General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm all for a total ban on semi-automatic guns [View all]NeedleCast
(8,827 posts)In practically all the mass shooting situations we've seen in the media, rate of fire had little or nothing to do with body count.
Look at Virginia Tech. The shooter killed two people, then MORE THAN AN HOUR LATER, killed 30 more people, and himself. The key here, and I hope I'm being clear, is that the shooting stopped when the shooter decided to stop. The shooter wasn't taken down by cops or some redneck yahoo with a CC permit. They stopped killing people when they decided to stop killing people. Rate of fire was not a factor. Magazine/clip capacity was not a factor because the shooter had enough time to stop, reload and continue firing - and that has been the case in the large majority of shooting massacres. When you have a considerable amount of time to shoot people, rate of fire/mag capacity is not an issue. The only issue is number of targets and number of rounds you have. Going back to Newtown, if I have 25 young kids cornered in a classroom it doesn't matter how many rounds my gun holds or how fast it can fire them because unless someone kills me first, I can take all the time that's required to kill everyone.
Now, you start to get into some real issues in your last paragraph. Yes, I think we need tighter regulation and (much) better enforcement of existing laws.