure I understand the distinction

I just don't agree with you and Mad Dog Scalia that private gun ownership is a civil right the way that you and he have recently chosen to define it. No question, Scalia wears the robe and his word is the law of the land. Then again, the law of the land has at times been that slavery was a pretty cool thing, that genocide was entirely acceptable, and that women and ethnic minorities were subhuman who didn't deserve the same legal rights as white males did. In other words, the law of the land has frequently been wrong in the past, and it's wrong now. Since the law of the land was, up until recently, that what you describe as a fundamental civil liberty was, in fact, a statement upon the need to maintain well-regulated militias, your interpretation is not without conflicting historical interpretations. Given that the champions of your interpretation are the same rabid, right-wing justices who believe that Moranda is a waste of time, that corporations should be free to buy and sell politicians, that women don't deserve the same rights as men, and that it's okay for the court to appoint a president contrary to the voters' expressed wishes, along with a host of other seriously fucked-up rulings too numerous to list here, well, let's just say that you've picked some dubious champions for your cause. But you're right, of course, your viewpoint is shared by a handful of right-wing mental patients whom fate has placed on the Supreme Court, so we're stuck with your interpretation. I just don't happen to agree with it.

[hack89]

66. Too bad - your side lost. Get over it

it is the law of the land - it is not going to change for a very long time.

I think this is a good time to end this conversation.

[slackmaster]

44. A constant number of annual events in a population that is increasing...

...means a decreasing per-capita rate.

[primavera]

47. Granted

But our population isn't growing that fast and the rate of gun deaths has a long way to drop to get down to a level comparable to other developed nations.

[X_Digger]

50. On your last point.. ("Thirdly..")

You seem to be confusing correlation with causation..

If you look at crime rates over time and note the times when gun control measures were implemented, the correlation falls apart.

e.g. Look at the UK's crime rate from 1900-1950. There were significant gun regulation changes in the first and second decade. Did the murder rate go down? No, it continued to rise (the UK's murder rate was much lower than ours, before either country had any gun control.) 1880's London had a murder rate 1/5th that of NYC, when neither country had substantive gun control to speak of.

Additional measures in the UK to further tighten gun laws have not been followed by decreases in gun crime. In 1997 the process for acquiring a handgun was tightened to the point of impossibility. Yet it took until 2005-6 for the gun murder rate to get to the same levels as 1997.

It's an easy out to try to say, because many european nations have strict gun control and they have a lower gun death rate, one is the cause of the other.

Many european gun laws were passed in the wake of the first world war-- not to reduce crime, but to counter the masses of unemployed, disenfranchised youth who were looking at what was happening in Russia with some favor.

[primavera]

51. Policies rarely produce instantaneous results

No one ever said that restricting gun ownership would result in all guns magically disappearing overnight. At first, one would not expect such restrictions to have much of an impact at all, as there would still continue to be just as many guns out there as there always were. If restricting or banning guns, though, resulted in a steadily declining number of guns in the community and a steadily diminishing gun culture of persons who believed that guns were a normal and necessary part of their day to day lives, over time (by which I mean generations, not days or weeks or months), that could eventually produce the state of affairs that we now see in most of the developed world, i.e., where guns are rarities and few people die from them.

[X_Digger]

53. Should legislation take 10 years to show effect?

If so, I'd hesitate to say that it actually is the cause. In the UK, the rate of gun death actually *increased* after the handgun ban before peaking and coming back down. Other countries show a similar trend. Restrictions on gun ownership do not correlate to a drop in rate of gun homicides.

Paraphrasing President Clinton, "It's the people, stupid." It's not the implements they choose to use to harm one another, it's the frequency with which they do so, and the level of violence they attempt. The UK has an overall violent crime rate that's higher than ours. But they don't resort to homicidal violence as often. What makes you think that people who choose to commit lethal violence with guns would choose less-than-lethal alternatives were guns to be absent?

Additionally, what makes you believe that additional regulation would result in criminals having / using less guns? That smacks of the War on (Some) Drugs thinking- and yet 300-500 tons of cocaine enter the country every year. The demand for guns from the criminal element is a need driven equation, not a supply driven one.

[primavera]

55. No, for something like guns...

... I wouldn't expect to see much impact in less than 50 years.

Truly, there are a great many variables that go into social violence and, as I've stated in other posts, it is undisputed that much of the reason the rest of the developed world has lower violence rates (from guns or anything else) is because they don't embrace our every-man-for-himself cowboy approach to running a country, so there are far fewer disenfranchised persons.

Nevertheless, we have tried the "more guns make you safer" approach in this country since, well... pretty much always. In times of war and in times of peace, under Democratic administrations and under Republican administrations, in times of poverty and in times of prosperity, under pretty much every variation of circumstances that this country has ever experienced, the one constant throughout all is that we have cherished our guns and where has it brought us? We have by far the highest per capita gun violence rate of any developed nation on earth. I'd have to say, 250 years certainly seems like an adequate period of time to establish that private gun ownership can produce a society in which gun violence is a rarity and it has clearly failed to do so.

Meanwhile, every other developed country on earth has embraced a policy of heavy restrictions on gun ownership and what has it brought them? Every single one of them has a vastly lower per capita gun violence rate than we do. It did not take place overnight, to be sure, but the 100% success rate of those countries to have achieved over time the negligible gun violence rates that they presently enjoy suggests that they must be doing something right.

You are of course correct, there is no way to be 100% certain that the restrictions placed upon guns by other countries is responsible for the lower gun violence rates enjoyed by the rest of the world. It's impossible to prove 100% conclusively that gravity exists, but it seems to work often enough I'm willing to take it on faith. If the fact that every single country that adopts more rigorous gun control policies enjoys way, way, waaaay lower per capita gun violence rates than we have here in the land of free and easy access to guns is purely a coincidence, you gotta admit, it's one hell of a big coincidence.

Moreover, it just makes a certain amount of intuitive sense that fewer guns can fire fewer bullets and fewer bullets being fired would mean fewer bodies with bullets in them. True, that's just my instinctive feeling, but the alternative offered by gun proponents seems to be that more and more and more guns firing more and more and more bullets will somehow miraculously produce a situation in which no one ever actually gets hit by any of those bullets. I certainly could be wrong, but, I'm sorry, that just doesn't sound very plausible to me. And, again, it doesn't really seem to be working out that way in practice, neither now nor at any point during the 250 years that we've been going with the whole more guns is good philosophy. In the absence of any reason to expect that our dismal track record over the last 250 years will reverse itself in the future, it only seems reasonable to conclude that what we're doing, what we've been doing, isn't working and it's time we tried something else. What could be more natural than to look to the experience of the rest of the developed world that have succeeded in reducing their per capita gun violence rates to a bare minimum? It sure sounds reasonable enough to me.

[X_Digger]

59. Again, I think you've got a post hoc propter ergo hoc going on there..

Meanwhile, every other developed country on earth has embraced a policy of heavy restrictions on gun ownership and what has it brought them? Every single one of them has a vastly lower per capita gun violence rate than we do. It did not take place overnight, to be sure, but the 100% success rate of those countries to have achieved over time the negligible gun violence rates that they presently enjoy suggests that they must be doing something right.

One doesn't follow the other. The UK had a low gun violence rate before they implemented strong gun control. The same is true in many european countries.

You are of course correct, there is no way to be 100% certain that the restrictions placed upon guns by other countries is responsible for the lower gun violence rates enjoyed by the rest of the world. It's impossible to prove 100% conclusively that gravity exists, but it seems to work often enough I'm willing to take it on faith. If the fact that every single country that adopts more rigorous gun control policies enjoys way, way, waaaay lower per capita gun violence rates than we have here in the land of free and easy access to guns is purely a coincidence, you gotta admit, it's one hell of a big coincidence.

If this premise were true, then how do you explain the increase in the number of guns available, yet at the same time, a violent crime and murder rate not seen since the 1960's? You can't have it both ways.

Moreover, it just makes a certain amount of intuitive sense that fewer guns can fire fewer bullets and fewer bullets being fired would mean fewer bodies with bullets in them {ed-- 1}. True, that's just my instinctive feeling, but the alternative offered by gun proponents seems to be that more and more and more guns firing more and more and more bullets will somehow miraculously produce a situation in which no one ever actually gets hit by any of those bullets {ed-- 2}. I certainly could be wrong, but, I'm sorry, that just doesn't sound very plausible to me. And, again, it doesn't really seem to be working out that way in practice {ed-- 3}, neither now nor at any point during the 250 years that we've been going with the whole more guns is good philosophy. In the absence of any reason to expect that our dismal track record over the last 250 years will reverse itself in the future, it only seems reasonable to conclude that what we're doing, what we've been doing, isn't working and it's time we tried something else. What could be more natural than to look to the experience of the rest of the developed world that have succeeded in reducing their per capita gun violence rates to a bare minimum? {ed-- 4} It sure sounds reasonable enough to me.

Re #1 above-- it's not about the number, it's about the people. It's not the tool, it's the people who possess / use them for malicious purposes.

Re #2 -- that's a bit of a straw man. I don't see many posters at DU claiming that 'more guns = less crime'. Rather, there's a lot of (demonstrably true) statements like, 'more guns != more crime'. (See FBI's NICS check report as well as the UCR for the past 15 years.)

Re #3 -- again, see the FBI's crime stats.

Re #4 -- you're implying causation where none has been demonstrated. UK's gun murder rate was low before strong gun legislation was passed, and didn't drop after.

[primavera]

65. A thoughtful post

Your point about the rates of gun violence before and after implementation of restrictionist gun policies is an especially good one, if it's true. I confess, I don't know enough about the historical stats in Europe to be able to respond one way or the other on that point, I'll have to go look up the numbers and see what they say before I can respond responsibly to that. But definitely an interesting point and, I promise, I will go check it out, because that would be a strong point in support of your position if you're right.

But I can respond without the need for further research on a couple of the other points you made.

1. "It's not the tool, it's the people," aka, guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's the standard reply to this point, but I happen to agree with it: it may be people who kill each other, but they can kill each other a hell of a lot more effectively with guns than without guns, and, for that reason, the tool is material to the discussion.

2. I think gun proponents rely too heavily upon the claim that criminals and other "wrong people" having access to guns. The problem is, most of the people who go out and shoot up schools or whatever were, before they went on their killing sprees, lawful gun owners whose right to keep and bear arms gun proponents would fight to the death to defend. Then, the next day, after they've killed a bunch of people, gun proponents lean back and say "Well, sure, the guy was obviously crazy, see, that's exactly the sort of person we've always said should not be allowed to have a gun." How are you supposed to know in advance which person is a criminal or a crazy person who shouldn't be allowed to have a gun until they've used the gun and it's too late?

And on that note, I'm off to dinner. Have a good evening! :hi:

[X_Digger]

69. *nod* Don't take my word for it.

Unfortunately, there's not a single place to look for the information. The UK's home office was the ultimate source of crime figures, but you have to wade through their versions of fox news to figure that out.

Re 'the people v the tools'-- We have people who obviously place a lower value on a human life compared to other nations. That was true in NYC in the 1880's compared to London, and it's true today. Even if you remove every gun homicide in the US, our murder rate would still be higher than the UK and much of Europe (see the FBI data on homicide, weapon used.) I can't imagine all those gun homicides simply not happening. I'm sure that some level of weapon substitution would occur.

Re "wrong people" -- There are some 80M people who own some 300M guns (Gallup ownership poll + NICS checks data). The total number of guns used in crime + suicides + gun accidents? ~435,000. (US DOJ's Bureau of Justice and Statistics + CDC's WISQARS). Assuming every one of those incidents were committed by a different person, you'd still be only looking at 0.5% of all gun owners, or 0.1% of all guns. It's a rare gun owner or gun who is involved in crime, an accident, or a suicide.

Additionally, a large proportion of those who commit homicide have a previous criminal history- http://www.cardozolawreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=138:kates201086&catid=20:firearmsinc&Itemid=24

I make no excuses for the rogue evil / crazy person. There is little we can do, short of some pretty draconian social tinkering, that would stop a truly determined individual bent on mayhem. Until someone reaches the threshold of mental illness that justifies legal proceedings, there's not a lot we (as a society) can do. This is one area where method substitution comes into play. I'm reminded of the Happyland fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire), or the 2010 China school children massacres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_school_attacks).

And on that note, I'm off to dinner. Have a good evening!

You too!

[Missy Vixen]

40. You're perfectly safe till you're shot by someone else

More pro-NRA talking points!

:woohoo:

[hack89]

43. They are actually pro-FBI talking points

sorry to interject real facts into your world.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

You have never been safer and next year you will be even more safer. All the emoticons in the world can't change that simple FACT.

[Missy Vixen]

45. You've never met a fact you couldn't twist

I'm also betting I know scores more LEO's than you ever will. They all say the same thing: Most citizens SHOULD NOT have access to guns.

[hack89]

46. So we are to trust our civil rights to policemen? Men with guns?

That worked really well in the south, didn't it? Throughout US history, the cops have never been on the side of the oppressed and the downtrodden - they are tools of the power establishment. I could care less what they think about my civil rights. My civil rights are to protect me from people like them.

How about cutting the rhetoric and actually presenting your facts? Show everyone exactly how I twisted the truth. I bet you can't.

[Missy Vixen]

67. They're the ones that clean up after you and your little friends

Perhaps they should have some say in the matter. It's also comical you insist the ability to own a gun protects the "oppressed and downtrodden". We got a pretty good example day before yesterday in Norway, for instance, what happens when a gun falls into the hands of someone who believes that if he kills enough people, it will bring about societal change. I'll bet he's "oppressed and downtrodden". After all, taking on unarmed teenagers with nowhere to hide must have been tough for him.

Thirty-five miles from my house, six people lie in beds at Harborview Medical Center because someone decided he had the right to take them out. He wasn't "oppressed and downtrodden". He was jealous and angry. Of course, nobody ever shoots anyone else when they have a gun handy, and think that gun will solve their problems.

You've said to me in the past that your civil rights guarantee your ability to own a gun, and those of us who don't choose to pack don't have the equal civil right to live. You lost your ability to debate, right then. You've shown that your deadly little toys trump anyone else's right to safety. Therefore, you're not to be taken seriously. Ever.

[hack89]

70. You do not have the right to be safe from everything bad

There is no constitutional right to be safe from everything - there is a Constitutional right to bear arms. Made up civil rights don't count regardless of their intent. Your right to be safe from everything bad is a made up civil right.

The facts are simple - every year there are more guns yet every year there is less gun violence. I noticed you didn't even bother to dispute me on facts but went straight for the insults.

[Fastcars]

78. Ummmm.....

"You've shown that your deadly little toys trump anyone else's right to safety. Therefore, you're not to be taken seriously. Ever."

Couldn't the same argument be used against a multitude of things? High powered automobiles. Booze. Cigarettes. Fast boats. Anything that poses a danger to others if not used properly.

[LanternWaste]

73. feel very comforted by that...

I imagine the this weekend's victims feel very comforted by that...

[hack89]

74. I doubt that they would be.

It will never get to zero - no one is saying that. There will always be tragedies in life - that unfortunately is a simple fact of life.

[slackmaster]

32. All gang-related

:argh:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

33. and a shooting at Mormon Lake AZ during motorcycle rally (2 Broke 4 Sturgis)

Two men and one woman were killed at a campground at Mormon Lake Lodge, Blair said. Another woman from the same group was shot six times. She has been taken to Flagstaff Medical Center to undergo emergency surgery.

Read more: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/p-m-update-on-shooting-at-mormon-lake-during-motorcycle/article_0def71f8-b58d-11e0-b30e-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1T2gZPcQT

[slackmaster]

34. OK, I guess that one is technically "club"-related

[friendly_iconoclast]

72. As opposed to "La Raza" related?:

[Boudica the Lyoness]

20. 5 people injured in Wash. casino shooting

The Associated Press

AUBURN, Wash. —
Authorities say five people are hospitalized with gunshot wounds following a shooting in a casino near Seattle.

The dispatch center for the Auburn police department says the shooting occurred at a nightclub inside the Muckleshoot Casino about 1:30 a.m. PDT Sunday.

The center says the five victims were rushed to area hospitals, including at least two taken by air ambulance.

The alleged shooter was arrested.

Read more;
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015712480_apwacasinoshooting.html?syndication=rss

[Missy Vixen]

41. I'll bet this was more "gangs and drugs," right?

The list is getting long! Better stay out of parks/casinos/your home/campgrounds/grocery store parking lots if you want to avoid getting shot!

:eyes:

[friendly_iconoclast]

57. "Summer of the Shark" has become "Summer of the Gun"

Try having another go at post #43, and get back to us...

[Missy Vixen]

68. Considering there have been two separate incidents within 24

hours in the Seattle area, I have no interest in talking to the gun fetishists about any subject whatsoever.

I wish you joy in it.

I'm a strong believer in Karma as well.

[friendly_iconoclast]

71. Post #43 links to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports website.

You may or may not choose to read it- but I suppose if you're going to blame a group of people who didn't do it for something that

happened to another people you don't know, a position of willful ignorance helps...

[lonestarnot]

60. 3 killed and some critically injured in a shoot-out in northern AZ yesterday too.

[crim son]

62. Oh, more shootings:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4933538

[JackRiddler]

77. If only someone on the scene had been allowed to carry a gun!