Gun ownership poll

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by JustinD

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-types-used/

These are FBI statistics.

They also to not break down the rifle category by scary or that looks like my granddad's, this is all rifles.

Thank you for sharing the statistics showing 75% of mass shootings are with handguns. I can't speak for Deertick, so I'll let him reply.

But I wonder if there is sort of a copycat situation with shooters in schools. I think they want to look badass, and they think the AR-15 does. I think a lot of them don't know much about guns. Supposedly the Uvalde 18 year old shooter had never shot a gun before.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Thank you for sharing the statistics showing 75% of mass shootings are with handguns. I can't speak for Deertick, so I'll let him reply.

But I wonder if there is sort of a copycat situation with shooters in schools. I think they want to look badass, and they think the AR-15 does. I think a lot of them don't know much about guns. Supposedly the Uvalde 18 year old shooter had never shot a gun before.

That would be my guess also.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Thank you for sharing the statistics showing 75% of mass shootings are with handguns. I can't speak for Deertick, so I'll let him reply.

But I wonder if there is sort of a copycat situation with shooters in schools. I think they want to look badass, and they think the AR-15 does. I think a lot of them don't know much about guns. Supposedly the Uvalde 18 year old shooter had never shot a gun before.

Now you have a somewhat logical conclusion.

These are usually mentally and socially challenged individuals for the most part and looking to cement themselves from a nobody into a media superstar. It's a Warhol effort to gain fame and thanks to the media, it works.

It is also fact that 690 people yearly win over a million dollars via lottery and that stat only includes logically people buying tickets.

The most biased website available everytown USA (because I am not cherry picking facts) states this -
Since 2013 there were at least 943 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 321 deaths and 652 injuries nationally.

That number would include a large number of suicide and gang instances unrelated to mass shootings of course, but that helps their point and that's what people do.

It's a silly argument, but if I look at generally does it make more sense statistically to scare the crap out of kids by putting them in bunkers for infinitesimal chances or to teach them how to handle the more common chance of them winning a million dollars without going bankrupt?

Everything is perspective.

agreed, it's a silly statement (kinda) but the hyperbole of school shootings daily is also. One dead kid is too many, but chasing resolutions is not that easy of an answer. Your villain will just be replaced with another.

An agreeable commonality between all these recent kids is that everyone seemed to see it coming and all signs were ignored. As they were 18 years old, the childhood mental health and police notes do not show on a background check as they were juveniles. Would a more logical first step be addressing the loophole that juvenile records are not included? I can justify that and find ground.

[G1911]

One point of difficulty is that the early reports and media reports are often wrong on the specific facts. Any scary looking long gun with plastic furniture is an AR-15, if the scary looking long gun has wood furniture it is an AK-47, if it is a handgun it is a Glock.


These terms are used because these guns are in common use (and for Glock, I think it largely has to do with the fact it rhymes well and easily in rap lyrics that have pushed into the mainstream), and because the people reporting them do not know anything, on a purely factual level, about firearms. Back when I used to watch the news before giving up on it, it happened frequently that the photographs shown of the incident would not match the news description.


Nonetheless, it is likely that the AR-15 is used in a fairly significant amount of mass shootings wherein the criminal uses a long gun (which is a minority of mass shootings, rifles are not suited to stealth or surprise). This is not because it fires special or high-power bullets (it does the opposite). It is possible some people think it looks cool and edgy and that has influenced some. The same could be said of many guns of a similar aesthetic type, but it is possible. It seems to me it is most likely because it is, by far, the most common rifle in America. Honda Civics are involved in tons of accidents, not because they are difficult to steer or they are poorly made but because they are everywhere. Go to the rifle range, and there are probably at least as many AR-15's out on the tables as there are shooters. Half the rifles or more at your local gun store will be an AR-15. The advantages and disadvantages of the AR platform in particular don't really apply much to the type of situation under current discussion. A person shooting at unarmed and defenseless people in a 'gun-free zone' is not particularly helped or hampered by this platform as opposed to dozens of others.


DGU's are impossible to count because many are never reported (it's hard for a massacre not to enter the statistics, or a suicide) and most never require discharging the firearm. Even the anti-gun CDC report, commissioned specifically for that purpose, found up to 3.5mm.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by G1911

One point of difficulty is that the early reports and media reports are often wrong on the specific facts. Any scary looking long gun with plastic furniture is an AR-15, if the scary looking long gun has wood furniture it is an AK-47, if it is a handgun it is a Glock.


These terms are used because these guns are in common use (and for Glock, I think it largely has to do with the fact it rhymes well and easily in rap lyrics that have pushed into the mainstream), and because the people reporting them do not know anything, on a purely factual level, about firearms. Back when I used to watch the news before giving up on it, it happened frequently that the photographs shown of the incident would not match the news description.


Nonetheless, it is likely that the AR-15 is used in a fairly significant amount of mass shootings wherein the criminal uses a long gun (which is a minority of mass shootings, rifles are not suited to stealth or surprise). This is not because it fires special or high-power bullets (it does the opposite). It is possible some people think it looks cool and edgy and that has influenced some. The same could be said of many guns of a similar aesthetic type, but it is possible. It seems to me it is most likely because it is, by far, the most common rifle in America. Honda Civics are involved in tons of accidents, not because they are difficult to steer or they are poorly made but because they are everywhere. Go to the rifle range, and there are probably at least as many AR-15's out on the tables as there are shooters. Half the rifles or more at your local gun store will be an AR-15. The advantages and disadvantages of the AR platform in particular don't really apply much to the type of situation under current discussion. A person shooting at unarmed and defenseless people in a 'gun-free zone' is not particularly helped or hampered by this platform as opposed to dozens of others.


DGU's are impossible to count because many are never reported (it's hard for a massacre not to enter the statistics, or a suicide) and most never require discharging the firearm. Even the anti-gun CDC report, commissioned specifically for that purpose, found up to 3.5mm.

You could almost call them ubiquitous.

I'm not sure if the DGU stat in the chart shows killed or shot. Based on the low number, I would venture that it is killed.
And you are correct about make/model in instances where the perp or weapon wasn't captured. But a couple of years ago I looked up something that happened in my childhood town in 1985. I found info was listed in most instances individually (she used a Ruger 10/22.), but I am not aware of a 'master database'. So any info is going to be skewed by the 'known/reported' (since the number of unreported is unknown), and the disjointed recording locations.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Deertick

You could almost call them ubiquitous.

I'm not sure if the DGU stat in the chart shows killed or shot. Based on the low number, I would venture that it is killed.
And you are correct about make/model in instances where the perp or weapon wasn't captured. But a couple of years ago I looked up something that happened in my childhood town in 1985. I found info was listed in most instances individually (she used a Ruger 10/22.), but I am not aware of a 'master database'. So any info is going to be skewed by the 'known/reported' (since the number of unreported is unknown), and the disjointed recording locations.

It appears that the Gun Violence Archive Defensive Gun Use (DGU) category is not necessarily when there is a death by the way, based on the link below, but a lot of the instances do involve death. It appears that the total number in the Gun Violence Archive table may be from news stories/police reports? I would think it difficult to comprehensively get a realistic total figure.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/q...1-b80987f753b4

By the way, I came across an article that confirms that the Gun Violence Archive only uses news stories/police reports to count DGUs. It also goes into the challenges of trying to extrapolate total DGUs across the country. In short, its complicated....
https://www.thetrace.org/2022/06/def...uys-with-guns/