Mass Shooting Las Vegas...

[Jedidiah]

You keep referring to Tassman as a moron, yet you are the one that can't remember and doesn't check.

You are right in that we do not know if Tass is a moron. Perhaps he is just acting like one.

[firstfloor]

And do I even want to ask how gun love (which is not violence love) is blasphemy?

[One Bad Pig]

Do you have to work at trolling, or does it come naturally?

[KingsGambit]

How much time have you actually spent in the US?

[Teallaura]

You make my point for me: handled responsibly,a gun is perfectly safe. As you say, it was someone doing something "STUPID" that led to accidental death.

You used the words 'perfectly safe' about a gun - that's the best evidence that you DON'T know how to handle one.

I may not like them, but I know enough about handling them to know that a gun is ALWAYS loaded - even if you just took out the bullets - and ALWAYS dangerous - even if you're sure it isn't loaded. Treating a firearm with any less respect is the hallmark of a poor gun owner - and why guns should be regulated.

[Teallaura]

Not a good comparison. How do you compare statistic of just postal workers versus the entire population of the United States?

Edmond, Oklahoma, 1986

On August 20, 1986, during the Edmond post office shooting, 14 employees were shot and killed and 6 were wounded at the Edmond, Oklahoma, post office by Patrick Sherrill, a postman who then committed suicide with a shot to the forehead.
Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1991

A former United States postal worker, Joseph M. Harris, killed his former supervisor, Carol Ott, and killed her boyfriend, Cornelius Kasten Jr., at their home. The following morning, on October 10, 1991, Harris shot and killed two mail handlers, Joseph M. VanderPaauw, 59, of Prospect Park, New Jersey, and Donald McNaught, 63, of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, at the Ridgewood Post Office.
Royal Oak, Michigan, 1991
The U.S. post office in Royal Oak

On November 14, 1991 in Royal Oak, Michigan, Thomas McIlvane killed five people, including himself, with a rifle in Royal Oak's post office, after being fired from the Postal Service for "insubordination." He had been previously suspended for getting into altercations with postal customers on his route.
Two events in 1993

Two shootings took place on the same day, May 6, 1993, a few hours apart. At a post office in Dearborn, Michigan, Lawrence Jasion wounded three and killed one, and subsequently killed himself. In Dana Point, California, Mark Richard Hilbun killed his mother and her dog, then shot two postal workers dead.

As a result of these two shootings, in 1993 the Postal Service created 85 Workplace Environment Analysts for domicile at its 85 postal districts. These new positions were created to help with violence prevention and workplace improvement. In February 2009, the Postal Service unilaterally eliminated these positions as part of its downsizing efforts.
Goleta, California, 2006

Jennifer San Marco, a former postal employee, killed six postal employees before committing suicide with a handgun, on the evening of January 30, 2006, at a large postal processing facility in Goleta, California. Police later also identified a seventh victim dead in a condominium complex in Goleta where San Marco once lived. According to media reports, the Postal Service had forced San Marco to retire in 2003 because of her worsening mental problems. This incident is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out in the United States by a woman.

Going with the "going postal" label: In the low population of postal workers how are these not mass shootings? These are just pulled from Wikipedia with no checking or anything.

You do not get mass shootings in these sort of local rage situations. Road Rage is another example of the same sort of thing.
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Jed, you totally missed the point.

[Teallaura]

Lots of people have died because they did something incredibly stupid (the whole "Hey guys watch this" meme is based on that). Firearms are not unique in that way.

Fortunately, at a very young age, my father instilled in us the notion that a gun is ALWAYS loaded. Not that it might be loaded but that it IS loaded. Even after you disassembled it, cleaned it and just put it back together -- it is loaded. You never, ever have the business end aimed at someone unless you mean to. As a result, in spite of having carried a firearm for decades (sometimes more than one) I have never accidentally discharged one.

Personally I think gun safety classes are important and only a fool would skip one. The "evil" NRA sponsors some of the best around.

So, why do you think it should be legal for felons, lunatics and people who can't wait three days to buy guns? Personally, I don't think it should be legal to own a firearm without both gun safety and gun handling education - and certification. I'd prefer a gun free universe but since I can't have that - and grudgingly concede it isn't fair - I think requiring a certain level of capability and responsibility in order to own a gun is perfectly reasonable.

I'd also make the gun owner liable for the damage done by his weapon but that has a lot to do with having been shot at three times, lost multiple pets, a neighbor and a friend to morons with guns.

[Jedidiah]

Do you have to work at trolling, or does it come naturally?

Honesty certainly comes hard for him.

[Teallaura]

Wasn't there a case where an unarmed burglar was charged with murder because his equally unarmed associate was fatally shot by an armed householder?

....

Felony murder, as Sparky already mentioned.

A good reason NOT to commit a felony.

[Joel]

Most people I know have never been to a ladder range. As far as I know, monitored, safety prepared ladder ranges simply do not exist...

Exactly. And gun ranges do exist. If we want to talk about reality, and make comparisons of real things, we have to deal with them as they are.

If instead you included only riskier usages, then your claim is weaker. You'd only be saying that risky usage of guns is risky. Which nobody can deny, but that doesn't tell us whether actual gun usage on average is risky.

Why not?

For the same reason that the average height of tall people doesn't tell us what is the average height of people.

It's something I feel that a lot of people deal with on an ordinary level. I know so many people who own guns who don't keep them in a safe forever, or who don't only use them outside of a gun range. That's my reality. I imagine that with the number of guns that exist in the US, that a lot of people simply do not handle them with the care we'd expect at a range, or handle them with the type of supervision we might expect in the same.

And any such actual uses would also need to be included in the average. Excluding tall people from consideration would be just as much an error as excluding short people. Either error would prevent us from measuring the population average.

Guns, unlike ladders, are really very dangerous. It seems like you and a few others here want to convince me that they're not, but that seems totally surreal, and unbelievable. I know, from personal experience, the damage that comes from guns. I also know, relatively speaking the damage that comes from ladders (I used to do siding and roofing, so ladders were a pretty big part of my work experience). No matter what you say, no matter your justifications, in my own personal experience, guns are FAR more dangerous than ladders. I'm truly sorry, but you simply cannot convince me otherwise.

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. My argument is not that average gun usage is less risky than ladder usage. My complaint was only that your argument didn't make your case, because the inherent properties of the objects doesn't tell us what the actual average usages are (in a particular time and place). And that to compute an average, you need to include all instances (or a statistically representative sample), and not discount any instances.

Maybe you're dealing with your own experience with ladders and guns, but it's simply not the experience I share.

I'm not talking about my experience or observation or measurement of the data. I'm talking about statistics--about the methodology we would need to use to answer the posed question.

[Joel]

Actually no one is arguing that guns are the only problem, guns can't fire themselves. Obviously the problem is people having easy access to mass killing machines.

That's not it either. The context here is that Adrift said that the suburbs of Chicago have less violent crime because they are more affluent. But surely the more affluent have greater access to weaponry.

[Joel]

Well first of all, I take issue with the idea that taking away a dangerous weapon is like...a movie villain who is committing a violent crime. I mean, that's not how I imagine it at all. I don't know why that doesn't come through in my posts. I don't even know how one can make these sorts of comparisons. They seem absurd to me.

Every law is backed by physical force or the threat thereof, ultimately backed by the threat of death.
A law to take away the guns from millions of innocent people is to use violence (or the threat thereof) upon millions of innocent people. Some may resent that, and or see it as an injustice. The more laws we pass and the more they impose upon innocent people, the more it teaches people that physical force is an appropriate way for people to deal with one another.

And as I've stated earlier, I'm okay with eliminating all guns from private hands if it means that many bad people won't have access to them.

Whenever people say this I make the comparison to banning all Muslims if it means keeping out the relatively few bad Muslims.

[Adrift]

Exactly. And gun ranges do exist. If we want to talk about reality, and make comparisons of real things, we have to deal with them as they are.

But in this case, what you want to do is compare apples and oranges. You want to compare the use of ordinary ladders in ordinary environments with the controlled environment that is a firing range.

For the same reason that the average height of tall people doesn't tell us what is the average height of people.

Barring a controlled environment for ladder use, we may be stuck with the fact that guns are generally risky to use, or at least, riskier to use than ladders. I know that's not the answer you want, but it seems that's all we're left with.

And any such actual uses would also need to be included in the average. Excluding tall people from consideration would be just as much an error as excluding short people. Either error would prevent us from measuring the population average.

I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't accept that for reasons mentioned above.

[Adrift]

Every law is backed by physical force or the threat thereof, ultimately backed by the threat of death.
A law to take away the guns from millions of innocent people is to use violence (or the threat thereof) upon millions of innocent people. Some may resent that, and or see it as an injustice. The more laws we pass and the more they impose upon innocent people, the more it teaches people that physical force is an appropriate way for people to deal with one another.

This isn't a very good argument. One could argue that every law is ultimately backed by some sort of threat, whether its paying your taxes or wearing your seat belt. If we take your logic to its extremes, we should just upend the government and live in some sort of anarchist state so that none of us have to ever worry about the government preventing us from keeping or doing something we want, whether it's for the good of the whole or not. Or is that something you're actually suggesting here? I recently read on this forum that a lot of libertarians desire an anarchist state (or something near that). Are you a libertarian?

Whenever people say this I make the comparison to banning all Muslims if it means keeping out the relatively few bad Muslims.

I'm not sure I get the comparison. It doesn't seem like a very good one, since I'm not referring to banning people. In fact, most of your guy's comparisons haven't been making much sense to me, but as I said earlier, I don't claim to be very bright.

[Adrift]

That's not it either. The context here is that Adrift said that the suburbs of Chicago have less violent crime because they are more affluent. But surely the more affluent have greater access to weaponry.

Having greater access does not necessarily correlate with greater need or desire, but as I pointed out earlier, it's not like driving a vehicle outside of Chicago would be that burdensome. It's not at all the same as crossing a border. It means maybe driving 30 minutes out of your way.