Now this is pure genius! Boy, does it ever take me back to the Vietnam War protests with all those "America: Love It Or Leave It!" signs that the John Birch Society proudly displayed against those citizens who dared to question US military policy in Southeast Asia. Ahh, I do so miss the olden days...
Sorry. I gave you too much credit by saying you were likely a sociopath. You're just a moron without the thinking capacity to analyze the broad ranging effects mass murders have. It's not beneficial for a society to have to think twice before going to the movies. Or for college students to worry they might be gunned down in the library. Or for people working at a twin peaks to fear a biker gang opening fire on the premises. Yeah, homicides all have the same outcome, someone dies. But to be so simple minded as to think that the implications of mass murders and isolated instances are the same is dumb. And you clearly didn't think about any of that, or a whole list of other things I haven't spent the time thinking of, before making such a strong willed statement. Either that or you're a sociopath. Which goes back to my original question.
Exactly this. And before someone points out that being in a dispute doesn't make you "less innocent." From my understanding of this point, it's more of the fact that those who are having issues, be they domestic or otherwise at least have an opportunity to be prepared of some likelihood of the other person coming after them somehow. This is much different than Gary in HR being fired so he goes to his work place the next week and shoots three people in the lobby.
That's not what I'm saying at all, what I'm saying is that those in Australia can do things the way they want and Americans can do things the way they want. If some Americans would prefer doing things the Aussie way....they are free to go become Aussies but since Americans value their freedom over security America isn't going to do things the Aussie way.
So you think it is better if 300 people are killed in a year in a place all on different days by different people, but each one individually murdered, than it is if 300 people are killed in a year in a place, but they all were killed at the same time? The end result is that one year later, 300 people are dead. Do you not see the irony of raising Hiroshima as an argument in favor of gun control? The solution to the problem created by Hiroshima was not the rest of the countries crying about the US having atomic weapons, it was other countries developing there own atomic weapons. Thus was born MAD. The individual implementation of that solution is an armed populace, not gun control. You are literally giving an NRA talking point here.
I see a difference. Most of those killed not in mass shootings are done by people known to the victim. So it's possible for folks to have a better chance of avoiding those shootings. Mass shootings are generally done by a stranger, and nothing that any of the victims could have had any knowledge of or way to avoid. So there is some difference. How much of a difference is can be debated.
Pretty much this. It's definitely debatable as well. This topic isn't that certain and most surely not as black and white as some make it.
Yes there is a difference. Is one better or worse than the other? Is it better to have 300 housewives beaten to death by their alcoholic husbands than to have one nut blow up an office with 300 people in it? Any answer that involves chances to avoid the killing is missing the point. If gun control doesn't have a statistically significant impact on the murder rate, that means the same number of people are being killed, plus or minus a statistically insignificant number. So saying, for example, that Australia has not had a massacre since '96, even though they had a record high number of murders in the early-mid 2000s, is not a good argument in favor of gun control, IMHO, because lives are not being saved in the aggregate, the deaths are just being shifted about.
