General / Off-Topic More than 50 killed in Las Vegas terror attack

[Bob Lighthouse]

Whenever there's either a rise or fall in any kind of crime statistic the first question you need to ask is does it correspond to a change in the way the figures are calculated, or the way the crimes are recorded.

Unfortunately they tend to bob up and down massively whenever people want to demand increase funding or justify past spending.

Victim support groups generally have much more accurate figures than government.

Correct, and what exactly constitutes a "mass shooting" is very relevant to my point as well.
That has been shifted to include many crimes which it should not imo, and it tilts the figures yet again.

Edit: The NCVS supports my premises as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Crime_Victimization_Survey

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

New more accurate headline:

"Cars now almost as safe as guns!"


(Lol, I just noticed the overlap is all under "projection"...)

 

[AJW]

An interesting insight into Paddock.

An Australian man who came to know Stephen Paddock intimately in recent years has offered the most detailed public portrait yet of the Las Vegas mass killer.

He said Paddock was a highly intelligent, strategic though “guarded” individual who won a fortune applying algorithms to gambling, and studied arguments for his right to own weapons under the US constitution.


Their encounters came via their respective girlfriends, Philippine-born sisters – one of whom, Marilou Danley, has returned to the US to be interviewed by the FBI in the wake of Paddock’s meticulously planned massacre.


Their acquaintanceship, through more than half a dozen encounters in the US and the Philippines between 2013 and 2015, revealed Paddock’s generosity – which had his overseas guests living in “palatial” style – and the existence of a “gun room” at his home in Mesquite, Nevada.


“Yes, I was familiar with him,” the man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian at his Brisbane home on Wednesday. “He was extremely intelligent, methodical, conservative – guarded – and strategic. A planning, thinking type of guy.”


But nothing at the time, including their “robust” discussions about US gun laws, rang alarm bells to suggest that he was capable of “such an inhumane, terrible, vicious act”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...tephen-paddock-intelligent-gambler-gun-rights

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Do you put much stock in an unnamed source in Brisbane, and said person's take about an American crazy person and his mail order bride, and this Nevada gun room?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

The Good: Paddock at least had the decency to save the American people the expense of housing him in prison, the cost of a trial, and the expensive of feeding him while we wait for years for a legal outcome.

The Bad: We'll never really know what went through his head - except the bullet that ended him.

The Ugly: Millions of dollars of advertising revenue have been lost, as there can be no trial coverage for advertisers to spend small fortunes to ensure their product or service is seen by the masses huddling in front of their screens to follow this media showcase. They will have to make due with the short-term attention generated by news programming recycling the things we already know along with whatever new information is released over the next week or two, until this is all but forgotten and the next sensational headline comes along, or one of the Kardashians does something outrageous to upstage this.

Now take a minute and think really hard about this - Did you nod at The Good, shake your head at The Bad, and perhaps smirk just slightly at The Ugly? If so, you probably recognize not only the truth in all this, but the much larger problem that society faces. It's a mix of apathy, an appetite for sensationalism, a dash of selfishness, and a creeping sense that we have less and less control over the world around us than ever before - and this is the sickness eating away at us, like a cancer, killing society from the inside out - and I don't know what the solution is, but I know what it isn't - it's not the tired rhetoric that circulates every time there is a tragic event. It's not retrying the things we've tried before that haven't worked. And it's not shrugging our shoulders because this problem is so much bigger than any one of us. Group hugs and candle light vigils are not a solution. They might make us feel a little better, but they don't change anything.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

The Bad: We'll never really know what went through his head - except the bullet that ended him.

Reports are he had multiple cameras set up and recorded the whole thing.
That suggests to me he probably also documented his "reasons'.
There is even clearly a note on the nightstand in one of the photos I saw.

 

[FuzzySpider]

It's obvious that this incident is a golden opportunity for you to spit poison and vitriol at the United States, and I respectfully ask you to stop.

His comment wasn't directed at the United States. It was directed at the culture of firearms ownership that seems to exist there and be completely insurmountable. Please try to understand that to us, outside, this really is strange and obvious.

 

[Adept]

That leaves "assault rifle" - a term created by Adolph Hitler, and adored by both the ignorant media and politicians. There is absolutely no such thing as a "semi-automatic assault rifle", period. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is a fool who does not know what they're talking about and has zero credibility. An "assault rifle" is always, 100% of the time, absolutely fully automatic. It IS a machine gun. Period, end of discussion.

Ahem... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle#M16A2

 

[Fyrd Judge]

Here in the UK they banned guns and those jumping for joy in pushing it, then went back to their TVs thinking they did well for society. All they did was push people intent on killing to use the knife and it was easy to do so as no one requires a permit for a knife.

Take one city London; Up to 1,000 people a month are victims of knife crimes in London, according to alarming new statistics. They show that around 400 a month are being injured in attacks — many of them seriously — while others are being threatened. In the first four months of the year, 11 people were murdered in knife attacks. Four teenagers have been stabbed to death so far this year. This is just London, and it proves more people die by knife crimes every year in the UK, than guns did when they were legal.


There were 213 homicides using a sharp instrument in 2015/16, accounting for 37% of all homicides. This was an increase from 186 cases in 2014/15 (36% of all homicides).

At No time in UK history did we have guns killing so many people every year. What banning the gun did in the UK was to force the criminal to kill in other ways and make it far easier for them to do so.


So what did the gun ban do in the UK to stop murders................ NOTHING.

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04304

 

[Adept]

This time Jimmy beats Joey with a stick.

The problem isn't the bat, nor the stick.

Nonsense. Another attempt to claim that easy access to powerful firearms isn't the key ingredient to mass shootings. Everyplace has an easy access to sticks, but we never hear of stick-beating massacres carried out by a single sicko.

This isn't rocket science. Everybody should be able to figure out what the critical component is.

 

[Boomer Kay]

Um, 2/3 of those gun deaths are *suicides*.
Thank you for proving my point about false narratives.

1/3 are homicides. Total number has not gone down (and reached new record high in 2016) -> "people are not getting gunned down in the streets more" based on imagination I guess.

And before you go there, Japan has a much higher suicide rate and essentially no guns.

Japan does not have a "much higher" suicide rate.
Germany has a much lower violent crime rate. So low in fact, it wouldn't even show up on your chart since it's below 200/100k.

The reality is our violent crime rate is the same as the late 60s, *despite* there being around 50% more people.
That's also relevant when using raw numbers like you did.

So the idea that immigrants bring crime and violence is ... ?

(Lol, I just noticed the overlap is all under "projection"...)

You can check 2016 values.
Both went up well above projection.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

His comment wasn't directed at the United States. It was directed at the culture of firearms ownership that seems to exist there and be completely insurmountable. Please try to understand that to us, outside, this really is strange and obvious.

You are being mislead is the problem.
It's a big country.
Firearm enthusiasts aren't shooting people all over the place.
It's the gangs and drug war.
That is where your vitriol should be directed.

 

[Boomer Kay]

You are being mislead is the problem.
It's a big country.
Firearm enthusiasts aren't shooting people all over the place.
It's the gangs and drug war.
That is where your vitriol should be directed.

Gang violence accounts for 29% of the homicides.

 

[FuzzySpider]

You are being mislead is the problem.
It's a big country.
Firearm enthusiasts aren't shooting people all over the place.
It's the gangs and drug war.
That is where your vitriol should be directed.

Mass shootings don't seem to happen elsewhere.

The gangs and the drug war is another topic entirely, but again other countries which have drug issues don't seem to have drug "wars". Perhaps declaring war on every problem, or treating every problem as a military problem, is what is a major cause of social decline in the USA?

 

[Adept]

It bears noting it's not the "gun nuts" who are shooting people.
Our gun violence is disproportionately in the "progressive, liberal" centers of the country

There's a whole lot more people there. Are you trying to imply that the mass shooters are "progressive, liberal" people? It looks like those are the ones targeted, not the perpetrators.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

1/3 are homicides. Total number has not gone down (and reached new record high in 2016) -> "people are not getting gunned down in the streets more" based on imagination I guess.

Your graph shows exactly what I claimed.
Look at the numbers for now and 1970.

Japan does not have a "much higher" suicide rate.
Germany has a much lower violent crime rate. So low in fact, it wouldn't even show up on your chart since it's below 200/100k.

15.4:12.6 = 1.22. yeah that's "much higher."
Germany?
I'm glad you agree that firearms are not the deciding factor in suicide deaths.

So the idea that immigrants bring crime and violence is ... ?[/quote

What?

You can check 2016 values.
Both went up well above projection.

You need to look at longer timelines, like this one:

Don't take my word for it but don't be disingenuous either.

 

[Adept]

Perhaps not sticks, but people have been using trucks to achieve remarkably similar outcomes.

Much easier to deal with, and at least so far in nothing like comparable numbers. Do not try to equalise firearms with trucks, it's not going to work.

Incidentally bolt action rifles and non-automatic shotguns should be enough to make US citizens safe in their homes. They are rarely used for mass murder.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Mass shootings don't seem to happen elsewhere.

The gangs and the drug war is another topic entirely, but again other countries which have drug issues don't seem to have drug "wars". Perhaps declaring war on every problem, or treating every problem as a military problem, is what is a major cause of social decline in the USA?

"Mass shooting" is a definition problem.
Most of those are gang shootings, not attacks on the public.
Brevik is your black swan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

 

[Boomer Kay]

Don't take my word for it but don't be disingenuous either.

Your graph forgets to mention the stretches of war.
WW2
Korea/Nam
Gulf War 1-99999
Notice something?

And btw - you can legally own a machine gun in germany.
The problem with your "every law abiding citizen" approach is - your laws to stick to are almost non-existent. How do you determine a law abiding citizen in relation to guns? By his parking tickets?

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Your graph forgets to mention the stretches of war.
WW2
Korea/Nam
Gulf War 1-99999
Notice something?

LOL, no, you're mistaken.