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The General Terrorist Rampage Thread

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I think the argument is that in the early 1970’s, gun ownership was MUCH higher (nearly 50% of men owned a firearm in early 70’s). Today 32% of men own at least 1 weapon, but mass shootings have gone through the roof.

So the question becomes, if gun ownership has declined, why have mass shootings increased?

That’s where the argument about a more violent society (video games, TV, copy-cat killings) come into place. I think there is some merit to it....Most the copy-cat element.

Prior to 9/11 nobody viewed commercial airliners as an actual weapon. Now you could find thousands of people who’d be willing to crash an airline into the side of a skyscraper if given the access.

So how, then, do you explain the fact that every single other developed country on Earth consumes the same violent media, they play the same Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto games, and watch the same movies and TV shows filled with gun violence, and yet basically none of them have any issues with mass shootings? And they certainly have no issues on the level of this country, where there's a mass shooting damn near every day.

Again, blaming violent media is a scapegoat used to deflect attention away from the real problem, which is that there's something very wrong with this country in particular that these things keep happening here and nowhere else.
 
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So I did not intend to blame video gaming, sorry if the upset someone.. my point was that I think the problem is cultural. It's a lot more complicated than gun control or mental health.

When we compare our mass violence to other countries, you have to be more specific. Free societies are more vulnerable to mass violence because people have a lot of latitude. So I will narrow this comparison to free societies. In the West, there are mass violence problems regardless of gun laws. Britain and the vehicle killings or train bombs, France with both vehicle killings and automatic weapons attacks, Germany same things..Spain has problems..

I am thinking the free countries with relatively low mass violence all have some level of nationalized health care AND have relatively homogenous populations. Australia is probably the most diverse, but also has one of the most rigorous immigration policies. (So Australia, Japan, Sweeden/Norway/Finland)

I think the cultures in these societies are more socially accepting and antiviolence at all.
 
@billmac91

For Japan:

Wikipedia:

The weapons law of Japan begins by stating "No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords", and very few exceptions are allowed.[59] Citizens are permitted to possess firearms for hunting and sport shooting, but only after submitting to a lengthy licensing procedure.[60]After ten years of shotgun ownership, a licence-holder may apply to obtain a rifle.

....

theatlantic.com

How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
Max Fisher
7-8 minutes
I’ve heard it said that, if you take a walk around Waikiki, it’s only a matter of time until someone hands you a flyer of scantily clad women clutching handguns, overlaid with English and maybe Japanese text advertising one of the many local shooting ranges. The city’s largest, the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club, advertises instructors fluent in Japanese, which is also the default language of its

website
. For years, this peculiar Hawaiian industry has

explicitly targeted Japanese tourists
, drawing them away from beaches and resorts into shopping malls, to do things that are forbidden in their own country.

Waikiki’s Japanese-filled ranges are the sort of quirk you might find in any major tourist town, but they're also an intersection of two societies with wildly different approaches to guns and their role in society. Friday’s horrific shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has been a reminder that America's gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world’s 23 “rich” countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America’s ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's.

But what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world's least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.

Almost no one in Japan owns a gun. Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country's infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.

Japanese tourists who fire off a few rounds at the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club would be breaking three separate laws back in Japan—one for holding a handgun, one for possessing unlicensed bullets, and another violation for firing them -- the first of which alone is punishable by one to ten years in jail. Handguns are forbidden absolutely. Small-caliber rifles have been illegal to buy, sell, or transfer since 1971. Anyone who owned a rifle before then is allowed to keep it, but their heirs are required to turn it over to the police once the owner dies.

The only guns that Japanese citizens can legally buy and use are shotguns and air rifles, and it’s not easy to do. The process is detailed in David Kopel’s landmark study on Japanese gun control, published in the 1993 Asia Pacific Law Review, still cited as current. (Kopel, no left-wing loony, is a member of the National Rifle Association and once wrote in National Review that looser gun control laws could have stopped Adolf Hitler.)

To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head over to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you’ll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don’t forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years.

Even the most basic framework of Japan’s approach to gun ownership is almost the polar opposite of America’s. U.S. gun law begins with the second amendment's affirmation of the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” and narrows it down from there. Japanese law, however, starts with the 1958 act stating that “No person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords,” later adding a few exceptions. In other words, American law is designed to enshrine access to guns, while Japan starts with the premise of forbidding it. The history of that is complicated, but it's worth noting that U.S. gun law has its roots in resistance to British gun restrictions, whereas some academic literature links the Japanese law to the national campaign to forcibly disarm the samurai, which may partially explain why the 1958 mentions firearms and swords side-by-side.

Of course, Japan and the U.S. are separated by a number of cultural and historical difference much wider than their gun policies. Kopel explains that, for whatever reason, Japanese tend to be more tolerant of the broad search and seizure police powers necessary to enforce the ban. “Japanese, both criminals and ordinary citizens, are much more willing than their American counterparts to consent to searches and to answer questions from the police,” he writes. But even the police did not carry firearms themselves until, in 1946, the American occupation authority ordered them to. Now, Japanese police receive more hours of training than their American counterparts, are forbidden from carrying off-duty, and invest hours in studying martial arts in part because they “are expected to use [firearms] in only the rarest of circumstances,” according to Kopel.

The Japanese and American ways of thinking about crime, privacy, and police powers are so different—and Japan is such a generally peaceful country—that it’s functionally impossible to fully isolate and compare the two gun control regiments. It's not much easier to balance the costs and benefits of Japan's unusual approach, which helps keep its murder rate at the second-lowest in the world, though at the cost of restrictions that Kopel calls a “police state,” a worrying suggestion that it hands the government too much power over its citizens. After all, the U.S. constitution’s second amendment is intended in part to maintain “the security of a free State” by ensuring that the government doesn't have a monopoly on force. Though it's worth considering another police state here: Tunisia, which had the lowest firearm-ownership rate in the world (one gun per thousand citizens, compared to America’s 890) when its people toppled a brutal, 24-year dictatorship and sparked the Arab Spring.

..

So, I guess the question is, could this be done here?
I think the gun Laws in Japan are a reflection of its culture..

And to answer you question..There is no way in help you could implement the same level of gun control here. As I stated earlier, many regions in the US believe gun ownership is a part of their heritage. Texas obviously, but also Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, just to name a few. Trying to collect weapons already extent would trigger even more violence..
 
I think the cultural argument is overstated.

The root of the problem is humanity's fundamental impulse to violence. We will never change that. A vastly increased mental health system may diminish it, but it is in our genetic inheritance. We will always commit violence. Violence requires tools and the question at hand is how efficiently we wish to empower that violence. To pretend that access to tools is somehow not part of the equation is ignoring the problem. Wishing that a primal human drive can suddenly change through x measures is pure fantasy. We have far more mass shootings because, surprise, we make the best possible tools to that end laughably easy to obtain.
 
So I did not intend to blame video gaming, sorry if the upset someone.. my point was that I think the problem is cultural. It's a lot more complicated than gun control or mental health.

When we compare our mass violence to other countries, you have to be more specific. Free societies are more vulnerable to mass violence because people have a lot of latitude. So I will narrow this comparison to free societies. In the West, there are mass violence problems regardless of gun laws. Britain and the vehicle killings or train bombs, France with both vehicle killings and automatic weapons attacks, Germany same things..Spain has problems..

I am thinking the free countries with relatively low mass violence all have some level of nationalized health care AND have relatively homogenous populations. Australia is probably the most diverse, but also has one of the most rigorous immigration policies. (So Australia, Japan, Sweeden/Norway/Finland)

I think the cultures in these societies are more socially accepting and antiviolence at all.

The difference is that the bulk of the attacks in Europe seem to be terrorist acts. They're politically motivated attacks against our allies in the wars in the Middle East.

In our country, we have those terrorist attacks too, but they are far outnumbered by the attacks by citizens that have no real political motivation. Just fucked up everyday people who take a gun and go on a rampage.
 
Ugh, my one friend has been pissing me off all day about illegalizing assault rifles. Not trying to start a whole debate over the 2nd Amendment here, but he said, and I legitimately quote from the text message:

"Dude if all assault rifles are outlawed/banned/destroyed/whatever, then school shootings would stop. Look what happened in Florida. AR-15. Look what happened in Texas. AR-15. Look what happened in Sandy Hook. AR-15. See a pattern? It's not a hard fix - give up ARs and save some kids life."

A lot wrong with that, but I sent back "You realize there are plenty of handguns, hunting rifles, and shotguns that would remain fully legal and could easily be substituted in potential future school shootings, right?"

And he sent "Yeah, but they wouldn't cause nearly as much damage."
______________

I stopped responding after that, I really couldn't take it anymore. Listen, I love my guns. I love weapon history. I don't own many right now, but I do have a couple of hunting shotguns and a muzzleloader. Would I give all of them up to help protect our nation and schools? Of course. Would that actually work? Eh, who knows, we can't get into that in here really.

I promise anybody with above average weapon proficiency could do a substantial amount of damage with your typical Beretta, S&W, Ruger, etc.

I just couldn't stand the idiocy and today reminded me why I really hate discussing anything that isn't sports with people. Sorry for ranting in here.
 
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So how, then, do you explain the fact that every single other developed country on Earth consumes the same violent media, they play the same Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto games, and watch the same movies and TV shows filled with gun violence, and yet basically none of them have any issues with mass shootings? And they certainly have no issues on the level of this country, where there's a mass shooting damn near every day.

Again, blaming violent media is a scapegoat used to deflect attention away from the real problem, which is that there's something very wrong with this country in particular that these things keep happening here and nowhere else.

I just disagree with this...and I respect your opinion, I just think you’re underestimating the American media. While other countries have access to “Call of Duty” or other Modern Warfare games, the inundation of commericlas and media blitz isn’t nearly to the same level. We get blitzed with it because we have the highest purchasing power. In terms of music, I’d point out even in Africa for example, American music (specifically hip hop) is still very risqué and not entirely accepted based on violence and language. I don’t want to speak for entire world, but most Agrican cultures are extremely conservative compared to the US in terms of violence, music, and everyday life.

By the way, the US leads all countries in terms of television viewing and gaming by a large margin. In terms of hours consumed.

I think you’re underestimating what is accepted here in the US vs outside countries in terms of acceptable media for kids.
 
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Just not a lot of good data to suggest video game violence leads to increased deaths (best data which appears to be impacted by publications bias is with aggression levels but NOT with real world correlations):

"
Reviewing all the scholarly literature
My own research has examined the degree to which violent video games can – or can’t – predict youth aggression and violence. In a 2015 meta-analysis, I examined 101 studies on the subject and found that violent video games had little impact on kids’ aggression, mood, helping behavior or grades.

Two years later, I found evidence that scholarly journals’ editorial biases had distorted the scientific record on violent video games. Experimental studies that found effects were more likely to be published than studies that had found none. This was consistent with others’ findings. As the Supreme Court noted, any impacts due to video games are nearly impossible to distinguish from the effects of other media, like cartoons and movies.

Any claims that there is consistent evidence that violent video games encourage aggression are simply false.

Spikes in violent video games’ popularity are well-known to correlate with substantial declines in youth violence – not increases. These correlations are very strong, stronger than most seen in behavioral research. More recent research suggests that the releases of highly popular violent video games are associated with immediate declines in violent crime, hinting that the releases may cause the drop-off."

http://theconversation.com/its-time-to-end-the-debate-about-video-games-and-violence-91607

OTOH: the country associations (even with countries with strong history of using guns such as Britain: think fox hunting and Australia) are striking on the availability of guns in particular assault rifles. The data within states is fasicinating as well: states who are farther away from states with loose gun laws have fewer gun deaths then states who are close to states with loose gun laws

Sure you can kill people even more then a few with simpler weapons but barriers to weapons of mass killing does correlate with less gun deaths and each additional year the data gets stronger
 
I think the cultural argument is overstated.

The root of the problem is humanity's fundamental impulse to violence. We will never change that. A vastly increased mental health system may diminish it, but it is in our genetic inheritance. We will always commit violence. Violence requires tools and the question at hand is how efficiently we wish to empower that violence. To pretend that access to tools is somehow not part of the equation is ignoring the problem. Wishing that a primal human drive can suddenly change through x measures is pure fantasy. We have far more mass shootings because, surprise, we make the best possible tools to that end laughably easy to obtain.
Humans are inherently violent. They are also inherently sexually aggressive. But civilizations and culture create higher social goals which control those impulses.. some are better at it than others.

I would buy an argument that American Culture is inherently violent. Certainly history supports that. But I don't buy the argument that guns are the root cause of mass violence. It would not upset me to see assault guns banned, but it will upset me when that fails and people supporting that idea will not admit it did not work.. we shall see..
 
Humans are inherently violent. They are also inherently sexually aggressive. But civilizations and culture create higher social goals which control those impulses.. some are better at it than others.

I would buy an argument that American Culture is inherently violent. Certainly history supports that. But I don't buy the argument that guns are the root cause of mass violence. It would not upset me to see assault guns banned, but it will upset me when that fails and people supporting that idea will not admit it did not work.. we shall see..

Guns are not the cause, but they are the tool of choice.

Let's say that there are 10 motivated, mentally unstable domestic terrorists out there. If it was very difficult to obtain a gun, how many of those would have the fortitude to figure out an alternative to a gun and build a bomb or drive a car or fly a plane as some are claiming would happen?

I'm not sure what that number would be, but I think it's safe to say that it would be less than 10.
 
Guns are not the cause, but they are the tool of choice.

Let's say that there are 10 motivated, mentally unstable domestic terrorists out there. If it was very difficult to obtain a gun, how many of those would have the fortitude to figure out an alternative to a gun and build a bomb or drive a car or fly a plane as some are claiming would happen?

I'm not sure what that number would be, but I think it's safe to say that it would be less than 10.

Bingo: decrease probability. IMO lot of perfect is the enemy of the good logic. You can kill a lot of people with fertilizer (ala OKC bombing) but it's not easy so we just don't see many fertilizer bombs
 
I've been thinking about the suicide rate and guns.

If they could, many who used them would tell you they're happy the choice was available.
 
I've been thinking about the suicide rate and guns.

If they could, many who used them would tell you they're happy the choice was available.

I think I've read that when there are failed suicide attempts, more than not regret the attempt. You don't get many second chances with gunshots to the head.
 

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