To add to Brandon M's post:

Compare this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

To this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

No guns and people will do it with a knife:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-in-china.html

Granted, most of these kids are ok. But there are others that are not so lucky and they are outlined in that story. 

Gun laws are a touchy subject, but knee-jerk reactions are rarely the best reaction.

Jessige, I did not compare it to owning a fancy toy.

I was just pointing out the fallacy in vilifying this weapon just because it "looks" like an assault rifle. The way it looks has nothing to do with its functionality, as it is no more lethal than any other hunting rifle with an extended magazine. 

It just looks the way it does because that is what sells. The "tactical" look is popular among weapons these days, especially with the prepper crowd. 

If we are going to effectively legislate against certain weapons, we can't target something just because of the way it looks. That will not solve the problem. 

We need to target the function not the form.

I would like to point out that I personally enjoy firearms. I like to shoot, I like explosions, I like destruction in controlled environments. 

The problem with tragedies such as this one is we get one side knee-jerking and the other side jumping on the defensive. Neither reaction is constructive. 

As the President said: "If there's even one step we can take [...] then surely we have an obligation to try."  

This requires rational thought on both sides of the aisle, which is hard to do during a time when both are fraught with the emotion of a tragedy such as this.

Too many who wish to preserve the right to own a firearm jump to the the slippery slope mentality when looking at potential restrictions. Too many are wary of the government overtaking the people and without guns there is no protection from tyranny.

Too many who wish to limit the availability of firearms turn to chastising those who wish to protect the right. Too many point to the weapon as the prime culprit in the tragedy instead of the actions leading up to the tragedy. 

As with almost every political issue, most of us are hanging out in the middle of the political teeter-totter. We feel that gun control is important, but that we shouldn't ban all guns.  

But there are always going to be people that want to walk out to the ends of the teeter-totter just to jump up and down in an attempt to get everyone to lean to their side. This just causes more people to step out farther on the other side to balance, lest we tip over. 

Part of me wants to say "Let's all come together and sing Kumbaya!" but that is a little too cheesy for me. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that people on both sides of this debate have more in common in regards to their thought processes than we think and we should consider that when discussing this matter. Find common ground to start the conversation rather than jumping in with a stance that is set in stone. 

Probably could have said that without the rambling dissertation...

Bachmann's favorite gun is the one that goes "Pew-pew-pew-pew!" and turns gay people straight.

Columbine did have an armed guard, but he was outside at the time of the attack. 

Plus, having armed guards is not a 100% failsafe against this type of ordeal. Just because one failed does not mean they all will. 

Anyhow, not sure how I feel about armed guards in schools. Why not just have doors that can lock down during an event like this and can only be opened from the inside?

The problem is the state of mental health in this country. 

Instead of treating the problem, we provide them with drugs to manage the symptoms long-term. These drugs were designed to be a short-term bridge to get them through life until therapy can address the underlying cause.

When these people come off their meds, whether it be voluntarily or due to financial hardship (Read: Recession) the feelings persist and they tend to lash out.  

Sure, the fact that they have access to guns allows them to act out in a very dangerous way.  But that does not mean the guns are the problem. 

As Scottcc said: "Banning the guns is easy, dealing with the real issues is hard"

@Paul  
OK, it should have said "Banning the gun is easier," but it was not my quote. 

@TimK 
I am not dismissing guns as a factor. Read what I said again ... specifically the part about "Access to guns."

@Rougement
Why? There are a lot of factors. 

The first we have to consider is that while gun violence may be less in countries with stricter gun control, that does not mean that less guns equals less killing. The tool used to kill does not change the effect of the killing. 

A murder is a murder.

Also, the Wikipedia article referenced above regarding firearm death rate per capita is a bad measurement. That does not filter out police shootings or accidental shootings, which accounts for a large share of the deaths. 

Taking those factors into account, I dug for some more comprehensive information. Per the UNODC:

The United States has a murder rate of 4.8 per 100k overall. (Interesting tidbit: that number is down from 8.1 per 100K back in 1995. Video games make people kill my ass.)

The UNODC reports that 67 percent of our murders are by firearm and there were 14748 Homicides in 2010 for a total of 9960 murders by Firearm.

This essentially boils down to a non-firearm related murder rate of 1.386 per 100K, which is right on par with the non-firearm murder rate of 1.3 for the UK. 

Now, those initial numbers seem to support the assumption that more guns = more gun murders. 

But we have to look at other countries with high gun ownership. 

Switzerland stands out with over half as many guns per-capita, yet has a murder rate of .7 which is 7 times less than the US. 

Sweden, Norway and Finland also have high gun ownership levels, yet do not have a high occurrence of firearm-related murders. Their murder rates are less than 1/5th ours at ~ .8 (Save for those crazy Fins who are at around 2 per 100k. Still, only .4 are by firearm.) 

Canada has much the same gun laws that we do, save for a 5 round mag limit on semi-auto, centerfire rifles. They also have a high firearm per-capita yet their homicides by firearm are less than 1/8th our rate at .5 per 100k.

Even Serbia, who is 2nd behind the US in guns per-capita has a low murder rate of 1.2 with 33% involving firearms.

The United States having 1.8-2.2 times more guns per capita than these countries does not explain a 5-8 fold increase in the murder rate by firearm. 

There is something else at play here. 

The data is from: 
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Canada

Quote stats until the cows come home?

Well forgive me for trying to provide some actual data rather than just speculation. I guess we should just go by what the news and the internet is saying rather than trying to come to our own conclusions using the data available to us. 

Hell, if you actually read my post you might see information that actually supports your view. But I guess I should not expect people to actually read what I type.

@rhetoricguy

The reason there is the group of people who believe that we need guns to protect us from the state is because that was the original intent of the amendment. To allow the citizens to protect themselves from a tyrannical government.

The problem is that even though times have changed, that intent has not changed. They see the way it is written and assume it is an absolute. 

But it is not, nothing on the bill of rights is truly absolute. Freedom of speech only goes so far, it is limited for specific and logical reasons. 

People are delusional if they believe that any weapons we have could even come close to the force available to the US DoD.


The link you posted was interesting, but it still only looks at firearm deaths. Not firearm murders. More firearms will certainly lead to more accidental death by firearm, so that really does not provide us with information relevant to this discussion. 


But I disagree that looking for causes is hopeless. There has to be a reason why the US has such a high firearm murder rate and the data indicates that the high weapon per-capita is not the deciding factor.

There is something to that Shane, as the cultural aspect of this is hard to deny. 

But I don't think it is as much the "Wild West" mentality. Everyone knows it is wrong to shoot someone for any reason other than to save a life, save for the states that allow lethal force to protect property (I'm lookin' at you Texas). Our culture does not say it is OK to shoot someone to settle a disagreement. 

Well, at least not MY culture. There are several subgroups in where violence to settle disputes IS the norm, and it is reinforced by certain movies, music and locations.  One of those factors alone will not make you a killer, but if you live in an area where everyone else is using guns to settle disputes, you are going to be more likely to do it yourself out of necessity. 

Especially if it is glorified.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that even in countries with a high amount of guns per-capita, the relationship of guns to gun violence does not appear to be causal. 

If the availability of guns was the key factor, then that would be reflected in a measurable relationship between the amount of guns and the amount of gun violence. The evidence is just not there. 

While I feel that certain regulations can go a long way in mitigating the scope of these massacres, in order to truly address the problem we need to find the cause. 

We can dig for scapegoats, we can argue over semantics, we can complain about over-regulation, we can continue to focus our energy in misplaced rage; but that does not solve the problem. 

Until we find out what the problem is, we are just wasting our time fighting.

Your point was that they are essentially the same round?

"and that $900 AR15 in the ad? I can go to the same counter and buy a Ruger 10/22 for about $300. [...].223 and .22 do the same thing, cause the same amount of damage, albeit one does it in a slightly more efficient manner."

By what you wrote, it sounds more like you were saying that the gun shown in the ad does not do any more damage than a .22 caliber rifle, which is false. 

And there is this:

"the only difference between the two projectiles is the powder behind it."

The .223 Remington is twice the weight of the .22lr. The amount of powder is hardly the only difference. 

Anyhow, I am not trying to be a dick. Just correcting some misinformation. 


@Endion

You have been trumpeting the "Regulate bullets" idea for several posts. That simply will not work.

Bullets can be made by anyone. Regulating them will only make more people turn to loading their own rounds. It will not reduce the amount of bullets available.

Who is to say these soon to be proposed laws are unconstitutional? Or are you referring to ObamaCare being unconstitutional?

Tom...

The 10th Amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

That is where local sheriffs and politicians feel they have the power to refuse to enforce these mandates.