They're shooting firefighters now.

[Angel of Death]

Just a FYI.

[Tender Branson]

I think we should create a "US Amok Thread", where we put all this into ...

[Franzl]

If only those firefighters had had automatic weapons to defend themselves with.

[Link]

If only those firefighters had had automatic weapons to defend themselves with.

Agreed.  Nothing like a pocket full of shells and a toasty open flame.  Right NRA apologists?

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

If only the firefighters had brought along armed guards!

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Who is "they"?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

[bgwah]

I think we should create a "US Amok Thread", where we put all this into ...

I actually created one a few years ago, though it's since died.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If only those firefighters had had automatic weapons to defend themselves with.

They're called fire hoses.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

Not all of the facts are known. His sister is unaccounted for, and it is possible that it was her gun, or that somebody else purchased the gun legally.

[TNF]

It's obviously high time we put an armed officer in every home. Just in case, you know, it burns down and that officer needs to put a few rounds in a psychopath who takes pot shots at firefighters.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

Not all of the facts are known. His sister is unaccounted for, and it is possible that it was her gun, or that somebody else purchased the gun legally.

He was an ex-felon.  He legally could not be in possession of a firearm.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

We know he murdered his grandmother. It sounds like he just murdered his sister. Someone might want to check up on exactly how his mother recently died.

[Sbane]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

Not all of the facts are known. His sister is unaccounted for, and it is possible that it was her gun, or that somebody else purchased the gun legally.

He was an ex-felon.  He legally could not be in possession of a firearm.

The question is, did he get it from a family member or a friend? Adam Lanza didn't buy his weapons either. There's too many damn guns lying around America.

[Joe Republic]

I think we should create a "US Amok Thread", where we put all this into ...

I actually created one a few years ago, though it's since died.

Some crazed lunatic shot it?

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

Not all of the facts are known. His sister is unaccounted for, and it is possible that it was her gun, or that somebody else purchased the gun legally.

He was an ex-felon.  He legally could not be in possession of a firearm.

It still could have been a weapon legally obtained by someone else. The guns Lanza used were all legally bought, he just simply obtained them from his mom's house.

A frequent critique of guns control is that "they'll obtain a gun if they want to kill," insinuating a black market where it is easy to obtain guns. It appears that is not the case, and these killers find somebody they know who has legally purchased the gun themselves. If this is the trend, it encapsulates everything wrong with gun culture and gun availability in this country.

[Benj]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

If fewer people owned guns legally, it would have been much harder to impossible for him to get his hands on one (not clear how he did get one--possibly by borrowing or stealing it from his sister or from someone else). This isn't a mobster or drug dealer; that's a separate issue. Ordinary felons don't have the capacity to illegally import guns or otherwise get a gun if there aren't legal guns just lying around. They get their weapons by borrowing or stealing legally purchased guns. Fewer legal guns means fewer guns for people like this guy.

[minionofmidas]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

Not all of the facts are known. His sister is unaccounted for, and it is possible that it was her gun, or that somebody else purchased the gun legally.

He was an ex-felon.  He legally could not be in possession of a firearm.

It still could have been a weapon legally obtained by someone else. The guns Lanza used were all legally bought, he just simply obtained them from his mom's house.

A frequent critique of guns control is that "they'll obtain a gun if they want to kill," insinuating a black market where it is easy to obtain guns. It appears that is not the case, and these killers find somebody they know who has legally purchased the gun themselves. If this is the trend, it encapsulates everything wrong with gun culture and gun availability in this country.

[Almost all Black market guns in the United States were legally obtained by someone else at some point. Guns don't die unless forcibly destroyed, you see.

[courts]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

If fewer people owned guns legally, it would have been much harder to impossible for him to get his hands on one (not clear how he did get one--possibly by borrowing or stealing it from his sister or from someone else). This isn't a mobster or drug dealer; that's a separate issue. Ordinary felons don't have the capacity to illegally import guns or otherwise get a gun if there aren't legal guns just lying around. They get their weapons by borrowing or stealing legally purchased guns. Fewer legal guns means fewer guns for people like this guy.

you seriously think they could just confiscate guns like that? it would be a disaster. look what happened with the uk after they tried their handgun crime ban. handguns crime went up 40% in the 2 years after. and it's not like the uk has anything like america's vast borders to contend with anyway. you can say they eventually contained the problem but their violent crime rate has otherwise remained still quite high in recent years.

that isn't to say that i think gun control will always backfire everywhere. clearly some countries don't have problems with illegal guns. and the restrictions on automatics seem to have had an effect. but i'm extremely skeptical anything on the scale of what people are implying here could work given the tendencies in the us and culturally similar countries. face it, we are a violent and distrustful people. worse still we're going to probably be entering another technological revolution soon thanks to fabrication taking off. so that could easily render a lot of the more common sense restrictions on felons and other undesirables already in place even harder to enforce in the near future.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

It honestly doesn't matter whether or not the gun was legally acquired by the man.

[J. J.]

Ironically the homicide rate was the lowest in 2011 that it has been at any point since 1963. 

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

[All Along The Watchtower]

Ironically the homicide rate was the lowest in 2011 that it has been at any point since 1963. 

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

in spite of the number of guns around. In spite.

[Benj]

He had the guns illegally.  So it's not like the NRA would be defending his owning the guns anyway.  What law would've stopped this from happening?

If fewer people owned guns legally, it would have been much harder to impossible for him to get his hands on one (not clear how he did get one--possibly by borrowing or stealing it from his sister or from someone else). This isn't a mobster or drug dealer; that's a separate issue. Ordinary felons don't have the capacity to illegally import guns or otherwise get a gun if there aren't legal guns just lying around. They get their weapons by borrowing or stealing legally purchased guns. Fewer legal guns means fewer guns for people like this guy.

you seriously think they could just confiscate guns like that? it would be a disaster. look what happened with the uk after they tried their handgun crime ban. handguns crime went up 40% in the 2 years after. and it's not like the uk has anything like america's vast borders to contend with anyway. you can say they eventually contained the problem but their violent crime rate has otherwise remained still quite high in recent years.

"Still quite high" is comically low compared to the US. And British gun control laws before Dunblane were much more restrictive than US laws at the height of gun control in the 90s, so this is a stupid comparison.

Not to mention that guns flow across the US borders in only one direction: South, to Mexico. Nearly all guns used by Mexican drug cartels were legally purchased in the United States (then smuggled to Mexico). In fact, nearly all guns used in crime in the Western Hemisphere were originally legally purchased in the United States.

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Yes, we're violent and distrustful. That seems like a reason to forcibly disarm the populace, not to allow them to keep purchasing weapons and shooting strangers on a whim.

[Simfan34]

Let's arm firemen.

[courts]

"Still quite high" is comically low compared to the US. And British gun control laws before Dunblane were much more restrictive than US laws at the height of gun control in the 90s, so this is a stupid comparison.

even before it enacted gun laws the british crime rate was considerably lower than the united states. in fact if you examine non-gun related homocides the us has consistently been pretty high.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

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if you are referring to the '90% of guns' claim then that is simply not true. studies on this yield varying results but even the most recent one done by SGI estimated somewhere 'between 27 and 48%.' that is not insignificant obviously but far from 'nearly all.'
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth

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well, i have issues with the obvious militarization of american police and the prison-industrial complex. but obviously i don't think the solution is to totally disarm all police and civilians. i think it's a multifaceted problem caused by a lot of things - growing gap between rich and poor in a very materialistic/status seeking society, unresolved ethnic/racial tensions exacerbated by record immigration, adverse reactions to drugs, lack of social support, warped attitudes towards 'masculinity,' general atomization of society, etc. i suspect even if guns were somehow completely eradicated from society you would still see similar murder and suicide rates.

anyway, apologies for the delayed response. i've had a lot to catch up on the last few days.