Comments

1
pew pew, law abiding gun owners! freedumb!
2
"Not the Renton theater where the shooting happened."

How is this image useful in anyway whatsoever?
4
Shutterstock is like Dream Whip served with a slice of pseudo-journalism.
5
That white privilege link doesnt work šŸ˜„
6
What? How could you not mention that Pramila Jayapal is running for Congress several more times?
8
@5: https://youtu.be/Y_rl4ZGdy34

But it's too screechy, loud, and abrasive for this time of day. Lady Gaga would be better.
9
Anyone notice the Times headline?

Stranger shoots woman in showing of ā€˜13 Hoursā€™ at Renton movie theater

A dig at the Stranger?

I like the headline because it uses active voice and places responsibility on the shooter, unlike other headlines, including the title here on Slog, that don't even mention him.

Slog: "One Woman Injured in Renton Shooting"
KING5: "Woman shot at Renton movie theater"
KOMO News: "Woman seriously injured in Renton theater shooting"

The Times could certainly have used other words instead of "stranger": patron, drunk man, man, and so forth.

Here's what Q13 has: "Police: Intoxicated man fumbling with gun shoots woman at Renton movie theater"

Anyway, unlike the Times, which I think says he went to a restaurant and then turned himself in later, Komo and King report that he went home feeling guilty and his dad called the police and had him turn himself in. I guess this will probably be one argument for leniency, if charges are even filed. But for all we know, he was getting rid of his stash of meth.
10
By the way, Ted Cruz claims he has no health insurance coverage.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/te…

If any of his Senate colleagues really want to screw him over, now is the time for Cruz to "stumble" and fall down a flight of stairs, Mitch McConnell. . . .
11
Tell me there is a law that now prevents this idiot from ever owning or AT VERY LEAST carrying a gun outside of his home, open or otherwise. How many 'oops' do you think he ought to get?
12
@10: because he refused to use his Senate coverage after his wife took a leave from Goldman and Sachs. a load of horseshit.

anyone else finding themselves preferring Trump to Cruz? the Giant Douche to a Shit Sandwich?
14
So, this is a good guy with a gun, presumably. He takes off when he fucks up. Leaving the scene should be some sort of violation as well.
16
What could possible go wrong with the paring of guns and alcohol? Yay Freedum!!!
19
The only thing that can stop a drunk good guy with a gun that's carrying to try and stop a bad guy with a gun is a good girl with body armor. Or something.
20
@13/17 stopped reading after "We don't outlaw all cars"
21
Does the posting policy allow for the removal of long-ass posts that just repeat worn-out, logically fallacious explanations as if they're actually informative? It should.
22
@19:

Actually, the only thing that can stop a drunk good guy with a gun that's carrying to try and stop a bad guy with a gun is a slightly less drunk gooder guy with a gun that's carrying to try and stop a drunk good guy with a gun that's carrying to try and stop a bad guy with a gun...
23
The proper punishment for the drunken ammosexual in Renton is this: He stands at a shooting range, about 15 feet away, the injured woman stands in front of him, blindfolded, and holds his loaded gun. She gets to empty it in his direction. Whatever injuries or death on his part is his own business (or next of kin) to take care of.
24
@21: Why, do you find scrolling in your browser a challenge?
25
Bess @ 13, 17:
1. its not "Obama's Own Study".
2. it is not a "Study".
3. so fucking what if there are more DGUs that firearms crimes? I've seen OTHER studies that assert that most DGUs are crimes as well. http://www.armedwithreason.com/more-hole…
4. why are you double-posting 5 paragraphs in response to my "pew pew" comment, anyway?

weak sauce.
27
@17: We don't ban all cars or limit them to 20 mph, but we do require safety features like seatbelts and airbags, and we enforce speed limits. Meanwhile, there are NO mandated safety standards for guns manufactured in the USA. And while you need to register your ownership of a car you buy and you must pass a licensing exam to operate one, most government agencies are PROHIBITED from keeping records of gun sales, and it is perfectly legal to buy or sell a gun without any sort of license check. Care to explain any of that?
Your argument is basically that because we don't enforce draconian and unreasonable safety standards on cars, we shouldn't enforce any safety standards whatsoever on guns.
29
@22 But how does the 2nd slightly less drunk good guy with a gun know that the more drunk guy with a gun was about to accidentally shoot?

Oh wait. Vigilance. Or maybe you're supposed to shoot the drunk good guy with a gun just in case.
30
Cars and all the other potentially dangerous things that people like to concern troll about in gun conversations have uses that outweigh their hazards and, as mentioned, regulation in response to those hazards. The only use a gun has is to kill. The mere act of carrying one is a threat of deadly force; 'defensive gun use' is just another way of saying 'fuck with me and I will blow you away'. And we're putting that power in the hands of drunken idiots.
32
"Some people collect them as art, as historical artifacts, for target shooting."

Those are not the guns being carried into theaters and getting dropped in restaurants.
33
Some people collect cars and never drive them. The Sultan of Brunei, for instance, is infamous for his thousands of rare and unusual vehicles- some of which are the only examples of their kind, having been made specifically for him- that he has literally rotting in his vast garages. No one is going to argue that the purpose of a car is to sit around and do nothing simply because that's how he uses his. Cars are designed to be transportation. No one designs a car for long-term storage, which is why so many of his are in terrible shape. No one designs a gun for display, either, which is why people who do keep them for display still have to clean and oil them regularly to prevent rust. They were designed to be weapons, and they were designed to be treated as weapons. Even if they are not being used with the intent to kill, that doesn't make them any less weapons. A target shooter's gun is just as capable of killing as a soldier's. There's a reason the Absolute Commandment my dad gave me when he taught me how to shoot was "Never Point This At Something You're Not Willing To Kill."

Regardless of the applicable law, that woman was fully willing to kill that man. It's also worth noting that her story falls squarely into the 'mutual escalation' category of 'defensive gun use' that the article @25 linked to covered. Their initial altercation was over when she took it upon herself to incite a further altercation, which she then tried to back away from with the threat of deadly force in the form of her gun. She didn't have to act with consideration for de-escalation during that encounter, because she held threat of death in her hands. She got to say how things ended. And far too many carriers walk around with that mindset. They don't carry for protection. They carry so they can make the rules. Good or bad, they're the one with the gun.

And to something you mentioned in @28, a number of states have all kinds of restrictions on the sales of swords, knives, and certain types of blunt instruments. Martial arts weapons got banned in droves during the initial Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad, switchblades and stilettos have long been frowned upon, and sword-canes in particular are widely prohibited as a 'concealed weapon'. Those lawmakers saw a potential danger and acted to mitigate it. We're not allowed to do that with guns, apparently because guns have a strong lobby of people who *like* being potential dangers.
34
Twice, while living in New Orleans, a falling bullet from "celebratory gunfire" completely shattered the rear window of my Pinto hatchback (a huge almost-perpendicular, giant target of a rear window. (It's OK to mock/laugh)).

Just thinking about that after reading Bess's link @31, which described ONE single example of defensive gun use, whereas Max's link @25 illustrates the fallacy that gun owners have that their gun will be used to protect oneself or stop a crime. Maybe Bess can help me with this: what is the mindset of a "good-guy" with a gun that is in any way good? I just see "bully" or "coward," since we know that carrying a gun doesn't make you safer.
36
Yep, did not answer my question at all. LOL at 140,000.

So, just dumb then?
37
@28: Okay, so you're saying that for gun safety regulations to have any effect, we'd HAVE TO make them draconian. That is an absolute crock of shit, a pathetic attempt at an explanation hastily concocted to support your ridiculous hyperbole.
As for limits on rights? Food and drink are a right so basic that the Founders didn't even think it necessary to specifically write them into the Constitution, and we have LOADS of consumer protection regulation devoted to making sure that our food and drink are fit for consumption. Shouldn't guns sold in America be required to have modern safety features? Or any safety features at all?

"We don't require sword collectors, baseball bat collectors, to register and background check when they buy, sell, and trade. Yet more people are killed with knives, blunt objects, OR bare hands than are killed with long guns, which includes 'assault weapons'."
Ah yes, the old chestnut about how not that many people are killed with long guns, completely ignoring the fact that LITERALLY HALF OF ALL MURDER VICTIMS IN THE USA ARE KILLED WITH HANDGUNS. It's also not even true that blunt objects are used to kill more people than are long guns; in 2013, 593 people were killed with long guns (rifles and shotguns), while only 428 were killed with blunt objects. If you factor in the number of people killed with firearms unknown, the long gun death toll rises to 771 or thereabouts (assuming all types of guns are equally likely to be identified when used in a murder), eclipsing bare hands as well. This has been true for the last five years on record, at the very least. If you're going to lie, lie about something that's not so easily looked up.

So, do you favor allowing violent felons to own firearms, or would you prefer that we require background checks on all gun transactions? Let's hear it.
39
@38: "We prohibit the sale of tobacco and alcohol to minors and require all sellers to check I.D. How well is that working to stop alcohol and tobacco getting to minors?"
Are you saying that requiring ID checks on tobacco and alcohol sales does NOT keep those products away from minors? Are you saying that we would NOT have significantly higher rates of teen alcohol and tobacco use if stores weren't required to verify ages of customers? Do you think our opioid problem wouldn't be worse if you could legally buy morphine over the counter? Because that's a fuckstupid assertion.
Remember, just because a control doesn't prevent ALL violations doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile. Speed limit laws don't prevent ALL accidents, after all, but they prevent ENOUGH accidents that we think them worth having.

Also, what exactly is the burden posed by a background check requirement? Do you realize that they take about a minute to conduct, in the vast majority of cases? And don't give me the tired old bullshit about giving a gun to a family member, or borrowing one at the shooting range or while out hunting, because background check laws specifically carve out exemptions for those cases.

"You also don't know that homicide will drop if you restrict the most convenient implement of homicide. If the issue is homicidal behavior, not the implement used to achieve the end, it is unlike homicides will drop."
This goes against all the evidence. Research indicates, again and again and again, that victims of violent assaults are more likely to be killed if their assailant has a more lethal weapon (a gun, say, rather than a knife). Homicidal intent is one thing, but firearms make it FAR easier to turn it into homicide proper.

And as for self-defense, Sandiai and Max Solomon spoke of (frighteningly common) cases in which people go about armed WITH THE INTENTION of being "good guys with guns" and end up escalating conflicts or being otherwise belligerent instead. This is a pattern, by the way, that studies back up. You're making an argument against the strawman of "people shouldn't defend themselves with violence".
And what, exactly, makes you think that having a gun will put a small woman on equal footing with an armed male felon determined to do her harm? If someone steps out and points a gun at your head, is the pistol in your purse or on your hip going to do you any good? This notion of a gun as a magical protective charm is rooted in a severe ignorance of how assaults tend to happen; if someone is armed with a firearm and intends to commit a crime of violence, they are not likely to keep it in their pocket until the victim first draws.
43
@41: Finns and the Swiss don't own guns because they're paranoid that someone will come and take their guns away. The Swiss have laws about keeping guns at home, and ammo separate. There are no rural, redneck, mouthbreathers in Switzerland who need to take guns to movies "because freedum". Humans are not the problem, moron Americans are the problem. I have no idea how we fix that, though, other than by making the NRA illegal.
44
@40: "In 1994 the homicide rate in this country was 7 per 100,000 and there were about 145 million guns. It is 3.4 per 100,000 today and there are 300 million guns. If guns were the causative factor then the homicide rate ought to have doubled to 14."

There are a few things wrong with this statement.
First off, you're looking at the gross number of guns in the country rather than the fraction of people who own guns, or even the slightly less useful metrics of number of guns per person or per household. Sure, the number of guns has increased, but the population of the USA also increased from 263 million to 322 million in the same time. Murder rates are in units of murders per 100k people per year, so the only sensible way to look at gun ownership is in the rate of ownership, not the raw number of guns. I also propose (reasonably, I believe) that the relevant statistic be the fraction of households with at least one gun, rather than the mean number of guns per household, as whether someone has one gun or fifty makes little difference in whether or not they commit a homicide with a gun; it's the availability of a gun that makes the difference.
And here's the real kicker: by that metric, gun ownership has actually FALLEN SIGNIFICANTLY over that time span! In 1994, 40.6% of households had at least one gun, and 43.8% of adults lived in such a household. In 2014, only 31.0% of households had a gun, and the percentage of adults in these households (i.e. with easy access to a gun) had fallen to 32.4%, with the most dramatic drop coming between 1996 and 1998. (source) If you use a more informative metric, the decline in homicides ACTUALLY HAS coincided with a decline in gun ownership.

Secondly, although it's sort of moot at this point, it's possible for something to be a causative factor without it driving the overall trend. Widespread availability of guns can increase homicides even if there's a negative correlation between gun availability (rising) and homicide rate (falling), if there are larger forces at work. By your logic, space heaters can't POSSIBLY raise temperatures, because your room is colder when it's in use than when it's not in use--the confounding factor is that space heaters are only used during cold weather, when the ambient temperature makes the room colder despite the warming action of the heater. The factors behind crime, particularly urban crime, are manifold, and criminology is still somewhat imprecise, but anything and everything may have some impact, from the obvious ones like police funding and the state of the economy to the more obscure ones like Roe v. Wade (Dubner and Levitt posit that the availability of legal abortion in the 1970s to 1980s reduced the number of unwanted children growing up to be poor, disaffected, badly parented young men in the 1990s). That said, it is ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT to say that gun ownership rising while homicide falls is disproof of gun ownership increasing homicide.
45
@42: And I'll copypaste my short answer to that same old bullshit.
Hey look! Let's look at raw murder, suicide, and gun ownership rates across twenty or so European countries and draw conclusions just from that! Yeah, sure, those countries vary widely in terms of governing structure, population density and urbanization, and poverty levels, but we can totally compare them directly to each other, because we only care about the first-order correlation of guns and crime. Control? No, we don't need to control or account for confounding variables!
48
@46: Nothing you wrote there has any bearing whatsoever on either of my last two posts. What are you trying to say, Lassie?

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.