Wounded versus killed. Yeah good thing.

I rather see 22 people wounded rather than killed anyday.

The biggest problem is simply mental health. Now that the real shooter has been identified, everybody tells of how disturbed he was, emotionless, withdrawn, etc. People in the killers communities and all communities know of these people, but turn a blind eye to a person who needs help. They hope that they will be somebody else's problem till they turn up at our schools and malls.

Also guns inflict the most damage of anything that was designed to kill since the Bomb. If not gun control laws, how bout some actual gun control? Gun safe's mandatory or something. Hate for the next murder to be yours or a loved one since we refuse to have a real conversation about this. We will be scanned and searched for as much as a pair of scissors to board a plane but not make our weapons harder to reach and access?

I will give a couple of points when I wake up a little more, but I did want to say that this has been a pretty damn good discussion on both sides. I knew since I posted it that it would bring opinions and arguments, and I am glad you guys/girls proved people wrong about not being able to handle a topic like this.

Because some of the anti-gun control people in this thread are using hyperbole to attack arguments I didn't actually make, let me clarify.

I didn't say that people owning one handgun and people owning 6 assault rifles were like co-dependent, and that having one be legal instantly meant the other would be as well. I just think both should be illegal. It's instances like this where killers go so overboard with crazy weapons and ammo that it seems difficult to enforce, but I'm willing to bet 95% of the TWELVE THOUSAND GUN HOMICIDES PER YEAR IN THE U.S. HOLY SHIT are committed by a dude who has way fewer guns, probably used a handgun, and didn't put a lot of planning or effort into it.

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about so people can stop using their interpretation of this particular shooting to somehow argue ALL gun control is futile.

For those who don't know, Scotland is kind of a shithole. A LOT of violent crime occurs there, committed by youth gangs. By far the worst example of this crime can be found in Glasgow, where certain areas are like some of the worst ghettos in the Western world. Knives are the primary source of homicide. People call it the most dangerous city in all of Western Europe.

According to this document:
http://www.scccj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/0124207_homicide_scotland_10-11.pdf

From 2010-2011, there were 97 homicide victims in all of Scotland. The amount committed in Strathclyde (the region which Glasgow is in, which has 2.5 million people) was 61. The amount in the city of Glasgow itself (which has about 600,000 people) was 26.

Almost all these homicides were committed with knives, because guns simply are not available.

Compare that to the homicide rate of Baltimore, the most violent major city in the United States, which is only very slightly bigger than Glasgow (620,000 people). Baltimore reported 196 homicides in 2011, which was actually its lowest rate since 1978 (the year before, it had 223 and Glasgow only had 20).

SO STOP SAYING GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE GUNS IT'S A HELL OF A LOT TOUGHER.

Guns arent that hard to get

The real solution here isn't gun laws or the bizarre notion of "identifying school shooters before they become one".

The real solution is having better security and having an armed gaurd with a gun in every school/public gathering place. So they can put a bullet through the next sick fucking peice of shit who decides to go shoot innocent children.

The government really needs to outline a budget and see what it will cost to do this because obviously these school shootings are becoming to frequent, this shit needs to be tackled directly not indirectly with "changing gun laws" and "better treatment of mentally ill" put a guy in every school protecting it with a gun and I can assure you these coward losers who were never hugged as a kid will think twice before fucking with someone who is trained and has a gun.

http://www.examiner.com/article/99-56-of-guns-used-as-intended

99.56% of guns are used for their intended uses. People that argue for guns are angry because it is not their fault and essentially, they ARE wrongly targeted whenever these kind of events happen.

Putting security guard is only going to be a temporary measure that does not solve the problem down to its root. Which would you rather have, something that get might indirectly get rid of the problem before it even starts or just placing a temporary that makes it harder to commit crimes?

The guy got buzzed in. Security does shit when the guy conceals it well, unless you want the TSA for every single school. I mean he was the son of a teacher, who the heck expects him to shoot up the place?

PS. Everyone should start using citations or have a works cited part so that we can compare data. Try not to use articles but the actual data source (what organization came up with the data) because articles tend to focus on a single statistic. ie some article might say that the death rate due to firearms is 15%, but the person decided to include suicides due to firearms instead of just homicides so you've got a biased article using a skewed statistic that everyone will cite because they don't bother checking the source.

they are if you're a poor, inner-city 17 year old

I am not talking about buzzer and intercom security. I am talking more about having an armed gaurd to protect innocent children.

At the end of the day there is always going to be a sick fuck who is going to do something like this. To stop things like this from happening is pretty much impossible. If there was another guy protecting those children with a gun that day I think the outcome would have been a lot different. Lives would definitely have been saved.

Depends on where he's stationed and if he's behind bullet-proof glass and the guy doesn't set up a trap for him. I mean if every school had a SWAT team yes, there would have been less deaths. But a single armed guard? Take him out and you're set to rampage. Either way people are going to die because you don't know he's a threat until he's killed someone (unless he's taking hostages, but we're mainly talking about the fringe killers). For all we know the guard might be talking to a child while the guy comes up from behind and kills him. There's also a shoot-out (the guy was wearing a bulletproof vest, so that's going to be a fun battle) where people might get hit by crossfire. You need much more security than a single armed guard unless you choose to keep him in the security office until people start dying.

Before I go any further, I want to know how people feel about this statement, especially pro-gun people; What about a ban on auto and semi-auto weapons, or at least semi-auto pistols with extended clips? Or as others have said, limit the amount of ammo that one person can legally purchase?

Automatic weapons are already banned (it's very hard to own one). Banning semi-automatic weapons bans everything basically. Don't care much about the extended clips. Also, how would you limit ammo? Would it be x per year, x per month? What about police officers who train and shoot with their own money? Who gets the special privilege to buy more ammo (exhibition shooters, gun manufactures, etc)? Because some people need a lot more ammo than others.

I disagree with you fully. If there is an armed guard, the shooter now needs to devise a plan to get rid of that armed guard before continuing his plan to mass kill innocent children. That in itself is a barrier and a mechanism that will allow a delay before him fulfilling his duty of killing 20 children. That armed guard alone will buy more time for first responders to get to the scene and stop what is happening. Further more if a shoot-out were to take place I would say it is better that the gunman's focus is on firing against another adult who is paid to be there for a situation like this, as a pose to spraying a classroom full of children. At the end of the day an armed guard would be a solution and would definitely decrease the amount of fatalities and allow more time for the police to arrive and deal with the situation. To say it would have no effect at all is just ridiculous.

Your talking like these people who shoot up schools are special forces. It's not easy to just "sneak up" on a trained professional with a gun and kill him. Especially if he's trained and ready for someone to sneak up on him.

Never said there was no effect, just said it won't be enough if you want to save more people and its effectiveness is very variable to possibly no effect or slightly more if the gun is stolen to possibly keeping maybe a theoretical 80% alive. Rather have a less variable factor.

1) most of the school shooters put a lot of planning into their actions which is why it's prolly the hardest gun violence to completely avoid

2) your plan sounds wildly expensive and unpractical

3) it would still have a much smaller OVERALL effect on rates of gun homicide than simple gun control

4) since cops/the military would still be allowed to have guns and this dude would essentially be a cop/police officer, the two ideas arent mutually exclusive

You should really quote or put a post # because it's hard to tell who you're talking to.

sorry, it was to dopewolf

That's not correct at all, they were banned from Clinton for, I think, 10 years, but it was never renewed in 2004. Oh, I thought you said assault weapons

I'm kinda pro gun.

I support fully automatic weapon bans, but not all semiautomatic weapons should be banned. I would fully support pysch exam requirements, limits on the number of firearms people can own, and stricter requirements on locking up weapons (if someone steals your rifle and kills somebody and it can be proven that you did not have it locked up to standard, you would face charges as well, or something along those lines).

You're right, fully auto isn't banned in a good number of states. They just need background checks and ATF licensing which may still have leaks, albeit much less I'm betting.

I think almost every assault weapon law deals with semi-auto weapons. I never checked other state laws since automatic weapons are banned in California (assault weapons cover different semi-auto in my state). But still, every single modern gun is a semi-automatic weapon (meaning it loads the next bullet using the energy from the cap). Only pump shotguns aren't semiautomatic (that I can think of that's being actively used).

Well, it was a 223 assault rifle that was used primary in the shooting. Most of the children had 3-7 shots into them. When it comes to assault rifles, most states do not have bans on them. I honestly cannot think of a reason why an average, non-military, person needs to own one of these types of weapons. It's not like you're going hunting with these, nor would they be practical in self defense. I just never understood what reason anti-gun law people to argue against a federal ban on these weapons

99.989% of the nuclear heads in the world were never used to kill people. (18998 out of 19000 ), what's your point?

Also, what is that 'intended use'? Hunting? Shooting in target practise?
That's all useless stuff.
'Blah blah, freedom, what if I like hunting or shooting at targets for fun?'
Well, do you think it's a fair trade, all those lives lost to firearms, so other people could keep having fun?
Even 1 life is worth more than those guy's "fun", they can find another hobby.

Just like probably 30 millions americans.
It's not like those shooters look any different than any other of the millions depressed/disturbed/withdrawn people, before the shooting.
How do you deal with millions of those, when you know only 0.001% of these will actually shoot someone?
The joker killer, whatever his name was, had a psy to help him for years... And it still didn't stop him. He had a professionnal attention, and still did it.

So even if we could pinpoint the high-risk case, there's not much we can do beside locking them up preemptively. And w can't even do that, there's thousands of people like these and most won't ever kill anyone.

That argument ( about mental health and stuff ) reminds me of an argument we often see in discussions about rapists. Someone would advice girls to be careful, then someone (never miss) replies "Rather than telling the victims not to be raped, why don't you tell the rapists not to rape?"
Well, rapists are criminals, they probably won't listen, even if I ask very politely.

The same deals with shooters. Unless we go with something radical ( killing/locking up everyone that looks disturbed ), we can't stop shootings from happening. Hell, even if we DID kill all those guys, some 'normal' people would shoot anyway at some point.

One of our best move is to try to make it harder for these to actually kill people. Guns help people kill each others so much it's ridiculous. YOu always havesomeone saying 'If you want to kill, you'll kill, gun or no gun!'... If you want to kill 1 guy, yeah, probably. Anyone can break into someone's house in the night and knife him down. But how many people would anders breivik kill without guns? Do you picture him killing 70 with a knife or his bare hands?

People kill people, but they use devices/tools to help them, and there's a reason we prohibit the most lethals of these.
Saying they'd kill anyway is stupid.
If some disturbed psychotic is crazy enough to kill 10 with a knife, how many do you think he'd kill with a gun? With a rifle? With missiles?

If every citizen in the US had access to the 'red button' to launch all US missiles, the world would end in the hour.
There's enough civilian's guns to kill everyone in the world too. But it's not gonna happen.

There's no valid reason any civilian should own an automatic rifle, and very few reasons he should own an handgun, beside MUH FREEDUMMMMM!

"Cool" hobby weapons, but should mainly be kept in shooting ranges. Having an armory hold the weapons wouldn't be a bad idea.

Looks like a modded 223, which was used

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem."

The gun culture in the USA is one of the most bizarre aspects of the country to outsiders. I'm glad that there are people in this thread with some sense.

However-

Your ability to say this casually makes me not want to live in your country.

RIP to those lost.

In my opinion, no one has a reason to own an assault rifle unless they're of authority. Or anything more than a hunting rifle, really. Maybe something that will stop a criminal.

If you say that hunting rifles should be banned because they can be used to kill people even though their main purposes are sport and food, then cars should be banned because they can kill people even though their main purpose is transportation. Just my opinion. If you believe that animals should not be used for sport/food then it's fine for you to believe that.

Note: I personally do not hunt.

When I was living in Vancouver, there were 19 (like 14 of which were murders of passion) murders in one month, that same month there were 400+ murders in Chicago.