Another week, another mass shooting

[Veho Nex]

Yet somehow Australia did it and it has reduced gun crimes.

There are 300 million registered firearms in the United States. There are 23.13 million people in Australia. I'll let you do the math on why taking hundreds of billions of dollars and buying back guns for pennies on the dollar isn't going to work here.

So - you want to live in fear? That's what you're doing, you fear the maniacs and you want guns to protect you.

Does it come across as me being afraid? I'm sorry but as someone who educates people in firearm safety I don't find them to be this unknown scary thing a lot of people do. I understand they are deadly weapons when used with that intent. The only time I've ever been afraid from the unknown was taking a wrong turn down a street in Oakland at 11pm.

No, it demonstrates that an actual civilian would be unlikely to do the same.

I've never been in a situation like this but I do hope I would act with bravery and put myself between someone who intends harm and those who are to afraid to act. I'm not a cop, ex military, or anything like that.

What are we even talking about here? Children and students must not be mass-murdered in educational institutions by their own taffing colleagues with daddy's gun or a weapon they purchased with the ease with which I purchase peanuts at the supermarket.

I take it you've never tried to purchase a firearm. Places like California or Chicago have the country's strictest gun control laws but it's easier for me to purchase a firearm from the blackmarket, also cheaper, than it is to go into my local gun store or gun show and purchase a firearm.

Every human being has the right to defend themselves. If that right is removed and only the "elect few" have the right to defend the majority do we see corruption take place as those few realize no one can stop them. In Oakland the average police response time to a is 15 minutes. Those would be the longest and possibly last 15 minutes of someones life because they refuse to fight or cannot fight.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Does it come across as me being afraid? I'm sorry but as someone who educates people in firearm safety I don't find them to be this unknown scary thing a lot of people do. I understand they are deadly weapons when used with that intent. The only time I've ever been afraid from the unknown was taking a wrong turn down a street in Oakland at 11pm.

You think you need lethal force to defend yourself against fellow countrymen - how can that not be fear?

Also - lets be clear - guns are always deadly weapons - they exist solely to kill people. When people talk about "using guns in self defence" what they mean is "using guns to kill in self defence"

I've never been in a situation like this but I do hope I would act with bravery and put myself between someone who intends harm and those who are to afraid to act. I'm not a cop, ex military, or anything like that.

The unarmed man who faces the man with the gun usually dies. It is unlikely, given your lack of military training, that you have the conditioning necessary to kill at will so even if you had a gun there's a good chance you wouldn't use it properly.

These people aren't "brave" they're trained​ and there's a difference.

[Papewaio]

There are 300 million registered firearms in the United States. There are 23.13 million people in Australia. I'll let you do the math on why taking hundreds of billions of dollars and buying back guns for pennies on the dollar isn't going to work here.

Maybe you need to read up about the gun buyback.

Essentially three classes of weapons was established.

1) legal before and after the weapon restrictions. Keep them.
2) legal before, illegal after. These were bought back at market rates not pennies per dollar or whatever propaganda amount you've been lied to about. Check your sources if they are telling you that they are liars and then you have to ask yourself why?
3) illegal before and still illegal after the new rules. Amnesty was given to have those handed in.

=][=

U.S. Dead from terrorism since 1970: 3.5k. Go to war, invade two countries, spend trillions of dollars.
Dead from guns this year: 9k this year alone. Government legislates against gathering data or analysis how and why these deaths occur. Why?

[PROVOST]

I've seen BS stats put up on the net for the Australian gun buy back and for firearms killings in AUS since the buy back too.

All of course to advance an agenda to tell Americans it did not work here.

It did and is working here.

Note - I am a licensed firearms owner and agree with the measures here in AUS.

[Hooahguy]

In other news, having more guns around totally makes for a more polite society. Unless you like the wrong Football team of course.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Priests are not allowed weapons, he should be defrocked and handed to a monastic order for punishment.

Except maces, priests are allowed to use maces and a "Bishop's Knocker".

[Veho Nex]

You think you need lethal force to defend yourself against fellow countrymen - how can that not be fear?

Also - lets be clear - guns are always deadly weapons - they exist solely to kill people. When people talk about "using guns in self defence" what they mean is "using guns to kill in self defence"

The unarmed man who faces the man with the gun usually dies. It is unlikely, given your lack of military training, that you have the conditioning necessary to kill at will so even if you had a gun there's a good chance you wouldn't use it properly.

These people aren't "brave" they're trained​ and there's a difference.

Do I need lethal force to put myself between a gunman and someone I love? No, but I would much rather have it on my side. I have training with firearms, I train others in proper and safe firearm use (and have for 8 years now), and I believe I would be able to do something about a gunman if they tried to do something to me or the people around me.

How would you try to protect those around you? or is your instinct to "flight" instead? It's how people are wired. I believe I would fight in a situation like that. When something drastic happens I'm one of the first to run towards it to help. I was always taught that because of who I am and what I look like I have a duty to protect those smaller than me or those who can't/won't defend themselves.

If you don't see the point to that then I don't think we'll meet at a middle ground for this. I view guns as a tool. Yes, a tool that is meant to kill but it doesn't need to be used as such.

Maybe you need to read up about the gun buyback.

Papewaio, we're talking America here. In LA 3 months ago they paid people $50 per operable gun. Those people got cheated and there's little proof that they helped the community by giving up their firearms.

The Australian gun buyback gathered somewhere betwen 1/5th to 1/3rd of guns. The majority of articles I'm seeing state the number to be roughly 650,000 guns and that being about 20% of firearms in Australia. If they paid market value for each gun, lets put that at $800 per gun just for simplicity, that means the Australian government spent $520,000,000 on 1/5th of guns that they required be sold to them.

If the United States were to buy back 1/5th of our guns that would be roughly 60,000,000 give or take a few. Let us again assume that they paid market value and for simplicity's sake that was $800 per. $48,000,000,000. 48 Billion... That money could be used to better our schools, better our mental healthcare, to improve our society instead it would remove a drop in the bucket of legally owned firearms. Now if we get real and realize that most common firearms, hunting rifles/shotguns/pistols, sell from anywhere between $450 to $3,000 (yes there are cheaper and far more expensive guns) that it's just not viable to buyback guns at market value.

U.S. Dead from terrorism since 1970: 3.5k. Go to war, invade two countries, spend trillions of dollars.
Dead from guns this year: 9k this year alone. Government legislates against gathering data or analysis how and why these deaths occur. Why?

I don't know where you got your statistics for the dead from guns this year. I have checked 12 different websites from slate.com to gunviolencearchive.org to forbes. They can't even agree on gun related deaths for 2010 let alone this year. The stats I'm looking at range anywhere from 11,000 dead in 2010 to a massive 32,000 dead. How much of this is gang related? How many suicides? How many police shootings?

The sources each website pulls from have widely separate numbers than those reported in the article. One website uses an article with studies from 1960-1985 that was published in 2002 as a fact for 2010 (smartgunlaws.org).

This fun little propaganda website: http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2013 shows names and gives arbitrary lifetimes to people who were shot throughout 2013. Supposedly from the 11,419 people that were killed that year, which I can't confirm as I blatantly google my way through this, could have lived for a combined total of 502,025 years. Even in the sources and methods they say they got their statistics through twitter and the information may be incomplete or unreliable.

I really don't believe half the garbage pro-gun organizations put out either. Propaganda is not a reliable source of information and most everything found online is propaganda.

Also why terrorism? Why not choose a real killer. Drunk driving is somewhere around 13k per year for the last 10 years. Tobacco causes around 480,000 deaths per year. 16,060 people die per year from prescription drug over doses. Car crash related deaths, which most likely include the drunk driving deaths, have average 30,000 per year since 2009 and between '93 and 2007 averaged 40,000 per year.

In other news, having more guns around totally makes for a more polite society. Unless you like the wrong Football team of course.

In other news: it was a gun that most anti-gun people consider to be a perfectly fine gun to own, a civil-war style musket.

[CrossLOPER]

In other news: it was a gun that most anti-gun people consider to be a perfectly fine gun to own, a civil-war style musket.

OK, so back to your original argument, the problem is that there are so many guns that it is impossible to confiscate them, and that the only solution is to make guns even more accessible and have armed militias everywhere, correct?

[Brenus]

Instead to put bombs in USA streets and or flying planes in buildings, Al Quaida and others terrorists should have build a firearms Selling Chain, kind of "buy one get one free" or Dollarland for gun (all guns less than 1 dollar) they would have killed legally much more Americans than by terrorism.

It is their showing off that get them...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Do I need lethal force to put myself between a gunman and someone I love? No, but I would much rather have it on my side. I have training with firearms, I train others in proper and safe firearm use (and have for 8 years now), and I believe I would be able to do something about a gunman if they tried to do something to me or the people around me.

It's nice that you believe that, but unless you've been de-sensitised and trained to ignore your flight or fight response then you'll likely lock up like most people.

"Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline."
That was true for the Romans it's even more true today because, I think, your brain basically sees a gun as magic - you point it at someone and they die. That's why people lock up or hide, it's because your flight or fight response analyses the situation and determines you're screwed.

By the way "flight or fight" isn't a "brave vs coward" thing, it's a decision making process that your brain uses - it ways the options, fight or flight, and tries to choose between them based on which is most likely to lead to your survival.

How would you try to protect those around you? or is your instinct to "flight" instead? It's how people are wired. I believe I would fight in a situation like that. When something drastic happens I'm one of the first to run towards it to help. I was always taught that because of who I am and what I look like I have a duty to protect those smaller than me or those who can't/won't defend themselves.

See above - the majority of people will react the same in a given situation because the Flight/Fight" response is a logical decision making process, not a matter of bravery.

Brave people usually have an unrealistic estimation of their survival chances - they're basically borderline insane.

In a situation where there was a man with a gun, and I had a gun and a clear field of fire I'd put two bullets in him/her centre of mass and hope they go down. I decided that years ago and I keep telling myself that so that hopefully if I'm ever in such a situation I won't have to think about it, I'll just do it.

Likewise, if someone was threatening someone I love with a gun I'd place myself between them in the expectation I would die.

In other situations I have not thought of I confess I am less sure, it's likely I might lock up if there was someone with a gun pointed at me.

If you don't see the point to that then I don't think we'll meet at a middle ground for this. I view guns as a tool. Yes, a tool that is meant to kill but it doesn't need to be used as such.

A tool used to kill someone or something is a weapon - guns have no purpose other than to kill, they are therefore weapons. Calling them tools is like calling shell-shock "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder"