Coward Murders Children in Florida

[Pontifex Maximus]

So, the idea is that if Japanese Americans had guns they'd get in a shoot out with the government officers that came to collect them for the camps and the government would back down?

Yes.

because

When the government decides to use force, it looks bad.

[Vanoi]

I disagree its useless. Since the price of AR15s has dropped to about $400-450 with bullets less than 30 cents AR15s have been increasingly used in mass shootings. And many of those incidents they would not have been able to achieve the death total without. For instance how many could Paddock have killed with handguns from his hotel perch?

Reinstating the assault weapons ban would price the AR15s out of the hands of practically all the mass shooter types. Without that I would predict we see even more mass shootings with AR15s since they are cheap, easy to get and idolized by certain communities. Even if you don't support a complete ban do you really think there is nothing wrong with a 19 year old with documented mental health issues and police been at his home over 20 times should be able to easily buy an AR15?

• June 20, 2012: James Eagan Holmes, 24, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber Smith and Wesson rifle with a 100-round magazine, a 12-gauge Remington shotgun and two .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic pistols to kill 12 and injure 58 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.
• Dec. 14, 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, used an AR-15-style rifle, a .223-caliber Bushmaster, to kill 27 people — his mother, 20 students and six teachers — in Newtown, Conn., before killing himself.
• June 7, 2013: John Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber rifle and a .44-caliber Remington revolver to kill five and injure three at a home in Santa Monica, Calif., before he was killed.
• March 19, 2015: Justin Fowler, 24, used an AR-15 to kill one and injure two on a street in Little Water, N.M., before he was killed.
• May 31, 2015: Jeffrey Scott Pitts, 36, used an AR-15 and .45-caliber handgun to kill two and injure two at a store in Conyers, Ga., before he was killed.
• Oct. 31, 2015: Noah Jacob Harpham, 33, used an AR-15, a .357-caliber revolver and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol to kill three on a street in Colorado Springs, Colo., before he was killed.
• Dec. 2, 2015: Syed Rizwyan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, 28 and 27, used two AR-15-style, .223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9 mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 at his workplace in San Bernardino, Calif., before they were killed.
• June 12, 2016: Omar Mateen, 29, used an AR-15 style rifle (a Sig Sauer MCX), and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol to kill 49 people and injure 50 at an Orlando nightclub before he was killed.
• Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock, 64, used a stockpile of guns including an AR-15 to kill 58 people and injure hundreds at a music festival in Las Vegas before he killed himself.
• Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Kelley, 26, used an AR-15 style Ruger rifle to kill 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, before he was killed.
• Feb. 14, 2018: Police say Nikolas Cruz, 19, used an AR-15-style rifle to kill at least 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Have you even thought this through?

Logically if the majority of the military is going to side with "the rebels" then everyone having AR15s is completely unnecessary. If you think the majority of the military will side with you what exact tyranny are you so afraid of?

Rifles kill less people every year than every other firearm. More people are stabbed and/or beat to death on the US every year than any kind of rifle.

You act as if the AR-15 was the only reason these shootings happened without looking at their motive or the fact that in some of those cases more than just an AR-15 was used like in Aurora.

Virgina Tech proves your AR-15 theory dead wrong.

Japanese+Americans got interned because some Japanese on a private island in the Hawaii Island chain helped a downed Japanese pilot from the Pearl Harbor attack.

If the Japanese-Americans resisted then it would have only confirmed what the US government thought: that the Japanese-Americans would betray us to Japan.

[Heathen Hammer]

If you resist government taking away all your rights and put you in a concentration camp for no reason, then it would have confirmed that there is a reason. This is a rather scary 1984-esque way of thinking. I mean it would have been the same if Bush was putting all American muslims into similar camps because they could betray US to Al-Qaeda.

[chilon]

Rifles kill less people every year than every other firearm. More people are stabbed and/or beat to death on the US every year than any kind of rifle.

You act as if the AR-15 was the only reason these shootings happened without looking at their motive or the fact that in some of those cases more than just an AR-15 was used like in Aurora.

No. I am pointing out the fact that since AR15 have crossed a threshold in cheapness and ease of access their use has been on the increase in mass shootings. Your bolded part is literally irrelevant to the point at hand.

Its like saying more people die in car crashes than plane crashes so we shouldn't look at plane safety.

Virgina Tech proves your AR-15 theory dead wrong.

This makes no sense. First, you seriously can't be arguing that handguns are as effective killing weapons as AR15s. If there was any truth to that militaries around the world would just use handguns.
Second, just because there was one mass shooting with only handguns does not show that every mass shooting would have been as deadly with handguns. That's very clearly illogical.

Could Paddock have killed as many in Vegas with only handguns? That's a silly assertion.

Your entire point seems to be that the Assault Weapons Ban is "useless" simple because other cases without weapons covered under the ban exist. That is not a valid argument.

The facts pretty clearly show a correlation between cheaper, easier to acquire AR15s and deadlier mass shootings in which they are used. If the Assault Weapons Ban made it more difficult for just one person to obtain an AR15 and saved just one single life, then it still would have been worth it a million times over.

[PointOfViewGun]

Yes.
because
When the government decides to use force, it looks bad.

The Japanese internment was done by force. The whole campaign was not a voluntary one. Just because when the government uses force and it makes a mess of it doesn't mean everyone cares about how bad it looks. Especially back then, there wasn't the same kind of access to information. So, the impact such messes would create would be even smaller. What you suggest makes absolutely no sense.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The Japanese internment was done by force. The whole campaign was not a voluntary one. Just because when the government uses force and it makes a mess of it doesn't mean everyone cares about how bad it looks. Especially back then, there wasn't the same kind of access to information. So, the impact such messes would create would be even smaller.

The only thing the government recommends is how many serving of vegetables you consume daily. 99.9% of government action is coercive, that's the nature of government. Everyone cares about how bad things look. Law enforcement struggled for years to regain its image after the Waco fiasco. The government had to take extreme measures to recover from the blight of Japanese internment.

What you suggest makes absolutely no sense.

Yet you offer no evidence to the contrary. Simply wishing something not to be the way it is does not magically make it so.

[PointOfViewGun]

The only thing the government recommends is how many serving of vegetables you consume daily. 99.9% of government action is coercive, that's the nature of government. Everyone cares about how bad things look. Law enforcement struggled for years to regain its image after the Waco fiasco. The government had to take extreme measures to recover from the blight of Japanese internment.
Yet you offer no evidence to the contrary. Simply wishing something not to be the way it is does not magically make it so.

Sigh... There is no evidence needed to show how senseless your position is. It's not like your links magically back up the idea that the government would back down if the Japanese fired back. The law enforcement agencies certainly didn't back down from breaking into standoffs after any of the mess ups you mentioned.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Oh ok. I'm wrong because you think I'm wrong, not because any evidence exists which would show I was wrong. Brilliant.

[PointOfViewGun]

Oh ok. I'm wrong because you think I'm wrong, not because any evidence exists which would show I was wrong. Brilliant.

You know, there are other ways of deflecting from a failed argument. This is a really bad way of doing that. You are wrong because logic and common sense does not back your position. What you claim is a hypothetical situation. Don't whine when your claim sounds so stupid.

[Vanoi]

No. I am pointing out the fact that since AR15 have crossed a threshold in cheapness and ease of access their use has been on the increase in mass shootings. Your bolded part is literally irrelevant to the point at hand.

Its like saying more people die in car crashes than plane crashes so we shouldn't look at plane safety.

Apples and oranges. Plane safety and car safety are two separate subjects. You only want to eliminate a small number of gun deaths. I want laws that address all of them.

AR-15s are not the only rifle in the world. There are plenty of similar rifles that can do as much damage and yet rifles still remain the least used weapon of all categories.

This makes no sense. First, you seriously can't be arguing that handguns are as effective killing weapons as AR15s. If there was any truth to that militaries around the world would just use handguns.

Military engagements are not mass shootings. Again the Virgina Tech shooter proves you wrong. He killed almost twice as many people handguns as most of the mass shooters managed with their multiple weapons.

Second, just because there was one mass shooting with only handguns does not show that every mass shooting would have been as deadly with handguns. That's very clearly illogical.

Columbine didn't have any rifles either and in most of the mass shootings you listed they used more than just an AR-15. In Aurora the shooters AR jammed. His shotgun and handgun did a lot of the work.

The Virgina Tech shooter was just as effective if not more only using handguns and you can't deny that.

Could Paddock have killed as many in Vegas with only handguns? That's a silly assertion.

Range is what advantage a rifle has. How many of those mass shootings we're conducted at a range in which only rifles we're effective?

Your entire point seems to be that the Assault Weapons Ban is "useless" simple because other cases without weapons covered under the ban exist. That is not a valid argument.

Did the ban save those people in Columbine in which they used assault weapons? Would it have saved the students in Virginia Tech?

The assault weapons ban won't cover even one fourth of gun violence and only part of mass shootings and assumes they won't buy another weapon.

The facts pretty clearly show a correlation between cheaper, easier to acquire AR15s and deadlier mass shootings in which they are used. If the Assault Weapons Ban made it more difficult for just one person to obtain an AR15 and saved just one single life, then it still would have been worth it a million times over.

Correlation is not causation and assuming that none of these shooters would have used a different weapon is worse.

[Pontifex Maximus]

You know, there are other ways of deflecting from a failed argument. This is a really bad way of doing that. You are wrong because logic and common sense does not back your position. What you claim is a hypothetical situation. Don't whine when your claim sounds so stupid.

A hypothetical situation with concrete examples.

You should have no problems refuting a failed argument, yet here we are. I'm done wasting my time on your empty comments.

[PointOfViewGun]

A hypothetical situation with concrete examples.

You should have no problems refuting a failed argument, yet here we are. I'm done wasting my time on your empty comments.

Concrete examples?.. Bundy standoff? That's not example of the common folk protecting their rights but of a bunch of extremist groups basically holding the government hostage. The federal action was a response not the runner off... My thoughts and prayers are with your concrete examples and your arguments...

[chilon]

Apples and oranges. Plane safety and car safety are two separate subjects. You only want to eliminate a small number of gun deaths. I want laws that address all of them.

AR-15s are not the only rifle in the world. There are plenty of similar rifles that can do as much damage and yet rifles still remain the least used weapon of all categories.


Military engagements are not mass shootings. Again the Virgina Tech shooter proves you wrong. He killed almost twice as many people handguns as most of the mass shooters managed with their multiple weapons.

Columbine didn't have any rifles either and in most of the mass shootings you listed they used more than just an AR-15. In Aurora the shooters AR jammed. His shotgun and handgun did a lot of the work.

The Virgina Tech shooter was just as effective if not more only using handguns and you can't deny that.

Range is what advantage a rifle has. How many of those mass shootings we're conducted at a range in which only rifles we're effective?

Did the ban save those people in Columbine in which they used assault weapons? Would it have saved the students in Virginia Tech?

The assault weapons ban won't cover even one fourth of gun violence and only part of mass shootings and assumes they won't buy another weapon.

Correlation is not causation and assuming that none of these shooters would have used a different weapon is worse.

You are suggesting that just because the Federal Assault Weapons Ban can't stop every mass shooting there is no point in having it.
We can just agree to disagree there.

It clearly reduces the lethal potential of mass shootings. Not in *every* case but that is not the point. No one thing is going to prevent *every* case so its just illogical to dismiss things because "they won't stop every incident". All it has to do is reduce lethality in one case to be worthwhile to me. And clearly Paddock couldn't have done what he did with handguns and shotguns so that invalidates your assumptions.

You also seem to be suggesting that if the Assault Weapons Ban was still in effect from 2004-2018 then all these mass shootings would still have been just as deadly. From a tactical perspective that is not a believable assertion. Its just silly to claim that without all the weapons in the assault weapons ban all these shootings would have been just as deadly.

[Elfdude]

AR-15s are not the only rifle in the world. There are plenty of similar rifles that can do as much damage and yet rifles still remain the least used weapon of all categories.

It's just a highly accurate designed to kill. You're correct. AR-15's are not designed for hunting and not designed for sport shooting. Each bullet costs $1-2 at least. Only folks who can truly afford to literally burn money can fire these for fun. Regardless whether or not there's other guns which can be used to harm people does not a point make. This isn't an either or situation. Banning AR-15's could indeed reduce gun deaths while not solving the entire problem. In fact that's rather well supported given it's popularity.

Military engagements are not mass shootings. Again the Virgina Tech shooter proves you wrong. He killed almost twice as many people handguns as most of the mass shooters managed with their multiple weapons.

I don't see anyone denying that other guns can easily be used to harm folks too. This isn't an either or situation.

Columbine didn't have any rifles either and in most of the mass shootings you listed they used more than just an AR-15. In Aurora the shooters AR jammed. His shotgun and handgun did a lot of the work.

You're argument seems to be, well if they can commit crimes in other ways there's no point in writing laws. With that logic why do we write laws whatsoever?

The Virgina Tech shooter was just as effective if not more only using handguns and you can't deny that.

Strawman and has no bearing on the argument. Unless you're trying to say that if we write a law banning AR-15 we can't write any other laws? That's a stupid argument.

Range is what advantage a rifle has. How many of those mass shootings we're conducted at a range in which only rifles we're effective?

Most of the "sniping" shootings were. The AR-15 also has the advantage of creating terrible wounds which are difficult to survive.

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/ar-15-can-human-body/

It's far easier for untrained or poorly trained individuals to kill easily with the AR-15 than it is with say a 9mm.

Did the ban save those people in Columbine in which they used assault weapons? Would it have saved the students in Virginia Tech?

Are you claiming no type of ban could've? No type of regulation could've? I think you know that's a stupid sentiment as well. The guns they had at colombine were acquired legally and illegally modified. Selling handguns to minors was the only law broken. It resulted in 6 years. It's much harder for minors to buy cigarettes than guns... I wonder why that might be?

The penalty for selling a gun to minors is an average of $500 fine, the penalty for selling cigarettes to a minor is an average of a $1000 fine. Which one do I have more incentive to break? Why do you presume this couldn't be solved with a policy change?

The assault weapons ban won't cover even one fourth of gun violence and only part of mass shootings and assumes they won't buy another weapon.

But it will cover about a fourth, or let's give you 20%. What else could we do to make this harder to accomplish. I wonder...

Correlation is not causation and assuming that none of these shooters would have used a different weapon is worse.

This ignores why they chose to use the AR-15 in the first place. Regardless, it's obvious that there aren't many barriers to utilize guns to accomplish this. The idea that criminals ignore gun laws is ridiculous, by that logic no law should ever be written. Intelligent policy decisions can fundamentally affect these. For example, how about federally licensed gun sellers like we do with alcohol and tobacco? Private gun transactions in most states are legal. That's stupid. Let's talk about mandatory background checks. If colombine students had been ID'd they might not have been sold their weapons at all. How about banning weapons solely designed to cause grievous human harm or significantly limit them (for example .223 should be bolt action only hunting rifles). How about bans on domestic abusers ever owning guns? How about bans on those we know (due to their use of social security disability) are mentally risks for using or or owning guns. How about regulations on ammunition? How about mandatory stop and track ability of law enforcement so that anytime they encounter a gun they can immediately check if it's legal?

I mean the list goes on here vanoi, your argument is .

[chilon]

Re: the claims that had Japanese Americans been armed they would have achieved a better end result than internment during WWII

These claims seem to be ignoring a lot of historical reality. First and foremost they ignore the attitude of Americans after Pearl Harbor.

"Immediately after the raid on Pearl Harbor, false rumors of treacherous acts by Japanese Americans in Hawaii began to circulate both in the islands and on the mainland."

"On December 26, Lt. Gen John L Dewitt, head of the Western Defense Command telephoned from his headquarters at the San Francisco Presidio to the provost marshal general in Washington DC to report that he had just received a visit from a representative of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce who demanded the internment of all the Japanese in the Los Angeles are, regardless of whether they were citiziens of the United States"

DeWitt did not do this at the time but eventually bowed to public pressure

"A month later however, DeWitt changed his mind, largely as a result of the sensational publicity given to the report of the Pearl Harbor investigating commission under Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts...
"The Roberts Report also asserted that 'Japanese spies on the island of Oahu' had included 'persons having no open relations with the Japanese Foreign Service". Many Americans interpreted this statement as new and official evidence of widespread Japanese American disloyalty."

It was later found there was no evidence to support these assertions. But the assertions like "the Japanese race is an enemy race" and that "along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies , of Japanese extraction are at large today" had a profound impact on the public beliefs from blue collar workers up to the Mayors and Congressmen of California.

By February 13 "the entire west coast congressional delegation sent a letter to President Roosevelt demanding 'the immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage ..aliens and citizens alike'."

On Feb 19, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.

So given this historical context at the time, its extremely unlikely (as close to impossible as history counterfactuals can get) that arming the Japanese Americans would have achieved anything positive and most likely would have resulted in the deaths of the majority of those.

In fact any armed resistance from the Japanese would have confirmed the insane level of anti-Japanese propaganda that Japanese Americans were the enemy infiltrating America and probably inflamed the population with their demands after Pearl Harbor. The most likely result would have been the straight slaughter of roughly 112,000 innocent people (92,000 in California). If those Japanese Americans showed armed resistance its more likely the citizens of California themselves would have gone to war against the Japanese peasants (a large number Japanese in California at the time were rice farmers along the Sacramento River) instead of the Government backing down.


source of quotes is from one of the most respect historians of California history:
California: An Interpretive History 9th edition James J Rawls and Walton Bean

[Infidel144]

It's just a highly accurate designed to kill. You're correct. AR-15's are not designed for hunting and not designed for sport shooting. Each bullet costs $1-2 at least. Only folks who can truly afford to literally burn money can fire these for fun.

hmm... Interesting:

Since the price of AR15s has dropped to about $400-450 with bullets less than 30 cents

[Elfdude]

That's truly concerning, I'm not sure if that's the bulk price or if Oregon has something which affects the price. But they are roughly half the price I thought they were at 50-100 rounds.

[Love Mountain]

Why should he cooperate with them? The Law can't just harass you till you comply with their unreasonable demands. That's why we have guns.

Oh I don't know. Because it's better to be in court than in a shootout with federal officers? But hey, I dont know the mind of a guy who willingly isolates himself from society and buys 20 acres of wilderness in Idaho. Sounds like sticking it to everyone cuz he's "inependent" was his primary motivation in everything.

How is it a poor example when one of the most victimized groups of people in American history was denied the right to carry a gun for purposes of self protection with the intention to make them more vulnerable? It does nothing but provide even more evidence that the lack of ability to carry a firearm leads to more victims and a higher body count. Why do you think the overwhelming majority of gun violence occurs in schools, theatres, churches and othet gun free areas? Why aren't there just as many attempted mass killings at gun ranges, gun shows, or places where brandishing a weapon means blending in with the crowd? Shooters don't like opposition, they like shooting up places that have the best chances of grabbing headlines.

I never disputed that gun free areas do not stop shooting sprees so I have no idea why you bring that up. On the other hand, the State and the population was massively suspicious of Japanese Americans post WWII. When you have some elderly Japanese folks waving Japanese flags in Hawaii you can see where some paranoia might occur in white people. If Japanese Americans were to arm themselves and resist arrest by Feds? Please, there wouldn't even be any discussion of treason in the middle of a war. Not only would the Feds consider killing anybody who resisted, they'd have plenty of popular support. Japanese American internment wasn't about State vs Individual in the minds of American citizens at the time. It was Us vs Them. And no number of guns or resistance would've saved Japanese liberty.

Why else woukd the government ban blacks from owning guns in the post war era if it wasn't to keep them in a state of semi-enslavement and incapable of effective self defense?

Edit- though speaking of poor examples, mongrel, your statute seems to be from the ante-bellum period since it still references the existence of slaves. Given the very real fear of slave revolts against the state, of course they banned all blacks from owning firearms. If not, there's a real chance they might organize to try to free still enslaved members of their family at the least. It's impossible for me to tell at this point why you'd use this as evidence for anything related to why guns are bad. This is exactly the reason why the 2A exists with regards to government tyranny. John Brown tried tl capitalize on that soon after.

Except those bans never actually worked. There were many blacks that were armed and there is a tradition of militant African American militant groups throughout the centuries. And you know what? They were never able to enact any substantial change in legislature. White racial tyranny wasn't fought with guns, it was fought by smart men and women who relentlessly challenge the government in the political arena.

[Cyclops]

That is outside the scope of this thread and outside the concern of my argument.

You're not serious? You brought it up. If you're unable to sustain your argument without quarantining rebuttal your argument is weak.

The argument that "the answer to guns is more guns' is bizarre. Your nonsensical and repeated assertions about US freedom are relevant to the discussion, not just as an indication of the weakness of your position requiring the exclusion of relevant rebuttal but also a typical response given by individuals in the US (not sure if you are a Yank, but I've heard a lot assert this silly stuff before).

This was a crime where a gun was not controlled. We are all talking about gun control. A lot of pre-prepared positions just slot into place when discussing a shooting in the US. This case is no different.

[Vanoi]

Long post so I'll summarize. Elf dude I don't even think you understand the context of that entire argument.

Claiming that an Assault Weapons Ban would stop up to 20% of gun-related deaths is completely ignorant. 80% of deaths are attributed to handguns. The last 20% you're talking about is all other weapons not considered a handgun. That would include non-assault weapons. So how does ban stop 20% of deaths only a portion of which are actually attributed to assault weapons?

All weapons are designed to be accurate and deadly. Adam LanzA would have killed just as many kids with a handgun or shotgun. Bullets kill no matter what caliber or what weapon they come out of. Assuming again a ban would have stopped any of these mass shooters or would have ended up less deaths is at best.

Banning g are restricting calibers to certain weapons won't work either. I can kill you just as easy with a hollow-point .45 than a .223.

I just don't believe in gun bans that won't work. Restricting access to these weapons would be a way better choice. Mandatory background checks, requiring of registering a weapon ect.

I want laws covering all gun violence not just a small portion.