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the hard flooring wouldn't of helped either, the most "effective" way of using automatic weapons in the military is at ground level if you miss the bullet keeps on traveling and might find another target. Firing from a high position means if the round misses it goes into the ground but that floor looked pretty solid so the rounds would be ricocheting every where. 🙁
Seems like, if you are an American. It's safer to go to war!
Number of Americans killed on battlefields in all wars in history:
1,396,733
Killed by firearms in the US since 1968:
1,516,863
(NYT)
I'm sorry America but I think you reap what you sow, it is utterly insane that general members of the public can own military spec firearms and equipment that are so easily available.
seosamh77 - MemberSeems like, if you are an American. It's safer to go to war!
Only if you ignore common sense and contort statistics.
How long before someone asks himself "58, eh? I could do better than that..."
I wouldn't have quite put it like that but considering the arsenal and ammo the gunman is supposed to have had, the high vantage point and relatively close range and the sheer size of the crowd he was firing into and the number of rounds fired, it's bloody amazing it was "only" 58 people killed.
jimjam - Member
seosamh77 - Member
Seems like, if you are an American. It's safer to go to war!Only if you ignore common sense and contort statistics.
Ignoring my tongue in cheek comment, what's contorted about those stats?
First off the number of suicides by gun is about twice that of homicides by gun. So probably knock two 3rds off that number. Then work out percentage of soldiers at war vs killed at war. Then work out percentage of of civilians killed (not suicides) as percentage of total population.
[url= https://www.google.es/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-34996604 ]Stats.[/url]
What I don't get, and probably should after reading some of the above, is that he was on the 32nd floor and about 200-300m away, would he basically have used military style guns?
Yup. More than likely some sort of long-ish barrelled weapon (carbine) which would push out high velocity bullets. there is shed-loads of science to ballistics, but its reasonable to suppose that the faster the bullet, the straighter and further it'll go, and that the longer the barrel, the more accurately straighter that bullet is guided as it leaves the gun.
As already said, 300m range is well within the reach of carbines.
With reasonable training / experience you can comfortably hit an A3 piece of paper at 50metres when your standing holding a carbine. Extending that to 300metres expands that area to may the size of goal net. Considering the size of the concert area, its going to be hard to not place bullets into the crowd.
The gun(s) were firing in full-auto mode too .. which is more a military setup for a gun too.
Not a nice thing to have happened.
Anyone listen to PM on R4 this evening? 10mins of narrative of all the recent shootings in the US since about 99’, then 7mins of actual recorded footage of the guy shooting into the crowd..
Bloody BBC sensationalists..
You’ve gotta feel desperation for those folks caught up in this massacre, and there’s no need for the BBC to sensationalise it ...
Grrr.
The gun(s) were firing in full-auto mode too .. which is more a military setup for a gun too.
There's some speculation online that they may have been semi automatic rifles modded to fire in a fully automatic fashion. Gat / slidefire / bump fire are the names of the mods. From the videos I've seen it does sound like he may have been using something like that.
2nd battle of Fallujah - U.S. forces had 54 killed and 425 wounded in the initial attack in November.
58 dead, 515 injured so far in the Las Vegas shooting.
jimjam, quite possibly. there has been comment on the cadence of the firing being not as rapid as some full-auto, indicating a slidefire or larger calibre
jimjam - Member
First off the number of suicides by gun is about twice that of homicides by gun. So probably knock two 3rds off that number. Then work out percentage of soldiers at war vs killed at war. Then work out percentage of of civilians killed (not suicides) as percentage of total population.
It's all gun deaths. homicides and unintentional..
it's works out on average about 33,000 per year, which is fair enough when you consider for example
2014
33,636(12,571 homicides) deaths due to "injury by firearms"
1993 was the peak year for gun deaths.
can't find the exact total again, but it was somewhere about 50/55,000 deaths if i remember right, 18,253 of which were homicides
Dunno why the numbers should just be limited to homicides considering unintentional deaths are higher.
These events are tragic, but simple fact is guns kill about 100 people per day in america.
As for quantifying my tongue in cheek statement, well you'd need alot more parameters than that, i'll let that to you, i'm no particularly attached to the comment...
johnners - Member
2nd battle of Fallujah - U.S. forces had 54 killed and 425 wounded in the initial attack in November.58 dead, 515 injured so far in the Las Vegas shooting.
just to humour the point...
iraq war, 2003–2011 american deaths 4,497
2003-2011 gun death in usa - i'll guesstimate this, homicides (8 x 12000) + unintentional (8 x 20000) - about 256,000. ( numbers there obvious need verified, but ye get the point.)
There were around 22000 at that music festival. The odds are that 3.66 of them would have been accidentally shot anyway.
seosamh77 - Memberjust to humour the point...
An American soldier in Iraq had roughly a 0.5% chance of death during the most murderous year of their war. An American civilian has roughly a 0.003% chance of being murdered with a gun.
It's pointless enough debating American gun control on a uk based forum, without confusing the matter.
Your numbers, like mine, are far too simplistic.
Anyhow, I can't say I really care about gun control in america tbh, as I say, if they choose not to control, batter in, their choice. I'm just giving myself an idea of the baffling scale of the absolute numbers that are actually killed. It's astounding that they don't react to it more strongly tbh. There was a big drop from 93 to 2000, but from then on it's stabilised and is actually increasing again in recent years.
There's no real debate to be had, they're aff their friggin nut. But like I say their choice, if they can accept another 100 deaths the morra, then another 100 the next day, etc etc etc then they live on a different planet from me.
seosamh77 - Member[s]Your numbers, like[/s] mine are far too simplistic.
seosamh77Anyhow, I can't say I really care about gun control in america tbh, as I say, if they choose not to control, batter in, their choice.
There's no real debate to be had, they're aff their friggin nut. But like I say their choice, if they can accept another 100 deaths the morra, then another 100 the next day, etc etc etc then [b]they live on a different planet from me[/b].
Well they really are on a different planet. To them gun control laws like those in most of Europe are as insane to Americans as their gun laws are to us. There's no way to span that gap.
Trust me your numbers are ridiculously simplistic.
No way to span the gap, agreed. But the (absolute) numbers can't be argued with, they are wrong.
seosamh77 - MemberTrust me your numbers are ridiculously simplistic.
And yours were pointless. Are you done with numbers yet?
how is the number of deaths pointless?
Because it includes suicides and semantics aside, you're not in danger of murdering yourself unless you decide to. The numbers (including suicides) are similar because one is a higher percentage of a small number and the other is a lower percentage of a big number. Seriously.
The suicide one is odd though. How many people wouldn't have gone through with it had they not had access to firearms? Can easy access make it simpler for somebody to take their own life? Is it one of the more common methods used in the states?
it's still gun deaths, you can't say whether they would have chosen another means or not.. and the numbers aren't percentages of anything, they are absolute totals.
Regardless even if you disregard them and accidental deaths and just focus on homicides. There is only one conclusion you can come to. They are wrong and the policies of liberal gun laws are utterly mental.
Twice as common as the next method (suffocation/hanging).
How many people wouldn't have gone through with it had they not had access to firearms?
Everyone has access to some method though.
Everyone has access to some method though.
I'd have more faith in a gun than most other methods. Might be misplaced faith, but faith none the less. How does it fair, statistically speaking, worldwide? If it's more common in countries with relaxed gun laws then why not include it in the numbers? Would seem foolish not to.
Not wishing to argue, just curious is all.
then 7mins of actual recorded footage of the guy shooting into the crowd..
Bloody BBC sensationalists..
Why is that sensationalism? Simply playing back what happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Country - Both sexes - Male rank - Male - Female rank - Female - Male to Female ratio
123
United Kingdom - 7.4 - 122 - 11.7 - 129 - 3.2 - 3.66
48
United States - 12.6 - 46 - 19.5 - 66 - 5.8 - 3.36
The suicide one is odd though. How many people wouldn't have gone through with it had they not had access to firearms? Can easy access make it simpler for somebody to take their own life?
Yes. When Australia banned most guns, murders went down a lot, and so did suicides.
bencooper^^^ good point, well made.
Too many 'armchair' experts pontificating on a subject they know absolutely nothin about.
http://www.theonion.com/article/americans-hopeful-will-be-last-mass-shooting-they--57093
There are an estimated 270 million firearms in the U.S., according to the independent research project called ‘Small Arms Survey.’ That’s 89 firearms per 100 residents, making the U.S. the No. 1 country for gun ownership.Canada, on the other hand, ranks 13th on the study’s list, with 9.95 million firearms — or 31 per 100 residents.
Moore is right that Canada has a far lower rate of firearm homicides than its neighbour to the south.
According to a report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 11,000 homicides were committed using firearms in the U.S. in 2011. Statistics Canada reports in the same year Canada had 158 homicides committed using firearms.
There's an attitude thing going on as well. Other countries with high gun ownership don't suffer nearly the same amount of gun violence.
whatnobeer - MemberThere's an attitude thing going on as well. Other countries with high gun ownership don't suffer nearly the same amount of gun violence.
social circumstances and attitudes definitely play a part. canadian gun laws are a fair bit different by the looks of it.
Presently, Canadian law classifies firearms into three categories: prohibited, restricted, and non-restricted. Prohibited firearms include military-grade assault weapons such as AK-47s and sawn-off rifles or shotguns. Handguns are generally classified as restricted weapons, while rifles and shotguns are usually non-restricted. The AR-15 rifles used by the San Bernardino suspects is classified as restricted.
tbh I reckon the horse has bolted in the case of america, if the regularity of individual deaths and these mass shootings don't dissuade them from their views, what the hell will...
ffs! 😆 that's brutal!
If you want to object to the War vs Life figures look at the changes the deat of servicemen lead to, the tide turned against the war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan public opinion changed which led to political change. The same people who were hammering Clinton on Benghazi are the ones defending the rights to carry these kind of guns - some lives matter more.
I think the stats show it's not even half who support the liberal gun policies but it's a rich and influencial group who refuse to compromise.
What's always really interesting is you say, do you support gun control and a huge number of people say no. Then you say, how about stopping felons buying them, and they say OK. How about people on the terror watch list? OK. Minors? OK. The mentally ill? OK. How about wait times? OK. Banning full automatics? OK. Armour piercing rounds? OK. Mercury rounds? OK. But no gun control [i]except all the gun control we like[/i] which doesn't count
The full auto thing is weird. You can't buy an automatic but you can buy an AR15 and a bump stock and an oversized magazine designed for better high speed feeding all in one shop, in one transaction. It's like if we had our gun sale control but didn't bother with all the restrictions on conversion kits, and had high street stores selling blank firers and upgrade breeches, or deactivated firearms and all the bits to reactivate it.
And it's not like you can play the home defence card, an AR with a bump stock is absolutely useless for home defence because it's got no useful burst control, it's for emptying your magazine at things- if you want to maximise the risk to bystanders it's ideal. A trigger crank is the same but more so, with less accuracy to boot. Good fun at the range I'm sure but that's the only use other than murdering a bunch of people from some distance.
I remember a brilliant video from a US gun shop owner, sat at a table with a little 9mm and a big ugly pump shotgun, saying "If you own anything apart from these 2 things and you say it's for home defence you are a liar, a fantastist or an incompetent." Little easy to handle pistol for convenience and simplicity when you're half asleep and you need to shoot [s]an intruder[/s] your dog by mistake. Big ugly shotgun for terrifying people. Everything else? Wrong tool.
This whole thing is absolutely horrific, and I appreciate that motives are not known yet - but was anyone else [i]slightly[/i] relieved that the perpetrator wasn't a refugee/immigrant/non-caucasian?
The US feels like a powder-keg at the moment..... I'm not sure what would have happened had this guy been either black or Middle-Eastern/North African, but I'm sure that there would have been far more anger and fewer "thoughts and prayers".
The gun debate issue is virtually pointless - the pro-gun lobby have so effectively obfuscated the debate, that they can't even get approval to run effective background checks for gun sales. It's ridiculous, and a damming example of how money can skew politics so far away from something so clearly in the public interest. People are pushing for school teachers to be armed - how f'ed-up can you get?
Sorry if that is a stupid question but in my head I can't understand how one man can have killed and injured so many people from so far away. (It is just too insane in my head to understand)
As others said, full auto weapon, big crowd - you don't need to particularly aim - he wasn't even firing controlled bursts. And because the people in that concert weren't accustomed to getting shot at - they mostly just stood around filming with their mobiles or lay down in big groups thus creating big targets... hoping that a lower profile would protect them whilst rounds were splashing all around them from a vantage point.
What's always really interesting is you say, do you support gun control and a huge number of people say no. Then you say, how about stopping felons buying them, and they say OK. How about people on the terror watch list? OK. Minors? OK. The mentally ill? OK. How about wait times? OK. Banning full automatics? OK. Armour piercing rounds? OK. Mercury rounds? OK. But no gun control except all the gun control we like which doesn't count
Agreed - when Americans hear "gun control" they think "gun bans". Part of the problem is that lobbyists are effectively blocking any incremental, common-sense evolution of firearm controls.
I never understand the NRAs obsession with blaming mental illness for this kind of attack, while simultaneously blocking efforts to prevent somebody buying a gun at a jumble-sale without any kind of background check.
[url= https://www.nraila.org/issues/assault-weapons-large-magazines/ ]Assault rifles[/url]
[url= https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170929/hysteria-subsides-as-campus-carry-is-implemented-in-georgia-kansas-and-texas ]Campus Carry - NRA[/url]
Just looking at the NRA website as I can't sleep - and just wow, they really are a bunch of ****s
Let them crack on, it's the price they pay for the right to bear arms.
They are a democracy after all...
oldmanmtb - Member
Let them crack on, it's the price they pay for the right to bear arms.They are a democracy after all...
Not in this respect, they can't force it through due to the massive budgets of the arms factories.
Innocent people pay the price.