Furious gunwoman opens fire at YouTube HQ, three people shot A woman armed with a handgun shot three people at the headquarters of YouTube today, police say. She was later found dead seemingly after turning the gun on herself. The shooting happened just before 1pm Pacific Time at the video-sharing giant's offices in San Bruno, California, the city's cops confirmed to El Reg. San …
One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state. So if the laws are slowing you down just go to the state next door and come back with whatever you need.
It really needs to be regulated at the federal level. And then start making it harder to own guns, make open carry illegal and concealed carry highly restricted. If you want to carry a gun there has to be a real need, not just that you are too much of a coward to go to McDonalds unless you're packing a Glock.
Slowly over time the number of guns will go down. The number of gun owners is already dropping as they die of old age, but we can speed up the process by destroying any weapon used in a crime, whether or not it was obtained legally.
> It really needs to be regulated at the federal level.
It seems unlikely there's enough balls / political willpower to make significant regulation at federal level; even something as simple as raising the minimum age.
But if states make their own rulings, then there's at least a possibility that the status quo can change over time - witness legalisation of pot. I believe different states already have different rules on things like concealed weapons.
California is next door to Arizona, which has pretty lax gun laws. Mass shootings aren't a crime of opportunity, but one of planning, so driving across a state line to get the gun(s) you want isn't a burden since this isn't likely something one decides to do at the spur of the moment.
Another basic misunderstanding of gun laws.
You cannot simply go to another state with "looser laws" and buy a gun.
A California resident can certainly buy a gun in Arizona (or any state), but in order to take possession, the selling dealer must transfer that firearm to a California FFL Dealer, who then performs a background check under California laws before allowing the buyer to pick it up in California.
Since gun dealers do so to make a living, with questionable sales putting their license and livelihood at risk, it would be difficult to find one who would sell a gun to a person who seemed erratic or crazy...just because they pass a background check does not mean they must or will sell the gun... I've seen numerous times where FFLs have declined to sell firearms based on the potential buyer acting "hinky", usually asking them to leave the store, then calling the BATF and reporting suspicious activity.
Like we now see in London, where the knife murder rate exceeds the entire NYC murder rate (all weapons) the lack of firearms does not dissuade a motivated assailant...they just use another tool...knives, acid attacks, bats, screwdrivers, poison, etc.
What must be done is to look at what has changed in society in the last 50 years. When I was in elementary school, kids brought weapons to school for "show and tell" (like a 6th grader who got a .22 for Christmas, or BB Guns that were then used by the entire class during recess), safely, responsibly, and without any malice or intent of harm.
Perhaps the toxic liberalism which has affected and perverted most of what this nation was founded upon, and we once held dear, is now reaping the "rewards" of "defining deviance down" with their "anything goes" and "if it feels good...do it" ethos?
@s2bu
Mass shootings are only the most visible gun problem, the other 10k+ that die each year at the wrong end of a gun are an even bigger problem
This is all part of reducing the overall number of guns in circulation. You can't just go around confiscating everyone's guns, so it has to be made less desirable and more difficult to won one.If you can't carry one and need to have it unloaded and locked up at home with the ammo in a separate locked location then many people will just not bother to own one. If you're a hunter this won't be a problem as you shouldn't be leaving your gun around the house loaded.
Now the NRA nuts are just going to say that this won't help since criminals don't obey laws. Well of course that is a stupid argument as by that logic all laws are pointless. But as guns become more scarce, their value on the street will rise, and so fewer criminals will be able to get their hands on them.
The USA has something like half the guns on the planet, that is the root problem. Though if you are an idiot from the NRA you would say you need more guns because "more guns will make everyone safer". If that were even remotely true then with 300+ million guns the USA would be the safest place on earth.
Let's keep in mind that the NRA isn't a club for all the good ol' guys who have playing with guns as a harmless hobby. It's an industry lobby body primarily representing companies that make more profit the more guns are sold. This made it worth their while, for example, to donate $30M to Trump's campaign. Not, of course, that they would expect to influence future laws by doing so. Of course not. They were just being kind and generous to fellow human beings.
they also educate people on how not to blow their own heads off (assuming that isn't the idea) and educate folks who need it in self-protection. Believe it or not, there are many, many people not living in large cities with dangerous animals or people around and the closest law-enforcement officer(s) at least 30 minutes away.
"...Let's keep in mind that the NRA... ...It's an industry lobby body primarily representing companies that make more profit the more guns are sold. This made it worth their while, for example, to donate $30M to Trump's campaign..."
Well I call B.S. on your $ number for Trump Campaign donations. The various non-partial sources I've found (like Politio/Politifact) show a varying number from $4.7-5.9Million spent across donations to all republican candidates (yes a majority to Trump). What you are confusing is direct donation versus "benefit". They spent over 200 Million in lobbying and other actions which benefited Republican candidates.
I think it should be noted however that of gun owners in the USA, 60% are Republican - so finding that the spending of a Gun safety and legal advocacy organization is primarily on Republicans is not a shock. When you have a bunch or Republicans with decision making power on how their money is going to be spent, you will (feigning shock) find that they spend it on themselves - not Democrats (though they did spend about $10K-USD on Democrats in 2016).
It's also worth noting that the NRA collects most of its funding from individual donors in small amounts - there's just a lot of them (keep in mind not all of the approximately 10 Million donors are registered members). That's still about 4% of the voting age population in the USA, or nearly one person out of 20 adults in the country. This should give you pause if you berate this group publicly when around 20 or more people as you are statistically likely to offend at least one of them - and they probably won't tell you to your face.
Also keep in mind that a lot of NRA members are Cops and professional Soldiers too. Are those really the kind of groups you want and need to upset while not armed yourself? Those are they people everyone says they want to have the guns, I for one don't think they are the perfect prototype for a responsible gun owner however...
All of this is moot however to this story - the NRA didn't demonetize this lady's channel due to some dystopian AI-Algorithm which viciously determines what content is potentially offensive to at least one inconsequential person on the planet (*cough* YouTube), and the first people these S.F. Bay Area geeks called when someone who didn't like them started shooting at them for their totalitarian dictatorship practices, was more people with guns - and those who statistically probably mostly NRA are members...
Cheers.
Joaney is lying: The NRA is 5+millinon people that pay dues, support safe use and laws - not companies. Just like car clubs, they are run by people, not car companies.
Feel free to contact any NRA member or office. But propaganda is pure BS and easy to look up for people that don't want to be played by trolls like "Joaney I've"
"The NRA is 5+millinon people that pay dues, support safe use and laws - not companies"
Since when have the NRA ever supported any safety related or any other restrictive gun law? They exist to support and are controlled by the gun industry.
There was a US study recently that showed that gun related death rates drop during large NRA conferences. Which tends imply (not surprisingly) that they are a bunch of gung-ho red necks who are responsible for many gun related deaths!
There was a US study recently that showed that gun related death rates drop during large NRA conferences.
That study doesn't support your totalitarian agenda, AC:
Nationally, there was a 20 percent reduction in firearm injuries during the convention.In contrast, gun-related crime did not decrease during the conventions.
Nationally, the rate of firearm injury dropped from 1.5 per 100,000 on the dates adjacent to the convention to 1.2 per 100,000 during the convention itself. And in the state where the convention was held, the injury rate went from 1.9 down to 0.7 per 100,000.
A few mostly minor injuries are no excuse to diminish one of Americans' most fundamental rights - a right that citizens of other countries are really starting to wish they had.
"If that were even remotely true then with 300+ million guns the USA would be the safest place on earth."
----------------------------------------------
In fact, the US is one of the safer places on earth.
Despite airbags, seat-belts, crumple zones, and automatic braking, cars still kill more people than guns... roughly four times as many as are murdered with firearms. So does inadequate medical care.
On the other hand, for every person murdered with a gun, two people commit suicide. Oddly, banning guns demonstrably fails to prevent suicides.
"Oddly, banning guns demonstrably fails to prevent suicides."
Eh, banning pistols does make it harder to commit suicide. Whilst you can deliberately shoot yourself with a long gun, it's a wee bit more fiddly.
While you are broadly correct that roughly two thirds of firearm homicides are self inflicted, it's not always a case of suicide. Those remaining third are not always murder either, since murder is a specific criminal charge depending upon intent, wheras homicide is the generic term for "a human done it".
So a three year old fatally shooting their mother is a homicide, it's not murder. Fatally shooting someone attempting to rape you is also homicide, but may well be legally self defense.
It's one of the reasons you'll see a marked difference between murder rates and homicide rates, since one is based of convictions of perpetrator, the other is based on the victims. So it's possible to have a one to many relationship either way, one person killed by a group may result in several convictions for murder, or a single person committing multiple murders.
Countries with a problem with suicide (such as NZ) do ban or restrict things in order to make it harder. You're not supposed to be able to buy a fatal dose of paracetamol in a single packet there, so you can't buy a pack of 50. Exactly how effective that is is left as an exercise for the reader...
"You're not supposed to be able to buy a fatal dose of paracetamol in a single packet there, so you can't buy a pack of 50. Exactly how effective that is is left as an exercise for the reader..."
Not very, I would venture.
I take it paracetamol is some sort of local trade name for acetaminophen?
I wouldn't suggest acetaminophen for suicide. A friend of mine was an EMT, and had one call where they revived a girl who had taken a fatal dose of acetaminophen. The girl thanked them and said she had changed her mind. My friend couldn't tell her that she should expect to be dead in a couple of weeks from liver failure... left that to the hospital.
Open/concealed carry guarantees that e.g. when people get into arguments that escalate out of control, the guns will come out and there will be at least one serious injury or death instead of a bloody nose. I don't want to see my frequently unaccountable fellow citizens walking around with the means to extinguish my life on a whim readily available.
Also, if there's a shooting incident and you're carrying a gun when the cops show up, please tell me how they will differentiate you from the person carrying out the crime.
"One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state. So if the laws are slowing you down just go to the state next door and come back with whatever you need."
No, the problem with gun laws is that only people who actually respect the law will follow it, the rest will continue to do whatever they like.
I say that because I happen to live in a country (Holland) where weapons are outlawed. Not merely guns, even if you have a baseball bat sitting at a funny spot in your store (for self protection) then you still risk the police fining you because it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law.
Yet that doesn't stop shooting incidents from happening. And decently frequent too. Only last Thursday did the country get shocked (yet again) because a store owner got killed during an intake meeting.
Gun legislation is fun and all, but these kind of shooters didn't care about the law in the first place. Also: take away the guns and people will find something else to use. Not to mention that this also makes it much easier to use fake guns and pretend their real. I mean, if the store you're trying to rob follows up to its reputation of being law abiding then you can be sure that they don't own any guns. Easy taking!
And as this incident shows ones again: there are many fruitcakes roaming the streets. And I, as a regular citizen in Holland, am not allowed to defend myself if I have to. Which I think is messed up.
Is there anything stopping someone legally buying something like an AR-15 (insert over-powered gun of choice instead) in one state then driving to California to use it?
No it's OK to do that, just as long as you don't try and smuggle an apple or peach over the state line you're just fine.
"the problem with gun laws is that only people who actually respect the law will follow it, the rest will continue to do whatever they like."
Making guns hard to get and imprisoning those that own them illegally massively reduces that problem.
"And decently frequent too."
Gun crime in Holland is still way lower than in the US.
"And I, as a regular citizen in Holland, am not allowed to defend myself "
Because statistics show owning a gun makes you MORE likely to die from gun violence! And of course it's ownership of guns that exacerbates the problem in the first place.
"Because statistics show owning a gun makes you MORE likely to die from gun violence!"
--------------------------------------------
Yet another person without a clue about how to use statistics.
This is very annoying to those of us who actually have a clue about how to understand them. I would really, really like to make an understanding statistics a mandatory requirement for any university degree.
Those 'statistics' are an argument from correlation in a completely uncontrolled situation. Correlation is slippery enough in an experimental setting, let alone the bizarre circumstances around statistics gathered across a myriad of different situations.
Classic example? People who quite smoking are more likely to die within a year or two than smokers. Clearly not smoking can be lethal. If you want to stay safe, keep puffing away!
This claim is as valid as yours.
Both are almost certainly wrong.
The fact that I can show a much higher correlation between stork population and births in a properly chosen city than appears in the data you are quoting does not mean that storks bring babies.
The people most likely to have guns are those that feel that they need them. Drug dealers, gang members, people living in high violent crime areas, etc. Curiously, such people also tend to die from gun violence more often than people living quietly legal lives in quietly peaceful areas... such people are less likely to feel a need to own guns.
The 'high probability gun owner' population is not the same as the 'low probability gun owner' population. Confounding variables are baked in to the selection process for the statistical analysis.
I have never lived in a house without firearms, nor have many of my friends. The number of them killed by guns? Zero. The number wounded? Zero. The number ever shot at? Zero. The number involved in gangs? Zero. Violent crime? Zero. Are we seeing a pattern here?
One of my co-workers has sufficient firearms to equip a platoon... yet he has never shown any tendency to shoot anyone, or to be shot at, except maybe one time sparked by nervous police who were spooked by the firearms database when called by a neighbour reporting his daughter shouting at her boyfriend on the front lawn.
Given the number of times nervous cops shoot people at the wrong address due to firearms registration, the safest thing would be to block real time access to such databases by police. Yes, there is more to this, but it would make police safer too. Think about it and you will figure out why... enough typing.
"... it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law."
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure gun legislation is covered by national, not EU, law. And I think the restrictions in NL are stricter than in the surrounding countries you mention.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure gun legislation is covered by national, not EU, law. And I think the restrictions in NL are stricter than in the surrounding countries you mention.
Both. There is an EU Directive covering firearms. Implementation is left to member states. So the UK for instance is unique in prohibiting pistols. The Czech Republic actually goes as far as to permit concealed carry - but under a sane and rigorous licensing system.
I say that because I happen to live in a country (Holland) where weapons are outlawed. Not merely guns, even if you have a baseball bat sitting at a funny spot in your store (for self protection) then you still risk the police fining you because it's illegal to own any kind of weapon. In the surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg) weapons are also illegal, all under a European law.
Don't talk nonsense. You can own firearms including rifles, pistols and shotguns in all those countries. The Netherlands hosts one of Europes largest annual airgun shooting competitions.
The International Shooting Sports Federation is headquartered in Munich. Funny place to HQ yourself if weapons are "outlawed" in Germany!
Yes, you will need a licence, but firearms are not "outlawed".
Yet that doesn't stop shooting incidents from happening. And decently frequent too. Only last Thursday did the country get shocked (yet again) because a store owner got killed during an intake meeting.
And that's it. The country is shocked. One gun death.
20 years ago I visited Houston, Texas - the Monday morning news just gave the weekend body count for gang shootings. There were dozens.
17 years ago I visited Los Angeles, CA - again, just a body count for gang violence.
Sure, these are gang-shooting hotspots, but you get the idea. One shooting now and then vs dozens every week. That's a mass shooting every week that everyone just seems to ignore.
(I don't know how things have changed since then. I've been to the USA twice since - first time I was mostly drunk, and second time I was at a wedding so mostly drunk. Ignored the news - watched the Dukes of Hazzard instead.)
Oddly enough the last weapon I bought was from Holland. 4th - 5th Century Germanic spear, semi sharp (easier to get through customs than full razor edge and only takes another couple of hours to bring it up to silk slicing).
I recommend celticwebmerchant for all your weapon needs in Holland, though you can get some real craftsmanship out of some of the Polish artisans.
My name is Omgwtfbbqtime and I am a reenactor...
I quite often have a car full of sharps that are designed purely for causing severe organic damage.
I do not do any period after the Twelfth Century so never bothered to get a shotgun permit - being a reenactor is considered an acceptable reason to be granted a the firearms permit in the UK as the shotgun permit covers black powder weapons.
This does not mean that I do not possess ranged weapons, I have javelins, slings, bows - any and all are lethal with practice.
- and yes, I have been stopped by the Police with a full load on the way to an event, had a good chat and on the way I went no issues.
"Yes violent crime goes through the roof when you remove the Equalizer. Its a fact."
No thats a fictional character. Lots of studies - including in the US - show that when you remove guns from circulation violent crime drops as does the death rate due to violent crime. Of course you still need an efficient armed police option to deal with the now reduced number of criminals with guns, which seems to work just fine in every other industrialised country on the planet.
Purchases and types of gun ownership IS regulated at the federal level. It's the responsibility of the ATF. For example, if you wanted to own a machine gun that was brought home as a trophy from WWII, you would need a Federal Firearms License (FFL). The same for a canon from previous wars. They also regulate gun dealers. States and local regulating entities can require additional requirements. For example, states regulate gun carry requirements (Open and Concealed carry). Some cities regulate what buildings allow people to carry guns, but some states have pushed back against that.
When it comes to dishonorably discharged, felons, and people who are not mentally stable, it is the federal government that controls the background check process that is required to purchase from a gun dealer. Private sales do not, at this time, require a background check.
"One of the problems with the gun laws is that they vary by state"
One of the problems with gun laws is that people who don't know any better think that they are some how causal with respect to gun violence. In fact, rates of gun violence and rates of gun availability are largely unconnected.
Higher availability of assault rifles (real ones, not 'assault weapons') occurs in countries with much lower rates of gun violence, and much higher rates of gun violence occur in countries with many fewer guns and much more draconian gun laws (both compared to the United States).
The problem is the culture, not the guns. Violence is accepted as a solution to any problem, almost, in a highly militarized society that also displays phenomenal rates of incarceration, high rates of execution, major problems with police violence, use of military weapons and equipment, routinely, by police and other similar phenomena.
explosives? Knives? Acid? Automobiles? Semi-trucks?
Probably they should all be outlawed.
Great - next time I go camping I'll just use knitted yoghurt or tofu to split wood, cut cord, or any of the other 100 uses my rather large knife has. The one use it doesn't have is jamming into someone elses guts 'cos dey dissed me yeh. FFS.
Widespread availability of firearms does sort of spring to mind as a remote possibility?
Not really a problem in Finland, the Czech republic or indeed some of the rural states where gun ownership is ~95-100% but gun crime is actually at European levels.
The overwhelming majority of gun crime in the US is committed in the top 10 metro areas and frequently does not involve legally held firearms. Shootings of this nature (and school shootings), whilst terrifyingly frequent, are still very much a minority in the overall firearm-homicide stats.
The majority of America's gun problem is basically the exact same as London's gun problem - gang-on-gang with black-market guns.
Of course they do need to sort out some sort of sane regulatory regime but that will only work if it goes hand-in-hand with some sort of major social welfare and healthcare reforms, particularly targeting the poor inner-city areas and projects which are - in no small part - run by gangs.
"Not really a problem in Finland, the Czech republic or indeed some of the rural states where gun ownership is ~95-100% but gun crime is actually at European levels."
But those places have guns issued as part of compulsory military service, the guns are required to be securely stored in a gun safe, are not for personal use, and dont have ammumition stored with them.
It would be nice if someone would explain how requiring those who have firearms to store them safely and unloaded, and to store the ammunition separately, is going to prevent a spree killing. What prevents an unhinged individual from unstoring the gun and its ammunition, bringing them together, and doing a large scale shooting?
It appears there may be something else going on here for which these sensible rules do not account.
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"As evidenced here and elsewhere, tough gun laws, gun-free zones, etc. won't stop this stuff."
There is in fact lots of evidence that tough gun laws do stop this stuff. For instance Australia made many firearms illegal and removed them from circulation. And there was a substantial reduction in gun crime and gun related homicides. And no more mass shootings to date.
New Zealand on the other hand didn't follow Australia down the retard pants-shitting path after our Port Arthor equivilent. And despite all the AR15s around (and they are readily available to anyone with a basic firearms license), we have ... a lower murder rate than Australia per 100,000 people. Even with Australia sending back to NZ anyone who ever looked cross-eyed at a police officer and wasn't born there.
Wrong. Australia banned (except for a very few limited circumstances) semi-automatic weapons - and regularly engages in pants-shitting over "modern" technology like lever-action.
NZ on the other hand has not banned semi-autos. A basic firearms license (which has always been required) is all that is needed.
"NZ on the other hand has not banned semi-autos. A basic firearms license (which has always been required) is all that is needed."
You're clearly twisting terms here to make your point. I've held a class C licence in NZ, for shooting guns for films, and they where bloody clear on the various rules*. Many of which where introduced after the Aramoana shootings, despite your claims otherwise.
A category A licence (which is what I presume you mean by a basic one) allows you to own shotguns and rifles, which can be semi-automatics. However, they cannot be a MSSA, a military style semi auto. Which an AR-15 is, unless you modify a number of components.
I expect that certain configurations of the AR-15 are not MSSA, mainly if you got rid of the pistol grip and any magazine with the appearance of containing more than 10 rounds. And the expanding stock. So you can have an AR-15, it'll just look and feel like a sporting rifle.
I've never known anyone with a category A to own a AR-15, or anything resembling one. People with a category E, sure, but they are often ex-military. They also tend to have things that are much more potentially dangerous than a semi-auto. The closest was a hunter I knew who used a Dragunov under a cat A, until they reclassified it as a MSSA, at which point she got a category E.
The aussie laws seem pretty much the same, in that people who need guns for work (farmers and hunters) can get semi-auto rifles and shotguns. IIRC it's actually easier to get a pistol licence in OZ than NZ, the NZ cops being paranoid about handguns, even if they where blank firers. So semi-autos are not banned in aussie, they are (tightly) licenced. As compared to the UK, where pistols are flat banned, even for sport.
There is also the point that for many negative purposes, it's irrelevant if a gun is semi-auto or bolt/lever action, or if the shotgun holds 2, 5 or 8 rounds. It'll still serve as a tool for a standover man or for killing a family member.
* in my case, I couldn't use or purchase live ammo for stage guns. Which are mainly modified to only fire blanks anyway.
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