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SecularMotion

(7,981 posts)
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 06:07 AM Jun 2016

Guns Make Killing Easy

I am sitting here, in my only orange shirt, in observation of National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and my thoughts turn to the New York Times’ remarkable recent study of 358 shootings last year in which four or more people were killed or wounded. As the Times noted, these were not the high-profile mass shootings in unlikely places like schools, churches and movie theatres that capture national attention, but rather “a pencil sketch of everyday America at its most violent.” The Times’ reporters penetrated beyond the body count to describe the circumstances of these shootings, in which 462 died and over 1300 were injured. The scenarios were varied, but the terrifying descriptions point to a conclusion common to all: if no guns were available, violence may have ensued, but countless lives would have been saved and serious injuries avoided.

Typically, the violence was sparked by the most banal of offenses, like one person shoving another in a bar, or a Facebook taunt, or a disagreement over the music at a house party. They occurred mostly outdoors, at virtually any place groups of people gather; at neighborhood barbecues, family reunions, music festivals, basketball tournaments, Sweet 16 parties, public parks. Only about one-third were gang-related or were drive-by shootings typical of gang violence. Even those that were gang-related were prompted, not by criminal activity like drug dealing, but by eruptions begun by a boast, an insult or some other sign of disrespect. Take the guns out of the picture, even if the combatants had been armed with other weapons, like knives or baseball bats, there is no doubt countless lives would have been spared.

The gun lobby gets much mileage from the slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The Times’ study shows how far this idea is divorced from the brutal reality of everyday gun violence, particularly in our inner cities. The truth is that “Guns don’t kill people, they enable people to kill people,” more effectively and efficiently than any other widely available weapon. Even grossly incompetent shooters can be multiple killers. In one shooting at a Cincinnati Elks Lodge, according to police officials, as many as half of the 24 victims were not the intended targets. The perpetrators of such shootings are often high on drugs or alcohol. Some barely know how to hold a gun, yet it gives them lethal power over whoever crosses their field of fire. In the shootings surveyed, more than 100 bystanders were killed or wounded, including a 10-year-old boy who was struck in the eye as he peered out his window at a fracas in an Orlando, Florida housing project, a soldier struck by a stray bullet during a shootout in a public square in Savannah, Georgia and a 19-year-old college sophomore killed when a gunman sprayed a crowd outside an Ocala, Florida club. It is the gun that affords this kind of indiscriminate killing power; few are killed by stray knives or baseball bats. Put simply, guns make killing easy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-a-henigan/guns-make-killing-easy_b_10267512.html
14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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beevul

(12,194 posts)
6. "A shooting over a cheeseburger tells us a lot about America's gun problem"
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:33 PM
Jun 2016
A shooting over a cheeseburger tells us a lot about America's gun problem


It isn't a gun problem, its a behavior problem.


If the guns were the problem, you'd have millions dead, rather than 10 thousand-ish homicides involving a gun.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
8. Thats not my decision to make, nor is it yours.
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:39 PM
Jun 2016
It's both.


No, it isn't.

Its a behavior problem, and its very obvious that that's what it is, to those not in the anti-gun camp.

 

MillennialDem

(2,367 posts)
9. That's a crock. If every gun fight ended up in a fist fight instead, would more or
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:41 PM
Jun 2016

less people be dead?

Don't change the number of fights, just the weapons involved...

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
10. Whats a crock, is that that isn't going to happen.
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:46 PM
Jun 2016

So you may as well be talking about a magic wand that makes all guns disappear.

Its just as likely as your assertion, to happen.



 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
12. Apples and oranges are neat...
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:47 PM
Jun 2016

Apples and oranges are neat, but comparing them is just plain dumb.

Said in the 1990s:"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
14. Uh huh.
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 01:52 PM
Jun 2016

And who exactly is it, that is going to bring a case all the way to the supreme court under those conditions?

Nobody, that's who.

Not to mention, that gun cases aren't going to NEED to go to the supreme court, as they're all falling into line with Heller and Mcdonald already.

Said in the 1990s:"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."

discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
4. Guns make target shooting easier as well
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 08:36 AM
Jun 2016

You'll note that ranges which allow you to run downrange carrying the bullet in your hand are extraordinarily unpopular.

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