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School Shootings


swordfish

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On 5/17/2019 at 3:13 PM, TrojanDad said:

Its not supposition....the profiles of people involved in these mass shootings speak for themselves....these are not known criminals with past records of crime in the vast majority of cases.  Especially the school aged kids.  My point is that there is typically special cause.

 

Many of the kids caught up in gang violence have no past records of crime, either... until they commit the shooting that gets them caught. Every criminal has a first crime,  and most all also have a "first time caught" crime; sometimes they are the same crime, but not necessarily. So not having a criminal record doesn't mean someone is not a  criminal, just that have not been caught being a criminal. And if it is a sign of mental illness that a person who was never previously caught committing a crime decides to commit mass murder, then the surviving Boston Marathon bomber must have mental health issues and needs to be in a hospital. 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:13 PM, TrojanDad said:

 

The shootings I am talking about are not pre-Columbine....a vast number have occurred that did not involve an AR or a semi-auto rifle.  That is fact.  Bottom line carnage can be caused in a school or other enclosed environment with the use of a SA rifle.

I know you are not talking about pre-Columbine shootings, because those shootings don't fit your hypotheses that recent (like in the last 40 years) changes in our society are what causes these shootings to occur. The fact that there were mass shootings before this current "immoral" age suggests that you are barking up the wrong tree in terms of causation. 

And I don't know why you keep referencing automatic weapons when I have never mentioned them as a part of the equation here. My points are that:

(1) the substantial increase over the past 40 years in the number of guns in the general population  -- of any type -- means increased opportunity today for someone who wants to use a gun to get his hands on one, versus 40 years ago; and

(2) as I think you'd agree, a shooter armed with a semi-automatic weapon with a large capacity magazine (or  with multi smaller magazines) has greater potential ability to cause harm than one who's armed with a double action type weapon like a bolt action rifle (with the same size magazines) or a revolver,; therefore, the increase in SA weapons as a percentage of the firearms in private hands over the past 40 years also means that the person looking to use a gun these days also has a greater chance of putting his hands on a more lethal one than someone 40 years ago.  

On 5/17/2019 at 3:13 PM, TrojanDad said:

 

I gave you data about the number of M1's that flooded the market post WWII.....yet why didn't we see a big number of mass shootings?  More weapons = more mass shootings right?  Is just that simple according to your theory.

More forks = more obese people......take them away!!!

According to a quick internet search, (1) the sale of the 240,000 M-1 carbines  you mentioned took place in 1963, and (2) in 1963, there were approximately 84 million guns in private hands in the U.S. 

I guess we may have different standards, but in my book a .3% increase in the number of guns does not constitute a "flood." 

There is a cost vs. benefit analysis here, just as there is with forks. With forks, that analysis really hasn't changed much from 40 years ago, especially on the benefit side of the equation. (Although exciting recent advances in spork technology may change that!)  

But back when the majority of Americans hunted, or lived in rural areas where varmint control was a necessary aspect of life, the utility (benefit) of gun ownership in our society was much higher and certainly more defensible to offset the cost to society -- gun violence. Today, the majority of the folks who own guns today do so for either self-defense (even though violent crime rates are lower) or for "fun/recreation." So the cost (gun violence) of widespread gun access today is not offset by the reduced "benefit" of gun ownership today. IMHO, of course. 

On 5/17/2019 at 3:13 PM, TrojanDad said:

 

that depends upon the city/urban area...wonder what the data would tell us about those cities where homicides have increased??

Increased since when? Increased as a per capita rate or just in total number? 

I am sure I could find you some select stocks that would suggest no one made a dime in the stock market since 1974. We are talking about general trends over a 40+ time span, and the general trends over that time in the U.S. -- and even in cities like NY and Chicago and Indy -- show violent crime in general is down and murder rates generally are down.  The number of mass shootings is up. 

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19 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

We agree homicide rates are down overall in the US.  So increased gun volume but itself leads to mass shootings, but has no role to play with decreased overall homicides?  That's interesting logic.  More guns = more mass shootings while more guns = less homicides...........Sorry....I will continue to contend its more complex than gun volume when it comes to mass shootings....there are more variables in the equation.

 

You are leaving an important part of my argument out -- which is that we have actually a more peaceful society in general - fewer people who want to commit murder.  The pattern we see -- fewer individual murders, but more mass killings -- suggests the fewer people interested in killing others have become more lethal, which is completely consistent with that smaller pool of killers having much greater access to better killing weapons that the larger pol of killers 40 years ago had. 

 

19 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

 

I have already provided you with 2 specific mass shooting events (one being the largest in US history) that did not involve SA rifles.  It doesn't take a SA rifle in restricted areas to cause carnage.

 

You are creating a straw man by implying that I somehow claimed that is impossible to cause "carnage" with non-SA weapons, so any example of a mass killing that invovled non-SA weapons therefore refutes my point. But, of course I didn't make the claim that it was impossible to kill a lot of people with a non-SA weapon.  What I said is that it is much easier to cause more "carnage" with SA weapons, and so the significantly greater access to SA weapons in today's society in part explains why there are more mass shooting incidents, even as the total number of separate shooting incidents has declined.

The evidence backs me up. First, to clarify, I did not refer to semi-automatic rifles only. My reference was to semi-automatic guns.  The three largest mass shootings in the U.S. to date were in Vegas, Miami, and VA Tech, and in all three cases both used SA weapons. (VA Tech shooter used two semi-automatic pistols.) You are correct that the Columbine shooters did not use SA weapons, but, sadly, their toll  doesn't even put them in the top 12 of mass shooters.  (And by the way: one of the mass shootings that rank above Columbine in number of vicitms is the Texas Clock Tower shooting, where one of the weapons used by Whitman was, you guessed it, an M1 carbine.)

So semi-automatic weapons were used in nearly all of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. The one or two exceptions merely prove the rule. 

19 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

 

In 2017, St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit were the top 3 in murder rate in the US.  Go back and look at rates since 1998 or so.  I only looked at those 3 cities.  While I concur overall US homicide rates have declined, I do not concur they have declined in every major metro area.  Again, study those areas that are not in decline.  Why are they different than the overall US trend?

Again, you are "refuting" claims that I never made. I never said that every single city and town in the U. S. has seen a direct decline in murder rate over the last 40 years. But, again, the few exceptions only serve to highlight the GENERAL rule that, in most places across in this country, murder and other violent. Crimes occur at lower rates today than they did 40 years ago.  More relevant to our discussion is what has happened to murder and violent crime rates in the parts of America where these mass shootings have occurred. 

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