HomoSapien wrote:dougthonus wrote:First, this is obviously a tragedy, and I feel for the parents, friends, family, community affected by this.
Second, it's silly to start trying to use this as any kind of reference for life in America or laws that should be changed. One of the (good) reasons this is such a tragedy is that no one goes into a school and kills 20+ kids on a regular basis. If they did, we wouldn't think it's a tragedy, we'd think it's just part of life.
You don't change gun laws because someone who's clearly severely mentally ill went in and shot up a school. You don't say society has fallen to pieces because someone who's clearly severely mentally ill went in and shot up a school. This isn't a gun problem, it isn't a societal problem, it's a crazy person problem.
It's more complex than being a crazy person problem. Mass shootings are becoming more and more common. It is really easy to get a gun. That's the problem.
Should we go back to alcohol prohibition? Serious question and it's not off topic.
Because you are talking about a handful of isolated incidents that have killed, what, 100 people or less in the last decade? if that. Now I'm not marginalizing any lives, cause all life is precious to me. Especially the lost lives of those children today. But I think Doug makes a good point about not thinking we should change the laws every time we have an isolated incident like these.
I posted this earlier in thread cause I think it's relevant in this discussion. We are talking about the senseless loss of life and prevention through laws.
Again, I ask.. Should we go back to alcohol prohibition?
Could only find the data from two years ago but...
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811402EE.pdfPersons killed in “Alcohol Related” and “Alcohol Impaired” vehicular accidents
Year
2005 15,985
2006 15,970
2007 15,534
2008 13,826
2009 12,744
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According to the FBI CIUS (Crime in the US) 2009 data taken from
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/off...rtable_08.htmlPersons Murdered by Firearms:
2005 10,158
2006 10,225
2007 10,129
2008 9,528
2009 9,146
Does this mean we should go back to prohibition (which didn't work anyway) cause a lot more children and innocents are killed by alcohol related vehicular accidents than guns? A lot easier to get rid of consumables than guns.. And this data doesn't include the non motor vehicle related alcohol related deaths which is a HUGE number.
Also, many of the firearm related homicides are gang related or resulted from border shootings over drug smuggling territories and things of that nature. Very, very few of these are from psychos shooting up schools or shopping malls.
But the point is that most people drink, but they don't kill people driving drunk. Should we ban all alcohol in the nation again because so many lives are lost on our roads? Of course not, right? For several reasons..
Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking, it actually increased it,... and worse, it increased children drinking. GarPaxDorf posted the stats earlier in the thread. Stopping the sale of guns is not going to prevent any gun crimes. Studies have already shown that gun control doesn't work.
I'm pretty sure the following post from the basketball shooting in Philly thread is from a police officer, BR0D1E86.. correct me if I'm wrong.
BR0D1E86 wrote:Chicago has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country. Working out well?
Washington DC had more or less the toughest gun laws in the country for about three decades. During those years the DC murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was when the law was enacted. The murder rate in the country as a whole decreased by 11%.
The 31 states that have "shall issue" laws allowing private citizens to carry concealed weapons have, on average, a 24 percent lower violent crime rate, a 19 percent lower murder rate and a 39 percent lower robbery rate than states that forbid concealed weapons. In fact, the nine states with the lowest violent crime rates are all right-to-carry states.
Also, I'm not against regulation and background checks and age limits, but we have people for the outright banning of all guns and it's just not realistic. Nor, is just stopping the sale guns in this country.