Desperate manhunt for killer of 16 [ETA: 18] in Maine mass shooting as residents shelter in place

[dogs4thewin]

Here's an idea. Address the point that was made.

You were saying that women were five times like likely to be killed and asks where the poster would whether his daughter with and my point was that assuming his daughter met the requirements that she could have a gun just like any male who meets those same requirements.

 

[dogs4thewin]

I have no idea what that meant.

It seems that gun sales seem to go up every time people fear stricter regulations are coming when the talk of regulations are quiet usually sells are stable if not down.

 

[Larniavc]

but just because someone could does not mean they will

But they do. That’s why all these people are fatally shot. Is saying ‘yeah, but they might not do a mass killing’ really the answer to this problem?

 

[Larniavc]

I could do a LOT of things that does not mean I have the desire to do such things particularly when they harm others.

Yeah but you’re one of the good ones.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

You want to quote stats my friend then a simple cut and paste simply doesn't cut and paste it. You need to show where you're getting your figures. Here's some for you:

Rape Statistics by Country 2023 - Wisevoter

Rape is a serious crime that affects millions of people around the globe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1 in 3 women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime, with 7% of those women having experienced rape or attempted rape. These statistics are deeply...

wisevoter.com

US 38.2
Aus 28.6

USA - reported forcible rape rate 2022 | Statista

In 2022, the rate of forcible rapes in the United States stood at 40 per 100,000 inhabitants.

www.statista.com

US 40.0

Rape statistics - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

US 27.3
Aus 28.6

Countries Compared by Crime > Rape rate. International Statistics at NationMaster.com

Number of rape incidents per 100,000 citizens in different countries. Figures do not take into account rape incidents that go unreported to the police.

www.nationmaster.com

As above

Rape Statistics By Country 2024

www.datapandas.org

As above

At the very least, the figures are similar, but a lot show the US to be much more dangerous by a significant margin. So I guess that argument fails spectacularly. Seems the guys with guns are a greater threat by far and having the ability to carry a gun as self defence is self defeating.

And how safe is a each country for women?

Most Dangerous Countries for Women 2024

US Index 456
Aus Index 370

If you didn't know which country had those figures, where would you prefer your daughter's to live? In the one with the lower figure or the one with the higher?

And from here: Guns and Violence Against Women: America’s Uniquely Lethal Intimate Partner Violence Problem

'Abusers with firearms are five times more likely to kill their female victims, and guns further exacerbate the power and control dynamic commonly used by abusers to inflict emotional abuse and exert coercive control over their victims.'

Hey, maybe it looks like you haven't got enough guns...

If nation master is one of the sources you're quoting, then it would appear they have some conflicting data because that's the source I was using

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/United-States/Crime

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-victims

And it could be due to how the stats are reported. People willing to report it to a surveyor vs. actually filing police reports.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robbery-victims

And also, the stats I was reporting were percentage of the population who've been victimized, which is different than incidents per X number of people.


For instance, in a town of 100 people, last year
If "Sally Jones" has been the victim of marital rape 5 times at the hands of her abusive partner
vs.
If 5 different women in the town have been raped

Those both equate to "5 rapes per 100 people", but they tell a very different story with regards to women's safety in the area.

The former highlights a concern regarding one particular guy. The latter confers a concern about the area, in general with regards to that type of crime.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Those stats are very wrong.

Which stat in particular would you like to discuss?

As I explained to another poster (who provided different stats, but from the same source as I was getting mine from), there's different ways they're reported.

"Incidents per X number of people"
vs.
"What percentage of the population has had this happen to them"

 

[Larniavc]

"Incidents per X number of people"
vs.
"What percentage of the population has had this happen to them"

They are the same.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

They are the same.

No they're not...

For instance, in a town of 100 people, last year
If "Sally Jones" has been the victim of marital rape 5 times at the hands of her abusive partner
vs.
If 5 different women in the town have been raped by various people.

(thus the reason they and I both used the same source, but were reporting different stats)

Those both equate to "5 rapes per 100 people", but they tell a very different story with regards to women's overall safety in the area. With the former, you lock up "Sally's" husband, the problem is largely solved, in the latter, you lock up one rapist, there's still 4 more lurking out there.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Yeah, but you (as in any hypothetical gun owner) can more easily transition into a mass killing practitioner than a non gun owner.

That's why it's important to use the upstream vetting that the Czech Republic has. As noted, they have a low murder rate, but still give their citizens leeway in terms of owning (and carrying) self-defense tools.

They've managed to keep their murder rate well below 1.0, while still not having to try to create a culture of "just rollover and give the bad guy whatever they want and maybe they'll go away"

 

[Bradskii]

And it could be due to how the stats are reported.

There are enough links to enough figures to show that the point you were making was worthless. Maybe you should try a different tack.

So far we've had:
i) good guys can prevent bad guys killing people. Obviously and catastrophically wrong in this case.
ii) women are safer with guns. Patently incorrect.
iii) you can report someone who appears to be a danger but you can't take away their weapons.

Oh, and 'we don't trust 'the authorities' not to take away our toys'.

The timer is now running for the next massacre. We see y'all back here soon and you can all make exactly the same arguments again.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

There are enough links to enough figures to show that the point you were making was worthless. Maybe you should try a different tack.

So far we've had:
i) good guys can prevent bad guys killing people. Obviously and catastrophically wrong in this case.
ii) women are safer with guns. Patently incorrect.
iii) you can report someone who appears to be a danger but you can't take away their weapons.

Oh, and 'we don't trust 'the authorities' not to take away our toys'.

The timer is now running for the next massacre. We see y'all back here soon and you can all make exactly the same arguments again.

I'm not sure who's made each of those arguments in the way you're framing them...

1) That's a sometimes yes, sometimes no situation. Much like seatbelts won't prevent all people from dying in car crashes.
2) I didn't say guns specifically for that one, a gun is one defensive weapon, but it's not the only one. I was referring to countries that have taken it as far as saying that women can't even carry pepper spray or other non-lethal/less-lethal means.
3) I'm in favor of both red-flag laws, as well as required mental health screening in order to get a gun license...so not sure who was making the point you're arguing against on that one.


But, I'll ask a different question. Let's say tomorrow America could magically get rid of all the guns...snap their fingers thanos-style and all of the guns evaporate. What is your recommendation for a woman (in terms of how she can protect herself) who's traveling home from work late at night on a subway and there's someone with aims at taking advantage of her?

...because that's what ties into your 4th point. If you look at the pattern in UK:
1987 - got rid of semi-auto rifles
1996 - eliminated handguns
2007 - added pepper spray and tasers to the "prohibited weapons list"
2011 - no longer allowed to have a knife
2018 - It’s illegal for any member of the public to carry a lethal or non-lethal self defence weapon. The maximum sentence for possessing such an item is 6 years in prison

So when you have lawmakers saying "we should do what England did", what evidence is there that they would stop at handguns?, because England certainly didn't.

 

[dogs4thewin]

I'm not sure who's made each of those arguments in the way you're framing them...

1) That's a sometimes yes, sometimes no situation. Much like seatbelts won't prevent all people from dying in car crashes.
2) I didn't say guns specifically for that one, a gun is one defensive weapon, but it's not the only one. I was referring to countries that have taken it as far as saying that women can't even carry pepper spray or other non-lethal/less-lethal means.
3) I'm in favor of both red-flag laws, as well as required mental health screening in order to get a gun license...so not sure who was making the point you're arguing against on that one.


But, I'll ask a different question. Let's say tomorrow America could magically get rid of all the guns...snap their fingers thanos-style and all of the guns evaporate. What is your recommendation for a woman (in terms of how she can protect herself) who's traveling home from work late at night on a subway and there's someone with aims at taking advantage of her?

...because that's what ties into your 4th point. If you look at the pattern in UK:
1987 - got rid of semi-auto rifles
1996 - eliminated handguns
2007 - added pepper spray and tasers to the "prohibited weapons list"
2011 - no longer allowed to have a knife
2018 - It’s illegal for any member of the public to carry a lethal or non-lethal self defence weapon. The maximum sentence for possessing such an item is 6 years in prison

So when you have lawmakers saying "we should do what England did", what evidence is there that they would stop at handguns?, because England certainly didn't.

and I can promise you that many Americans would not do that without a fight.

 

[Larniavc]

That's why it's important to use the upstream vetting that the Czech Republic has. As noted, they have a low murder rate, but still give their citizens leeway in terms of owning (and carrying) self-defense tools.

They've managed to keep their murder rate well below 1.0, while still not having to try to create a culture of "just rollover and give the bad guy whatever they want and maybe they'll go away"

That's an argument for not letting populations with a high murder rate have guns?

 

[dogs4thewin]

That's an argument for not letting populations with a high murder rate have guns?

What he is saying is that there many people have guns, and yet because of the vetting process they have a low murder rate.

 

[Larniavc]

What he is saying is that there many people have guns, and yet because of the vetting process they have a low murder rate.

Then vet people in the same way and limit access to people who pass the vetting- sounds great.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Then vet people in the same way and limit access to people who pass the vetting- sounds great.

The thing is that they started BEFORE guns were everywhere. At this point with the cat this far "out of the bag" just about anything we did would either A cause more violence *(because people do not trust the government) and or B take years or decades to "work" because the black market is so big.

In short, we have lost the ability to do that because we are too far gone so to speak for those measures to have such impact any time soon.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Then vet people in the same way and limit access to people who pass the vetting- sounds great.

That's exactly my point and what I've advocated for.

However, as I've noted before. People should set some reasonable expectations (for any gun control measures) in terms of what kind of results they expect to see in the next 5-10 years, and refrain from "taking it further" until they can actually see how things play out.

With 300 million gun in circulation (that will continue to function for years & years to come), people shouldn't expect to see some drastic drop in the murder rate in the near future.

We live in the society of the "Amazon 2-day shipping culture" where people have certain expectations with regards to turn-around time.

So I wouldn't want to see a case where they do those Czech Restrictions (or even just the background checks and waiting periods), and because the murder rate has only dropped by 1-2% by 2026, assume "oh, that must me we haven't gone far enough, time to step it up a notch"


As we've seen with other hot button issues, cultural changes/attitudes can be a little like a kid at the batting cages with an overly-ambitious parent.

Most are comfortable with going in the slow-pitch ones (even if takes a little encouragement and prodding), and then working their way up to the faster ones. However, if little league dad is so laser focused on their kid being able to hit fast balls, that they try to shove them in the 60mph cages right away, they'll fight it and likely want to not play at all.

And like we've seen with some forms of social advocacy, some activists/advocates for certain changes can be a little like that hypothetical domineering parent, where they have the attitude of "I want XYZ to be achieved, and I don't want to waste all of this time caring about your comfort level and warming up to it"

 

[Larniavc]

A cause more violence *(because people do not trust the government) and or B take years or decades to "work" because the black market is so big.

If these people would become violent if they were forced to obey a law then they should be locked up and are hardly safe to have access to weapons.

To your second point: if it takes years it takes years- so what?

 

[dogs4thewin]

If these people would become violent if they were forced to obey a law then they should be locked up and are hardly safe to have access to weapons.

To your second point: if it takes years it takes years- so what?

Yet people would expect it to work in a hurry simply not happening

As to point A you can only push people so far if people do not trust the government or feel that the government is abusive it would not be the first time or the last time violence has broken out The more people involved the harder locking them up will be particularly when you have people who may not be violent, but would not rat either. For example, maybe they would not be violent themselves or even have any weapons, but they would not speak up either making it harder on the government. There is also the issue of certain law enforcement refusing to enforce the laws we have had that on both sides. Where both democrat and republican mayors, sheriffs ECT have said we are not enforcing that law ( usually with Republicans it has involved guns where they usually have refused to enforce laws concerning taking certain guns from people who are following the law otherwise. It makes it very hard to do when you have people in large numbers from top to bottom not helping you and/or actually opposing your cause.

 

[Bradskii]

What is your recommendation for a woman (in terms of how she can protect herself) who's traveling home from work late at night on a subway and there's someone with aims at taking advantage of her?

Is your question assuming that the answer is that she should be armed? Well, I'll let the previous figures I gave suggest that the answer is no. She shouldn't be. Because if a person needs a gun to protect themselves in case someone has a gun then you are in an arms race and there is no way out.

I'm sorry, but you are so deep into the 'weapons are necessary' mind set that there is no real hope of extricating yourself from this situation. The last massacre and the next massacre and all those to follow with a depressing certainty are the price that you will accept for doing nothing.