4 dead. Not sure if gunman's been caught/killed yet.
Is it bad that when something like this happens first thought is its probably another American gunman going on a spree rather than a terrorist?
Shooting in Washington Naval Yard
4 dead. Not sure if gunman's been caught/killed yet.
Is it bad that when something like this happens first thought is its probably another American gunman going on a spree rather than a terrorist?
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Sounds like a disgruntled worker.
Hope is the denial of reality
12 confirmed dead. One suspect has been identified as a military contractor, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Texas.
Sounds like he had a history of extreme rage issues.
I'm going to sound like an extremely broken record but maybe, just maybe somebody with a history of extreme rage issues shouldn't have his hands on weapons designed to make it very easy to kill a lot of people. Just a thought.
You mean a Remington 870 shotgun? What about giving him secret clearance and running multiple federal background checks on this guy? Did that prevent the shooting? What about the advanced security features at the Navy Yard? What makes anyone think that these measures do anything to increase security? Jesus Christ, there were people there who were trained military who could have stepped in earlier, but this area was another gun free zone.
Last edited by Enoch the Red; 09-18-2013 at 03:09 PM.
That's what surprised me a bit - the one time I visited a naval facility in Washington (I think a different one, the one where NRL is based) we had to apply a month in advance for security clearance. Can't remember how well the security was to get in (metal detectors etc.), but you couldn't just walk in.
That's not to say it wouldn't be a smart idea to have more gun control, too - ogre mentions cars, but cars are a) always registered, and even if you buy them at a 'car show' you still have to register them b) you need a license (that tests if you know applicable laws, how to use it, etc.) that can be revoked for years/forever if you use your car irresponsibly, and linking to earlier mentions of blind people with guns, you can't get a driver's license if you are blindAnd that while cars are a lot more essential to most people's lives than guns. Also I'd like to point out that the most visible spree killing I can recall that used a car resulted in 8 deaths (including the attacker) and 10 injured, in a setting that was pretty much ideal for that (big crowds gathered) and he missed his intended target, because unsurprisingly, after you hit your first victims, the car gets out of control. And a gun in that scenario would likely have been more devastating too, but this being in the Netherlands he probably couldn't get one easily (that's not to say we haven't had spree shootings either, but it's harder to get a gun). And in fact, if you're tough on crime, if you require guns to be registered, you can already prosecute any criminal for even holding a gun before using it, or after they've used it but you can't prove that you can still get them for gun possession. Without having to resort to things like tax evasion to get Capone, so to speak
Oh, and cars also are required to be designed in ways that make it harder to kill whoever you are hitting, as opposed to easier.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
It looks sloppy (and stupid) that "Secret Clearance" lasts for ten years, and can transfer to private contract work after being discharged from the Navy for 'cause'.
And those background checks only flag felony convictions. Police reports for discharging his weapon (at least twice) didn't result in prosecutions, so it didn't raise concern or suspicion by other law enforcement. Do you think those kind of gun-events should be prosecuted and tracked better, in order to show a pattern of misuse/abuse of guns that wouldn't meet standards for Secret Clearance? (I've heard numbers thrown around that between 2-5 million people have 'Secret Clearance', so it's not exactly a high bar to begin with.)
And it doesn't sound like the Naval Yard had "advanced security" features. Probably because it's a semi-open military installation (not a closed military base). More like a business park that requires extra checks only for access to sensitive areas. Plus, most of the 30,000 who work there are civilians, contractors or sub-contractors, not military personnel.
He (reportedly) got the AR-15 and handgun from the trained, armed people who were posted there for security. Some of the military personnel were carrying sidearms....and were confused as 2nd or 3rd shooters by witnesses. But even a bunch of handguns aren't much of a defense against one semi-automatic long gun, firing off rapid rounds of ammo, into groups of people below.What makes anyone think that these measures do anything to increase security? Jesus Christ, there were people there who were trained military who could have stepped in earlier, but this area was another gun free zone.
So what's the solution for that? Arming more people with military grade semi-automatic weapons? Gun Zones everywhere, all the time, arming the entire US? Sorry, I just don't think most Americans want a citizen weaponized/militarized country. Or that our gun-violence problems will be solved with more guns.
This is simply not true. Depending on the jurisdiction, even traffic citations will appear on a background checks. Depends on the jurisdiction where the crime happened actually, if the court is in a reporting jurisdiction a misdemeanor WILL appear on a background check.It looks sloppy (and stupid) that "Secret Clearance" lasts for ten years, and can transfer to private contract work after being discharged from the Navy for 'cause'.
And those background checks only flag felony convictions.
Like a car? I've heard cars can be used to kill lots of people easily.
And he was using a shotgun.... which was Biden approved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHZ7zXLvOkY
Yep, it's gotten that bad.Headlines like AGAIN. Another Presidential statement, more 'moments of silence' on Capitol Hill. Trauma centers fed up with being 'experts' on GSWs, and rotating military physicians to keep their 'combat skills' up to date.
I liked the statement made at the DC hospital treating wounded, by the Chief Medical Officer: "Something is very wrong here...and we need to work together to fix this..."
its a lot quicker for contractors. Less than a week for mom to get base clearance in order to stock the BX with hallmark cards. Hasn't had her Jeep searched once. I don't know what they do with the information behind the scenes, but all she had to supply were documents showing she was legally able to drive (license and insurance).
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 09-18-2013 at 04:46 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24153252
Deeply disturbing, if true.
Hope is the denial of reality
Oh god, you know what this is going to do to Kat?
It was a coordinated strike, just hours before they also locked his thread
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Those citations and violations wouldn't be a "red flag", though.
Make him obsolete?
Hope is the denial of reality
Yes I don't believe a guy with an extreme history of rage issues shouldn't carry a shotgun. He also if that's the case should have been denied clearance.
Please link me to any major incidents where a driver has deliberately gone on a killing spree trying to kill as many people as possible. In school, work, shops, streets, anywhere.
That's because Biden isn't going remotely far enough
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013...ach-boardwalk/
another (1:04)
crazy people be crazy, but as already pointed out, cars are designed around the concept to reduce injuries caused by them. guns are pretty much designed opposite of that
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Rand.... What OG said ^^^
That video was crazy
Making jokes about the poster with a mental illness is kinda like giggling at a funeral. There's been a lot of talk about the mental health of the shooter, just like every other mass-murder. After the Prohibition Era and Mafia violence ended, we became more "civilized" and began to focus on assassins or serial killers. But in the aftermath of so many single event mass-shootings, we'll have to modify again.
Sadly, neither the Unabomber, or Columbine, were one-off, isolated, freak events. There's a pattern forming, that can be charted and graphed, dissected and analyzed. More mass-killing events (deaths of 12 or more) have occurred in the last decade....than previous decades combined.
Source?
The number 12 also seems a suspicious choice, since law enforcement's definition is 4+, and if you're going to pick an arbitrary higher number, most people would naturally go towards ten.
The closest I could find says that the number of mass killings actually dropped in the 2000s, after an upward trend from the 60s to the 90s.
The number of homicide victims per year is also the lowest in absolute numbers since 1969. Unfortunately I can't give when the last time the per capita homicide victim rate was lower than now, because my data only goes back to the 60s. I did find a claim that the year would be 1928, though, which would mean that you're less likely to be murdered now than at any time in the past 85 years. And the murder rate (and indeed, all violent crime rates) continue to drop year after year. Something MUST be done, right?Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.
The graph was on tv, probably an MSNBC news show (but didn't have my glasses to read the fine print 'source') The definition of 'mass' and reason for using the number 12 was given, maybe it was for 'mass shootings'. Maybe there's a video I can find, but here's a recent article that also links other sources, charts and graphs.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/polit...hooting/69508/
I wasn't talking about the homicide rate, or the violent crime rate, though.The number of homicide victims per year is also the lowest in absolute numbers since 1969. Unfortunately I can't give when the last time the per capita homicide victim rate was lower than now, because my data only goes back to the 60s. I did find a claim that the year would be 1928, though, which would mean that you're less likely to be murdered now than at any time in the past 85 years. And the murder rate (and indeed, all violent crime rates) continue to drop year after year.
Yes, absolutely! It's a public health issue, with the same validity and "value" as finding the cause/cure for rare diseases that 'only' kill a few thousand people/year....or spending billion$ in R & D and pharmaceuticals to save and/or extend life. It's a public safety issue, which requires modifications and upgrades for every new era.Something MUST be done, right?
51 people die to lightning strikes each year.I wasn't talking about the homicide rate, or the violent crime rate, though.
Using your definition, 8.7 people die to mass shootings each year since 2000. (113 total in events with 12+ deaths).
Isn't it more worth our time to worry about lightning strikes?
Terrorism?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
If you're asking about the comparison between terrorism kills and lightning strikes, the terrorism number since 2000 is 251 per year according to this. About 5 times the number of lightning strike deaths. The number was about 3000 with another 8900 injuries in 2001 though, and that does go a ways towards justifying concern. I think I get the point you plan on making, and I'm probably more with you on it than you expect.
Your murder rate is still 4 times higher than that of any nation in Europe.
Which is the more likely explanation:
Guns
A video game made in Scotland
What explains the rapid decrease in the murder rate over the last two decades? Was it lower gun ownership?
Hope is the denial of reality
Because those are the only possible explanations, right? Those are the only two things that can possibly cause crime?
Do you really want to go through the mountain of proof that gun ownership rates have little to no correlation with homicide rates again? There's tons of it, and in fact if you go purely on the data it's easy to conclude that increasing gun ownership decreases homicide rate. I don't believe that's actually the case, but it does mean that at the very least, the impact of gun ownership rates on homicides is so small that it's completely overpowered by other factors to the point of irrelevance.
My point in pointing out that our homicide rate is steadily falling is that things aren't so bad now, no matter what you feel. Things aren't worse now than they were twenty years ago, which is about when homicides peaked. And whatever we're doing, we're doing it right, because the crime rate has been falling fairly steadily, both in absolute and per capita.
Also, you haven't been able to use "4 times higher" accurately in years (and it always required a carefully constructed definition of 'Europe' anyways - there are eastern European countries with significantly higher murder rates than the US - Lithuania is getting close to double).
I've been completely failing at finding 2012 figures for Europe beyond some notes that they've risen by 5%. I did find this though, and thought it was interesting, even if not completely relevant.
Last edited by Wraith; 09-19-2013 at 10:41 PM.
I call bullshit. Please graph for me or link to any evidence that countries with higher ownership rates have lower homicide rates.
Crime rates are falling across the whole developed world as far as I know.My point in pointing out that our homicide rate is steadily falling is that things aren't so bad now, no matter what you feel. Things aren't worse now than they were twenty years ago, which is about when homicides peaked. And whatever we're doing, we're doing it right, because the crime rate has been falling fairly steadily, both in absolute and per capita.
Its still valid with most recent figures as far as I know.Also, you haven't been able to use "4 times higher" accurately in yearsIts no more a contrived version of Europe than by saying America we don't mean Mexico. Besides is the USA a recently failed state? Is that really who you want to compare yourself with?(and it always required a carefully constructed definition of 'Europe' anyways - there are eastern European countries with significantly higher murder rates than the US - Lithuania is getting close to double).
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote