Oregon shooting: Initial reports of 10 dead at Umpqua Community College

[11B4V]

How about Obamaguns?  Everybody gets a gun!

I don't want Raz to have a gun. Nothing personal, however.

I had a gun.  Gave it up.  I didn't think was right for me to have.

You know I'm messing with ya.

[Monoriu]

I'm not hearing a great deal of thought put into the regulatory specifics.  In other words, what type of gun control is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of mass shooters?

I think our system is basically only police, the military, athletes, and a very exclusive gun club are allowed to own guns.  Everybody who owns a gun and every gun are registered.  There are very strict rules on storing and transporting guns.  Even the majority of off duty police officers are not allowed to take their guns home.  Anybody found with so much as an unregistered bullet on them gets 10 years in prison, or more.  The regulatory regime is so successful that even the triads don't really use guns anymore. 

[Eddie Teach]

The regulatory regime is so successful that even the triads don't really use guns anymore.

I've watched enough kung fu movies to know they aren't very useful anyway. 

[Monoriu]

I think the HK gun club president, who is really crazy about guns, illegally bought more guns than his licence allowed.  He put all his guns in his home, but one day accidentally shot himself in the leg.  He agonised for many hours before his family sent him to the hospital.  He had a licence, never used his guns for any purpose other than as a hobby etc but still got many years in prison.  I think he is still inside. 

[Martinus]

A PAGAN. ONE OF THE WICKER PEOPLE.

Photos from MySpace The Oregon gunman who lined up his victims and asked specifically which ones were Christians before shooting them execution style, had a special interest in "magick" and "spiritualism" and had joined a dating website called "Spiritual Passion." On the site, Christopher Harper Mercer, 26, who killed 10 people and injured seven at Umpqua...

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2015/10/oregon-shooter-into-occult-wiccan-dating-website-shutters-public-access-to-killers-profile-3223138.html

So my Discordian Thelemite Jungian line would have probably been a safe pick. 

[11B4V]

A PAGAN. ONE OF THE WICKER PEOPLE.

Photos from MySpace The Oregon gunman who lined up his victims and asked specifically which ones were Christians before shooting them execution style, had a special interest in "magick" and "spiritualism" and had joined a dating website called "Spiritual Passion." On the site, Christopher Harper Mercer, 26, who killed 10 people and injured seven at Umpqua...

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2015/10/oregon-shooter-into-occult-wiccan-dating-website-shutters-public-access-to-killers-profile-3223138.html

So my Discordian Thelemite Jungian line would have probably been a safe pick. 

Probably. Had he have been a militant atheist, he would have shot everybody in the head.

[Jaron]

Had they been Hindus, he would have said "Prepare to meet Kali...in HELL"

[Martinus]

A PAGAN. ONE OF THE WICKER PEOPLE.

Photos from MySpace The Oregon gunman who lined up his victims and asked specifically which ones were Christians before shooting them execution style, had a special interest in "magick" and "spiritualism" and had joined a dating website called "Spiritual Passion." On the site, Christopher Harper Mercer, 26, who killed 10 people and injured seven at Umpqua...

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2015/10/oregon-shooter-into-occult-wiccan-dating-website-shutters-public-access-to-killers-profile-3223138.html

So my Discordian Thelemite Jungian line would have probably been a safe pick. 

Probably. Had he have been a militant atheist, he would have shot everybody in the head.

Actually a Discordian Thelemite Jungian can also pass for an atheist. It is a very universal hoi-polloi.

[dps]

So I guess you guys just need to mobilise and change the system by electing people who are not hostage to the gun lobby - that is if you cared enough about it to do something instead of bitching on online forums.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that America is a democracy or a republic, rather than a plutocracy.

You all also seem to be operating under the assumption that a majority of the electorate would actually be in favor of more stringent gun control, which isn't obvious.

Personally, I don't have any problem at all with requiring all firearms to be registered, but I don't think that would stop any shootings, just make it easier to figure out who committed them if they weren't caught in the act (which mass shooters almost always are). 

And I don't have any problem with building a lot of new mental hospitals and making it easier to involuntarily commit people to them.  It would be a better use of tax money than some of the things we spend it on instead.

[DontSayBanana]

Had they been Hindus, he would have said "Prepare to meet Kali...in HELL"

Nice.

[viper37]

And even better the more fanatic 2nd Amendment types think any mental health check before selling a gun is a form of gun control.

Ok, there are probably fanatic 2nd Amendment types and fanatic anti-gun types - but wouldn't the moderates wishing to introduce some form of gun control (such as background checks and waiting periods, for example) whilst keeping the right to bear arms in principle, be the majority? It seems like this is one of these issues where politicians on both sides are more interested in keeping it as a wedge issue rather than a problem to be solved by compromise.

It is actually an example of where a minority can hold a democracy hostage to their views, even while the majority thinks they are bonkers.

It is a third rail for the radical gun nuts. Any attempt to have any kind of gun control is an instant and total reversal of any support for a politician, regardless of other views. Your typical gun nut would vote for a no gun control ever Sarah Palin over any kind of sane gun control advocate even if they aligned with all other views and where clearly a superior choice.

Couple that with vesting all political capital in the gun control debate into an organization that has been completely taken over by the complete crazies (the NRA) and the problem is considerably worse than simply whether we can have rational gun control. The debate happening right now is whether the NRA and their ilk will even allow current laws on the books to be enforced, much less discuss new ones.

then the majority should start attacking the NRA.

[11B4V]

And even better the more fanatic 2nd Amendment types think any mental health check before selling a gun is a form of gun control.

Ok, there are probably fanatic 2nd Amendment types and fanatic anti-gun types - but wouldn't the moderates wishing to introduce some form of gun control (such as background checks and waiting periods, for example) whilst keeping the right to bear arms in principle, be the majority? It seems like this is one of these issues where politicians on both sides are more interested in keeping it as a wedge issue rather than a problem to be solved by compromise.

It is actually an example of where a minority can hold a democracy hostage to their views, even while the majority thinks they are bonkers.

It is a third rail for the radical gun nuts. Any attempt to have any kind of gun control is an instant and total reversal of any support for a politician, regardless of other views. Your typical gun nut would vote for a no gun control ever Sarah Palin over any kind of sane gun control advocate even if they aligned with all other views and where clearly a superior choice.

Couple that with vesting all political capital in the gun control debate into an organization that has been completely taken over by the complete crazies (the NRA) and the problem is considerably worse than simply whether we can have rational gun control. The debate happening right now is whether the NRA and their ilk will even allow current laws on the books to be enforced, much less discuss new ones.

then the majority should start attacking the NRA.

with guns...right? 

[Valmy]

That would show them

[Berkut]

I'm not hearing a great deal of thought put into the regulatory specifics.  In other words, what type of gun control is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of mass shooters?

Mandatory licensing in order to own firearms, requiring safety courses and background checks.

Bans on assault rifles and large capacity magazines.

Bans on carrying weapons in public places, open or concealed.

Ban private ownership of handguns.

Run afoul of the second amendment?  Probably.

That's not feasible in the US legal system.

The US political system is so fucking hijacked by the gun nuts, there is actually a ban in place that prevents the CDC from investigating gun violence, since if you consider the problem.

Let's all think about that for a moment.

The NRA crazy fucks have actually gotten us to a place where an objective, fact based scientific investigation by the government  into gun violence is seen as an attack on gun rahts.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/08/opinion/halpern-gun-research/

The scientific literature regarding violence prevention is considerable. Yet important research that focuses on gun violence has been shut down for political purposes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention once considered gun violence a public health issue. The science agency had the freedom to ask important questions: Does having a gun in the home make a family safer? Do concealed carry laws increase or reduce gun fatalities?

But in 1996, the National Rifle Association pressured its many supporters in Congress to put the squeeze on the CDC by cutting funding that went to gun research, with the stipulation: "None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control." Gun-related research ground to a halt.

In 2009, scientists funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism looked into whether carrying a gun increases or decreases the risk of being shot in an assault. In 2011, Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg inserted a provision into a funding bill that extended the CDC restrictions to the rest of the Department of Health and Human Services, ending that similar research. Even Obamacare has been touched by the NRA: The new health care law restricts doctors' ability to collect data about patients' gun use.

[DGuller]

For all its faults, NRA isn't stupid enough to believe that guns save lives, even if that's what it conditions its members and sympathizers to believe.

All of it comes down to the lack of desire to have an honest debate.  There is some value to argument that having guns around is cultural preference, and cultural preferences sometimes come with a human toll that we're okay with.  But as with many political issues, there is a desire to pass off a preference as the only reasonable thing to do, to turn the balance of pluses and minuses into a balance of pluses and bigger pluses.  Guns not only give you freedom, but they save lives too.  How can anyone who's not a total moron or a totalitarian be against that?

And let's be clear, every single argument in favor of guns that claims that they save lives in aggregate is based on either an obvious lie or an obvious fallacy.  Every.  Single.  One.  Lies or stupidities, all of them.