17th mass shooting of 2020 and we're only 23 days into it.

That’s an awful lot of arrests. Maybe we should ask why either of them were even allowed out in public and not in jail cells?

@2 Because cry baby American tax payers, as much as they cower over "CRIME!," don't really want to PAY what it really costs for a working justice system, for trained cops, for rehabilitation, or to keep hundreds of thousands (to millions) of people in jail for twenty to thirty years.

Keyser Söze?

Poor Lester, he’s no doubt getting his man bun in a twist trying to figure out how to blame the police for all of this.

@2: Seems kind of racist to ask questions like that, Hitler.

Evil whites like you need to stop trying to lock up entrepreneurs and church youth leaders for the simple crime of being black. They need reparations, not more KKKops.

@8 Yes it has. December 2019 West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas.

If we only have some common sense gun control laws, these wannabe gangsters with warrants for their arrest wouldn't have been able to easily obtain their assault weapons.

We should make 3rd Avenue a gun-free zone because that will solve the problem.

@8

Keep up the work! The CDC completely supports your point:
https://reason.com/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o/

@3: Oh, but we do pay for it. But then we have things like your beloved city council robbing SPD overtime pay for nice-to-have social outreach endeavors.

@8: Yeah, unfortunately there weren't. See @9.

@10: Gun free zones = slaughter zones

@2 - Not uncommon if most of the arrests are for misdemeanors or even non-violent felonies, like felony theft or felony possession. Some were also charges that were later dropped, I’m sure.

@11

Oh, that Kleck study that's never been replicated?

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people-use-guns-in-self-defense
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/

Basically, both people who shot up downtown last night would have characterized their use of guns as "self-defense".

Far more studies have found that intimidation, murdering your wife, or getting shot by your toddler is way more common than self-defense.

Oh wait, silly me. I'm wasting my time, since conservatives can't read anything over the length of a tweet without getting distracted. Looking forward to froth that shows that nobody actually read the links I posted.

Also, why is it none of these micro-penis possessing 2A gun-humpers ever cry big, wet, sloppy crocodile tears when the mass-shooter is an ANGRY WHITE MALE, whereupon their knee-jerk response is invariably, "welp, nothing to be done, it's just the price of freedom, so you-all gotta learn to live with it," INSTEAD of "lock 'em all up and throw away the key!"?

@15: Just because most people wouldn't be able to use their guns effectively in self defense situations doesn't negate the fact that some could do so, and even prevent mass casualties.

The gun genie is out of the bottle. We can never put it back. And a society where guns are available only to police and on the black market would be more dangerous, I think.

@ 18 - you think wrong.

Homocide rates in the US are far, far, far in excess of other first world countries where it's very difficult to get access to weapons.

@18 Yes, and oxygen binds to hemoglobin allowing blood to transport it to cells. Congratulations, you can say words, and you still haven't read the links.

To quote myself:
"Far more studies have found that intimidation, murdering your wife, or getting shot by your toddler is way more common than self-defense."

Pay attention to those first two words. FAR MORE. Basic, kindergarten-level decision making means deciding if the harms outweigh the benefits. If cars mostly just exploded, but occasionally got our corpulent asses to the grocery store for cheetos, it wouldn't be a good deal.

Lastly, prove that we can't put the genie back. Find some references, preferably not from a biased source like Breitbart, the NRA, or Fox. Without references, it's just a bunch of assholes spouting opinions. Opinions are like assholes anyway, so it's just asshole all the way down.

Remember, putting the genie back MAY be buyback programs, it MAY be consistent, federal-level gun control laws, it MAY be something else entirely. Your job is to prove that NOTHING can possibly ever work, ever, since that's literally what you said.

Also, learn to pay attention to things longer than one of your dear leader's ragetweets. Learn to argue properly. Maybe take a high-school level debate class or something, or else you're just loudly farting online.

Its the gun’s fault!

These young men simply couldn’t help themselves, because...poverty, arguing, and stuff.

Just Kshama’s base making Seattle great.

"History has proven time and time again that it is far more dangerous to live in an unarmed society than it is an armed one."

No it hasn't. Poppycock.

Because there has never been an "unarmed" society. All societies have had militaries with arms and police with arms and to one degree or another personal arms whether improvised or not.

They look like Amazon AI execs.

"Amazon AI execs"

@26 You mean productive tax payers?

Funny how folks who want to solve gun violence always focus on the 1% of shootings that are random mass shootings and not the nearly 50% of shootings involving blacks and latinos, with illegally owned guns and shitty aim.

@10 aha - but gun restrictions would have worked.

Remember the guy who shot up the mosque in Christchurch? I remember reading he paid something like $1000 for that gun. That same gun in Australia, where they were banned, had a street value of $25k.

These guys probably used cheap $100-$200 handguns that, had the US had gun restrictions, probably would have cost $2000 and up to acquire on the black market. Do you think these two had $2k to spare?

Side note, this is my 5,000th post, and I promise to @BiDanFan with my next 5,000.

@20: Buy back programs, ok. Gun control laws, ok. Candles in the rain and group hugs, ok.

Still, that's not enough. Protection is still paramount. Your dear leader is at least right on one thing, keeping the 2nd amendment.

@30 correction - the Christchurch shooter had multiple weapons. The point being, gun restriction is effective because it makes guns EXPENSIVE. Instead two low-iq dudes with anger management issues having guns, only master criminals would have guns. You know what the top priorities of master criminals are: Get the money and get away clean.

@29:

Assuming your statistic is corroborated by actual evidence, one would have to conclude from it that slightly MORE than 50% of shootings apparently involve white people with both legally and illegally owned guns and equally shitty aim. So,why are we not talking about the WHITE PEOPLE GUN PROBLEM?

@33 because white people are a LOT more than 50% of the population. Black men in America are SIXTEEN times more likely to be murdered than white women (although only about twice as likely to be murdered as white men). C'mon now, this is 6th-grade level math.

@27 "My point exactly. When you only allow the military, police or other government groups to be armed you are putting your society at great risk."

No you don't. Your understanding of history is facile and selective at best. And you have no point.

Fact: The Nazis deregulated arms from the previous Weimar restrictions. For everyone — excepting the class they wanted to oppress. It was the sudden flood of weapons into civilian hands that emboldened Nazi gangs to suppress minority groups well ahead of the Nazi domination of the government. Peaceful populations don't want arms. Thugs do.

This can be seen repeating itself throughout history. It's civilian militias that often kick off oppression. From the soccer hooligans become militias in Serbia to Rwanda to the KKK right here in the USA.

Now I'm life long gun owner, hunter, and former member of the US military. I'm fine with responsible firearms ownership. But we are way past that here in the US.

I have no illusions about what guns are for. Nor do fetishize them or romanticize them. And a populace that can casually amass arsenals won't make a nation "safer." And there is ample evidence for this all over the world. It's no longer a debate in social science, nor, in point of fact in the US military.

You know why I cross the street when I see unleashed pit bulls walking down the street?

Science.

@31, not that anyone's paying attention anymore, but thank you for walking your statements back.