Developer goes rogue, shoots four colleagues at ERP code maker Cops have named the programmer who went on a gun rampage at WTS Paradigm – a US maker of enterprise resource planning software – this week. He shot four colleagues, leaving one in a critical condition. At around 10.20am on Wednesday, Anthony Tong, 45, who had worked at the company in Middleton, Wisconsin, for little over a …
Isn't it time to make it harder to acquire firearms? Have real background checks from a common federal government data base. Have at least a week long waiting period. Tax up the wazoo semi automatic fire arms, such as the AR-15. They are not needed and almost useless for hunted anyway. Psychiatric evaluations for anyone trying to buy a firearm for self protection. These are the people that end up shooting other people, Or getting shot with their own firearm by their 2 year old.
Only 35% or so of the U.S. population own firearms. Yet their are many hundreds of thousands more firearms floating around than the total population of this country.
Do something to stop the slaughter. NOW is the time to talk about what to do about stopping the violent gun deaths. Think you need a firearm? Join a militia first and show up every month for their meetings. Or lose your firearm.
How would that have fixed this situation?
He had no criminal record, and could legally have purchased a firearm. Or bought an illegal one.
Or simply run a truck into a crowd of people. Or poisoned them. Or blown up a truck of ANFO next to the building.
The exact weapon or method is almost incidental to the act.
@EveryTime - "Or simply run a truck into a crowd of people. Or poisoned them. Or blown up a truck of ANFO next to the building.
The exact weapon or method is almost incidental to the act."
But with those alternatives available, this guy chose a gun. Maybe he chose it for its many advantages: easier to target than a truck in an office environment, easier to administer than deadly poisons, no need to build it yourself, unlike a bomb. It almost seems that having purpose-made devices for accurately shooting lumps of metal to kill people readily available makes it more likely that they are used in mass shootings. Who would have guessed?
Bollocks
Easy access to guns makes for easy access to murder. Other methods exist, but are harder to implement, and require more planning - giving people time to rethink their action.
Guns may not kill people, but they sure make it a lot easier.
"Guns may not kill people, but they sure make it a lot easier."
They also make it a whole lot easier to protect yourself. According to the CDC 500,000 to 3 million people per year are protected in the US by the defensive use of firearms.
No, the CDC has not publicly said that "500,000 to 3 million people a year are protected...".
They have previously conducted some research which has never been published and references to it have been pulled due to questionable extrapolation of the studies they did. And if you think about it, stating a range of 0.5 million to 3 million is a ludicrously wide range such that the margin of error is enormous.
Total tosh....
you need guns to protect yourself from "other" people with Guns.
Self fullfilling prophecy.
if no one had a gun then no one could be killed by a gun.. Simples.....
Statistics
UK population 70 million, gun deaths about 60 PER YEAR
How does the US compare with other countries?
About 40% of Americans say they own a gun or live in a household with one, according to a 2017 survey, and the rate of murder or manslaughter by firearm is the highest in the developed world.
There were more than 11,000 deaths as a result of murder or manslaughter involving a firearm in 2016.
So tell me again how guns save lives?
Crime and the media that reports it in large headlines and repeatedly. That's why. There's cities in this country where most of us wouldn't go unless we were in a tank with a platoon of Marines as escort.
Fear is a big factor and the way businesses operate for pure profit, some foster fear as a product.
"According to the CDC 500,000 to 3 million people per year are protected in the US by the defensive use of firearms."
If there weren't as many firearms around in the first place, there wouldn't be that many people in danger in the first place. What you're saying is that up to 1% of the population EVERY YEAR is at such a risk of being hurt that firearms were needed to protect them.
To me that sounds like a good argument for restricting gun availability
This post has been deleted by its author
Please bash any law or stats you want, but be accurate.
Your thinking people are using guns to defend against other people with guns, which is not correct. If you read the reports, it is primarily people using guns to counter un armed assaults. Yes there is defense of knives, and guns, but at a much lower rate.
Your mother will not be able to fend off the rapist even with a knife, but you don't love your mother anyways.
@Timmy B - "According to the CDC 500,000 to 3 million people per year are protected in the US by the defensive use of firearms."
Is this the same CDC that is specifically prohibited from using its funds to advocate or promote gun control? Do you think that might make unbiased research difficult? Do you have a citation for your claim?
"According to the CDC 500,000 to 3 million people per year are protected in the US by the defensive use of firearms."
Citation? I am really curious. And I look up stuff on the CDC website fairly regularly.
Or is this not the Centre for Disease Control but some other organisation entirely?
AFAIK, you can't easily make ANFO anymore, because they changed the recipe of fertilizer to contain less nitrogen.
As for "doing something": anything that would be done now would only impact the (very) far out future because of the number of legal and illegal guns in circulation.
We know how good politicians are with such far-out timelines...
The sheer availability of weapons is not the only factor in reducing the number of shootings.
I live in a country where every able-bodied citizen has to join the military for compulsory training once he turns 18. Everybody who completes that training gets a fully functional, automatic assault riffle to take home and keep, in case the country is attacked and quick mobilization is needed.
Ammunition is not handed out anymore (since 2007), but that is not a big obstacle.
While murder-suicides did and do happen, but they usually involve close family.
Why is that?
Maybe because a functioning social security system exists, that doesn't leave people completely hopeless? Even criminals can have hope here (up to a point, of course).
Maybe it has to do with the amount of holiday people get, the amount of work-related stress?
Also, the amount of prescription drugs consumed is way less here (well, pretty much everywhere else but the USA has lower consumption).
I'm in favor of restricting gun-ownership (unless maybe you live in the mid-west and actually own a farm or go hunting nobody needs a gun).
But it's unfortunately only a very, very small part of the puzzle and it will only slightly reduce the problem, for a very long time: the guns will be around for decades to come.
Personally, I love Switzerland, and travel there for various reasons. But it's full of....Swiss people. We have many millions of people who believe "taking care of business" with violence (fist, foot, knife, gun) is culturally acceptable. My township of ca.25,000 thousand has lots of guns in safes, and essentially no murders per decade. The population is educated, and they'll "rat" on each other at the least violent infraction. Three miles away, in the neighboring city, the culture is entirely different. They excuse themselves from our culture of law, convincing themselves that shifting their beliefs would be caving in to "the man." You have to see it, experience it, to believe it. And then there's East End London.
"but why that happens only in USofA ? maybe there is a problem..."
USofA still has a free press, you hear about it as soon as it happens.
Shootings and gunfights in the streets and murders etc. happen in other more respectable countries, but to find about them you have to scour archive.org, or to wait 10 years until they get mentioned in connection with something else, such as neonazis serially executing immigrants and such, or very public fire fights between biker gangs.
Taking my coat and going home ... this thread is "I-have-my-head-deep-in-sand"-fest.
EmilPer,
So, US of A has a free Press but the rest of the world does not ...... are you really sure about this !!!???
Trump will fix that for you soon and your press will not be free either !!!
Is this argument meant in all seriousness ???
Is this believed by others ???
Did you get this 'nugget of information' from FoxNews ???
This is an example of yet another issue in the US of A, a large population that is apparently so easy to manipulate/program.
The techniques have been honed over generations from saturation advertising 24/7 to mass manipulation via the internet/social media. The techniques unfortunately 'do travel' and the rest of the world is experiencing similar attempts, some successful as well.
When you get home, 'buy another gun' as it will make you feel better ...... not so sure anyone else will though !!!
The CP of China murders many citizens year in and year out, and now places Uyghurs in "re-education camps," and you're worried about US homicides?y My Township (and county) are as safe as most of Europe. Gangs/drugs are involve in most murders. In my state they are occurring only miles away from us. Seriously intervene? Politically impossible.
Mexico. It's where the murder rate is truly high, and the techniques of murder especially gruesome. And Venezuela, Guatamla, etc. I think Europeans, and Brits, look at gross statistics, highlighted video about "mass" shootings, and have no idea of the distribution of crime in America by ethnicity and urban neighborhood. It reminds me of Americans who can't find Indonesia on a globe.
"How would that have fixed this situation?"
The exact list of remedies listed by the OP might or might not have helped in this exact case, but it's hard to argue that such remedies would not bring about an across-the-board reduction in shooting fatalities.
One thing that is not directly related to shooting but is definitely needed is better access to mental health, including recognising early symptoms, and ditching the social stigma associated with mental health problems.
"It actually specifically states "well regulated militia", that "regulated" part is the one that seems to be written in ink invisible to the gun nuts..."
Remember that this was written a fair while ago and the people that penned it may not mean what you think they do.
Nor what you think maybe. Unluckily, they are all dead, so we can't ask them. And is really important what they thought a quarter of a millennium ago, in a very different environment? Or is more important what is happening in the actual environment?
Remember that this was written a fair while ago and the people that penned it may not mean what you think they do.
So? Antonin Scalia and all his "originalist" ilk spout that the Constitution should be interpreted by what was originally written. And then went on to do the exact opposite. Rank hypocrisy aside, the "well regulated militia" part is in the original text....
@someone else...
what did "A well regulated militia" mean at the time it was written? Did the word regulated mean the same? No as people now think it means controlled by the government. but then it could mean well trained or well organised. The whole point is that it was a check on tyranny.
So? Antonin Scalia and all his "originalist" ilk spout that the Constitution should be interpreted by what was originally written. And then went on to do the exact opposite. Rank hypocrisy aside, the "well regulated militia" part is in the original text....
---
One problem with historical documents and their interpretation is that figures of speech and word meanings shift significantly over time, and may, for example, reverse their meaning compared to how we would understand a passage.
This is a nasty trap that catches a lot of laymen and amateur historians with an insufficent understanding of the usages of the period being studied.
The fact that the meanng is clear to you does not mean that you actually understand it.
Among other usage variations (via the OED): a 1790 Adam Smith W.N. v. i. iii. i. (Bohn) II. 253 When those companies‥are obliged to admit any person, properly qualified,‥they are called regulated companies.
I have found, in life, that when people consider dangers and murderous societies, they usually turn to the safest target. Thus my German friends did, during the Cold War, constantly marched against and assailed the US: They were simply afraid of the Soviet East, knowing the soviets, one or two-hundred miles away, were hopelessly ruthless, unbelievers in the view that everyone deserves to feel safe, at liberty.
We had our civil war. Gruesome as it was, it didn't hold a candle to WWII in Europe, or the intentional murders by the Soviets of their own citizens, or the stunning numbers killed during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The world, everyone from Olaf Palme to the French Youth rebellion, were railing at us in 1971 because -Vietnam. Meanwhile, five hundred miles to the north, Mao was ordering murderous measures that had even less rationality, and killed many millions more. People are content with tunnel vision.
The "gun nuts" understand that part very well and have read other papers by the founding fathers explaining exactly what they meant. There are two clauses in the amendment, the prefatory clause, which gives the reason, and the operative clause, which states the right granted.
Also understanding history, where the new country had just won a war against a parent country with large standing armies that had tried to disarm the populace prior to the revolution, and had done so in the past to other subjects, the framers understood that the people needed to have power to resist a tyrannic government.
Other writings from the framers explained that the militia was everyone, not the state, and that regulated meant well-trained or self-controlled.
So what the framers meant, which has been upheld in Supreme Court decisions, is that to ensure that the United States remained a Free state not under dictatorship, monarchy or tyranny the individual people have the right to keep and use weapons, and should be well trained in their use.
It was not meant for a way for the state to control or limit the individuals access to those weapons as they had just fought a war to rid themselves of that kind of control.
"Militias are mention in the first part of the 2nd Amendment. You know the forgotten part that many think was written in invisible ink."
Perhaps its time to change parts of a constitution that may have been relevant in a semi lawless wild west scenario 200 years ago but don't apply in a democratic 21st century society where (in theory) the rule of law applies.
And even if you think the police/legal system/whatever in america is corrupt and is run by the industrial-military complex/bilderberg group/left wing nutjobs/right wing nutjobs [delete as applicable], the idea that you and a dozen of your friends are going to overpower the US military with a few handguns is just so fucking laughable that anyone who thinks that frankly needs a psychiatric assessement.
" the idea that you and a dozen of your friends are going to overpower the US military with a few handguns is just so fucking laughable that anyone who thinks that frankly needs a psychiatric assessement."
Do the math.
The US military probably has at most 200,000 combat troops, and occupying territory, particularly urban territory is a resource and tactical nightmare for any military, particularly when the opponents can blend with the civilian population.
Let's see... Americans trying to hide among Americans, in their own home cities... I wonder if they could manage that?
On the other hand you have on the order of 140,000,000 armed civilians, with enough guns to arm just about *everyone*.
There is a reason that competent security analysis has concluded that the US is probably the single country in the world most protected against a successful coup attempt... because of an armed, politically aware civilian population.
Even if you could subborn the entire US military, it wouldn't be enough, and you'd never get the majority of them anyway - most coups depend on a critical 5 to 10 percent of the military in the right locations, and temporary neutrilization of the rest. For example, the military coup in Portugaul used the small part of the army still in the country, and the help of the air force transport squadrons who refused to fly the bulk of the army back from Africa, rendering it irrelevant.
*My* psychiatric state is just fine, and my historical and analytical skills are even better.
"On the other hand you have on the order of 140,000,000 armed civilians, with enough guns to arm just about *everyone*."
Even assuming you could muster all of them which wouldnt happen (at most you'd get a few hundred thousand crazies), how do you reckon they'd fare against some B52 carpet bombing, abrams tanks, A10s or cruise missiles ? Ask the Taliban how well that works out long term. You see, this is the thing, people like you still think its 1850. Wake up.
"Even assuming you could muster all of them which wouldnt happen (at most you'd get a few hundred thousand crazies), how do you reckon they'd fare against some B52 carpet bombing, abrams tanks, A10s or cruise missiles ? Ask the Taliban how well that works out long term. You see, this is the thing, people like you still think its 1850. Wake up."
Well, you clearly don't understand the issues, do you?
Dunning and Kruger warned me there'd be days like this.
Let's see...
The most powerful military in the world, and its allies, have been trying to subdue Afghanistan for seventeen years now. They have drones, satellites, artillery, armour, missiles, jets, lots of shiny high tech, unmatched surveillance... and the last time I looked, the government they were propping up didn't control much outside the capital, and not always all of that.
The terrain is relatively open, ideal for a power with total air dominance. Their opposition has small arms, explosives, and some support weapons like machine guns and mortars. These are also distant foreigners, and killing them does not have an immediate political backlash in the US.
The terrain is far more problematic in the US. Finding people on a mountainside in Afghanistan is one thing - trying to pick the same number of people out from the crowds in New York city is another thing entirely.
Carpet bombing New York would have vast negatives - if you did it, pretty much all of New York would turn on the military - for that matter a lot of the military would resist the attempt. Destroying their own civilian population and infrastructure is, to say the least, a counterproductive strategy.
And if the potential oppressors have tanks, you don't shoot at them while they are driving around, you wait till they are replacing a track, or taking a night off for a movie... and once you do something, you go back into the population.
You cannot usefully weild a military against your own civilians the same way you would against an armed foreign force. Certainly not in a western democracy. Any thought that you could is delusional.
For that matter I don't think B52 carpet bombing worked in Vietnam, either. The biggest gun doesn't always win the war.
There is far too much simplistic analysis of issues around firearms that is mostly intended to bolster beliefs that are held without regard for rationality... and your posts are a perfect example of that failing. Like a lot of issues, it isn't really all that easy to solve with simplistic nostrums like 'ban guns'... first you have to grasp the real causes, and then you have to find a way to address them. Gun control is just a pointless distraction from the real work.
After a carpet bombing, I doubt it... ask those German and Japanese cities... the survivors usually have not much will to fight more and get more bombs. There's a level of horror that breaks any will people have.
In Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan US tried, and is trying, of course without success, a "limited", "humanitarian" war going against only some precise targets - that type of war can't be won without support from the population.
In Mogadishu they were caught without tanks against more heavily armed enemies with no fear to kill them - and it took old, yet useful against that kind of enemy, Pakistani tanks to save them, the Somali couldn't stand their firepower, and had no weapons against them.
B-52 in Vietnam were used only in the last stages of the war. Before most of North Vietnam coudn't be targeted because of the political implications as the ports couldn't be mined for fear of blowing up Russian or Chinese ships.
But if killing people, any people, is not an issue, look at how ISIS could take control of whole cities even without tanks - just terrorizing the population. But of course they couldn't stand a force with bigger weapons than theirs determined to fight them (the Curds, on the ground, still with support from artillery and planes).
Oh I dunno.
My relatives tell me the flattening of bits of London and almost all of Coventry did nothing to quell the desire to get stuck in and do unto others. From all accounts Dresden was a *boost* to the German civilian morale, and Tokyo was firebombed "scientifically" using data gathered during and after Dresden, yet Japan was still highly bellicose afterward.
It all depends how the leadership depicts the way forward.
It just depends on how much "civilians" are you allowed to kill, and with which weapons. And how long people armed with rifles stand before fleeing when all around them big bombs explodes and people die.
It doesn't look US had issues to occupy German and Japanese cities after having destroyed them, does it?
Look at how Russia kept Chechnya. Or how it crushed revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary - when you can ignore the death tool, everything is far easier.
And the issue won't be a military coup - which would be quite unlikely - or Trump ordering to kill all Democrats, the issue could be a revolt of some "Tea Party" fanatics or some religious sect, or the like, which may not have at all the majority of the population on their side.
"and occupying territory, particularly urban territory is a resource and tactical nightmare for any military, particularly when the opponents can blend with the civilian population."
Which is why the preferred US military technique since 1941 has just been to blow everything to bits and rely on "God taking care of his own".
The amount of ammunition used in the invasion of France in 1944 was so huge it caused major logistical problems.
Which is why the preferred US military technique since 1941 has just been to blow everything to bits and rely on "God taking care of his own".
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Which is much harder to get away with when you do it to your own country / power base / source of funds and supplies.
The amount of ammunition used in the invasion of France in 1944 was so huge it caused major logistical problems.
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And in Vietnam, one US battalion went on a mission, dropped at dawn by helicopeters, carrying 2000 rounds per man. By noon they were radioing for an emergency resupply because they were running out.
Members of other militaries I have talked to don't think much of US fire discipline.
The reason the US introduced single-shot / 3 shot burst M16s instead of single shot / full automatic was to at least slow down the depletion of ammunition in the field. I seem to recall it was an after issue add on kit.
Most militaries just tell their troops to use full automatic only when necessary because of the circumstances, and if you need it it's this setting here.
*My* psychiatric state is just fine, and my historical and analytical skills are even better.
OK. I'll see your "historical and analytical skills" and your unsubstantiated and outlandish estimate of 140MM armed civilians, and raise you one B52 (without nuclear armaments).
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