“On Wednesday, after a deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, prices for major gun stocks gained momentum in early trading, following a subdued start. In afternoon trading, Smith & Wesson was up more than 7 percent, Sturm Ruger rose about 5 percent and Vista Outdoor gained nearly 9 percent.”
Yes, we all know why. Fear of possible tightening of gun controls after a suitable slaughter is a great marketing device for more gun sales. Turning tragedy into gold and more guns for more shootings. And here is the best part: President Biden is excoriated for not waiting a “respectable time” for mourning. Of course the problem is that if we wait, there is another shooting. I am not sure all the murdered folks in Buffalo are even buried yet. Texas is going to get the award, much coveted I am sure, for the most mass shootings if they work at it. Abbott was so proud to have a million gun sales in 2015 and zero restrictions on carry today.
*There is a bit of sarcasm in my post, but it is evident that a minority of our nation is not serious about solving our national disgrace, so I won’t waste sorrow on this. Hence, the sarcasm. Thoughts and prayers won’t replace children’s laughter or their lives.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Semi-automatic assault weapons have no legitimate role in a civil society. We should do what Australia did. Ban their sales and buy back existing ones for a fair price.
The “natural right” of self-defense and the Second Amendment right to bear arms as a member of a well-regulated militia do not require the kind of overkill that these weapons have become. That has been the consensus view in this country since Sandy Hook. The last time they were banned mass shooting dropped sharply but came back even stronger when the ban was allowed to expire. It is time to get serious. For those who whine about it being “too soon,” I would note that it has now been 10 years since Sandy Hook.
President Biden is absolutely right when he asks. . .
“When In God’s Name Are We Going to Stand up to the Gun Lobby?”
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268340/analyzing-surveys-banning-assault-weapons.aspx
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Semi automatic assault weapons do not exist as in no such thing.
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Those children were not shot to death with a water pistol.
Yeah, we can debate the details of how the bullets were fired. Or we can tighten the loopholes and registration. Or just keep killing children. Our choice. So far we are not choosing well.
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The claim that the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” had any positive effect is at best statistical malpractice and more likely proof of Mrak Twain’s statement that the three kinds of lies, in increasing order of perfidy are lies. damned lies, and statistics.
First, there was a general decline in crime of all kinds during that period. Even so, homicides using rifles of all kinds make up less than 3%, so the sample size would be so small that any analysis would lose signal in the noise.
Add to that the fact that prior to 2004, ARs were expensive and rare. After patents expired and other manufacturers than Colt and Armlite could make them, the price came down a lot. Even so, they were very rarely used in crime. They were mostly owned by shooting enthusiasts, as the ammunition was cheap enough to shoot as much as you cared to.
Of course, they are great home defense weapons, which came as a surprise to me. The new frangible ammunition solves the overpenetration problem and it turns out that women, in particular, are much better with them than handguns.
But(speculation) I blame TV for the increase in their recent use in crime, including mass shooting.
It used to be the bad guy had a revolver, or at most, a semi-auto handgun, but now on every police show, the bad guys have full auto M-16s or M-4s. They aren’t available, but the ARs look like them. I think the criminals watch TV too, and TV has made the rifles popular.
Even so, most mass shootings are still carried out with handguns.
So, if you really want to do good, focus on the shooters, not the firearms. The tiny number of people who carry out those horrors almost always give us warnings we ignore.
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“The tiny number of people who carry out those horrors almost always give us warnings we ignore.”
Those “warnings” always seem clear in hindsight. Should you, for example, finally act on your fantasies, many of your postings here would be in the same category – why did they ignore those warnings?
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The claim that the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” blah, blah, blah
Your arguments are weak. The general crime rate has nothing to do with the kind of psychosis that leads to mass shootings. But you cite that it was down?
And now that these weapons are cheaper than ever is a very poor reason to not ban them. The opposite in fact.
Then there are those “damn lies” from the statistics of other countries. They have all the same mental health problems, violent entertainment, TV, video games, INCELS, disgruntled White Supremacists etc. that we do but only a tiny fraction of the mass murder. What is the difference? Guns are “well-regulated” in those countries.
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Didn’t read the link I provided again I see.
One of the falsehoods revealed was that the US is not an outlier on mass shootings, and many European countries with very strict gun laws have a higher incidence.
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Sorry for the extra long link, but it s the only way to throw the BS flag on your assertion that …” the US is not an outlier on mass shootings,”. The chart in the link is pretty obvious.
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220526&instance_id=62410&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN®i_id=83598832&segment_id=93383&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F6d636340-080c-5111-8269-9a16073f3344&user_id=a74854d005212b97abb210e2e2cc8378
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I don’t see a link to the underlying research so I can’t see the methodology but it would seem that gang shootings must be included.
Here is a reseached and documented paper
https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=156082089114107070083089082119113102002054084092007058124026026088064087014091124096027019013002018046016030093071094077080116059084071008033069123001068095010066020005005003089001081006119108117099115017021076072119020106007065078077028080078100&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
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The NYT link says 104 mass shootings in 21 years. 5 per year. No big deal for us. We have two major ones this month alone, 32 deaths.
Face it, we are pretty exceptional after all.
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“America, FIRST”
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“Didn’t read the link I provided again I see.”
It was out of the order that I looked at this morning. I have now read it. It is bullshit. Adam has already provided the hard data. This gun lover must be including civil war zones to come up with the numbers he claims.
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“It would seem that gang shootings must be included.”
Here is something you seem not to know. . . Black Lives Matter.
But, actually, it does not seem that way at all. The chart lists 101 mass public shootings in the United States over the 22 year period from 1998 – 2019. It is plain to see that the author is using one of the more restrictive definitions of a mass shooting. And, unlike your preferred data, it is limited to developed countries where the rankings have something to tell us.
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Sure, comparing straight totals between the US and countries with 1/40th the population tells us what?
I provided you a sourced and documented alternative, did you read it?
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“Sure, comparing straight totals between the US and countries with 1/40th the population tells us what?”
Your genius is showing again. Were you confused by the presentation? Too bad.
Let me help. The data cited by the NYT was for developed countries that actually had at least one mass shooting during that 22 year period. Several major countries did not make the list because they did not have any. For example, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Greece and others. The 17 countries on the list have a total population of about 426 million compared to our 331 million. Those 17 countries had a total of 38 mass shooting incidents compared to our 101.
So, the data “tells us” that we have a serious problem compared to other countries as much as you want to pretend that we don’t.
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So obviously your whole speech is about gun control. Next time some disturbed teen, who more than likely committed unreported behavior in school that would have prevented him from buying a fire arm in the first place, decides to kill, let’s hope he kills his granny with an axe and uses a bomb on a school. That make you feel any better? In short, enforce the laws already on the books and stop blaming an inanimate piece of metal.
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LOL!
Sounds like you are one of those fellas who needs his man license renewed.
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Don’t need a renewal like liberals need to reconfirm their sad disgusting mental illness you take pride in.
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“Don’t need a [man license] renewal”
LOL!
Of course, none of you believe that about yourselves. The people who sell these weapons know different.
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What laws on the books would have stopped this murderer?
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I don’t know. And neither do you.
I have not commented on this yet because we do not yet have the information on the shooter needed to know.
Was he known to law enforcement, like the Parkland shooter, and ignored?
Was he known to be dangerously mental ill, like the VA Tech shooter, and ignored?
I don’t know yet if there were clear warning signs, like in so many of these tragedies, that should have been reported to the NICS system, but were ignored.
We have a good system in place but liberal policies sabotage it over and over.
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The usual. I posted this early because I, along with the majority of Americans are fed up with this crap. The fact is that just about anyone can plop down a few hundred and walk out with body armor, semi-automatic rifles that look cool, multiple magazines and head to a new killing zone. That is what this killer did. Legally. Even if you had been there, your pistol would have been just about powerless. He had body armor.
Right come with responsibilities. Lethal rights come with great responsibility.
At the very least, CCP regs should apply to purchase a gun. Great Britain has a similar demographic, crime, gangs that are notorious…but tighter gun control.
America is in turmoil and I don’t really have much optimism. Nor patience.
Just like the majority of Americans.
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Do you have a cite on the body armor? What I read is that he had a tactical vest, but not the strike plate.
There appear to have been numerous security failures at the school.
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I have seen conflicting reports on whether or not had had plates in the tactical vest. I do believe the Buffalo shooter was wearing them. He may have taken a bullet even.
More info to come I am sure.
Probably a boatload of false flag accusations, too.
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Sure.
Blame the school.
Blame the liberals.
Blame the mental health community.
Blame the cops.
But whatever you do, don’t blame the law which allows someone to buy these weapons with no realistic checking on his competence or character. Don’t blame the dealer who made a quick buck selling TWO of these things to a kid. Don’t blame gun manufacturers with their lobbyists and their advertising aimed at the sexually inadequate.
It is real simple. There is no place for semi-automatic assault weapons in a civil society. We banned them once and should do so again. Immediately. It will prevent every tragedy, but it will prevent some as it did before.
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Really?
Which tragedy did the 1994 law prevent?
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It has been almost a year since U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down California’s assault weapons ban, citing in his decision the manipulation of statistics to disguise the fact that CA’s ban has made no difference at all. (Benitez’s ruling has been stayed pending appeal to SCOTUS)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/560557-wheres-the-defense-of-california-judge/
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On the list we were #58 on fatalities of mass shootings. France, Switzerland, Finland and Norway were higher. All the rest were Third World.
Norway had one mass killer, a right wing nationalist, but he killed dozens in a country with just a few million residents.
Finland is tiny, so per capita numbers are high, as Switzerland. I am not sure about France, but they have had some terrorist attacks.
So, yes, we can find some anomalies, but in the industrial world, we are near champions. I think 2022 might bump us up the list a bit if that is a goal.
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“Which tragedy did the 1994 law prevent?”
The ones that did not happen.
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RE: “Thoughts and prayers won’t replace children’s laughter or their lives.”
Neither will anger and irrationality.
I haven’t heard any facts related to the Uvalde shooting that cause me to rethink my views on gun control.
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Bet a dollar he turns out to be an INCEL. From the WSJ
“Ramos didn’t respond well to rejection from girls he expressed interest in, Ms. Foutz said. “If you would turn him down, he would get offended by it and take it out on you: ‘You’re a bitch, that’s why no one likes you,’ ” she said, recalling interactions between Ramos and a few of her friends.”
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Every society has its mentally ill, self-proclaimed victims, gangs and sociopaths. We seem to be the one that also arms them.
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Has anyone seen anything about the shooter’s juvenile record?
The articles I have seen say he had no ADULT criminal record, but he was only an adult for about 2 weeks.
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Here is a cheery note.
Firearms are the leading cause of death among children 1 and older.
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/26/gun-deaths-children-america
Save the egg, kill the kid. 😇
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The CDC counts up to 21 as children.
I really don’t see a gang banger who dies in a shootout with his competitors as a child.
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The link says age 19.
This is like the maternal mortality rates debate. Either we count them all as American residents and citizens or we don’t. So let’s just say that 19 is still a teen whether they are in a gang or at Duke pre-med.
Of course we are known to charge 14 and 15 year olds as adults if prosecutors feel pressure.
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RE:”Bet a dollar he turns out to be an INCEL.”
That wouldn’t surprise me.
We can talk about the gun, the shooter or the environment in trying to understand these events. We spend too much time talking about the gun.
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“We spend too much time talking about the gun.”
Uh, guns are a necessary condition for gun violence. Other countries not that different from us have figure that out and end up with a tiny fraction of the mayhem that is the price of unrestricted gun availability.
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RE: “Uh, guns are a necessary condition for gun violence.”
Don’t care. My focus is on trying to understand these events.
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Understand this – if a maniac cannot get a gun, he cannot commit gun violence. Simple.
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“In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
Dan Hodges, British commentator, 2012
https://baptistnews.com/article/once-america-decided-killing-children-was-bearable-it-was-over/#.Yo-OBS8pCf0
A lot of children have died since then, so he may have been right after all. In fact, the leading cause of death among children older than one is firearms as of 2020. More than automobiles.
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RE: “Understand this – if a maniac cannot get a gun, he cannot commit gun violence. Simple.”
That’s just too stupid to contemplate.
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Pretty straight forward and you call it “too stupid to contemplate”?
THAT is what seems too stupid – IMO.
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