Shooting incidents in the news.

[Bucky]

When it comes to suicide, controlling the type of firearm is pointless. A single shot pistol or shotgun will be as lethal as an AR-15. So any arguments in favor of an assault weapons ban or magazine capacity reduction, for instance, can't leverage the 33000+ gun deaths number without being disingenuous because 2/3s of them are unaffected by the firearm type.
.

Don’t worry, once they get the personally owned ARs and the like, they’ll “circle back” for the rest.

[Hambo]

Arguments such as the statistical ones are well made but an operative factor or two for gun ban popularity are:

1. Folks ignore that vivid instances increasing perceived probability of risk. This is well known.
2. The fear of personal agency aimed at you. Passive, so to speak deaths, by disease, age or accident do not arouse us as much as a personally targeted or potentially targeted personal aimed threat. We have all kinds of neural mechanisms that light up when a personalized threat is perceived. My bag of potato chips might be more dangerous to be right now but I worry about active shooters more.
3. The gun is a political totem. Conservatives like them, liberal don't (now this is an overgeneralization but usually predictive). Thus each side much have an attitude towards the gun not based on the cognitive evaluation of risk/benefit but just as symbol of their enemy. Kind of like the mask wars.

Everybody on Earth partakes of something that has a non-zero body count. When someone makes that argument then turn the tables. Bonus points awarded for every thing you regulate beyond the first one.

Both of you are correct. What is really needed is rational thought on the part of all human beings. Since that will not happen, we need a psychology based argument that is brief enough for people to listen, and we need people to understand that everything on this planet is trying to kill them (food, crazy people, cells in their body, weather), and that worrying about all of it is useless.

[fixer]

Of course people can use many things but not all are as easy to acquire nor easy to hide/carry anywhere as small guns.
Doesn't change the fact that guns make it as easy as a piece of cake to kill many anywhere.

As shown in another thread, rent an F250 from home depot, run people over.

No skill needed. No background check. Anyone can rent as long as you have driver's license.

The whole struggle over the question of what weapon is important to ban comes from a deep psychological barrier to thinking like someone who is mentally broken.

[jh9]

we need people to understand that everything on this planet is trying to kill them (food, crazy people, cells in their body, weather), and that worrying about all of it is useless.

I don't disagree, but I was going more for "something you enjoy is killing X people per year" than "something you enjoy might kill you".

The moral aspect of the gun control debate-- the part that is implied but not stated outright-- comes down to gun people being selfish toddlers because they want to play with their guns and don't care about 2,400 people per year getting randomly gunned down in places like the supermarket. (Random gun violence calculated back in post 5994).

So, let's do something about it then. If a couple thousand fatalities per year is the threshold for legislative action then we have a lot of work to do.

Heart disease kills an order of magnitude more than all gun violence put together. Most of those deaths are preventable. Any food or beverage over 500 calories per 12oz should be illegal. Maybe YOU eat responsibly but a lot of people don't. Don't be selfish, think of the lives we could save. (This, btw, isn't argument ad absurdum. Cuomo tried something like this in NYC with the soda tax.)

Traffic accidents are another time-worn example. Again, mostly preventable. Every car should have its black box contents automatically uploaded to both their insurance company and the local police so any violations they got away with can be prosecuted and their insurance can be calculated accurately.

Red meat, smoking, simply owning a pool, whatever. I don't care what anyone's political compass looks like. Everyone engages in something that is destructive to society at large. Keep going and you'll find something they like. And they will balk at upending their life to save X people per year. Every time. That's when the moral superiority goes into the shitter and people start justifying their own preferences regardless of the body count.

[757_Magnum]

Yay, we made it in the news:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-officer.html

https://abcnews.go.com/US/shot-dead-...ry?id=76719454

In the hour leading up to it, there were reports of large crowds gathering at busy intersections blocking traffic and dancing on top of cars.

[Mitch]

I don't disagree, but I was going more for "something you enjoy is killing X people per year" than "something you enjoy might kill you".

The moral aspect of the gun control debate-- the part that is implied but not stated outright-- comes down to gun people being selfish toddlers because they want to play with their guns and don't care about 2,400 people per year getting randomly gunned down in places like the supermarket. (Random gun violence calculated back in post 5994).

So, let's do something about it then. If a couple thousand fatalities per year is the threshold for legislative action then we have a lot of work to do.

Heart disease kills an order of magnitude more than all gun violence put together. Most of those deaths are preventable. Any food or beverage over 500 calories per 12oz should be illegal. Maybe YOU eat responsibly but a lot of people don't. Don't be selfish, think of the lives we could save. (This, btw, isn't argument ad absurdum. Cuomo tried something like this in NYC with the soda tax.)

Traffic accidents are another time-worn example. Again, mostly preventable. Every car should have its black box contents automatically uploaded to both their insurance company and the local police so any violations they got away with can be prosecuted and their insurance can be calculated accurately.

Red meat, smoking, simply owning a pool, whatever. I don't care what anyone's political compass looks like. Everyone engages in something that is destructive to society at large. Keep going and you'll find something they like. And they will balk at upending their life to save X people per year. Every time. That's when the moral superiority goes into the shitter and people start justifying their own preferences regardless of the body count.

I want to start by saying I agree with everything you just wrote.

But what next then? So we establish that the person is a hypocrite and wants to ban guns because they don’t like them/the DNC told me too/whatever. Do we just call them an asshole and part ways?

Serious question. There needs to be a cultural change and I don’t know how that happens with a media that has been bought and paid for.

[Skeeter]

I want to start by saying I agree with everything you just wrote.

But what next then? So we establish that the person is a hypocrite and wants to ban guns because they don’t like them/the DNC told me too/whatever. Do we just call them an asshole and part ways?his

Serious question. There needs to be a cultural change and I don’t know how that happens with a media that has been bought and paid for.

I'll throw out this: People that don't have and use guns rarely see value in others having that right. Instead, they often see an unnecessary risk. Getting people into firearms gives them some "skin in the game" as they say.

[HCM]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/lyft-driv...ct-report-says

[BLyft driver targeted in Philadelphia carjacking attempt shoots 14-year-old suspect, report says
Both teens were arrested in connection to the carjacking attempt, police said][/B]

A Lyft driver who was legally armed shot a 14-year-old boy in Philadelphia over the weekend when the teenager allegedly tried carjacking him, according to a report.

The 50-year-old driver received a request for pick-up in the area of North 7th Street shortly after 5 a.m. Saturday morning, according to police and local affiliate FOX 29. But when he arrived, one of two boys, ages 14 and 15, brandished a gun and threatened the man as the two tried to steal his car, according to the report.

The attempted carjacking victim responded by pulling out his own, legal gun and striking the youngest teen in the leg, the report states.

According to police, both suspects were arrested and weapons were recovered. The purported firearm used by the teenagers was actually a BB gun, according to FOX 29.

Neither the report nor police indicated the injured teenager’s condition.

[HCM]

https://apnews.com/article/miami-sho...f34666348acdf8

Federal charges leveled against man in Everglades shooting

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man who opened fire with an AK-47 rifle on officers inside Everglades National Park is facing federal charges, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Acting U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez said in a news release that 37-year-old Drew Curtis Sikes of Palmetto Bay is charged with attempting to kill a U.S. officer and with a weapons crime.

A criminal complaint filed in Miami federal court says officers on Sunday responded initially to a call about an altercation between Sikes and his wife in the Mahogany Hammock section of the sprawling park. The FBI affidavit says the wife had visible marks and scrapes on her face.

As authorities searched for Sikes, they found his white van along an Everglades roadside but he was not there. The affidavit says Sikes then began shooting sporadically from a wooded area with the AK-47 near the park rangers as they talked to him over a loudspeaker, yelling things like “come get me,” and “I want you guys to kill me.”

[blues]

^^^^ I know that spot. Used to frequent the 'glades quite a bit back in my Miami days.