Poll: Is there a solution to mass shootings?

[Wintermoot]

maybe,
not letting people get automatic/semiautomatic guns or run extensive psychological test on anybody that wants to buy a gun
it won't stop them but it will make it harder for the wrong people to get the more faster type of gun.

 

[killcannon71]

And blaming it on gun laws is bogus. The people in the UK and Europe in general have different sociological and psychological make ups than the States. Transpose Americans there with the exact same laws and gun deaths go up. Do not criminals in the UK have guns? Do not citizens have guns? They both do, they just aren't as eager to use them as we are in the states.

 

[bobmd13]

XDARC,

Yes the UK has the highest level of CCTV in the world, but we have virtually no gun deaths.

Guns in this country are regulated, if you want to fire an AK47 you go to a gun club and guess what at the end of the day your gun is locked in a nice big vault.

That's right you cant take it home.

You cant get a gun here unless you have already passed a load of checks to start with.

After Dunblane,it became virtually impossible to own a semi automatic rifle here.

Now to Ryto, have you any idea how much fertilizer is needed to make a bomb which could destroy a building.

Little hint mate,check the records,in Northern Ireland where I come from, a 200lb fertilizer bomb did the same damage as a 20lb bomb made of military explosive.

It was always was one of the safest places to live in the world and now it is even better.

BTW the gun licensing laws are even stricter than the rest of the UK.

 

[Ljs1121]

I don't think so. Unless we were to destroy every gun on Earth and then confiscate any and all materials that could be used to make one, people are always going to find a way to hurt other people if they are mentally unstable have a burning desire to do so.

 

[bobmd13]

Killcannon,

There is a difference, as Michael Moore pointed out under the US constitution you have the right to bear Arms.

It does not state the type of weapon you can own so realistically under the US constitution,a person could own a nuclear device.

When a right is so loosely worded that someone could own a nuclear device, it gives cause for concern.

Can anyone name any other country in the world that allows a private individual to own nuclear/biological or viral weapons as a fundamental right to bear arms.

Thats how silly your constitution is.,

 

[viranimus]

Sprees invariably are a symptom of a greater problem and that problem is every single time located in one place. The brain.

Increased access/use and decreased stigma to mental healthcare would be the only viable route to reduce it I think.

Gun control wont do it, thats for certain.

 

[Vankraken]

The solution to "mass shootings" is a proper health care system that can provide the help for those who suffer from psychological illness, a community that is aware of the impact and how to help those who suffer from these illnesses. Also we need to stop making shootings massive media events because it just invites more people to step into the media spotlight.

It saddens me when i hear people jump to the conclusion of "guns are the problem" when they don't even look at the issue of WHY would somebody do such an act and WHAT can we do to help prevent people from wanting to do that. Outlawing guns just limits access to a tool used to commit mass murder, it doesn't stop people from actively trying to commit these acts.

 

[Jason Fayers]

Get rid of your guns then your criminals will be forced to stab people, or buy illegal guns, like they do in the UK.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Solution? Historically speaking, we may be at an all time low in the massacre department. We just have global media reporting every little thing these days, that's all.

 

[Pyro Paul]

It is actually easier to reload an AR. The mag well is larger and not as deep.

it is acctually harder to reload an AR then a pistol.

The mag well is larger and slightly infront of your firing hand. This means that magazines can catch a lot more easily and guiding a magazine to the well can be more difficult because you're hands are not directly aligned to it nor are you directly looking at it.

Also when you take into consideration that most riflemen will compromize their firing position or target attention during a mag reload, the chance to shoot at targets deminishes.

If a person compromises their position in order to reload then they are not doing it right.

Anyway, use the mag well to guide the magazine into the proper position. Do that by taking the rear left part of the magazine (if you are right handed and the rifle has an AR style mag well) hitting the mag well and sliding the mag back and straightening it, as soon as you reach the end the mag should be aligned and then you just insert the mag.

You're talking about the top teir of competative expert shooters which is a very very small margin.

A majority of shooters either compromise their stance or target awareness to properly reload a magazine. This is because the primary cause of most Failure to Fire (FTF) is an improperly seated magazine/round.

Ontop of this, Many weapons are intentionally designed around this principle.

the AK for instance,

To most shooters, it is better to ensure the weapon fires the next round rather then risk a jam on a 1 second mag change.

The goal of a combat speed reload is to reload while keeping your eyes downrange. Some competition shooters do it differently but since the only time I really shoot my ARs in competition is in three-gun meets so I prefer the ideal military style.

and the ironic thing is that Speed Loading is not an 'ideal military style'...
Speed Reloading forces you to drop your magazine.

Mag dropping is bad.

a normal US Solder only takes some 10 mags with 28 rounds in each when he hits the field plus a box of spare ammunition either for the rifles or the machine gunner.

on extended engagements, troops will often have to refill their own magazines out on the field.. and its gunna really suck the next time you get into a fire fight to have only 4 magazines because you dropped your other 6 on the ground on an earlier because you where 'speed reloading'...

and Honostly...
You are a Riflemen... not a Machine gunner.
You don't need to mantain a consistant rate of fire on target to even Need a speed reload.

hell you shouldn't even be exposing yourself for a single mag dump, let alone multipule mags...

 

[Ryotknife]

Get rid of your guns then your criminals will be forced to stab people, or buy illegal guns, like they do in the UK.

except illegal guns are already all over the place and most crimes are done with illegal guns to begin with. All getting rid of guns will do is put innocent people at more risk and kill exponentially more people a year than what we go through now. Add to this the fact that Cartels will basically have free reign, gang bangers can target people indiscriminately with no threat to themselves, and crazy people will never have to worry about their lives when they obtain illegal guns (which are easy to find, just like drugs) and gun down people with 100% impunity.

And no, i do not have a gun nor i do want to have one because getting a gun legally where i live (NY state) is a massive pain. I would rather suffer an anal probe.

You dont hear about the people who have been saved by owning a gun because it is not worthwhile news in this country (unless there are some extreme circumstances involved). Most new stations only report bad news because that is what generates the ratings!

You dont hear about the man who scared away two intruders in his house without firing his gun on the news, but you do hear about the story of 2 drug addicts entering the home of an elderly couple, slitting their throats while they were asleep, and then taking their time to ransack the place.

Oh, we also have a lot of people dying from car accidents with deer in our state because they are all over the place and we only have a few hunters as we have strict gun laws. Such a thing is nearly unheard of in the south.

So other than unleashing the army on the deer population (god i would love to see THOSE headlines. "US Military begins Operation Bambi"), not much you can do about it without encouraging more hunters and more gun owners.

Keep in mind, the Cartels exist OUTSIDE of our borders and it is pretty much impossible to stop them from getting into our country. The mexican border, despite our efforts, is poreous enough to smuggle guns, drugs, and even PEOPLE through it. We cant really send more forces there and clamp down on it without starting a shit storm with both Mexico and the latino community in our own community. The southern coastline of the US has a fair bit of swampland and other inhospitable place where people tend to avoid, making it easy to smuggle. Then you have the canadian border, which is MASSIVE (and it tends to be very rugged territory with a lot of forests).

Sure, we could probably lock down the east or west coast and prevent smuggling there with a fair degree of success, but the north and especially south are impossible without drastic draconian measures (like the Berlin wall times 1,000)

and that is not even considering the moral, cultural, or economic issues.

 

[Something Amyss]

The problem is twofold:

People want easy answers.
People want complete solutions.

Neither of these are really feasible. There are a lot of factors that go into shootings like the one that happened in Aurora, AND we'll never completely eliminate shootings no matter how hard we try, but then, we could certainly cut down on them.

But ease and idealism trump reality any day of the week.

 

[Something Amyss]

Never mind that almost 8 times more (93) people are killed daily in motor vehicle accidents in the US alone.

Funny enough, you can actually address issues of vehicle safety without everyone coming down on you. And at least people are actually trying. It's nice to try and equate the two, but it doesn't play out very well.

Instead, with firearms, we've tried almost nothing and just saying "eh, whatcha gonna do?"

 

[Something Amyss]

You dont hear about the people who have been saved by owning a gun because it is not worthwhile news in this country (unless there are some extreme circumstances involved).

Are you kidding? We're beat over the head with these kinds of stories because it's all "see? See? There's a legit use for firearms!"

Holy confirmation bias, Batman!

 

[Sean Steele]

Eliminating a good deal of "Gunshow" Loopholes would do a world of good, also adding psyche evaluations to gun sales.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Of course there is. It maybe has nothing to do with gun control, either (though it probably does lol)

It's really quite simple, just compare the countries/societies who have mass shootings to those who don't. What exactly is the difference? What ever the differences is, that's the problem we have. You can easily say everyone is responsible for their own actions, and they are; they do pay for it in the end. However when a society produces a pattern of people, that essentially means it's going to continue. How exactly can all the blame be placed just on them when they are now predicable statistic? Basically what I'm saying is, if your neighbor isn't the one who goes crazy and shoots a bunch of people next year, then it may be someone two states over, or three states. Someone going to do it, that's just the society we created, and man does it have a rotten core, regardless of how many nice people you might meet on the outside.

Every single thing about the way we live and conduct ourselves is set up to make sure these crazies are produced, both in obvious and non-obvious ways. The latter is the scariest part, because we probably couldn't solves those even if we tried.

 

[Ryotknife]

You dont hear about the people who have been saved by owning a gun because it is not worthwhile news in this country (unless there are some extreme circumstances involved).

Are you kidding? We're beat over the head with these kinds of stories because it's all "see? See? There's a legit use for firearms!"

Holy confirmation bias, Batman!

the ONLY national story i have heard in YEARS is the one that happened during Christmas last year. The one where a woman with a baby living in a trailer whose husband passed away from cancer during the holiday season fended off two drugged up attackers with a shotgun while she was on the phone with the police. The attackers heard about the husband passing and figured her for an easy target plus they figured she probably had a few drugs for her husband still lying around.

Very VERY rarely do you hear stories of someone defending themselves on the national news. Local news MAYBE. You dont hear about it because it happens everyday in our country and it is nothing special on its own.

unless you watch Fox news (in which case you have my pity). But most news stations tend to be liberal/democratic and will focus on gun deaths. Granted they at least try to be subtle about their agenda unlike Fox News.