6 killed at private Christian School in Nashville

[temporal1]

hmm.
it appears things were stable until obama was elected.
it was reported he/his policies/rhetoric increased gun sales. looks like he really did turn up the heat.

Seriously?
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Certainly. Hate directed at DJT/conservatives was bedrock representative of obama’s “legacy.”
You aren’t going to suggest otherwise? The “organized activists” etc.?? Community disruption+disorganization.

Don’t be coy. This was no minor thing. Give credit where credit is due.
Sorry your chart reflects what you didn’t intend.

[RZehr]

Yes, I think there would be fewer shootings, and fewer fatalities, if all ARs were banned. But how much fewer, I don’t know.

The red line is when the assault weapons ban was allowed to expire due to intense lobbying by the NRA.

Do YOU think it would go back to those numbers by only banning ARs?

[RZehr]

Before 1987, fully automatic machine guns were still available for sale to civilians.

Ken, can you explain why there were a lot fewer mass shootings back then?

How about you do some research on how many fully automatic machine guns were in the hands of American civilians pre-1987. And then compare that number to the number of assault rifles in the hands of American civilians today.

Then get back to us with your findings.

I’m not going to look for that answer, I’m assuming there were very, very few. If that assumption is correct, can you explain what happened in our culture between now, and then, that made people buy the most effective mass murder rifle available and shoot up schools?
Why didn’t we see people in those old days go find the most lethal legal weapon (fully automatic) and go shoot up schools?
Can you put your finger on anything?

Or, as Josh asks, can you explain why there were a lot fewer mass shootings back then?

[Soloist]

As for the chart on the former page, Exhibit 1, reflecting higher gun violence in the U.S., maybe Soloist could help with pertinent questions, for instance, how does gun OWNERSHIP compare? Considering countries listed, i would guess U.S. gun ownership (legal and not) would be many times higher than 5 .. i’m suggesting more statistics might paint another picture. i don’t know. (i doubt noisy others know, either.)

I’m an expert. I’m such an expert that when I was in boot camp they wouldn’t let me fire any weapons. (My tremor terrified them).
I’m such an expert that when qualifying on pistols I asked the big buff guy what I needed to do and he told me “relax” and then proceeded to show me how to fire sideways. He didn’t qualify, I got sharpshooter. (Marksman-Sharpshooter-Expert)
I am such an expert I slept with my rifle for three days (my wife slept with hers for 5 weeks)
My wife even fired rocket launchers and threw grenades.(she wants to add that she conveniently blocked all this and other practical knowledge with mechanics and anything else out of her memory. she also almost wasn’t allowed to throw grenades because she did something ridiculous on accident)

I’m such an expert I’ve never owned anything other then a 22. (I made my wife buy the other two, 22 and a shotgun)
I hypothetically know how to disassemble and reassemble a M4 (self defense) Rifle in 2 minutes.

I’m a fair shot with a rifle, but I hope I’ve shown my weapon experience is fairly limited. I have to admit I know far more about firearms since my last patient than I ever wanted to know…

As for legalities, it’s very handy to have multiple rounds available when hunting small furry things. I appreciate my semi auto 22.

I have admit I’m amazed at what you can legally own with a permit… I’ve never desired to own an AR-15 and have no reason to own a pistol.

[RZehr]

Sounds like the head of school, Katherine Koonce, was a really brave lady. Greater love hath no man (or woman) than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

[Ken]

I’m not going to look for that answer, I’m assuming there were very, very few. If that assumption is correct, can you explain what happened in our culture between now, and then, that made people buy the most effective mass murder rifle available and shoot up schools?
Why didn’t we see people in those old days go find the most lethal legal weapon (fully automatic) and go shoot up schools?
Can you put your finger on anything?

Or, as Josh asks, can you explain why there were a lot fewer mass shootings back then?

I think two things.

First gun culture has changed. I was in HS in the late 70s and early 80s in semi-rural/suburban OR. I had friends who's dads were serious gun nuts. But they spent endless hours in their garages and shops doing things like building and polishing custom walnut or maple stocks for their custom bolt-action hunting rifles or shot guns, restoring old guns, hand-loading custom rounds to get that last tiny bit of precision for antelope hunting. That sort of thing. They were hunters first and gun nuts second. So instead of owning 50 guns they'd spend their money on hunting expeditions to Kodiak Island, that sort of thing. Many were Korean or Vietnam era vets. But there was none of the military/survivalist arm yourself for the Armageddon mentality that is so prevalent today. People I know who are gun nuts today (including cousins who attend CMC churches) have gun safes full of various military-style ARs and automatic handguns like Glocks and Sigs. Which, no matter how much people protest to the contrary, are not hunting weapons. They weapons designed to kill people. If you look at the actual statistics, hunting has probably dropped in half or more in the past 40 years. While the number of guns in circulation has skyrocketed. So you can probably graph both trends on a graph and find the point gun ownership stopped being primarily about hunting and more just about the guns.

Second, I think we have normalized mass shootings by endlessly putting up with it without taking action. I went to a big public HS and there were psycho kids back then. But they did things like try to burn down the school on a Saturday night, or spray paint the outside. It never occurred to them to show up armed to the teeth and gun down their fellow students. Today there is a mass shooting every week it seems so it has become normal. We as a nation have taken absolutely zero steps to deal with it. And so we are training people who are inclined in that direction that it is the normal thing to do.

I think this sums it up the change. Some gun ads from the 1970s and 1980s and some from today. What were they selling then versus today?





Today

[RZehr]

I agree 100% with your first observation, about how the gun culture and marketing has changed.

I also agree that to a certain extent we have become callous to mass shootings.

But I don’t think either of these, nor the two together, actually explain the culture shift that devalues human life.

[Ken]

I agree 100% with your first observation, about how the gun culture and marketing has changed.

I also agree that to a certain extent we have become callous to mass shootings.

But I don’t think either of these actually shed much light on the culture shift that devalues human life.

I would say that sometime around maybe the year 2000 the two graph lines crossed and gun sales became less and less about hunting and more and more about killing. I don't know if you remember Y2K but there was an enormous surge in survivalist mentality then. I was living in Alaska and I knew people who basically went off the deep end with the Y2K prepping which basically involved packing away a year's worth of food and becoming massively armed for the zombie Apocalypse.

I bet today in 2023 if you found a list of the top 10 list of best-selling rifles in America it would be mostly "tactical" rifles of various sorts where "tactical" is just a euphemism for military. And call it what you want, but "prepping" and self defense is just preparing yourself to kill.

And if we went back to say 1980 the top 10 list of best selling rifles would all be Winchester, Remington, Savage, etc. bolt or lever action hunting rifles in various hunting calibers.

The problem isn't the 45 year old duffers who like to collect their guns. It is the 15 year old alienated psychopath kids who are jacked full of testosterone and hate the world and who stumble into modern "gun culture" online and get swallowed up into a black whole of prepping and killing in the dark recesses of the internet. And then spend a couple of years steeping in that stuff until they emerge as killers at age 18. Back when I was 16 the only gun literature I had access to was my grandfather's 50 year collection of Pennsylvania Game News and Field and Stream. Which I admit to spending many long hours reading avidly. But it was all stories about stalking trophy deer or hand carving turkey calls and duck decoys. Today? I can't even imagine what a curious psychopathic 16 year old can find online.

[ohio jones]

I view it kind of like speed limits. we can make cars that can go 220 mph and it would perhaps be cool and even useful if we could drive at those speeds on the interstate. Driving from Portland to Seattle might take 1 hour instead of 3. But we don't do that because of safety and no one wants to be driving around on public highways with crazies zooming past at 200 mph. It makes everyone else more unsafe. We don't ban cars, but we restrict their potential for safety and basic civilization reasons.

[Ken]

I view it kind of like speed limits. we can make cars that can go 220 mph and it would perhaps be cool and even useful if we could drive at those speeds on the interstate. Driving from Portland to Seattle might take 1 hour instead of 3. But we don't do that because of safety and no one wants to be driving around on public highways with crazies zooming past at 200 mph. It makes everyone else more unsafe. We don't ban cars, but we restrict their potential for safety and basic civilization reasons.

Should we adopt German gun laws too?

It was also a general analogy about how we regulate most things for safety (and view those regulations as reasonable) but somehow guns are always the exception. Also Germany doesn't allow people to drive 200 mph in front of elementary schools. The have strict driving and auto safety rules too. And guess how much harder it is to get a driver's license in Germany compared to the US. In Germany you cannot get a car license until age 18 and you can't get a truck or bus license until age 21. The earliest you can get a learner's permit is age 17.