General / Off-Topic More than 50 killed in Las Vegas terror attack
- Thread starter AluminumAlloy
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Surely the right to life of gun massacre victims is of higher value than the "potential" for self defence by a firearm owning home owner. By your use of the alien term "home invasion" I presume you reside in the USA; in UK in the event of an armed burglary we as citizens are ONLY permitted to use what is termed "reasonable force" and this doesn't include the use of either firearms or guns (the latter being the proper term for shotguns, which I still retain). In recent UK history a farmer called Tony Martin defended himself with a SHOTGUN during a burglary at his farm (?? home invasion??).... he killed one of the intruders and he was subsequently sent to prison for several years. In the UK the government now only allow the very restricted ownership of bolt action rifles incapable of conversion to semi/fully automatic fire, and the ownership of shotguns. Neither of the latter are much use to the wanton perpetrator of such a hideous crime as we now see in Las Vegas.
You are being extremely disingenuous with your comment on how "easy" it is to make a "Gun" presuming you mean a firearm as in assault rifle, but you would need expertise and a machine shop as well as blueprints before even contemplating such a task. The restriction on "firearms" especially military grade, is the step in reducing the likelihood and ease with which potential perpetrators of such recent USA massacres can achieve their evil ends. Surely this all makes sense?
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Tony Martin shot a kid (a burgling kid) in the back as he tried to escape, he did it with a semi-auto shotgun that's outlawed in the UK and IIRC he didn't even have a standard shotgun license. It wasn't self defense, even though he'd been burgled repeatedly and received no help from the police.
The idea that this has all that much to do with the second amendment is laughable. If your government wants to get you a semi-automatic, fully automatic, or frankly even a g'damn Bazooka isn't really going to stop that from happening. Purely and simply this is about the stupidity of putting high powered military style armaments in the hands of your populous and then wringing your hands when things go pear-shaped on such a regular basis. No citizen needs these kinds of weapons for defensive purposes. Full stop. This ongoing, NRA-fuelled agenda is ridiculous. That said I'd be amazed if even this kind of incident changed anything. Guns are just too engrained in the culture of the good'ol US of A.
The vast majority of shootings are done with handguns. These rifles make horrific mass murder possible, that is true, but small handguns are what are used in (from memory) 97% of fatal shootings. The whole "armed population" concept is deeply flawed.
Deleted member 115407
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Saw a similar story (real crime TV show) of a guy in the states who basically set up an ambush in his basement. He wound up being convicted of (I think) first degree murder, and rightly so.
Yeah it was a while ago now but there's documentaries been made about it if you are interested. He used a SPAS12 (I think). Which you can't own legally in the UK (then or now) and he'd fortified his house by removing floorboards beneath the windows and things. He'd been burgled already multiple times and his farm was failing, but it was travelers doing it so the police (to put it nicely) lacked the backbone to follow the investigations up vigorously.
The kid he shot bled to death in the shrubs under the window, after being abandoned to die by his partner in crime (who was also his uncle).
After he was released from prison the police put officers outside his house as the traveler family were out to kill him. He was interviewed on TV and said if they'd done that back when he was getting burgled all the time none of it would ever have happened.
Tragic all round really.
Deleted member 115407
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This fallacious argument has been used time and time again. It is designed to drum up emotion - "But what about their right to live?!"
The only person who deprived the Vegas people of that right is now deceased. There is no one else to blame, and there are tens (if not hundred+) of millions of law abiding gun owners who are not responsible for their deaths.
Justification of force, be it deadly or non-deadly, is subjective in many (if not most) jurisdictions. By subjective I mean that that test is not made against what "a reasonable person" would believe at the time of the act (objective), but rather what the actor "reasonably believed" at the time of the use of force.
In my opinion ( and in the opinion of the State of Texas) a person unlawfully entering your home is justification for a person to reasonably believe that they are in danger of harm (see subsection a, omitted) from the person who they used force against...
Texas Penal Code, Sec 9.32
(b) The actor's belief under Subsection (a)(2) that the deadly force was immediately necessary as described by that subdivision is presumed to be reasonable if the actor:
(1) knew or had reason to believe that the person against whom the deadly force was used:
(A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment;
No, but we do have the right to keep and bear arms in this country, which precludes the Government from restricting our access to assault weapons (see my post re: Heller, above).
It's only a matter of time.... http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22421185
Certainly.
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Shooting somebody dead for breaking and entering goes way beyond "defending yourself". We are always allowed to use force proportional to the threat. If the farmer had been in mortal peril, the slaying would have been judged as self defence.
Shooring somebody because you are affronted that they have invaded your home is not self defence.
And yet, things still happen don't they? Things just continually slip through the cracks. And people die. No, we don't have a great track record here in America. But we aren't (not you saying this) all crazies carrying a gun and I own several.
Chief
The government are also hell-bent on de-funding healthcare, which will make the problem worse.
That said, I saw a statistic which said that even dealing with mental health would prevent around 4% of US gun crime.
This case was actually a kid, and the kid was shot as he was trying to get out of the house.
The Daily Mail still campaigned on his behalf.
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Minonian
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I have only one last thing to say about this, because i see pretty much pointless to debate about it.
To destroy the golem you created, what need to be done, to withdraw your power from it. In your "creations", your soul also there. And this one is not mine. I can give advice, but i can't have control over it.
"you are responsible for what you have tamed" -Antonie De saint Exupery.
Take it!
To destroy the golem you created, what need to be done, to withdraw your power from it. In your "creations", your soul also there. And this one is not mine. I can give advice, but i can't have control over it.
"you are responsible for what you have tamed" -Antonie De saint Exupery.
Take it!
FYI Tony Martin was previous to the multiple burglaries a holder of a shotgun certificate. He shot the burglars in complete darkness, shooting at the noise of breaking glass. He shot with a pump action shotgun NOT a semi-auto shotgun. He fired three shots fired low (hitting the burglar's legs, the only shot a little higher (recoil?); being the fatal shot in the lower back, killing the sixteen year old multiple felon). It also transpired on appeal that Martin suffered mental illness and depression, exacerbated by multiple night-time burglaries at his isolated farm. All three of the burglars involved where criminals with many, many previous convictions. The two surviving burglars went on to commit and be prosecuted for multiple criminal acts including drug dealing. Martin would never have served prison time in the US.
1. Martin's shotgun certificate was revoked, ergo the shotgun he had was illegally owned.
2. He didn't purchase this shotgun legally, he claimed to have "found" it.
3. He shot at them 3 times, that much is true, but the first time was from the stairs. After that they tried to run, he pursued them and shot them as they were trying to escape.
4. I don't think English law has a concept of a "felon", and I don't feel like waking my wife up to ask her. But regardless, the person he killed was legally a child.
This person gunned down a fleeing kid with a shotgun he owned illegally and served a total of 3 years. He has since been arrested for illegally possessing a firearm, again.
Deleted member 115407
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As well he shouldn't have, based on the description you gave.
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Tell me, based on that description - what was the purpose of Tony's jail time? Was it retributive, rehabilitative...? What was the malice that the courts were trying to incarcerate out of Tony Martin?
Besides defending himself from burglars, I mean?
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Even a cursory reading of the Declaration of Independence reveals a far deeper motivation than that.
...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...
They certainly didn't expect a government that had gotten to that point to abdicate willingly and would have realized forcing the issue would certainly be difficult without parity in tools of violence...as they were in the midst of just a such a struggle when the text was written.
If the oppressor has such tools, the oppressed need them too.
I'd argue that anything that makes it burdensome for the private citizen to arm themselves as well as police or military is violating the original intent behind the Second Amendment.
The regular army is a tool of the government and was most certainly recognized as such long before 1776.
Just as we can today, the US founding fathers would have been able to rattle off contemporary examples of national militaries being used as the prime tool of oppressive regimes to impose their will on their citizenry.
The whole point of the right to bear arms was to make such overt oppression very difficult.
I have exactly zero faith in what currently passes for democracy in the US.
Absolutely.
A government that doesn't fear it's people and is secure in it's tyranny at home has a much easier time projecting it abroad.
How is that illogical or inconsistent in the slightest?
The authorities are tools of government. The people, down to the most individual level, need to retain the means to make the exercise of authority over them difficult.
I can think of plenty of examples of such resistance. The Black Panthers are a personal favorite of mine...disbanded far too soon though; recent events have highlighted just how far that struggle still has to go.
Of course, the scale has always been tipped in the oppressors favor, and I favor less blatant means of resistance.
Even I have to acknowledge that right and wrong are completely subjective, while the ability to destroy is more quantifiable.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
Legally speaking the Militia of the United States is every able-bodied male citizen or would-be citizen from age 17 to 45 plus any female citizen serving in the National Guard (outmoded and sexist, but it is what it is). This is almost 60 million people.
I don't.
The right to bear arms has been repeatedly infringed.
That's not a feeble excuse, that's a legitimate safety concern. The idea that suppressors on rifle calibers are most useful for killing people without being discovered is a load of nonsense inspired by Hollywood fantasy.
Rifles are loud and every extra bit of protection is important. You can easily damage your hearing through good earplugs, and good earplugs plus bulky ear muffs aren't often practical in a hunting setting. They seriously compromise situational awareness (which can lead to accidents) and are cumbersome in many wilderness areas.
Even much smaller cartridges can cause permanent hearing damage in short order and pure comfort should be more than reason enough to allow suppressors.
He broke the law (this wasn't the first time he'd shot at someone) and was considered a very dangerous man. He was refused early parole because the courts were convinced of his volatility.
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This topic has driven off-topic of the tragic events in Las Vegas when our thoughts should be with the victims and their families. I will not post further to this: I am a Shotgun and Firearm owner (legally held in UK) and am now FULLY in agreement with our government taking away my treasured 1911 Colt 45 Semi-automatic pistol and destroying it (a very historical WW2 firearm born bravely too!) nor am I in disagreement with only being allowed to own bolt action rifles (some American like my Remington 700 some British like the .303 see my sig below). With what I am allowed to own I COULD NOT technically even if I wanted to perpetrate a massacre of any really horrific proportions before the forces of law ended any such attempt!
For FuzzySpider your point .4 : ˈfel·ən/ law. › a person who is guilty of a serious crime: a convicted felon. (Definition of “felon” from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press (in deference to US readers but originally a British legal term that our Australian cousins will readily recognise!)
There were no "heavy weaponry", no "machine guns" used. So far no evidence has surfaced to indicate Paddock had either a Federal Firearms License, nor an ATF permit for ANY automatic weapons.
What was found were some modified SEMI-AUTOMATIC weapons - sporting rifles, with a "bump stock", which can be installed to simulate automatic fire, by using the weapon's recoil to actuate the trigger rapidly - but this is NOT a machine gun, as the trigger is still squeezed once per round fired.
Spreading misinformation does no one any favors.
Silencers:
I own 3 suppressors, two for rifles, one for a pistol.
Why? I provide a service to a number of horse stables in my area and to a number of dairy cattle farmers. I kill ground hogs. Ground hogs dig large holes and tunnels, and for many reasons are fond of digging and tunneling in and under horse stable lands and dairy pastures. This puts cattle and horses at risk of broken legs if they happen to step in a hole or a tunnel collapses under them. My use of a suppressor greatly diminishes the likelihood that the sound of gunfire will startle horses or cattle, and rarely alerts any other ground hogs that might be burrowing, sunning or feeding in the area.
On an average year, I kill between 300 to 350 ground hogs across the area I service.
My rates are extremely reasonable, and I am well regarding in my community for the service I provide.
Live traps are not terribly effective, poisons put horses and cattle at risk, and the use of poisons on dairy farms is actually prohibited by health regulations.
I'm a terrible shot with a long bow, but I'm I'm an ace with a rifle - as a former military sniper, the reason should be obvious.
So there are perfectly valid reasons for private citizens to own suppressors - I do not use the term "silencer" because the reality is nothing like what you see in the movies. They suppress, they do not "silence".
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. Anything else, no matter what any politician or reporter claims, is NOT an assault rifle. Calling even a highly modified AR-15 with a 38mm grenade launcher attached with an after-market 50 round magazine, a keyhole stock and a fixed bayonet is still not an "assault rifle". It is a highly modified semi-automatic sporting rifle.
Again, disinformation does not serve the common good.
It is possible for private citizens to legally purchase and own and operate fully automatic weapons. They are extremely rare, extremely expensive, and require an agonizing amount of federal paperwork.
I happen to own two - one an AK-47, taken out of the hands of a North Vietnamese soldier who awoke my uncle by jabbing him in the face with it. He killed that solider with his combat knife, took the rifler, defended the other soldiers in his company, and carried that rifle with him for the next two years, until he returned to the US in 1970. After he left the army, he kept that same rifle, filing all the required federal paperwork, and passed it along in the family when he died.
It hangs in a shadow box, along with a folded US flag, and my uncle's Medal of Valor. It hasn't been fired since it left Vietnam, but it does get cleaned and oiled twice a year.
The other is a Thompson M1928A1 which was originally seized by Thomas J. Friel, one of Eliot Ness's original team members, and has an extremely long history as to how it came into the possession of my family, who have owned it for several decades. Like my uncle's AK-47, this is a priceless piece of American history, and while it costs me several thousand dollars a year to keep and maintain these, I do so proudly. One as a patriot, the other as a law-abiding citizen. Although, I have once fired the Thompson - at an outdoor range, during a special event put on by the club. It was also fired by the Sheriff at said same event, who was a little misty-eyed hearing this history of this particular firearm.
So it should go without saying, I do very much support firearm ownership. It is one of our most important Constitutional Rights.
Events like this clearly indicate there are some real social problems - but these will not be resolved through any manner of firearms regulations. These are issues of mental health. While Paddock may not have been diagnosed with any mental issues, there was clearly something wrong with him that he would take such horrific action.
I'll leave you with this - I would be my recommendation, in light of this tragic event, and in the name of public safety, for hotels like this to replace the windows in their buildings with Class VII ballistic glass. As this type of glass is rated to stop multiple rounds of high-powered rifle fire, it would go a tremendous way to prevent any such future acts, as this sort of glass could not easily be broken, making it much harder for anyone to commit a similar act.
The rest of a real solution is dependent on changes to current mental health care and even more so, on both the availability of such services and proper insurance coverage for such services.
Indeed, we wouldn't have what we know as Australia today if it weren't for the Pommies of old.
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