It's time to ban them!

[mvccd1000]

Uh.... ban what, though? As I was reading the paper this morning, I came across three different articles of multiple homicides, none of which involved guns. (This tends to dispel the myth that mass slayings will magically halt if only we can limit the size of the magazines, or what color the guns are, or other nonsensical drivel.)


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/07/18/20110718oregon-house-fire-stabbings.html

MEDFORD, Ore. - Police believe a 51-year-old man stabbed his wife and their four young children and set fire to their house on Monday, killing all five victims. The man was hospitalized as authorities tried to piece together the frantic scene.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/07/18/20110718san-diego-detective-daughter-killed.html

SAN DIEGO - A veteran police detective and her 18-year-old daughter were stabbed to death Monday, and her son was arrested on suspicion of murder after he was found sitting next to the teenager's nude body on the sidewalk outside their home, authorities said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/07/18/20110718florida-teens-kill-parents-have-party.html

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - A 17-year-old boy is accused of bludgeoning his parents with a hammer, then hosting dozens of friends for a party while their bodies lay in the bedroom, police said Monday.

Is it possible that the problem is NOT our easy access to guns, after all? Perhaps if all of gun-control aficionados are actually concerned about violence, they should start looking at the causes, not the tools. Until then, I'm going to continue to believe they're more interested in control than in guns.

[Orrex]

1. I recall when that guy climbed the bell tower and stabbed randomly into the crowd below

:eyes:

[gejohnston]

2. The two mass school killings in history did not involve knives or guns

The Worst was Bath, MI where a homemade bomb was used. Another was in Cologne, West Germany (FGR) using a homemade flamethrower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_school_massacre

[X_Digger]

4. How about the guy who killed 87 people with a container of gasoline and a couple matches?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. do you see your brains when you roll your eyes to the back of your head like that?

:shrug:

[Orrex]

9. Yes, I see my brains when I do that.

Or, at least, the tiny fraction of them that I keep in my skull.

[Lurks Often]

22. And do you also recall

that it was armed CIVILIANS who kept Charles Whitman's head down long enough for the police to get up there and kill him?

Or doesn't that fit into your anti gun theme?

[Orrex]

28. Anti gun? Not me.

Sorry that I can't help you burn off some of your outrage, but I'm hardly anti-gun.

[Lurks Often]

32. Your post certainly doesn't come across as pro gun nt

[Orrex]

35. Well, you'll catch on eventually.

[SteveM]

27. I recall those Nazi "showers" which poured out bullets, killing millions.

'Wonder how they could afford the bullet tax.

[lawodevolution]

37. How about the mass macheteing in Nigeria in 2010 that claimed 500 lives

Can you point out a mass shooting in the us that is even 10% as significant?

[Orrex]

38. You make a great point, since Nigeria and the US are more or less identical after all

Refresh my memory: was the "mass macheteing" conducted by a lone madman?

[X_Digger]

39. Oh, you mean like the summer of 2010 in China?

Officials admit to about 120 injuries (20'ish deaths) due to a handful of copycat nutters (with knives).

[MyrnaLoy]

3. wanna have a contest?

I'll post the shootings for one week and you get to post people killed by hammers. Wanna bet who has the most?

[nevergiveup]

8. Be careful what you say.

The next thing you know there will be a National Hammer Association.

[Starboard Tack]

33. Not to mention a National Knife Association

[Euromutt]

11. You'd almost certainly win that bet, but it wouldn't disprove mvccd1000's point

The only thing it'll prove is that guns are more popular than hammers as implements of domestic killings, when guns can be acquired by the killers. But the guns will still be the implement, not the cause.

By way of comparison, this piece discusses the Japanese phenomenon of muri-shinju:

"Muri-shinju" is when a family member, usually a mother or father, murders their child, children or other family member and then commits suicide. There are also some cases when both parents are involved in the murder.
<...>
While this is thankfully a relatively rare form of suicide in Japan, its rate of incidence is still much higher than in European Union countries and North America. In the Japanese local and national press you can usually find at least one or two cases of "muri-shinju" reported every single day. Even in the English language press there are about two cases reported each week.

(Emphasis in bold mine. If you're wondering "if this is true, then why is the Japanese homicide rate so low?" it's because all victims of a muri-shinju are counted as suicides, even the ones who were actually murdered.)

Given that legal private firearms ownership is extremely rare in Japan, it's a safe assumption that these domestic murder-suicides are almost entirely committed by means other than firearms. It's not the easy availability of guns that's causing these murders to occur.

Another comparison can be found in the article "Spousal Homicide in Russia Versus the United States: Preliminary Findings and Implications" (Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.63-74). From the abstract:

Adjusted homicide data suggest that Russia has a higher spousal homicide rate, more female victims, and fewer shootings than the United States. Women in Russia may be two and one-half times more likely to be killed by their spouses or lovers than their counterparts in the United States.

Less likely to be killed with a firearm--unsurprising given that Russia's firearm laws are comparable to the United Kingdom's post-1996--but much more likely to be murdered by other means. How can this be, unless it's that firearms are the implement, not the cause, of domestic homicides?

[Kennah]

12. So there were no murders for the thousands of years of human civilization before guns?

[Euromutt]

14. Well, not none, just way fewer, supposedly

If we assume that homicides committed with firearms wouldn't have happened at all if it weren't for the firearms, it must follow that medieval murder rates must have been about 1/3 of current U.S. levels, right?

Except they weren't. Fourteenth century Europe had--as far as historians can tell--homicide rates at least five times current U.S. levels, running up to over twenty times current U.S. levels in certain areas. Think Washington D.C. at the height of the "Crack Wars" and then add about 10% on top of that, except without gunfire.

European homicide levels subsided over the course of centuries, starting during the Renaissance and accelerating with the Enlightenment; basically, the reduction in murder kept pace with the spread of the idea that human life has inherent value independent of what happens to one's immortal soul in the Hereafter (and indeed, the idea that there might not be a Hereafter), and that you weren't doing God's Work by sending another human being to his eternal reward prematurely.

[Remmah2]

18. That would be a great idea if the media was not bias.

Real easy to Google and plagiarize incomplete stories. Cut and paste.

yup

[benEzra]

36. I know how the stats would fall out if you compared impact weapons to rifles.

That hasn't stopped you from pushing for rifle bans, has it?

[Tejas]

41. I'll be your huckleberry.

Your shootings vs my alcohol-related deaths.

[CreekDog]

5. a gun is built only to kill, those other things are not.

:eyes:

[X_Digger]

7. What's the moral precept you're chewing on, there?

Feel free to spit it out anytime.

[PavePusher]

10. Oreeely? n/t

[PuffedMica]

13. Flare gun

[Orrex]

15. Love Gun

[jeepnstein]

19. That one kills, just exceedingly slowly.

Arghh!

[ileus]

25. Incorrect...guns are built to save lives.

[friendly_iconoclast]

26. Cars are built for transportation, yet they kill more in the US than guns.

And there are fewer cars than guns in the US. Which brings up a question for you:

Are the victims of car crashes somehow less dead than shooting victims?

[SteveM]

29. So Nazi shower stalls really did spray bullets?

Guns aren't "built only to kill," but leaving aside the argument, what is your point?

[Euromutt]

40. That old bollocks again, and as usual, it misses the point completely

No, a gun is not built only to kill. That it is capable of killing or wounding means that it can also be used (among other things) to deter aggression, and even if the deterrence proves ineffective and the aggressor has to be stopped with force, you have to have a pretty fucked-up notion of morality to argue that the protection of innocent life wasn't worth risking the life of an aggressor.

Baseball bats, kitchen knives, motor vehicles and TV tray tables may not be made for the specific purpose of inflicting injury, but they can most assuredly be used for that purpose, and whether you're stabbed, bludgeoned or shot to death, and whether the instrument used was made for that purpose or not, ultimately makes no difference to the outcome, namely that you're dead one way or another. You're not less dead because the murder weapon wasn't originally made to inflict injury on humans.

As the OP rightly alludes, if one is actually interested in curbing violent crime, one might do better in trying to address its causes rather than the instruments used to commit it, and "guns are made only to kill" blather is merely an irrelevant distraction from trying to think up something that's actually useful.

[jpak]

16. yawn

yup

[eqfan592]

21. Much better read than your usual spam. Nt

[spin]

24. It's also more polite. (n/t)

[SteveM]

30. nway

puy

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. like taking a dose of your own medicine. yawn. yup.

[Upton]

17. Of course the antis are interested in control..

they're authoritarians after all. They have that mindset where their primary interest is dictating to others how to live their lives.

[ileus]

20. No ban guns because they're impolite and intimidating , not to mention scary when poking out.

[GreenStormCloud]

23. In my litte town of 2,000 there have been four murders in the past three years.

Two were by knife, two were by bludgeon. In each case they we murdered in their home.

[SteveM]

31. Damn, GreenStorm, sounds worse than Jonestown, Texas.