Results 1 to 20 of 282

Thread: Side story on the recent gun spree

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    3,189

    Default Side story on the recent gun spree

    I had some fun after the recent shooting spree at an elementary school.
    I went to a far left American blog with lots of visitors (American far left = centre of social democrats or left wing of conservatives on the German scale) and posted comments.

    I didn't really argue for either side (except with some fatalism about how regulations could possibly have an impact on 200+M guns), but provided lots of fact.
    "magazines", not "clips", how 30 rds is really the normal assault rifle magazine capacity, that tiny 5.56 mm bullets don't really do the most unbelievable things to a body, that assault rifles in military use are really not for killing many people quickly, that calling 30 rds mags "massacre magazines" is needless polemics and so on.

    To my surprise, the blog posts I posted on ended up having a suspiciously small quantity of comments overall - as if the facts had somehow discouraged others from spewing easily refuted BS.
    The one guy who tried to press back at me even quitted after a while, politely thanking for the discussion and wishing a good night.


    I wonder if bringing more military- or guns-related facts to a public discussion could probably help a lot. We all know how often public discussions are almost devoid of facts and people with some actual knowledge can easily spot lots of fallacies among the arguments.
    Now if even fact contributions on a most emotional topic, brought forward at a political far wing blog can score - shouldn't it be possible to succeed with the approach more often?


    Shouldn't the national security-related institutions with all their more or less knowledgeable people contribute more regularly to public information?

    So far their PR appears to be mostly about either recruiting, protecting their leader's careers or about securing a big(ger) budget for themselves.

  2. #2
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Posts
    589

    Default

    I think I know the intended spirit of the post but this statement...


    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    I had some fun after the recent shooting spree at an elementary school.
    .[/I]
    ..just left too much of a bad taste in my mouth.

  3. #3
    Council Member Backwards Observer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    511

    Default blow, winds, and crack your cheeks

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    Now if even fact contributions on a most emotional topic, brought forward at a political far wing blog can score - shouldn't it be possible to succeed with the approach more often?
    No.

    Historically, we’ve expected that once the din of theories, hypotheses, and manufactured realities had quieted, we could count on getting the real story (or at least part of it) when we heard the thump of the morning paper landing at the foot of that stoop. But these days, the thumping starts right away. Instead of patiently correcting the mistakes and hearsay understandably spewed by the emotion-filled masses, the mainstream media has joined the fray. The thump no longer clarifies, it obscures.

    This is the shooter’s name. Thump. His mother worked at the elementary school. Thump. She was the teacher in that classroom where are those poor kids were killed. Thump. Thump. Thump.

    As you’d expect, the various bits of false details about the Newtown shootings spread rapidly throughout our virtual front stoop. But they didn’t originate there. These “facts” were coming from (or at least being repeated by) the media sources most of us have come to trust the most. Instead of correcting our hyperactive distortions, the mainstream media added to them by mimicking the haste and inaccuracy of social media. The wildfire of burning inaccuracies needed to be doused by a pail of water. Instead we got a bucket of gasoline.

    We’ve seen this trend coming. Gabrielle Giffords was prematurely pronounced dead after being shot in Arizona. Both CNN and Fox got the Supreme Court’s ruling on health care’s individual mandate exactly wrong. The standards once applied to reporting are now often reserved for correction writing.
    (excerpt from post on Tweetage Wasteland: Get Off My Stoop)
    Get Off My Stoop - Tweetage Wasteland - 12.17.2012 (via Boing Boing)
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Backwards Observer; 12-20-2012 at 02:16 AM.

  4. #4
    Council Member ganulv's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Berkshire County, Mass.
    Posts
    896

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    I didn't really argue for either side (except with some fatalism about how regulations could possibly have an impact on 200+M guns), but provided lots of fact. "magazines", not "clips", how 30 rds is really the normal assault rifle magazine capacity, that tiny 5.56 mm bullets don't really do the most unbelievable things to a body, that assault rifles in military use are really not for killing many people quickly, that calling 30 rds mags "massacre magazines" is needless polemics and so on.
    Paul Barrett tried to say some things in the same spirit this weekend on NPR.
    If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)

  5. #5
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default

    Fuchs,

    There are a number of variables, but the fact of the matter is a 5.56 round can create relatively massive injuries. I'm hesitant to post photos, but I'm posting one link to some graphic photos of leg wound. In the field I seen fairly large chunks of skull removed, and would hate to see that happen to 5-7 year old child anywhere. I'm confident you can do a Google search and find more photos. Again there are variables that will determine amount of tissue damage. I'm not making an argument on the pro's and con's of 5.56 for the military, but countering your argument that a "little" bullet doesn't do much damage. I can't imagine, or worse maybe I can, what those first responders saw.

    Link to graphic leg wound photo:

    http://www.timawa.net/forum/index.ph...7854#msg157854

    A link that explains the how:

    http://www.futurefirepower.com/myths...-556-cartridge

    So one might ask; ‘How in the world can a smaller bullet be more lethal than a bigger one?” One word: cavitation. Cavitation is the rapid formation and collapse of a substance or material after an object enters it at a relatively high velocity. I guarantee you have seen cavitation before. Next time you are in the pool or on the boat, look at your hand as it passes through the water or the propeller spinning. In both cases you will notice bubbles on the trailing edge of each. You see this because the liquid water falls below its vapor pressure. Without getting into physics and the hydrodynamics behind it, I’ll just leave it at that. When a human body is hit with a 5.56mm 62-grain bullet traveling at 3,100 feet per second; essentially the same thing happens but much, much more violently. For a split second, the cavity created inside the human body by the round from an M-16/M-4 is about the size of a basketball (if hit dead center of mass). The 5.56 creates this massive cavitation by tumbling through the body initiated by inherently unstable flight.

  6. #6
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    3,189

    Default

    Your source buys into the school of terminal ballistics which pays much attention to the temporary cavity, while another school of thought pays more attention to the permanent cavity. Evidence supports the latter much more.

    "It's designed to bounce around inside the body once it makes contact with bone."

    I argued against the "designed to bounce around", which frankly reminded me too much of the needle projectile stories from the 80's. Told them about the tumbling and fragmentation issues and bullet on bone in general instead.
    I also opposed talk about "hollow point", which was simply the wrong term.


    So I didn't claim that the little bullets doesn't do much damage. I pointed out that most damage is usually done at some depth, and that skinny or particularly young humans usually don't have this depth.


    The point was more about telling them that normal hunting bullets (7.62) are even more mean and that some horror stories about 5.56 were either exaggerations or not specific to 5.56.
    I've seen 5.56 carbines with normal 30 rds mags been talked up to the biggest, meanest weapons there are, and this is an irrational build-up of a bogeyman in my opinion.

    The idiot could have pulled off the very same massacre with two pistols, one home-made wooden carbine stock and 8 rds mags with soft lead bullets. The shooting distance inside buildings is mostly less than 10 metres and nobody had body armour, after all.

    The hope that a ban of "high capacity" (=normal capacity) magazines and 5.56mm automatic weapons could actually prevent massacres is just as unfounded as claims that armed teachers would be a good idea (one of them might possibly stop a massacre sometime, but a couple others would till then probably have used theirs on the pupils!).


    I personally don't care what gun legislation you guys have - Pandora's Box has been wide open for too long anyway. I just made an experiment on how some facts might be received in such a heated discussion.

  7. #7
    Council Member Kiwigrunt's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Auckland New Zealand
    Posts
    467

    Default

    It seems to me that the most important aspect of “assault weapons” (now there’s an emotionally laden term just begging for reactions) is often ignored. The haters usually hinge their rationale around the imagined physical effect of semi automatics with massacre magazines. The Newtown fuknuckle fired up to 11 rounds into each child. I submit he could have done at least the same amount of damage with just a .22 bolt action with enough 10 shot mags, with one aimed shot per target.

    Same applies to the Norway fuknuckle. He already had a licence and a .308 bolt action. He went out of his way to get his grubby little hands on a semi. Given that his targets were sitting ducks on an island and he had all the time in the world, the semi would have given him no advantages to speak of.

    The theatre shooting would be an exception.

    The question is: why do they feel the need to use an evil gun? Is it because they too (often erroneously) perceive it to be of better effect? Or do the looks and stigma of these guns trigger something in their sick minds? I should think that the latter provides the gun haters with a much stronger argument. The question ‘would the Newtown shooter have done as much damage with a .22 bolt action?’ is the wrong one to ask IMO. The question is: would he have done it in the first place if he would only have had access to a bolt action? Consider also that they like to dress up like Ninjas.

    I say this against my own agenda, because I too like me some AR15. In the same way that a car enthusiast might prefer a Ferrari over a Toyota Corolla.


    On a side note, I almost feel sorry for Bushhamster; it always seems to be one of theirs… and the media know it!
    Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)

    All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
    (Arthur Schopenhauer)

    ONWARD

  8. #8
    Council Member Kiwigrunt's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Auckland New Zealand
    Posts
    467

    Default

    ...as another nutter shoots 3 in Aurora...
    Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)

    All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
    (Arthur Schopenhauer)

    ONWARD

  9. #9
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    3,189

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kiwigrunt View Post
    It seems to me that the most important aspect of “assault weapons” (now there’s an emotionally laden term just begging for reactions) is often ignored. The haters usually hinge their rationale around the imagined physical effect of semi automatics with massacre magazines. The Newtown fuknuckle fired up to 11 rounds into each child. I submit he could have done at least the same amount of damage with just a .22 bolt action with enough 10 shot mags, with one aimed shot per target.

    I made similar arguments until recently, also pointing out the video of the insane speedshooter who shoots (and hits) with a revolver faster than I can count the shots in real time (with the video's audio track quality).

    I became more careful about such technical arguments recently, though. There was a growing unease inside me about the psychological issue. I believe now that many of those who commit mass murder with firearms need to reach a certain threshold of self-esteem and confidence in their firepower. Kind of "taxi driver" on steroids.
    Note how often they pose with guns or certain clothes and stuff prior to their murders. The Norwegian nutjob with his fantasy uniform and ridiculous weapons load was an especially obvious case. I suppose he would probably not have dared to attack a couple hundred people with only a pocket pistol, a dual barrel hunting shotgun and a bolt action hunting rifle (an example of a rather reasonable firearms set in a rural setting).

    Then again, other nutjobs go on a rampage with a fake Katana...

    (It'll be interesting to see if "nutjob" passes the obscenity filter here. I still have no good grasp of which words are caught by such filters and which aren't.)

  10. #10
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kiwigrunt View Post
    The theatre shooting would be an exception.
    The criminal in that case selected a theatre that had a posted policy stating that no firearms were to be taken into the building. Colorado is a concealed carry state...but, individual businesses can prohibit their customers from carrying a weapon into the establishment.

    Nobody in the theatre tried to oppose, at all, this criminal. People all hid behind seats or ran. Nobody tried to oppose him and he went about his criminal task until he finished and then went out into the parking lot and quietly waited for the police to arrest him.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kiwigrunt View Post
    The question is: why do they feel the need to use an evil gun? Is it because they too (often erroneously) perceive it to be of better effect? Or do the looks and stigma of these guns trigger something in their sick minds? I should think that the latter provides the gun haters with a much stronger argument. The question ‘would the Newtown shooter have done as much damage with a .22 bolt action?’ is the wrong one to ask IMO. The question is: would he have done it in the first place if he would only have had access to a bolt action? Consider also that they like to dress up like Ninjas.
    It is my opinion these criminals do what plays well. They study each others actions and they study how the newspapers react. Ninja suits play, tac gear plays etc. The Denver Post had an illustration of what the theatre criminal wore and carried. It looked like an illustration for an action figure, or one of those illustrations you saw of how spec ops people are equipped with all the cool equipment named. The papers have a role in these things that they should answer for in my opinion.

    It wouldn't matter if all the ARs disappeared tomorrow. Anything a criminal used would be played up by the papers and immediately be labeled lethal cool. It could be a lever action rifle and it would be displayed on the action figure illustration, the effect would be the same.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  11. #11
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    ,,,unfounded as claims that armed teachers would be a good idea (one of them might possibly stop a massacre sometime, but a couple others would till then probably have used theirs on the pupils!)
    Not unfounded at all. An armed teacher did stop a massacre at least once.

    http://www.creators.com/opinion/larr...shootings.html

    http://www.davekopel.com/2a/othwr/principal&gun.htm

    "a couple of others would have probably used theirs on the pupils!" Well good thing the school says they can't have a weapon on school property then. That will stop 'em.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  12. #12
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    3,189

    Default

    Carl, you think too much in 0% and 100%.

    It would be better to think in terms of differences, of ceteris paribus changes of outcome.
    Tolerance for firearms in schools would ceteris paribus lead to more use of firearms in schools. No good idea.

    Teachers may occasionally risk their job and break the rules themselves, but they would clearly do the same thing more often if it wasn't forbidden.

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 39
    Last Post: 03-21-2014, 01:56 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •