Figure 1: Cumulative mass shooting fatalities from incidents where semi-automatic rifles used (blue), non-fatal injured (light blue), fatalities where other weapons (handguns, semi-automatic handguns, rifles, shotguns) used (red), non-fatal injured (pink), through April 2018. Light green denotes assault weapons ban. Orange denotes 2017M01-2018M04. Source: Mother Jones, accessed 5/18/2018, and author’s calculations.
The above graph does not incorporate the estimated 10 deaths and additional injuries incurred today in Santa Fe, TX.
I’m not sure where you get these numbers.
My count comes out at 298 fatalities and 819 shooting injuries from 1982 – 2018 using ‘rifle’, ‘semi-automatic rifle’, or ‘assault rifle’.
Of these, 58 fatalities and 546 injuries came from Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas, whose guns were set in full auto, not semi-automatic mode.
If I include Paddock, then semi-auto deaths come out at 23 / year and injuries at 36 / year. Ex-Paddock, the numbers are 21 deaths and 20 injuries per year.
This is what excites your imagination, let the Mexicans be damned, eh? That’s alright. I’ll let the counter run.
Steven Kopits: Please read the notes. Blue indicates “semi-automatic rifles” (implicitly including those set to automatic) and “assault rifles”. All else — including rifles/long guns not denoted as semi-automatic — are included in red/pink.
You do notice an acceleration in deaths attributable to semi-automatic rifles and semi-‘s converted to automatic, yes?
@ Menzie
Don’t expect too much from “Princeton” Kopits. If you started to notice “Princeton” Kopits’ reading comprehension or ability to read a well-labeled graph, you might start to doubt “Princeton” Kopits had ever darkened the door of Princeton University. You might even wonder if “Princeton” Kopits had even graduated any four year accredited University. And Kopits has worked hard with his internet nomenclature to create that impression.
Paddock was using bump stocks, which in effect convert semi-autos to full autos. The price of such conversion is a dramatic reduction in accuracy, but of course, if you’re shooting at a field of 20,000 targets, accuracy is not a constraint on casualty rates. The Paddock situation was unusual in that respect.
The NYT reported that, in the Texas shooting, Pagourtzis used a shotgun and a revolver, so no semi-automatics as such (unless we want to call a revolver a semi-automatic, which it is after a sense).
I’d note that the primary weapons prohibited by the Australians are not rifles, but handguns.
By the metrics you are using, box cutters are still the deadliest weapon of mass murders since 1982.
Some people want to blame guns after every mass shooting, like the person shooting people just happened to be there.
Maybe, we should ask why some people want to commit mass murder? Could it be copycats to gain infamy, prescribing drugs to deal with behavior, the Internet or mass media, moving towards a Godless society, etc.?
We could also ask why many people vote for Trump. There are crazy folks everywhere. It’s a fact of life.
Why does anyone need to own a semi-automatic rifle equivalent. It is only used for killing people.
If only you blokes had a conservative government like we did.
I once read the USA had more gunshops than petrol stations. don’t know if it is true but it kinds says it all.
The most amazing thing is the punters out there want gun controls given what the polls say.
A lot of Americans use semi-automatic guns without killing people. Having more firepower than criminals is an advantage, particularly when the criminals know a spray of bullets will likely result in hits. Anyway, why do Americans own cars that can go more than 70 MPH? In America, we have freedom and rights. Of course, some Americans feel they need a mother figure to micromanage and protect their lives.
A lot of Americans use semi-automatic guns without killing people.
But a fair number of Americans do kill people with semi-automatic weapons. That’s the problem.
the criminals know a spray of bullets will likely result in hits
Ah yes. I can just picture dead-eye PeakTrader gunning down the bad guys in a hail of bullets. Further evidence that he lives in a fantasy world. You’d probably kill 20 innocent bystanders before you even grazed the bad guy.
why do Americans own cars that can go more than 70 MPH?
Because Americans aren’t very bright.
we have freedom and rights.
But not much sense of personal responsibility. And when you say “we” I take it that you mean your fellow trolls in St. Petersburg, right?
Americans feel they need a mother figure to micromanage and protect their lives.
At a minimum they feel that they need to be protected from corrupt Wells Fargo bankers.
Not Trampis, you just showed you ignorance of weaponry: “Why does anyone need to own a semi-automatic rifle equivalent. It is only used for killing people.” Semi-auto guns are the most useful and accordingly popular style weapon probably in the world. Pistols, rifles, and shotguns all come as semi-automatics. They are used in nearly ALL shooting sports.
Yes, they are used in lots of shooting sports. Mostly by people who can’t shoot straight and need to fire off lots of rounds to hit the broad side of a barn. Competition shooting is all about taking your time between shots, controlling your breathing, slowly squeezing the trigger, and physical conditioning. If you’re doing it right, an hour at the shooting range will leave you physically tired after only shooting a few rounds.
2slugbaits: I have a right to use an AR-15 on that darn squirrel! And those rabbits — they are gonna be shredded.
Menzie, yes, you do have that right to hunt game, large and small, with an AR-15. No, they will not be shredded with the common AR-15 caliber. See how a little knowledge shreds ignorance?
2slugs, you seem to never learn when your arrogance and ignorance are corrected. It’s OK, your a liberal and ignorance is what is expected.
BTW, for all those decrying the use of automatic rifles, the Texas shooting was done with a revolver and a shotgun. The shotgun may have been a semi-automatic, since they are so popular and are so many of them.
CoRev: Hmm, think I noted in the legend statistics go through April 2018.
In Wisconsin? Absolutely.
https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/dates.html
I own a .270 bolt for big game and targets for proficiency to shoot the animals.
My brothers own semi automatic rifles, not AR 15 but long rifles with scopes.
My issue with the semi is tools and complexity to work the action……. and hard to jam a bolt action.
Yes, they could live without them for what we hunt.
I do not care for the NRA!
Menzie, to what issue of mine were you referring? “CoRev: Hmm, think I noted in the legend statistics go through April 2018.”
It’s a fine chart; factually correct.
Now… take that data and include it into a chart that shows all homicides by all means. Oh, the mass shooting data disappears.
This is truly a wag the dog situation.
Oh, one other thing. This shooting was done with a shotgun and did not have a high capacity magazine.
Bruce Hall: As indicated in the legend to the figure, the data extend through 2018M04.
What would’ve been the outcome if the person had a AR-15 with bump stock, and several high capacity magazines? A relevant question.
Menzie, why the hypothetical? BTW, reports say there were 3 armed SROs in/at the school, and they stopped the shooting.
https://www.policeone.com/mass-casualty/articles/475247006-SRO-shot-confronting-Texas-school-shooter-stable-showing-good-signs/
“…During the shooting, Barnes and another officer rushed into Santa Fe ISD High School, where they confronted the 17-year-old junior accused in the shooting, Dimitrios Pagourtzis.
Pagourtzis shot Barnes with a shotgun, badly wounding the 49-year-old school police officer, according to HPD Capt. Jim Dale, a close friend of the officer. A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper with Barnes fired off a shot before Pagourtzis surrendered.”
An recently in Il, https://wdef.com/2018/05/16/sro-stops-school-shooter-illinois/
“…DIXON, Illinois (WDEF) A school resource officer confronted a teen who opened fire at a school this morning in Illinois.
It happened at Dixon High School at 8:30 AM.
The suspect is a 19 year old former student….”
And in MD, https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/great-mills-high-school-shooting/index.html
“(CNN)A 17-year-old male student shot two other students at Great Mills High School in Maryland on Tuesday morning before a school resource officer engaged him and stopped the threat, authorities said….”
And in GA, https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/02/01/armed-police-officer-stops-shooting-in-georgia-n1502907
All of these occurred since the FL school shooting. How many lives may have been saved or woundings reduced due to their presence? A relevant question.
You guys just don’t get that evil can’t be stopped, just deterred. The gun is not what is evil but the shooter, or knife wielder, or driver, or club swinger, or deranged pilot.
Le’s ban evil!!!!
Bruce Hall Actually, the kid used a shotgun and a revolver.
2slug,
Actually, the kid used a shotgun and a revolver. . My point exactly. https://econbrowser.com/archives/2018/05/cumulative-mass-shooting-casualties-since-2009m01-2017m01#comment-209147 .
The focus on the AR-15 is illogical.
Bruce Hall: Look…at…cumulative…kills…due…to…semi-automatic rifles in the past year. That is, after all, the point of the graph.
Look at the cumulative kills of handguns and knives versus semi-automatic rifles. You are focused on the distraction rather than the main activity.
Handguns kill more people than knives and knives kill more people than rifles (by a large margin).
Young, black males kill people at a much higher rate than any other population group.
A large portion of people killed by young, black males are involved in gang or other illegal activity.
But focusing on the real problem isn’t as newsworthy as focusing on the occasional actions of disturbed or demented shooters with a semi-automatic rifle.
As I recommended in my previous comment (https://econbrowser.com/archives/2018/05/semi-automatic-rifle-use-and-mass-shooting-casualties-1982m08-2018m04#comment-209167) create a chart with real perspective. But I won’t hold my breath because that doesn’t fit the narrative.
Bruce Hall: It’s either or. I’m for action on handguns as well. My guess, you’ll just say “we need more mental health care”, but refuse to fund it, preferring to go for (more) big tax cuts.
I’ll presume my reply simply got lost in the ether rather than deleted for being non-PC.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/ . AR-15s are not the problem; but they look scary so that’s where the attention is… rather than on the larger problem.
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D Mass shooters are roughly ethnically representational of the the overall population.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-2.xls . Overall murders are not ethnically representational of the overall population.
The focus on semi-automatic rifles is like spending enormous sums of money protecting people from scary looking sharks and ignoring the mosquitos.
Menzie,
You said: My guess, you’ll just say “we need more mental health care”, but refuse to fund it, preferring to go for (more) big tax cuts.
Actually, I view the mental illness issue in the same way that I view the gun violence issue: mental illness is too broad a term for addressing the specific issue of sociopathic and psychopathic behavior.
“Most individuals with psychiatric disorders are not violent. Although a subset of people with psychiatric disorders commit assaults and violent crimes, findings have been inconsistent about how much mental illness contributes to this behavior and how much substance abuse and other factors do.” https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mental-illness-and-violence
Annually, in a population of 330,000,000 we have approximately 12,000 murders with firearms… 0.0036%
Of the 12,000 murders with firearms we have approximately 250 committed with rifles… 2.1%
Of the 250 murders with a rifle we have approximately half committed with an AR-15.
Now, some portion of the 12,000 murders are committed by sociopaths (crime related) or psychopaths (mentally ill) or deranged (mentally ill) persons. I haven’t seen numbers that specifically state what percentage of murders are related to mental illness, but even if we assumed all murders were related to mental illness we would have only a very small percentage of mentally ill people who were violent enough to commit murder.
“Research shows that mental illnesses are common in the United States, affecting tens of millions of people each year. Estimates suggest that only half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/index.shtml
So, in answer to your assertion, I do think that people with certain types of mental illness are potentially dangerous to others, but most are not and that a broad-brush approach to mental illness may be of some help in general, but probably not very effective in avoiding the statistical outliers who commit mass murders with AR-15s.
Are you willing to increase involuntary incarceration or “treatment” for those who might be violent? What about those who might be violent because of mental illness? What about those who have been diagnosed with mental illness, but may or may not be violent? Who identifies these people? What are the risks that those who are simply of different opinions or perspectives might be seen as mentally ill and involuntarily incarcerated or “treated”? What is the treatment; incarceration and/or drugs?
The bigger question: how much of everyone’s rights and freedom are you willing to relinquish for a very marginal improvement in safety?
One final thought: you can agree with Donald Trump that murders are an increasingly yuge problem in the U.S., or you can look at statistics that show that the murder rate has declined since 1990 and that it is a problem, but one that has been declining through a variety of efforts that have not yet included widespread loss of rights and freedom: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/dueling-claims-on-crime-trend/
Bruce Hall: Murder incidence has been decreasing. But more could be done. If cancer fatality rates were down relative to 10 years ago by 1%, would you say “Mission Accomplished”, no more to be done? Moreover, you’ve made no mention of the cross-country pattern.
I’d be willing to fund more mental health care (opposite of the current administration’s proposals); if some people are involuntarily restrained because they are violent against others, that might be a price to be paid.
I find it amusing that the same people who rail against “rights being taken away” don’t rail against unequal and inequitable application of law enforcment methods, and sentencing, according to race and class.
Menzie,
We’ve gotten onto side roads for this discussion which was about semi-automatic rifles and mass shootings.
I agree that semi-automatic rifles have been used in mass shootings; I also pointed out that among all homicides mass shooting and mass shooting with rifles were a very, very thin slice of the pie.
Then you raised the question of mental health and I pointed out that even among the experts that violence among those with mental health issues was low (although higher than the general population).
Now you’ve moved on to unequal treatment by law enforcement which I fail to see as a relevant factor in mass shootings or mental health.
Sure, there are plenty of societal problems which are not solved by focusing on AR-15s or taking away rights and freedoms. I find your approach to these issues as implementing TSA for everything.
“…if some people are involuntarily restrained because they are violent against others, that might be a price to be paid.” . Um, we already have processes and laws to restrict/incarcerate violent individuals. The escalation of that would be to restrict/incarcerate those who we believe might become violent or pose a threat to others.. If we choose the escalated version, does it follow that students can accuse other students of being “weird” or “possibly crazy” or “potentially violent” and then the accused are removed from school and put through an evaluation process by someone who might be biased toward restricting/incarcerating the accused because if they fail to evaluate someone as dangerous and he turns out to be dangerous, the blame will be placed on the evaluator?
If so, we’ve entered the realm of “thoughtcrimes”. We would then have punishment for being “potentially dangerous”. Of course, that would be fine with me as long as I could do that to my political adversaries.
Corev: “Semi-auto guns are the most useful and accordingly popular style weapon probably in the world.”
In the world? Well, what you are saying is sort of true in the sense that the U.S., with 5% of the world’s population owns 45% of all the privately owned guns in the world. Almost every developed country in the world except the U.S. has severe restrictions on ownership of semi-auto rifles and handguns.
It is only Americans, with their “Peculiar Institution” of gun violence, that just can’t feel like real men without semi-automatics. It’s a unique fetish you don’t see anywhere else. The rest of the developed world gets along just fine without them.
Joseph, you failed to dispute my claim, but shifted t5he argument to gun ownership. We do own more guns per capita, but not it is due to our “Peculiar Institution” of freedom and history of revolution against an oppressive Government.
Only you seem to make snide and inaccurate statements: “It is only Americans, … that just can’t feel like real men without semi-automatics.” from personal opinion. In the US we all can have our personal opinion. Mine is based upon experience and facts, yours on emotion and ????
There are fewer rights in other countries. And, much more violence in other countries with far fewer guns. If we want to further restrict the 2nd Amendment, why don’t we restrict other rights, like speech and news?
Sure, “real men” don’t play with or like guns. They just hope the nanny state will take care of them – good luck. Real Americans (including women) protect their family and property, and know deterrence works, even with a Doberman dog.
Maybe, we should ban Doberman dogs and allow “real men” Chiwawas 🙂
PeakTrader: I think you mean “chihuahua”.
Menzie Chinn, Chiwawa is the American version, like the Hispanic version of American is Gringo 🙂
Many Americans can’t rely on the police, like Sweden:
http://www.icenews.is/2008/11/15/swedens-unsolved-violent-crime-rate-at-95-percent/
Corev: “We do own more guns per capita, but not [sic] it is due to our “Peculiar Institution” of freedom and history of revolution against an oppressive Government.”
History of revolution against an oppressive government? Wow, you are still hung up on a “Peculiar Institution” from almost two and half centuries ago. Just as conservatives are still hung up on their “Peculiar Institution” of slavery from two and a half centuries ago, also enshrined in the Constitution.
Guns and race — two uniquely American obsessions. You just don’t see anything approaching these obsessions in the rest of the developed world. Conservatives just are unable to move on from their shameful past.
“Guns and race — two uniquely American obsessions. You just don’t see anything approaching these obsessions in the rest of the developed world. Conservatives just are unable to move on from their shameful past.”
And, yet, Menzie struggles to utter the word “Mexican”.
Interestingly, the primary form of racism, I believe, is prohibitions of various sorts. US immigration and drug policy are collectively responsible for about half the violent crime rate in US cities; more than half the violent crime rate in Mexico; 642,000 cases of migrant predation this year; an excess of $135 bn in US government outlays (if I accept FAIR’s analytical framework); about half the undocumented Hispanic population in the US; and a cost of about $3 / working hour for undocumented migrants in the US, among others.
Prohibitions create black markets, and as it turns out, these will almost always involve distinct ethnic groups in lower income brackets. The behavior of these groups will come to be seen as distinct and dysfunctional, rather than as a predictable response to poor public policy. In other words, rather than attribute bad things happening in Mexico to US policy, the problem is viewed as the result of weak Mexican character and morals. Mexicans are bad, by this way of thinking.
The result of which is that Menzie sees the Texas shootings as occurring to ‘us’, and 8,800 cases of migrant predation since May 14th as happening to ‘them’. He will post immediately on the shooting, and yet not at all on migrants, which is a problem five orders of magnitude greater. I personally think conservatives have an easier time discussing race, and I think innovation will come from the conservative side–well, it certainly is from me.
Steven,I agree: ” I personally think conservatives have an easier time discussing race, and I think innovation will come from the conservative side–well, it certainly is from me.” As it has in the past. All the racist claims come from the liberal/left, while they fail to legislate anything.
CoRev: Gee, I think liberals had something to do with the Civil Rights Voting Act. I am thankful for liberals moving to desegregate public housing, which enabled my parents to escape having to live in Chinatown. But I guess these measures don’t count as being helpful to the racial minorities, in your mind.
Menzie, the 1965″ Civil Rights Voting Act was jointly sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) and Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL),…h the Senate overwhelmingly passed by a vote of 67 to 13″ and only 2 Republican Senators voted against it. While in the House “passed the Voting Rights Act by a 333-85 vote (Democrats 221-61, Republicans 112-24).” Nearly all the NO votes were from southern States. Percentage wise Republicans voted for the Act at a higher percentage than did the Democrats. Remember, at that time Republicans were the minority party, and did not control any House or Senate committees.
Public Housing and miscegenation laws were state laws. This map show the time frames for their repeal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_miscegenation.svg I don’t know which state(s) in which your parents resided and which party controlled them when these laws changed. Only you can research the validity of your own memories.
CoRev: I didn’t say Democrats, explicitly; I said liberals, of which some were Republicans. Those were the days.
Yes, I know about anti-miscegenation laws. I used them as an instrumental variable in this post.
Menzie, now the measurement for liberal/conservative politicians is how bipartisan they were in the 60s?
CoRev: Quantitative assessment of how “liberal” and “conservative” individual members/senators were in the past vs. current indicates the distributions overlapped more substantially in the past, so at the time some Republicans could be counted as more liberal than some Democrats. The overlap of the distributions has decreased over time (starting with the advent of the Nixon Southern Strategy).
CoRev: I don’t remember conservatives as being particularly active in helping strike down anti-miscegenation laws, an event for which I am also very thankful for.
I don’t dispute any of that, Menzie. But I think we are facing a newer generation of issues, and I think many liberal policies are frankly a hindrance.
I am the conservative, yet I am the one championing a better way to treat migrants. You can’t even bring yourself to say, “8800 cases of victimization of migrants in five days? That’s a lot! We should do something about it.”
You know, we can argue guns and shootings, but these are real statistical outliers, and I think, essentially impossible to stop in the US in any realistic scenario. At least I don’t know how to do it.
But 642,000 cases of migrant predation? That’s an easy fix. We could be past it in two years. We have the economic theory, we have the comps, we have the technology. And we even have the public support, to judge from reader feedback. And believe it or not, we even have a President who might give it a try!
We lack the support of the establishment. Too timid. Too old. Too mentality inflexible. And certainly not the liberal establishment: How can we use a market to fix a social ill! Oh, the horror!
So it falls to those of us who see conservative tools as a path to addressing societal problems. I think that’s the way it’s going to be. Paradoxically, the innovation will come from the conservative side, and not only in the case of migrants.
Prohibition reduced alcohol consumption roughly in half.
Illegal drugs are far worse.
Mexico hasn’t been able to enforce much of their laws.
Why overwhelm U.S. law enforcement?
And, create enormous social costs?
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf
I stand by what I said, Peak. Do the numbers, for example, the impact of US drug laws on inner cities. I think the you find the results appalling.
Legalizing drugs won’t solve inner city crime. It’ll make it much worse.
And, people typically don’t go to jail just for drugs. They go to jail for more than one crime.
The explosion of crime in the ‘60s and ‘70s was the result of lax drug laws.
If you’re expecting a “summer of love” legalizing drugs, you’re mistaken.
There were very few mass shootings when boys were allowed to be boys in the ‘50s and ‘60s. When cowboy and indian shows were popular, and when plastic guns looked real and shot projectiles, when kids didn’t have B.B. guns or 22s.
PeakTrader: And what was guns per capita then? And before 1959, did anybody in the US have AR-15’s?
Menzie Chinn, guns per household is in decline:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/
Crime may increase gun ownership rather than gun ownership creating crime.
There are many more guns now, but the murder rate is at 1950s level.
https://www.infoplease.com/us/crime/homicide-rate-1950-2014
PeakTrader: No, the number of guns per person is rising (see here); it’s just that ownership is more concentrated.
To Jim Hamilton:
Jim,
I have not posted on your fine economics blog in many years. I have given consideration to returning to the blog. I must say that this topic and thread gives me some pause. Menzie’s presentation is exceedingly weak. Bruce Hall’s factual responses appear to have overwhelmed Menzie. Facts be damned. Let’s push that leftist agenda right out in the Pacific Ocean. Come on, Jim. You’re a very smart guy. A thorough analysis on this topic was not provided by Menzie. That is an obvious fact. I could care less about anyone’s personal agenda and ideology. I do care, though, about the quality of presentations on economic blogs, particularly those econ blogs that I hold in high regard. If I find the time to comment frequently once again on your fine blog, know that I will take on presentations and comments that fail to capture the big picture in a discussion. It’s all about hard facts and context when some of this info is presented. In the meantime, I wish you all my best. I have always enjoyed your economics blog. – Bill Sumption aka Movie Guy
Movie Guy: Welcome back. I see you have no problems with the facts as presented in the graph, it just happens there are other facts you’d prefer.
This gives me an opportunity to revisit one of your last comments:
As of 2018Q1, the consumption share of GDP was … 69%.
In this comment, you dared me to repost in 3-5 years, stating:
I have not reposted, but BEA provides the relevant data. If you have a spreadsheet program, you can verify the following assertions.
The net exports to GDP ratio 5 years after the last observation in the graph I posted was…-3%, essentially the same as it was in the depths of the recession. The ex-oil NX ratio was -1.6%, only slightly larger than the -1.5% at the time you made the comment. What is true is that the deficit has increased slightly since 2016Q4 (and projections are for additional deterioration). But then, I did not anticipate a Trump+Republican Congress heck-bent on blowing up the cyclically adjusted budget deficit.
Not clear to me 3% deficit is unsustainable given exorbitant privilege (for better or for worse). On the other hand, as I point out here, we are (because of fiscal policy) headed toward elevated trade deficits (Thanks, Trump!).
By the way, in all this, there was no massive devaluation (sic; more properly depreciation). The real trade weighted dollar was only 11.2% weaker (log terms) 5 years out. As of 2018Q1, the dollar is roughly unchanged relative to 2009Q1.
So, I look forward to your renewed engagement with Econbrowser, despite the fact you have found my analyses wanting. Your comments will provide ample material for levity.
movie guy, before you give bruce hall (or corev or peak or rick) their nobel prize, you should understand that these folks advocate for a policy that accepts the slaughter of school children rather than to do everything in their power to protect school children. that is the big picture. it is more important to protect some idiot’s guns than to protect our children. let me repeat that. these folks are more prepared to protect an idiot’s gun than to protect our school children. you should reconsider your “support” of such folks on this blog.
baffling,
Hyperbole doesn’t suit your credibility.
Bruce, not hyperbole. You would prefer to protect idiot gun owners rather than school children. You want a different narrative then take a different stance. But you should be embarrased by your position, as your response indicates. Pathetic.
Bruce Hall: It’s not hyperbole if it’s accurate. If you say you are willing to accept untrammelled ownership of semi-automatic weapons, then you are implicitly trading off childrens lives for weapons ownership. Whether this is acceptable depends on your preferences (remember the Supreme Court has not ruled that semi-automatic weapons are a right guaranteed by the 2nd amendment). But it is inarguable that by allowing ownership w/o restrictions of these weapons, it must be the case that more children will die; you can debate the numbers, not the actuality. You should be honest and just own up to the tradeoff you are willing to accept.
Menzie,
Anything can be misused… even free speech. The creative mind finds a way to fix the problem of the outliers without undermining the preponderance. I’ve given you the data that shows baffling’s statement was hyperbole. That same data shows that taking everyone’s semi-automatic rifle away and incarcerating mentally ill because they might be dangerous are not reasonable solutions to an outlier problem. You can choose to ignore the data and call the outlier instances the common problem… but they are not.
99+% of the schools will never have a gun violence problem. Reasonable safeguards can make schools as safe as any place on earth. Those include restricted access points (can still have emergency exits) and officers assigned to the schools. Some states have chosen to train and arm teachers who are willing and able (not forced) to act as a deterrent. None of those measures interfere with gun ownership and are effective against individuals using all types of weapons. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/school-resource-officer-blaine-gaskill-helped-stop-gunman-at-a-maryland-high-school/2018/03/20/639a8e42-2c66-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html
Now, we should move our attention to taxpayer supported colleges and universities that restrict the public free speech of individuals or groups that don’t have political views favored by the administrations of those institutions. Oh, wait, that’s for safety. Just another Constitutional right sacrificed on the altar of safety (but we know it’s not about safety, don’t we). http://thehill.com/regulation/243785-colleges-are-restricting-free-speech-on-campus-lawmakers-say
bruce, you have offered up nothing to refute my statement that you are willing to sacrifice a few student’s lives for the protection of some gun toting idiots. just curious, how many human sacrifices are you willing to make in the name of the nra and second amendment?
baffling,
There are ~130,000 schools in the U.S. (excludes colleges and universities). https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84
In the previous three decades, the shootings at school and universities have been:
• 1980s – 41
• 1990s – 66
• 2000s – 65
• 2010s – 66
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
Many of these are one or two shots fired an no one killed. Many could have been handled by a single police officer assigned to the schools. Many could have been avoided with proper building security.
Now your argument is that we should take away the rights of millions for the random acts of violence of a very, very, very few. In my book, that’s “overkill”.
no Bruce. I stated very clearly you would rather sacrifice some school children rather than anger some gun nuts. You may call it “overkill”, but if you were a parent in Houston last week you would certainly not call it “overkill” to protect your child. You are worried about the “gun rights of millions” but apparently are unaware of a students right to life. I guess ones right to life does not extend beyond the womb in the conservative world view. Bruce, you need to quit rationalizing for the ignorant positions taken by the nra and become a responsible citizen in your community.
baffling,
See my response to Menzie.
bruce it would be better if you reply to my comments directly. but my guess is you understand your hypocritical position on right to life. and you are not worried about the parents in houston who had to sacrifice their children for your pleasure.