mass shootings in chicago, new york

Well OP we can all just say "this is terrible news" and call it a day, or I can watch two people argue about gun laws and this thread can turn into enjoyment for me. Yeah both are tragedies but they happen and there's nothing we can say to change them. It's why news threads always go off-topic.
 
lets not have this degenerate into a gun control argument thread
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Bloomberg's preparing a statement on it. Sadly it looks like this is going to become a debate topic in politics.
 
verbatim said:
Bloomberg's preparing a statement, good luck with that.
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Bloomberg's a joke. I can't take anything he says seriously when he makes a priority to limit the size of beverages sold in the city. In any case, only 1 reported death in the NY case (aside from the shooter) and no reported deaths in the Chicago case (that I could see). Definite tragedies, but not as bad as they could have been all things considered.
 
The things mentioned for what happened Chicago is more or less standard fare, sadly enough. When watching local news these kind of stories aren't out of the blue.

I feel bad 'cause to myself I feel like I am trivializing people's deaths and I probably am, but this is a thing that happens all the time in these areas of Chicago, the only surprising thing is the amount that happened in a small span of time (though that might be par for the course, I don't know).
 
yeah this thread is kind of pointless if the op is "here's an article, don't talk about it"
 
IMA TALK ABOUT IT (starting hopeful discussion)

Pushing for gun control is an absolute joke and a complete waste of time. No matter what anyone does to restrict any amount of firearms they can't prevent bad people from getting a gun. nothing. these two cities have extremely high crime rates and Illinois doesn't allow you to carry handguns legally and New York is super strict about purchasing, possession and carrying of handguns. do you think these shootings all over Chicago could've been prevented if the "good" people were allowed to carry and could protect themselves?

I don't see the current system working because no matter how much you restrict guns, the "bad" people will always, always ,always have access to them. Sure, gun control laws may help against unresourceful people who don't give a flying fuck about what will happen after they commit a crime like what happened in the New York article, but I see it as preventing the good people from doing what the police can't always do: protect themselves instead of relying on the police to protect them which they can't always do. You can't prevent someone from doing crimes like this if the police aren't directly there to put him down before he hurts anyone and the only way to punish or prevent them from making you a victim would be to defend yourself personally so you don't become that victim.

Im definitely waiting to hear the debates to come in politics. As someone from Minnesota with access to carry a handgun, I would never want that right taken away from me and that sense of feeling safe out of my hands. Preventing the people from carrying handguns prevents them from protecting themselves against criminals that directly affect them.

tl;dr pushing for stricter gun control is pointless as it doesn't prevent bad people from getting guns and it definitely doesn't prevent these kinds of crimes.
 
I personally don't see it that way (and I don't really see how it's a "degeneration" to talk about a relevant issue here -- talk is cheap and it's obviously becoming more and more of a problem in the states) -- it seems like really basic logic that if it is harder to obtain a gun less people will have access to one. Criminals will obviously find workarounds no matter what the legality of firearms but it is harder to get a gun if you have to go through a stricter process or psychiatric evaluation. For fuck's sake they sell bullets at Wal-Mart (not in NYC I don't think but elsewhere).This entire argument is idiotic because half of the population thinks "maybe more guns leads to more violence" and half of the population thinks "yes but if there's more violence we need guns for protection against said violence." It's an endless back-and-forth. Honestly, I got scared reading those stories, and the more of the interview I watched, the more I felt attuned to your point: if I was there I'm sure I would have liked a gun. But I really do think I'd rather it was harder for the shooter to get a gun than easier for me to have one (he probably knows how to shoot it whereas I don't like most Americans).

Agreeing that Bloomberg is a shit mayor and will not be able to handle this.

No matter what anyone does to restrict any amount of firearms they can't prevent bad people from getting a gun. nothing.
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It seems like there's a lot of things that could be done to prevent people from having guns, and not every criminal is absolutely hard-wired to get a firearm no matter what. This is a ridiculous statement and only a Sith deals in absolutes anyway. (disregarding the amount of people who shoot others not because they are thugs but out of hatred revenge mental problems or what have you)

I agree with Gabe, it makes no sense when shit-for-brains pundits say stuff like "Well let's not go crazy and start talking about gun control" in the case of the aurora shootings. Because I don't know how to think until I hear Jon Stewart saying stuff, I'll reference a great episode he had where the point was basically ..."well, it's a factor, is it not?" Obviously if this guy had more difficulty gaining access to weapons there wouldn't be a problem, or there'd be less of one. And statistically, it's very likely for criminals to disarm private citizens with firearms anyway.

Whenever I see these stories nowadays...the face-eating stuff, the constant shootings and huge storms and idiotic congressional measures, I kind of feel like the world is coming to an end as all these horrible things seem to ramp up more (although maybe somebody 50 years ago thought the exact same thing).
 
I think the gun control issue comes down to who commits more murders, good people or bad people.

Bad people are going to get guns, no matter what. If good people had guns, they may be able to prevent some of the murders that bad people do.

Good people get into disagreements all the time. Without a weapon easily at hand, the disagreements can often be settled by themselves (cooling down), by the police intervening non-violently, or by the courts. With a gun arguments escalate faster.

Of course, both of these problems have some solutions unrelated to gun control. You could have more police on the streets, better surveillance, longer jail sentences, criminal rehabilitation etc. etc. for the first case, and you could have better (more uniform laws regarding) gun education, background checks etc. in the second.
 
The most worrying thing about this situation to me is this part:

Eight bystanders were grazed or shot -- all of them, apparently, by police bullets, sources told WNBC.
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Seriously? Trained officers just open fire into a crowd and hit EIGHT people? How incompetent do you have to be to shoot 8 completely random and innocent people just to get 1 guy? What a joke.

From my understanding, the "bad guy" shot and killed 1 person. The only mass shooting that occurred was done by the police officers....

A more appropriate title should be "Man murders ex-coworker - Police go on shooting spree and injure several innocent bystanders"
 
i find that although this is a comedy written about people with superpowers, this page can provide useful insight on the gun control argument as well.

Basically, there will always be people who want to be able to kill other people, and if they can't do it with a gun, they'll use knives (gunless countries have basically the highest rate of stabbings in the world) or baseball bats or cans of baked beans. It doesn't really matter what weapon you're providing, there will be people who want to use these weapons to exert their strength on others. The only way to ensure that the others get a fair chance to defend themselves is to provide them with access to this strength as well.
 
billymills said:
I think the gun control issue comes down to who commits more murders, good people or bad people.

Bad people are going to get guns, no matter what. If good people had guns, they may be able to prevent some of the murders that bad people do.

Good people get into disagreements all the time. Without a weapon easily at hand, the disagreements can often be settled by themselves (cooling down), by the police intervening non-violently, or by the courts. With a gun arguments escalate faster.

Of course, both of these problems have some solutions unrelated to gun control. You could have more police on the streets, better surveillance, longer jail sentences, criminal rehabilitation etc. etc. for the first case, and you could have better (more uniform laws regarding) gun education, background checks etc. in the second.
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Those are valid arguments, but where will the money come from?
 
Somebody said:
Blah blah guns let people kill other people
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Somebody else said:
Blah blah guns help people defend themselves against attackers blah
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Are people still stupid enough to argue about it? Yes

Disregarding the politics
Chicago Tribune said:
Just after midnight, a 17-year-old was shot... He was walking in the 7100 block of South Vincennes Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood when someone inside a passing car opened fire, police said.
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Bad neighborhoods are bad
 
Jesus Gengan don't make a bad post again

I'm with Pwnemon. Everyone will try to hurt some one they don't like through any means possible. Guns aren't the only thing that can cause pain.
 
billymills, I hope you'd be the first to admit that trying to boil such a complicated situation down into "good" and "bad" people is both ineffectual and distracting from the actual issue. Real life isn't like the movies, where the "bad" guy is there simply to do bad things. Only when people begin to take the time to understand the motivations behind gun violence can they begin to curb it.

Justin8649 said:
The most worrying thing about this situation to me is this part:



Seriously? Trained officers just open fire into a crowd and hit EIGHT people? How incompetent do you have to be to shoot 8 completely random and innocent people just to get 1 guy? What a joke.

From my understanding, the "bad guy" shot and killed 1 person. The only mass shooting that occurred was done by the police officers....

A more appropriate title should be "Man murders ex-coworker - Police go on shooting spree and injure several innocent bystanders"
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But Justin, don't you understand??? The Aurora shooting would have been BETTER if some of the random citizens had been carrying their own guns in the theater.
 
joshe said:
tl;dr pushing for stricter gun control is pointless as it doesn't prevent bad people from getting guns and it definitely doesn't prevent these kinds of crimes.
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This sounds pretty dumb to me. Why wouldn't you want to at least put up more barriers through regulation and at least make it more difficult for someone to obtain a gun that shouldn't have one? I don't think anyone is suggesting that more laws will make assault and murder go away. Would more laws stop things like this completely? No, but if it could help prevent some of them, even slightly, isn't that a good thing? To essentially say "fuck it, don't change anything because it won't help" is ridiculous.
 
DM said:
billymills, I hope you'd be the first to admit that trying to boil such a complicated situation down into "good" and "bad" people is both ineffectual and distracting from the actual issue. Real life isn't like the movies, where the "bad" guy is there simply to do bad things. Only when people begin to take the time to understand the motivations behind gun violence can they begin to curb it.
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My use of 'good' and 'bad' people was to counter joshe's point that the 'bad' people who commit murders will always have access to guns. There are a lot of people who buy guns with no intention of using them aggressively who end up doing so. I am all for understanding gun violence, but believing that gun violence is only caused by bad people (which is what I was responding to) is not helping.
 
Okay it looks like people actually do want to continue to go on about gun rights so here's my bid: The vast majority of mass murders in the United States since 1950 have occurred in an environment where concealed weapons (more specifically firearms) were prohibited. If every citizen with a concealed carry permit in the movie theater in Aurora Colorado, multiple moviegoers would have been armed and ultimately many lives could have been saved. I definitely agree with gun rights and I feel like citizens should be armed. "Oh but then they can go out and shoot somebody!" Except that the percentage of crimes committed with a legally owned and carried firearm is virtually none when compared to crimes committed with an illegal firearm. This might be a stretch but: If nuclear deterrents can prevent wars, why can't gun posession deter attacks?
 
Agreeing with Zacchaeus. Imagine you were planning a mass murder. Where would you do it? Somewhere where the people can't defend themselves. If you take away the guns from the people, suddenly a lot more places become viable targets. I know I for one would be reluctant to try and slaughter people if there was a good possibility of someone shooting back.
 
And then you run into the situation in the story - 8 people shot, not by the shooter, but by people shooting at the shooter.

Not that I fully disagree with you, but I'm just saying. 'give everyone a gun' may not be the very best thing.
 
JimBob said:
'give everyone a gun' may not be the very best thing.
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I can also agree with that but that isn't something to be controlled by the law in my opinion. There should be more testing and procedure behind getting a firearm and permit for said firearm, but that's it. At that point it would have to become a matter of beliefs and discretion. If you could walk down the street at night to run an errand knowing that the responsible civilians were armed, would you feel compelled to be armed against the hoodlums prowling about? It just seems to me like if we allowed or almost promoted responsible law-abiding citizens to carry firearms at most times, it would create an overall sense of security and defense

Also I'm pretty sure there are regulations against firing at a suspect if it could bring harm to civilians but that could've just been a really strange scenario
 
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